Third Sunday of Lent, March 20, 2022 – Exodus 3:1-8A, 13-15; 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12; Luke 13:1-9

I recently read an article written by a woman who was Leader of Song in her parish, and she used to practice at home on her piano and sing with it. And one day she was practicing the psalm that we just sang, “The Lord is kind and merciful,” and her little daughter, about 5 years old, was singing with her. And her daughter was singing, “The Lord is 'kinda' merciful.” And that’s what today’s scriptures are all about – that the Lord is 'kinda' merciful.

The first story is a fascinating story and we don’t really understand it because, after all, it’s about Moses and, for us, Moses remains one of the key holy figures of our scriptures. But the Moses in the story is, at best, an agnostic and, at worst, what his fellow Jews would call a pagan. Because, remember who he is. He is a prince of the royal Egyptian family. He was raised in the household of the pharaoh. And whether or not either his mother or her maidservants ever told him the story of his founding, he is only vaguely aware of anything Hebrew. Not only that, but he is a hunted fugitive. Even though he’s a member of the royal family, he has broken Egyptian law by killing an Egyptian. The Hebrews were slaves. And one day Moses saw one of the highly placed officials beating a Hebrew slave and, whether out of simple fellow feeling for another human being, or whether he had some connection to his roots, he killed the Egyptian and that made him an outlaw.

So, when we come upon him in this story, he has become a wanderer and married into the family of the priest of Midian. We don’t know if the priest of Midian was a worshipper of the one true God, Yahweh, or not, but Moses is pasturing his father-in-law’s flocks when he comes across this phenomenon of the burning bush. So he just is curious about the natural phenomenon. He has no idea that God has anything to do with it. Which is why God has to tell him, “Take your shoes off. This is holy ground.” He would have no idea what holy ground is.

And so we have a story in which God says to this unchurched person, “I’ve come to save the Israelites. I’ve come down here to do that. But, you know what? I’m sending you.” Moses is completely baffled. He says, “Who are you? I don’t know you. What’s your name?” And God has to begin to indoctrinate Moses in the faith of the people that he’s been sent to save. So, in the story, God’s 'kinda' merciful because He’s coming to save them, He’s going to send an emissary to do it. And the emissary is going to confront the guy in whose household he was raised. Tough job.

So, we get to the gospel, and the gospel invites us to walk with Jesus. That’s what we’re trying to do all during Lent. Imagine ourselves in this conversation. And so, instead of telling Jesus about some Galileans who were hideously murdered by Pontius Pilate, we tell him about the thousands of Ukrainians piteously murdered and left astray by the will of one man. And Jesus says to us, “Well, you think it was their fault? I mean, after all, these things happen. We’ve had violence in our world ever since I was around in this world.” And then maybe we say to Him, instead of talking about a tower that fell in Siloam, we say, “What about those tornadoes that whipped through the Midwest? In the middle of winter we’re not supposed to have tornadoes. Look at all the damage that was done.” And Jesus kind of shrugs his shoulder, “These things happen, you know. Do you think that somehow it was their fault? Maybe you need to focus your attention elsewhere.”

In the gospel, Jesus says, “Unless you repent…” But the way we hear that is sort of Billy Graham-ish. And that’s not what Jesus means at all. In the usual Greek, the word comes from two Greek words put together, meta and noein – metanoia. Meta means to go through, or around, or across something and noein means your mind. So Jesus is saying, “Unless you get a different mindset, I can’t help you. I can’t save you, unless you get a different mindset.” And we may not want to hear that as the answer to the things that concern us today. I just picked out two of them to imagine ourselves having a conversation about the news of the day with Jesus.

And so, finally, Jesus tells a story. In the story, the owner of the orchard is what? 'Kinda' merciful. He’s going to let the tree exist for one more year and see what happens. The point of the story is the sooner you change your mindset, your point of view, to the point of view that’s offered to you by your faith and your tradition, the better off you are in trying to understand and navigate the events of the day.

God is always 'kinda' merciful. As a matter of fact, He’s almost always more than 'kinda' merciful. But we have to be 'kinda' cooperative.