Turning to God
‘Turning to God’
A Sermon preached by the Precentor, Canon Anna Macham
Sunday 23 March, The Third Sunday of Lent
Isaiah 55: 1-9 and Luke 13: 1-9
These are words from the opening of the poet T.S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday (1930). Like his more famous poem The Waste Land (1922), that features in our beautiful service of Tenebrae in Holy week, Eliot takes us, in this poem of repentance, into a world where, in the aftermath of the First World War, there is only despair and alienation, and spiritual barrenness. I’ve always loved this poem, ever since first encountering it as an undergraduate away from home for the first time and studying English literature. Eliot’s faltering attempts to grasp hold of religious faith, and the sense in this poem of his inner turmoil as he tries, often in vain, to turn towards God, and to keep trying to return to him, and to trust, are something I’ve found comforting in my own faith journey. Luckily, as the poem progresses, in the midst of all this desolation, there are glimmers of hope in the darkness, not least at the end, where Eliot throws himself on the mercy of God. “And let my cry come unto Thee” is its simple and stark conclusion.
Today is the third Sunday of Lent, named “oculi Sunday” in the Roman Catholic Church. This day marks almost the mid-point of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, we observed the beginning of Lent with a deliberate act of turning towards God, reciting a liturgy of penitence and marking our foreheads with ash, and being full of good resolves. Yet it wouldn’t be that surprising if- by this stage of the season- our attempts to carry on turning towards him, in prayer and fasting, through study or acts of service are starting to wear a little thin. These practices are supposed to build up faith and challenge us to better focus on God and his Word, but it’s also true that that they (and Lent in general) can sometimes just feel like part of a larger, extremely long and arduous journey that gives few moments of respite. We are tired, and yet Lent is nowhere near over.
So, in that context, today’s readings are a gift. Instead of more fasting, we’re given feasting. “Oculi” means eyes, from Psalm 25:15: “my eyes are ever towards the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net”. And our beautiful reading from the middle section of Isaiah this morning encourages us to use our eyes, and all our senses – to look and search, to seek and find, taste and discover.
“Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters… Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1). This rich, allusive passage seems to mark the beginnings of a new understanding of God’s word, which would become important in later Christian writings such as the prologue of the Gospel of John. The language of thirsting and waters also makes us think of the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in the same Gospel, and it’s been compared with the invitation of the woman, Wisdom, in Proverbs Chapter 9. Isaiah’s language here of abundance, and of feasting influenced later Christian writers, too, such as the pre-Raphaelite and Anglican poet Christina Rossetti, in her narrative poem Goblin Market (1862), which contrasts the fruits offered by God with the earthly fruits of temptation. With the wine symbolising joy, and the milk symbolising wholesome nourishing food, the whole passage stands as a timeless invitation to turn away from all lesser fare that’s in the end just a distraction, and partake in the abundant mercy and grace that only God can provide.
The things we’re being invited to discover here are life-giving. “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which does not satisfy?” “Listen carefully”, the prophet continues, “and eat what is good”. He urges the people to change direction, and to look in different places from those to which they’d become accustomed in exile to find satisfaction and fulfilment. The power of God’s word is transformative, not returning to God empty but accomplishing that for which he purposes it, breaking down our defences and bearing fruit in our lives.
According to a report in the Times last week, sales of the bible have increased by 87% in the last 6 years. Publishers of bibles are attributing this to the increasing spirituality of generation Z; a survey by OnePoll in January found that 62 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds identified as “very” or “fairly” spiritual, compared to 35 per cent of people over 65. There’s certainly something attractive and inviting- refreshing perhaps at this point in our Lenten journey- about God’s word, and particularly about biblical passages such as this one. Isaiah’s words provided comfort to a people weary from exile. And so in the complexities of modern living, post-Covid in our hyper-connected world, they urge us to acknowledge our spiritual yearnings and to throw ourselves on the abundance of God’s mercy.
If Isaiah beckons us to turn our lives around, our Gospel reading urges us more explicitly, and urgently, to repentance. Here Jesus tells the slightly odd little parable of the barren fig tree. Fig trees would have been a common sight in vineyards. This particular one has been planted a while ago, but still hasn’t produced any fruit. On the one hand, it’s still barren- a waste of soil in human eyes. But, on the other, due to the infinite patience and compassion of the gardener, it still has the potential even now, at this late stage, to bear fruit. By telling this story, Jesus calls on his audience to change their hearts so that they can live fruitful lives. They’ve managed to escape the fate of their fellow Galileans who were killed, but not because they’re superior or sinless or not worthy of judgement themselves, Jesus says in criticism of them, but because of God’s goodness alone. And so he calls them to repent, of their pride and sin. God, this parable shows us, is not a vengeful God, as in some other religions of the time, but a God of forgiveness.
Lent is a long period of time, forty whole days of self-examination and penitence, as we’re all too aware at this mid-point in the season. This might seem extreme compared to, say, a normal week at any other time of year, where the confession- the prayers of penitence- are something we do not continuously but mainly just at the start of the Sunday Eucharist, where they last just a few minutes before we quickly move on to the absolution and promise of life restored and the more joyful part of the service that follows. For some, the Church is overly preoccupied with sin. This year is the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed, and it’s interesting to reflect on how the second section of the Creed, the part about Jesus and our salvation, is much longer than the opening part about God the Father, making the heavens and the earth; in the twentieth century, theologians have concentrated more on Christology, the doctrines about Jesus including his role in saving us from sin, whereas the doctrine of creation, until more recently, has been neglected.
Yet the spiritual practices of Lent are not meant to be burdensome, or stifle our joy, or make us overly preoccupied with our sin and our need for salvation. Lent is unapologetic in making demands of us. But it doesn’t make the demands to make us miserable, or to punish us for being sinful, but to show us the way to fullness of life.
Our readings today encourage us to seek God, not to be content to settle for that which does not really satisfy, but to attend to our spiritual lives, in the words of Isaiah, “that [our] soul[s] may live”. Jesus’ call to repentance is a call to choose life, our response of turning to God a choice to live lives characterised not by the sterility of barrenness and death but by fecundity and fruitfulness.
Through giving up some of the comforts on which we depend in Lent, giving time to prayer and the reading of the scriptures, engaging with our Lent course on the Psalms, opening up ourselves to others through acts of charity, and to God’s creative, healing grace in repentance- all of these help us learn anew our identity as beloved children of God, and to trust afresh in his word, and in his boundless compassion and love.