Sunday Gospel Reflection, March 23, 2025: A land flowing with milk and honey...

A land flowing with milk and honey…
What gifts God has for us all! 

    Why, in the Book of Exodus, does the Lord appear to Moses in fire flaming out of a bush? Moses has not yet left Egypt; he is tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro when God calls his name, Moses! Moses! In this direct encounter with the Lord, Moses is given a tremendous gift: God’s name, I am who am. The gift of this name will help Moses to convince the Israelites enslaved in Egypt that the God in question here is the one they have always worshiped, the God who has been present, is present, and will be present to them throughout their travails. It is this first encounter with the Lord that will allow the great exodus of the people out of their enslavement to begin. For as Psalm 103 recalls, The Lord secures justice and the rights of all the oppressed. He has made known his ways to Moses, and his deeds to the people of Israel. God is present to them, and that divine presence is grace. 

    Jesus will similarly share examples of God’s generous presence with those who surround him in Luke’s Gospel. Using the parable of the barren fig tree, Jesus encourages the people to draw nearer to the Lord through the act of repentance. If you do not repent, he says, you will all perish. However, as with the fig tree, God keeps giving his people another chance: the gardener requests more time for the fig tree to bear fruit, and the owner of the tree grants it: leave it for this year also. The gardener shall cultivate the ground around the tree and fertilize it, giving it every advantage, just as God does with his people. God gifts us the wherewithal to change so that we can draw closer to him, so that nothing stands in the way of his love for us, nothing keeps us from that love. God remains present to us, and that divine presence is grace. 

    In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds the community that how they deal with God’s grace will have a lot to do with how their lives turn out. Using the story of Moses in the desert to illustrate this, Paul writes, these things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning for us. Even if we don’t understand God’s way, Paul says, we have to be careful so that we don’t fail to gain the real grace God offers us. Whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall. We too drink from the spiritual rock that is Christ. We bless the Lord because we can’t begin to imagine what God is doing for us – not because we’ve earned it but because God loves us, and God’s compassion and kindness is greater than anything we can imagine. God remains present to us, and that divine presence is indeed grace! 

This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com