Outlook

A homily for the Third Sunday of Lent, March 20, 2022, Cycle C

Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15, 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12, Lk 13:1-9

If patience is a virtue, then a whole lotta Americans are far from virtuous. Especially New Jerseyans.

We proudly list the dozens — hundreds, even — of things we jam into every day, and at the (actual) end of the day, we mourn what we didn’t do rather than celebrate what we did.

Yeah, we’re a little warped that way.

God bless us, every one, if we squeeze in a prayer, any sort of prayer, any sort of conversation with God, any sort of reflection on how awesome Creation is and how blessed and downright lucky we are to be living here and now.

And especially, a reflection on how blessed we are that God will wait for us to say “Good morning” and “Thank you” and “Wow,” even though those should be our first thoughts and our first words when we wipe the sleep out of our eyes.

So God’s patience is great — both in size and in value — while our impatience is foolish, right?

Not necessarily, on either count.

While God indeed will wait for us to fulfill our part of our relationship, to participate and communicate with her as continually as we can, God prefers that we always put our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer at the center of all we do.

Let’s love God, love our neighbors as ourselves for the love of God.

Do good for God.

Do it now.

Schedule it for every tomorrow for the rest of our lives.

Be impatient as we work for peace and justice.

Don’t let grass grow under our feet.

Don’t stand by watching as life passes us by.

Don’t stand by watching as someone else makes this planet a little — or a lot — better.

Our fragile world is at a tipping point. War, refugee crises, climate disasters, droughts, rising oceans, famines, ever-mutating coronaviruses, tragedies we’ve yet to imagine or see in real life: We cannot delay taking part in undoing the damage we’ve done to Creation. We need adrenaline-fueled impatience. 

Of all the activities we can jam into our days, can’t we make room for even the tiniest effort toward bringing about God’s kingdom on Earth?

We can pick up the dry cleaning tomorrow.