2025 03 23 Lent 3C
Isaiah
55:1-9 Psalm
63:1-8 1
Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke
13:1-9
Have you ever heard some one say, “God will never give
you more than you can handle”? You might
have said it yourself, but if you’ve ever had it said to you, you’ll know that
it isn’t always helpful. It is a bit of
a misquote, based on the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13,
where it says; “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but
with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to
endure it.”
For a start, it is about being tested, and is in regard
to falling into areas of sin. Secondly,
it says that this testing is common to everyone. Therefore, this is not about those times when
life breaks us and when we are bombarded with tragedy. Most importantly, God does not give us
those bad things. God desires to
give us good things and does give us good things. However, we live on planet earth, in a
fallen, human and very fallible world.
Sometimes the tragedy and evil IS more than we can handle. So, to say that God doesn’t give us more than
we can handle, creates the false idea that God has given us the tragedy. It also implies that there is something wrong
with us if we can’t handle it. This
passage, rather than being about our ability or lack thereof, to handle tragedy,
is actually about sin.
We are the body of Christ and one of the reasons that God
created us to be this way, calling us as part of his body, is so that we might
understand that we need to work together.
If one part of the body hurts, all parts should acknowledge the
pain. We wouldn’t, after hitting our
finger with a hammer, say to it, “Don’t worry, God won’t give you more than you
can handle”. No! Instead our other body parts would jump into
action and the mouth might have something to say about the matter - and it wouldn’t
be telling the finger not to worry, but it would be expressing the pain the
finger is feeling. The torso would jump
in reaction, and the legs would run to find ice or bandages or professional
help, depending on the extent of the pain.
Our passage is about the fact that we live in this world,
where we are easily inclined to fall into sin.
All face the same temptations, and even the Israelites, though the
chosen people of God faced these same temptations. In the desert they gave in to temptation and became
involved in acts that were immoral. It
is presumed that the Corinthian church had a very good understanding of the
grace of God and the freedom that they had in Christ. They were the people of God, the body of
Christ. Earlier in this letter St. Paul
explains to the church that although all things are permissible, not all things
are beneficial. These Corinthian people
lived in a time and place where eating food sacrificed to idols was normal, and
where the society was acceptably immoral.
These newly Christian people were still Corinthians, living in Corinth
and joining in with all the social legal, and acceptably immoral events of
their town.
To us, it seems that St. Paul is being harsh. He reminds them that although all those
Israelites had been baptised in the Red Sea and in the cloud of God’s presence,
and although they had experienced the miraculous feeding by God and miracle on
miracle, they took the goodness of God for granted and therefore God was not
pleased, and most did not make it into the promised land, but died in the
desert.
This story of the Israelites is a warning. The journey of the Israelites from Egypt, out
of slavery, is a sign that parallels every faith journey. They were rescued by God and taken through
the Red Sea – their baptism. Baptism is
seen as making an allegiance – They made a commitment to be the people of God
and follow him – just as we do in our Baptism.
God was leading them to the promised land, but then the people gave in
to their own fleshly desires.
We do this too, but we are called, especially in Lent, to
examine our ways. We are the people of
God. We have made our pledge of
allegiance to God in our baptism. We
call Jesus our Lord – in other words, our master, but then we just do things
our own way instead of deferring to his leading.
It is human nature to keep wanting to take control of our
lives. It is human nature to fall into
following our fleshly desires. In Jesus
we have been set free from the ultimate spiritual consequence of sin – that is
death, as the price for sin is death. Jesus
paid that price, and we most certainly are saved by the grace of God, however,
we are warned that we should not live in the way of the Israelites in the
desert, or the way of the early Corinthian church. It is a testing time… but the test isn’t set by God. It is simply the fact of who we are, the
world we live in and the desires of our own sinful nature. In Christ however, we are a new creation –
but we need to actively live by the Holy Spirit of God in us, to grow into this
reality.
St. Paul tells us that God is faithful and will provide a
way out so that when we are struggling, we can stand. The Corinthian church members had been
involved in many things that we’d consider scandalous. Saint Paul doesn’t throw them out of the
church, but instead he warns and reminds them about God’s faithfulness and the
call of God to live in a manner worthy of that calling.
Jesus also shows us the patience and compassion of God
when he talks about the fig tree and how the gardener pleads to give it another
chance. This tells us about both about
the mercy and patience of God, and the call to be fruitful and effective
Christians. It is an exhortation with a
warning.
A couple of weeks ago we looked at the importance of
confessing – speaking out loud – professing our faith. If we confess with our mouth and believe in
our heart that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved.
And we noted that it was a surety.
It isn’t we might be saved, or could be saved, but that we WILL be
saved. These Corinthians to whom Saint
Paul was speaking, were people who had professed their belief and believed in
their heart. They were saved… and so are
we, but we miss the blessings that God has for us, and the blessings that God
wants to lavish on the world through us, when the attitude of our hearts is not
in line with God.
The word repent means to change your mind. It implies turning
in our thinking to ensure our beliefs line up with the word of God. Are there areas of life in our society that
are at odds with the word of God? Where
do we personally stand with these? Have
we judged others as bad, much like the people in our Gospel reading, when
calamity came to them, thinking that they were sinners and got what they
deserved, not realizing our own attitude is one of sin - Not realizing that there but for the Grace
of God go I?
Our society is quick to quote do not judge…. But the
truth of the matter is that we make and must make judgements all the time. We decide on what is good, life-giving and
love giving. This is a simple fact, and
all do it and MUST do it, so don’t let others intimidate you into thinking that
you can’t. What we need to avoid is thinking
that we are better – There, but for the grace of God, go I. Saint Paul says, “So if you think you are
standing, watch out that you do not fall.”
And Jesus says, “No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all
perish just as they did."
Turning to God, “repenting”, is an ongoing way of
life. it is about lining up our thoughts
with the word of God. Constantly, and
everyday and part of that, is realizing that we are all very fallible – The
word of God tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of
God. For this reason, Jesus came, and in
our confession and belief in him, is our salvation.
God’s ways are the ways to life. The words from Isaiah about food and water,
according to a Jewish commentary, is imagery for the word of God. The food and water that money can not buy,
but food and water that brings life, it is the word of God – it is Jesus. It is the way to life here and now and also
the way to life eternal.
Let us take a moment to examine ourselves with the grace
and love of Jesus, and line up our hearts and minds with the word of God. Let us partake in the food and water that
brings life and lets allow God’s blessings to flow to us and through us to
others…..
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