Third Sunday of Lent: God and Nature

Reading I: Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15
Responsorial Psalm: 103:1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8, 11
Reading II: 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12
Gospel: Luke 13:1-9

God is nothing in the created world.  We see God, however, using our imagination, although God is not a product of our imagination. The root of the word ‘imagination’ is the word ‘image.’ Imagination works this way:

• We use our five senses to gather raw data from the physical world around us.

• Our minds form that data into an image.

• Our intellects then form a judgment based on that data.

For instance, if you are going to pick up a good friend at the airport, you might see a familiar head of hair on a person that is the right size for your friend. You begin to walk towards the figure and as you get closer you get more details concerning their appearance that either confirms or not whether it is your friend. Your intellect makes the judgment on the image your mind has formed. So it is when a prayer is answered or God touches you in some way. You don't see a physical image, but your imagination sees God's transcendent presence in the physical world. How do you see God's presence in the world? You need to know who God is in order to recognize him. 
 
The Runaway Bunny
How do you see God? Are you waiting for a fire to break out in a bush around your home? Do you expect to see a 33-year old bearded man with a flaming heart on his chest or red and white rays of light blazing out from his bosom? Here is an example of how we see God in the story of The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown [i], a children’s story requiring some imagination. In my mind, this story can only make sense in a Christian civilization.

 
Can a bunny mom be the wind, a gardener, a tightrope walker or a tree? The Runaway Bunny is an allegory of love. It is a story of how love pursues the runaway bunny. Other examples are The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis and The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Imaginative stories prepare us ( young people especially) for the encouter with God. Whether it is God as a Lion leading an army against the White Witch , a returning King named Aragorn who fights for his people, a wizard named Gandalf raised from the dead like Christ or a Suffering Servant like Frodo Baggins, our imagination helps us to recognize the transcendent in the world. The scriptures are the root of the evangelization of our imaginations. 
 
The Burning Bush
The story of the burning bush is an allegory also. God is present in nature without competing with it or destroying it. God’s majesty and wisdom is revealed in the fire that doesn't consume bush. The image of the fire present in the bush points beyond nature to nature’s God. The “I am” of the burning bush is repeated by Christ throughout the Gospels. [ii]  The use of the phrase “I am” underscores God’s nature as 'existence itself.' (St. Thomas Aquinas, O.P. based on this story described God as 'ipsum esse subsistens,' the act of existing itself.)  God and man are not competitors; Jesus is true God and true Man, like fire dwelling in a bush. God is known by what he does. God intervenes to save his people. 
 
The Vineyard
In the story of the vineyard, is God the vineyard owner that wants to destroy those miserable tenants like a judge or is God the gardener pleading for a little more time like a savior. In the gospel, Jesus both pleads for us and admonishes us for our sins. Every parish church should have one statue of the merciful Jesus and the Jesus with his finger raised warning us; the God of mercy and judgment. At St. Mark we have both the image of Divine Mercy and the Crucified Christ, images of God as merciful savior and God as judgment.  
 
Stories and Salvation
We Americans like the bottom line, just cut to the chase. The chase, however, can be scary.  When we are asked about our families, those whom we love, we never start by telling the other, “The bottom line is this…”  Instead, we all tell a favorite story that conveys how we think and feel about our family. Stories are safe, they appeal to the mind and the heart and they help us reimagine our life and place in the world. A story, a narrative, is not an argument, but conveys truth. A preacher can say that life is a great gift and we will be held responsible for how we use it, and have said the truth. Or, a preacher can tell a story where he encounters God in a burning bush and is told to save his people from the Egyptians. Or, that we live in a beautiful vineyard but we use it badly and we shouldn’t shout down those that tell us to care for it. In that story, we are also defended by a gardener who argues that we just need some time to change. Or we could say that God’s love searches us out like a mother bunny who tries to get her baby bunny home to eat supper, or a Lion that leads an army or a returning king claiming his kingdom. These stories convey Christ’s teaching about who God the Father and Son really are. Every story is supposed to appeal to our hearts, but the bottom line is that we must change, be responsible and show up for supper on time.
 

Poetry is another way to convey truth. Here is Gerard Manly Hopkins, S.J. (1884-89) on God and nature.
 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; 
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells 
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's 
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; 
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: 
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; 
Selves — goes itself;  myself it speaks and spells, 
Crying  Whát I dó is me: for that I came. 
 
I say móre: the just man justices; 
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; 
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is — 
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, 
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his 
To the Father through the features of men's faces.