Know where you're going

Well we are well and truly into lent. I always call lent one of our spiritual aerobics times when we are focussing extra hard on our faith. It is one of the great periods in the Church when we are encouraged to take stock.

At the beginning of lent I explained the thought of one of my fiends that in lent we don’t sing the alleluias and the Gloria because it is like us taking a deep breath so we can sing extra loud at Easter. I really like the idea of lent as a tIme to take a deep breath. 

We are now into lent and we will all have had time to get used to what we have given up or what we have taken up. Lent is about us growing closer to God. It is a time to consider our relationship with God and with others. The problem is, sometimes it becomes a competition as to how well we are doing, what extra things we are doing but this competition comes apart when we forget why we are doing them.

There was once an elderly and slightly forgetful Bishop who was traveling by train to perform a confirmation service. He misplaced his ticket and wasn’t able to produce it when requested by the conductor. "It's quite all right, Bishop, we know who you are. It’s no problem" The bishop replied, "You don't understand - without the ticket, I don't know where I'm going."

We need to know why we are doing something and also where we are going. When we know where we are going then we know what direction we need to take. Lent is a time to pause and take a deep breath yes, it is a time to think about our relationship with God and it is a time to think about what we are doing. Are we doing things for the sake of doing them, maybe out of habit or are we doing them to grow closer to God ?

In our gospel reading (Luke 13:1-9) this morning we heard of people going to Jesus with questions. The questions that they asked aren’t that different to the type of questions we might ask Jesus. 

In the reading we heard of people going to Jesus because they were concerned, naturally, that Pilate had killed some Galileans, they were confused it seemed like a senseless attack. We can understand this feeling. After all just last week there was the attack in Christchurch New Zealand. We are hearing a lot about murders in London. 

It all seems to make little sense to us and in the same way that people went to Jesus with their concerns so we know that we can do the same. Whenever things seem senseless we know we can turn to God. In lent we are drawing closer to God and knowing that even when things don’t make sense we can turn to Him.

Back to the gospel reading. as the people went to Jesus He  reminded them that, sadly everyone suffers. To do this He reminded them of the people on whom a tower had fallen.  No one ever deserves to suffer. In all the suffering though we are reminded that God is with us and He loves us. Jesus showed this as He told the story of the fig tree. 

The best bit of the gospel reading we heard is, I think, the story of the fig tree. 

Now I am no gardener, I remember my Mum in law buying us a beautiful rose plant once, she said we didn’t need to do anything with it, meaning we didn’t need to plant it. So we put it outside the back door and went on holiday. When we got back we discovered that the plant was dead. Apparently putting it under a shelter which stopped it getting wet and not watering it before we went wasn’t a good idea !

Anyway, in our gospel reading the man with the fig tree, who had looked after it well was not very happy. He had looked after the fig tree for three years but it had never produced any fruit. For this reason he wanted the Gardener to cut the tree down. The gardener refused to give up and he suggested waiting to see if it would produce fruit one day.

In this story the owner of the fig tree is us and the gardener is God. The man who owned the fig tree had given up. We can all do this. It might be giving up on praying as much as we used to, it might be not reading our Bible as much, it might be us not being as patient with others, it might be us giving up on people who have let us down again and again. The fig tree needed to grow and to do this it needed even more love. It is the same for us and our faith. We need to live more and more like God so we can become more like Him in the ways that we treat others.

The gardener who is the wise one, is as I have said, God. The gardener refused to give up on the tree and wanted to wait and give it another chance. This is how God sees us and forgives us. He gives us chance after chance waiting for us to grow more and more into His likeness.

We love and worship God who sees us as we truly are. Whether we are praying more, or doing more Bible study, being a better person,  at the end of the day in this time of lent we can know that the main thing is to do as we always should. That is to grow more and more into the likeness of Jesus. 

In lent we are taking a deep breath. In lent we are taking time to think more about who we are before God and others. It can be quite an intense time, a time when we don’t think that we match up. Actually it is a time when we remember that God has given us  yet another chance and He will keep doing this. 

Back to the Bishop if we know where we are going .... we are more likely to end up there. Where we are going is to grow closer and closer to God. So, may we be ready to turn to God knowing that He will always give us chance after chance and may we keep trying to be more like Him, growing into His likeness. AMEN