Third Sunday in Lent

Readings – Exodus 3: 1-15; Psalm 63: 1-8; I Corinthians 10: 1-13; Luke 13: 1-9

Our God is the God of second chances!

Exhibit A.  From the Gospel according to St. Luke, we hear the parable of the fig tree.  In ancient times the fig tree represented Israel, the people of God, and the one who planted the tree was God.  For three years the planter waited for the tree to produce figs.  Nothing happened.  The tree was a waste of time, of effort, and of good soil.  About to be cut down, the gardener asked for one more chance, for one more year with renewed effort.  The tree, the people of Israel, were given another chance.

Exhibit B.  Moses was raised in the Pharoah’s household, having been rescued in the bull rushes of the Nile River by Pharoah’s daughter.  He was given another chance to live.  As a young man Moses witnessed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew.  In a rage, Moses killed the Egyptian.  As a murderer, he fled into the Sinai, into the wilderness.  There he was taken in by Jethro, a Midianite.  Jethro welcomed him; he brought him into the family; his daughter Zipporah became his wife.  They gave Moses another chance. 

As we know this was only the beginning for Moses.  Seeing a burning bush that was not consumed, while minding Jethro’s sheep, God gave Moses another chance.  Return to Egypt, return to your Hebrew people, and lead them out of slavery, out of tyranny, out of persecution, out of Egypt, to the Promised Land.  Instead of guiding the herds of Jethro, Moses was to guide the people of God into new life, into new freedom.  Moses would partner with God.

The name of this partnering God was, “I am who I am”, the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob.  Scholars have obsessed over this particular passage for ever.  In the ancient world, to know someone’s name is to have a degree of power with him.  In this passage, I think that was not God’s intent.  Rather, “I am who I am” was an invitation to stay tuned, to observe, to pay attention, and above all, to faithfully follow. 

This is the God of second chances, the God of Moses, the God of the fig tree’s gardener who said, give it “one more year”. 

Standing in the harbor of New York City, I find a primary American symbol of second chances.  Originally envisioned for Egypt at the entrance of the Suez Canal with a seven spiked crown pointing to the seven seas, this project was reimagined in 1865 as a gift from France to be placed on Bedloe’s Island for the one hundredth anniversary of our nation’s founding.  A bit delayed, construction began in Paris is 1876 with the final assembly in 1884.  When she arrived in 1885 the pedestal was not yet complete.  To finance the base of “Liberty Enlightening the World”, Emma Lazarus completed her now famous poem.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame                                    Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” Cries she
With silent lips.  Give me your tired, your poor;
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door. 

The “huddled masses” applied to the massive numbers of immigrants arriving in the 1880’s when Emma Lazarus was an activist and advocate for Jewish refuges fleeing imperial Russia. 

Originally, she held in her left hand the broken chains of slavery, but the revised design place in her hand a tablet inscribed in Roman numerals, July 4, 1776, with the broken chains at her feet.  Her welcoming lamp held high in her right hand, she continues to be a universal beacon for freedom, for second chances for people from the seven seas.  When she was dedicated on 28 October 1886 over one million people lined the harbor.  In 1906 Emma Lazarus’ poem was placed on her base.  In 1986 President Ronald Reagon presided at her completed restoration. 

Our God is a gracious God of second, of third, of fourth …chances.  I know it personally, and I am sure you know it personally, too.  God gave one more year of intense nurture to the fig tree.  God gave Moses with the Pharoah’s daughter, and then with Jethro’s home, and then with a new purpose to lead the Hebrew people out of persecution, out of tyranny, out of slavery, through the wilderness times, and on to the mountain top to view the Promised Land, many new chances. 

May we continue to seek the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob, who proclaimed, “I will be who I will be”, follow me. 

May God continue to be among us, leading us to be the people of God who offer, in God’s name, second chances for others to be break the chains of persecution, of tyranny, of slavery, and be free to be the people God calls them to be. 

Amen