Year C – Third Sunday in Lent – March 23, 2025
Pastor Megan Floyd
Luke 13:1-9
Isaiah 55:1-13
Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord, Jesus Christ, who, together with the Holy Spirit, long for us to live fruitful lives full of abundance. Amen.
***
I learned a long time ago that… I can’t tell the difference between a trombone and a baritone… or an oboe and a clarinet.
Now, if I’m looking at them, then yes, I can tell them apart and would even agree that they sound different…
but the quality of their different sounds is not overly distinctive to my ear… so I struggle to tell them apart based on sound alone.
It’s just not something I have much experience with.
I discovered this… tragic failing of mine back in college when I had some elective courses to fill, and I thought it would be fun to take …the History of Jazz.
I thought I was taking a history class… I enjoy history… But it was not so… it was apparently a music class disguised as a history class.
And I almost failed…
A big part of the class involved listening to classic jazz pieces and identifying the parts of the music… not only the instrument but the artist… based on the way they were playing.
I was way out of my league.
But over the course of the semester, I was able to train my ear just enough to scoot by… and I also think the professor had mercy on me.
I know there are people out there who are naturally gifted with hearing and can pick up on subtle differences in sound… but I think most of us have to be trained to do that…
…and if we want to keep that skill and build on it, well… then we need to practice.
It’s very similar to our ability to recognize God’s presence in our lives… and to truly listen to God’s word in such a way that it shapes our lives toward fruitful living.
We have to be taught… trained to recognize God through word and action… and we have to return to God every day… to practice.
***
The prophet Isaiah tells us this week to “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call up him while he is near.”
It’s part of this beautiful invitation to come to the banquet… all who thirst… and all who hunger… Come! Eat and drink…
it’s all freely given, and it is so much better than the junk food you had before… the stuff that did not satisfy… come… and eat what is good!
No one is turned away! The Lord is near… and wants you to truly live!
This must have been incredible for the Israelites to hear… it was likely written around the time of Israel’s return from the Babylonian exile, around 538 B.C.E.
Can you imagine? Returning home after being exiled… returning to God after hardship and struggle… and hearing God’s promise anew that God’s love covers all.
God proclaims… “Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”
Listen. Train your ear to hear…
Listen to God’s word… and hear the promise that is spoken over you. Listen… so that you may live!
And to those who have wandered away… to those who have chosen or stumbled onto the wicked and unrighteous path… let them also listen… and hear God’s promise…
so that they might also return to God… and God will have abundant mercy on them.
Listen… so that you may live!
Your God, who loves you, wants you to have the fruitful and flourishing life that you were created to have… God wants your life… to bear good fruit… and through God’s word, we are given all we need to achieve it.
But we must listen… and return daily to God’s word… to practice our hearing.
***
There are just a few problems with all this…
For starters, this open invitation to all is… well… pretty open… but we humans sure do like exclusivity… we like the V.I.P. treatment… so we struggle with the idea that everyone is invited to this banquet.
Also, we like to think there is a hierarchy of sins… but that’s our invention… God doesn’t seem to play that way.
God’s offer of compassion and mercy doesn’t seem to have the qualifiers that our human systems want to place around everything.
And furthermore… sure… God wants us to live a fruitful life… but that’s harder for some… for all sorts of reasons… with lots of stumbling along the way.
Even if we ignore the fact that many of the struggles some people face are due to the sin of human systems that are designed to keep them down and struggling…
Most human… societies or even families… eventually want to give up on those who struggle with bearing good fruit…
And yet, like the fig tree in our Gospel passage from Luke 13, God seems determined to give us more chances… to give us more time… to nurture us, and help us grow…
God is determined for us to train our ears to hear… to listen… so that we may return to our Lord and live the fruitful and flourishing lives God created us to live!
God comes to us in our pain and our struggle… and says… have mercy… give it another year… let us nurture this beloved child and give her more time…
Because… thankfully…mercifully… God’s thoughts are not our thoughts… and God’s ways are not our ways.
Through the prophet Isaiah, God declares that God’s love will not be denied… no obstacle is greater than God’s word!
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout…
So shall my word be… it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace!
God is near to you now… and longs for you to incline your ear and listen to the promise found in God’s word… to hear that word and repent, so you might return to the Lord, your God, every day.
***
Both Isaiah and Luke emphasize the urgency of our repentance… but to be clear… this isn’t a transactional experience…
Repentance… returning our heart and mind to God… is not a quid-pro-quo… it is not a trade we make with God… we are not trading our remorseful apology for God’s grace and forgiveness.
Our repentance… is an act of faith… It's an acknowledgment of how much we need God’s grace, and it communicates our trust that God hears us, knows us to our core, and still loves us.
God offers us grace and forgiveness… and our repentance allows us to receive these gifts… receive them, but not hide them… God’s gifts are meant to be shared.
Our repentance is an act of faith that opens the way to a life that bears good fruit.
…it acknowledges that when we return our hearts and minds to God, and truly listen to God’s word with ears that are trained to hear…
it will shape us… it will shift our hard-heartedness into compassion and patience… our cruelty into mercy and kindness… and our indifference into empathy and love.
Compassion… patience… mercy… kindness… empathy… and love… are signs of a fruitful life… the kind of flourishing that God created us to live.
***
But even if we are not quite there… even if we stumble and are not quite as compassionate or loving as we ought to be… God, who is near, tells us to practice our training.
Give it a little more time… return to God now and incline your ear to God’s word that guides us back to fruitful living.
Don’t wait until you have it perfect… don’t wait until you think you are worthy… return now.
God is not waiting for us to figure everything out… not waiting to bestow grace upon us until we have shed all questions and doubt.
No… God is already here, speaking to us… speaking a word of light into our darkness… a word of love into our suffering…
and so we train our ear to listen, to hear God’s word.
Like the talent of distinguishing a trombone from a baritone…
we learn to distinguish God’s word based on the good fruit it produces, both in us and through us.
And we return to the Lord daily to be nourished by God’s word…
and trust that God’s word, which is sent out with joy, will not return empty but will be led back in peace.
Listen… so that you may live!
Amen.
