Homily, March 23, 2025

March 20, 2025

in Sunday Reflection

89

From The Pastor

God is not a problem to solve, but a mystery to ponder. A mystery is not something unknown. A mystery is something or someone not fully known or understood. God is an all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful mystery who creates, redeems, and makes holy all that is created. Coming to know God is a life-long relationship of awareness, discovery, invitation, and response.

Do not make God a problem. God is simple, even obvious. Make God simple like a best friend who is faithful, trustworthy, ever aware of your best interests and well-being. God is simple, but not always easy. It can seem like God is hard to find, even hiding at times. When found, God can be difficult to know and obey even for the person who has great interest and desire to be one with God. If this sounds like what it means to be in love with someone whom you seek and desire to please and share union with you are getting the picture.

God is love. Love is deeply desired and longed for in every human being, both human and Divine love. Love is simple and obvious like the joy of rebirth in springtime. Simple, but it does not always come easily.

Moses is a passionate man who seeks God, yet without a clear image or understanding of God. His life path is unique and fraught with both tragedy and blessing. Moses is rescued from death at birth, found and raised by the Pharaoh’s daughter, kills an Egyptian, flees to the hills to tend sheep, and marries the Shepherd’s daughter, only to have a divine experience of God that transforms his life.

Moses’ experience is a revelation of God for the ages. This is a reading and an experience that is not to be missed. Moses is awed by the burning bush that is not consumed. The encounter is a movement of God to reveal who God is, how God acts, making known the Divine intention. So intentional is God, that God gives Moses the Divine Name: “I am.” Beyond the time of Abraham, God takes the next step in revealing the Divine plan of our salvation.

What do we learn? God is a Person. God is relationship. God seeks a relationship of union with all that is made. God seeks the well-being of those whom he has created and listens to the cries of the oppressed and the suffering. God responds with liberation and freedom from those in slavery at hard labor and works to form a people as his own. God redeems, heals, reconciles, and forgives.

God’s name seems like a mystery, yet it reveals that who God is, is what God does. The name of God makes this clear. The meaning of ‘I am’ is I am who am with you. I am the One who will be there for you. God is pure relationship with all that is.

You have heard this before. It is unlikely any of us will ever see a burning bush that is not consumed, but all of us will have an image of God. We may not be aware of our image of God, but it is there. When you pray to God what image of God comes to mind. Some pray to the Father, others to Jesus, some to the Holy Spirit. What is your image of these expressions for God? Are they positive, warm, welcoming, inviting? Are they scary, fearful, corrective, punishing? How we image God will affect how we approach and relate to God. Does your image of God invite you to trust God with your deepest concerns, fears, even your sins with an open expectation of a compassionate response?

Jesus is the purest image of God, God Incarnate. Simple, but not always easy. Jesus is trusting, warm, compassionate, yet quite intentional in his desire to save, heal, and redeem. In the gospel, Jesus responds to a story of those tragically killed by Pilate. Jesus is intent on correcting the presumption of their thinking. The thought was that those who suffer such a tragedy must have committed serious sin, and similarly those blest with good fortune are so through God’s reward. “No,” Jesus says, “and, if you do not repent you will perish in the same way.” Hard saying. What does Jesus mean? God is relationship not a counter of sins, favoring the good and punishing the evil. The call to repent is to change one’s mind about God and accept the offer of relationship to share life with God in love.

Then the image of the fig tree. It is God’s intention that we grow in love and bear the fruit of love in our lives in relationship with God through others. Simple, everyone wants that, but it is difficult. Like the tree, a person needs attentive pruning and cultivation of the heart to hear and accept the offer of maturing relationship with God.

Lent is the season to do this very thing. Think about your image and relationship with God. Is it consistent and effective in your life, or do you need to rethink it? Is your life bearing fruit in love? How might you and I do better?

Father John Esper