• Fifth of Lent (C), March 25, 2007
• Theme: Lent is the Season to Let God Shake Us Up

• I do not know much about ships and boats, but my dad (May he rest in peace) was in the navy during WWII, and therefore I have always been respectful of the sea.
• We all know that deep water is always the safest place for a ship.
• Even in a heavy storm, a captain will steer a boat to the open sea in order to avoid a collision with reefs or other vessels.
• One of the worst things that can happen to a boat is to run aground, or get stuck in shallow water or on a sand bar.
• The captain can do nothing until the tide rises or a giant surge of water rescues the grounded craft from a fait that would surely destroy it.

• Today’s readings portray God’s response to a people “stuck” in the remembrance of past sins, sorrows, resentments, and anger.
• Just like a boat stuck on a sandbar, the people in today’s readings would be condemned to an ignominious fait without some kind of intervention.
• In our readings, God is the surge that shakes up our world and rescues the people when they are most in need.

• In Isaiah the prophet we heard God say, “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see I am doing something new!”
• Isaiah writes as the people begin to return from the exile in Babylon to the Promised Land – a New Exodus – New Beginnings after a sinful and painful past.
• Lent is a time to let ourselves be shaken up by the Lord
• God is creating something new in us

• Paul, the strident Pharisee, was shaken up by God and became the Christian zealot.
• Paul writes in the second reading “… Forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize …”

• Spiritually this weekend a lot is happening:
• This year’s Confirmation candidates spent the weekend on retreat in the mountains.
• At the parish there is a retreat for some of the parents of Confirmation and First Communion kids.
• These are people who have taken time to let God work in their lives.
• Today also there is a retreat for those in the RCIA program – people who have decided to accept the invitation to enter the Catholic Church – warts and all.
• They will be received into the Church at the Easter Vigil
• These are all people who have taken the chance of letting God do something new in them by shaking them out of their routines and preoccupations.

• Jesus is God’s promise made flesh.
• Christ shows us that our God is not past-tense or a character in a nostalgic but fictional story.
• Instead, in Christ, God is doing something new for us—again and again.

• The woman caught in adultery is publicly humiliated by the scribes and Pharisees
• She must have felt trapped and stuck, both by her actions and by the disdain the religious leaders felt towards her.
• Jesus doesn’t ignore or minimize what she has done
• Nor most likely the deeds of her unmentioned, un-caught partner
• But Jesus finds even more reprehensible the way the religious leaders are treating her.
• She is not as a person to them, but an object of discussion and a test for Jesus.

• Jesus shakes them up and us along with them:
• “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her!”
• Their drifting off, “one by one,” suggests that they knew that they too were sinners.
• And so are we.
• We can be like the elders.
• But instead of walking off – we need to stay and let Jesus shake us up and touch our hearts.
• (cf. Jude Siciliano, O.P.)

• Politically we talk about justice, but we get stuck as well.
• Eg. Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation
• I don’t know what the details might be – I am not a politician
• I want to see our boarders made secure from terrorists
• I want to see all people treated humanely and justly in this country – no matter what their immigration status.
• Most of us want these goals.
• Yet we are stuck with our own prejudices and fears in this country so nothing happens – and good people suffer
• We need God to shake us up and move us off of our sand bar so that we can shake up our legislators to act for the good of all and not run for cover for their own good.

• Lent and Easter provide us with the opportunity to go forth weeping so that we can come back rejoicing
• It is a time to turn to the Lord and live.
• The challenge is to personal conversion.
• The challenge is also to social conversion - the transformation of the world.
• As Christians, we cannot retreat from the world into a closet of private spirituality;
• Rather, we ask God in this Lenten season to help us to embrace the world that God has given us, that we may transform the darkness of its pain into the life and joy of Easter.
(cf. Gerald Darring)

• Amen

Next Page →