Luke 13:1-9, Third Sunday of Lent

I once missed the last bus to Davao from CDO that was scheduled to leave 12midnight. Arriving about 15 minutes past departure, there I was trying to figure out how on earth I was going to get to Davao where I was supposed to speak the next morning. 

Along with other latecomers, I appealed to the bus company to please give us a chance. Was it still possible to get another bus to bring us to Davao? In another culture, or think airport, I knew that such an appeal would have been useless. Then something marvelous and unexpected happened. After some time, another bus came and took us all in. I made it to my talk the next day. Onli in da Pilipinas.

The Lenten readings today are all about God who is love and mercy. The first reading from Exodus is about God who is not numb to his people’s suffering and who therefore sends Moses to liberate them from slavery. The Gospel speaks about suffering and second chances. We respond with the refrain of the psalm, “The Lord is kind and merciful.” 

That the Lord is kind and merciful can be problematic for two reasons. One, if the Lord is love and mercy, then why do people suffer? Two, if God will forgive, then why be good at all when God will relent when we are bad? What is to prevent anyone from abusing the kindness and mercy of God? 

These are age-old questions that touch on mystery. On the first, the easy and lazy way we explain away God’s love in the face of suffering is that those who suffer deserve what they get; they are guilty. It is the same answer the friends of Job offer him to explain his suffering. 

To correct this lazy explanation, our Lord gives two examples, Pilate’s massacre of Galilean worshippers and those killed when a tower in Siloam fell on them. 

“Do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means!”

Truth is, there are no easy answers to explain suffering, if there are answers at all. I just hope we avoid invoking some kind of justice or karma when we hold that bad things ought to happen to bad people, or good things to good people. What to make then when bad things happen to good people? If God’s love and mercy are like the rain that falls on the just and the unjust, we do well to avoid easy answers that rationalize human suffering or divine inaction. 

On the second, that God is kind and merciful gives the impression of a God who is soft on badness. And soft love can be worrisome when dealing with the hardened or incorrigible among us. We are troubled by God’s mercy that is always available because, well, paano ang pasaway? Wouldn’t tough love or fear of the fires of hell be better in bringing them to heel? Actually to the hardened, whether God is soft or not, whether or not there is even a God or hell, does not really matter. 

But to those of us for whom God matters, to us who fail and stumble every so often, the kindness and mercy of God is our lifeline. That lifeline of mercy is given out of love, not to condone the evil that hurts us, but to heal what is broken. God’s mercy is lavished upon us to awaken our mercy. It is mercy that brings us to our senses. It is mercy that enables us to overcome our shame and guilt, and come home to God. 

Mercy aka “another chance” is also the point of the gardener’s appeal in the Gospel today. Another chance is given because getting our lives to bear fruit is why we were planted in this orchard in the first place. It is mercy, not the fear of retribution, that occasions true conversion. The forgiveness is for renewal and fruitfulness. For the gardener who cared about the barren tree, that chance at conversion meant working the earth to let the tree bear fruit. 

There are times when we may think we’ve lost our chance at riding the bus home. But God’s word today assures us chance passengers: mercy is always available. We only need to admit our fault. We only need to set aside our pride. We only have to ask. And we only need to get up and get into that chance of a bus that leads us home.