Well, yesterday was St Patrick’s Day and tomorrow the Italians have their turn with St Joseph’s Day, so you might expect I have a question about leprechauns or shamrocks or a St Joseph’s table; but I don’t. Instead, I have a question about Lent. After all, this is the Third Sunday of Lent. In only three more weeks we’ll be at Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. And so, I have a mid-Lent question for you. My question is this: “Are you bored with Lent?”
Are you bored with not eating between meals? You thought you might lose a little weight in the process; but you haven’t. Or are you bored with going without desserts or alcohol? You thought maybe you should suffer a little bit during Lent; but when the opportunity was presented, you gave in. Or maybe you tried to give up a bad habit: like smoking, or cussing; but you really don’t feel any better and you’re bored with the effort it takes. Or maybe you have tried to form a good habit: like being part of our Disciples in Mission Program; but it doesn’t seem as if you’re making much progress in becoming part of the group and you’re bored with doing the preparation each week.
You’ve even tried praying every day; but somehow, the holy feeling you were hoping for; well, it just isn’t there. And so Lent has become boring. Or perhaps it’s not Lent you’re bored with. Perhaps, it’s life, in general! Are you bored with life?
One day is very much like the one before it and no doubt, much like the one tomorrow. You get up in the morning and you feel as if you never really went to bed. It will be the same old stuff at work, today. The same old boring meals. Preparing them; eating them; cleaning up afterwards.
You think back on the good old days: days of your youth, when things were more exciting; when you felt more alive. Except. Except the teenager sitting beside you is just as bored. It’s the same old classes. The same old gossip of who is seeing who, or who has broken up with who. Nothing really new; no really good stuff. Everything is – b-o-r-e-i-n-g.
On the other hand, a lot of business is based on us being bored. Advertisers know how bored we are, and they tell us: all we need to do is buy something new. A new, different kind of car, maybe a truck. Something that will add new “zing” to our life. Maybe a new breakfast cereal or a new, improved laundry product that will add brightness to all the pretty and delicate things we wear. Things we wear. Maybe I should go out and buy some new clothes. After all, Easter is coming. And everyone buys new clothes for Easter. Maybe some shopping will get me out of my boredom.
Or maybe it’s not that I’m bored with Lent or bored with life. Maybe, just maybe, I’m bored with God! What I really want is a “burning bush experience.” Like the one Moses had; the one we heard about in our first reading. With that kind of experience, I would never be bored again. If only I could see God, like Moses did; hear the voice of God, like Moses did. If only I knew what God wanted of me, like Moses did. Then I would not be bored with life; let alone, Lent.
Yes, that’s what I really want out of Lent but haven’t gotten. I’ve wanted a burning bush experience of God and I haven’t had one. Here it is: the Third Sunday of Lent and nothing has changed; nothing has happened. And so, like a good secular Catholic, I tell myself: well, maybe I haven’t worked at it hard enough.
After all, if I’m bored with life, I’m told to try something new; buy something new; start something new. If I don’t want to be bored, I have to start a new project. So maybe I won’t be bored with Lent or bored with God, if I start a new religious-type project. Maybe I should do more for other people. Maybe I should start helping to build houses for the homeless? Or maybe help out in soup kitchens down in the poor sections of Houston?
Maybe I should pray harder. Maybe I should tell God more often how much I love him and rely upon him.
● Maybe then – I’ll start to feel good.
● Maybe then – I’ll start to feel that God is in my life.
● Maybe then – I’ll find God.
● Maybe then – I’ll find that burning bush.
● Maybe if I search harder, do more, I can find it like Moses did.
But there is only one problem with that. Moses wasn’t searching for any burning bush. Rather, the burning bush was searching for Moses. All Moses had to do was see it there before him. After all, Moses was doing what he had been doing every day of his life for the last forty years. He was wandering in the desert, tending not his own flock but taking care of the sheep owned by his father-in-law. It was then he saw something different, something that broke into his boredom of hot days and cold nights in the desert.
When he saw that strange sight, he could have walked away. But being bored there in the desert, he approached the burning bush to see what was going on. He did not expect to encounter the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob. Certainly, he did not expect to meet, face-to-face, with anyone called: “I am who am.”
Moses wasn’t searching for God. Instead, he found the burning bush that God placed in front of him. And maybe, just maybe, there is a “burning bush” right now in front of me. Maybe the Lord God is waiting right now for me to approach the holy ground on which he waits; but I am too pre-occupied with my daily boredom, the routine tending of my flock, of my daily responsibilities, to really notice my own burning bush.
So what should I do? Perhaps I need to think less about a burning bush and more about a poor fig tree. In today’s gospel, Jesus told his friends a parable about a fig tree. He spoke of an impatient man who wanted to uproot a fig tree that merely took up space in his garden; a tree that produced no fruit; that was apparently good for nothing. A boring, little fig tree. But then his gardener, the one who cared for and loved the trees and vines and plants that grew in the garden, his gardener advised him that perhaps a bit of nurturing would help. Nurturing, continuing to provide the essentials of life and waiting. With nurturing, the little fig tree might blossom and bear fruit.
Maybe, I need to be like both the gardener and the tree he tends. Maybe I need to nurture and allow myself to be nurtured. But how do I do that?
Do that? Perhaps by doing less; by searching less; and relaxing more. Maybe I need to learn how to float, to float with God. Do you remember learning to float? Most people learn to float when they’re kids. But I didn’t grow up near any lakes or oceans. Back then there weren’t neighborhood swimming pools. So, I was in my twenties before I learned how to float.
When you’re an adult and learning how to do it, you think you need to be an “active” floater; that you need to do something to keep from sinking. But what you really need to do is – relax. Relax and let the water carry you. The more you struggle, the more you sink. Yes, there are slight movements of the hands and feet; but nothing major. The less you do, the better you float.
Floating is creative boredom. It is doing nothing active but allowing the water to comfort you; allowing yourself to become one with the water around you. Praying is like that. Praying is floating with God. It’s not what I say; but rather, it’s being quiet and just listening – listening to the silence – until God speaks, speaks from the burning bush.
Praying is becoming fully aware of life …
● It is seeing: really seeing the blossoming trees or the birds in flight across a cloudless sky.
● It is feeling: feeling the morning fog.
● It is touching: touching the hand of a friend; or the lips of a loved one touching you. ● It is hearing: hearing the sounds of bells on the wind or the giggles of children.
● It is smelling: taking in the aroma of incense during a Lenten mass.
And in the process, becoming part of the burning bush that God places before me. The burning bush I do not search for. The one he gives me. A burning bush that once was a boring, little fig tree but with nurturing; with loving care given by me, by others, and by God, grows beyond the cross to become the tree of everlasting life.
Third Sunday of Lent; March 18, 2001
Ex 3:1-8a, 13-15; 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12; Lk 13:1-9