Lent 3, March 23, 2025
Exodus 3:1-12 and Luke 13:1-5
Introduction
This week I found myself torn and distracted. Torn and distracted between studying the word of God and crafting poignant and challenging sermon and… March Madness basketball. It was really hard, and really annoying. God kept saying, “Write my message.” But Bill Dowey kept texting, “Bracket Buster Alert!” All of it was taking the moniker “March Madness” to a whole new level.
Which reminded me of a church’s changeable letter sign message I saw last week—a sign like what we have out front—that read, “Is Your March Madness? Find Peace Inside.” It’s a clever message, but I do wish it was that easy. Just walk inside a church and you’ll find peace. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it’s a great first step, but there’s still a lot more steps that need to be taken because there is a lot of madness today isn’t there? And I don’t mean basketball. I’m talking about the very same things we all see, read, and talk about.
And I know, I’m becoming like a broken record when it comes to the chaos and madness around our country and around the world, but it is the season of Lent, and so it’s on brand. There’s the madness of the Russian war on Ukraine and the immigration issue—two topics I referenced last week that I know made more than a few of you tense up because you shared with me your thoughts and feelings and tension. There’s the madness of rising costs of everyday needs, the madness of clashing ideologies, the madness of terror. My kids get National Geographic Jr. and Ranger Rick magazines—which I think I enjoy reading more than they do—and there’s always difficult news about animals and habitat dangers and climate change.
It’s easy to find news about tragedies and bleakness near and far away—and all of it makes me think not much has changed since the time of Jesus. Tyrants are still “tyranting” and people are suffering because of it. Towers are still falling in some manner or another, down and around people. Tragedies of like manner from two thousand years ago still happen today.
And all of it gets to me, like I imagine it gets to you, and raises questions about God, about fairness, and mortality. The “madness” challenges my belief and hope and faith that there is some all-knowing, all powerful, “Big Guy in the Sky”, out there who, if I just believe, pray, and behave rightly for, will make sure none of that happens to me and those I care about. These tragedies, all the “madness” contradict my notions of justice and fairness—that you get what you deserve, the good will be rewarded and the bad will be punished. The “madness” reminds me of my mortality and that life is fragile, short, and uncertain.
And all of this sets us up for shallow reassurances I don’t want to hear: “God is in control,” “Everything happens for a reason,” “Just have faith,” or other trite or tired platitudes that so often get spoken in these situations. I want to know why all the “madness” happens, don’t you? I want some explanations and ways to make sense of it all. I want my reactionary attitude— that if I can just understand it then I can control it—to be placated. Maybe you do too. But today Jesus isn’t helping with any of that.
Jesus doesn’t give a rationale for our struggle. He doesn’t offer an explanation or a way of understanding why Pilate mingled the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices, or why the Tower of Siloam fell—which just adds to all the “madness”. Which takes me back to that church’s sign message— “Is you March Madness, find peace inside” and makes me think, “Really? You sure about that? Because to look around and see that the “madness” hasn’t changed much in two thousand years is kind of making all this wilderness wandering work to draw closer to Jesus and the Divine out to be Lenten Madness.
Move 1
It was at this point I knew my sermon prep was in the weeds. So I turned down the volume to the basketball I had playing on the iPad…and phone…and computer. But soon realized volume wasn’t the problem, and turned everything off. Because sometimes that’s the first step in dealing with our “madness”, right? And once I was less distracted and better focused, a thought came to me… What if what Jesus is, and isn’t, saying in today’s text—what if the madness he’s talking about— are not the point of today’s Gospel but rather they are the magnifiers of today’s Gospel—the madness magnifiers? And if they are, what if that is the key in our lives as well?
I don’t mean we should diminish the losses in life, but rather we should see them as magnifiers, and that we should feel them more acutely and let them guide us, lead us, and call us into a better way of being. This is what I mean… Tyrants, fallen towers, and tragedy—these sources of “madness”— magnify the preciousness of life and magnify a greater awareness to what we are doing with our lives.
They magnify the value of relationships and guide us to consider how we are treating others, ourselves, even creation itself. They magnify the meaning of this moment and remind us that nothing should be wasted or taken for granted. They magnify the urgency and need to redeem the past by opening our eyes and hearts to a new and better way, to the possibility of the impossible. They magnify the need to look at ourselves and our world with new eyes, to see each other in new ways, and to gain clarity about what really matters. Could that be what Jesus is getting at? It feels like it to me.
Move 2
With these questions, I can’t help but wonder if that magnification is the reason Jesus doesn’t deal with the “why” question. Because that’s what he’s not doing. Jesus is moving the focus away from why such “madness” happens, and emphasizing on how we live in a world where such “madness” happens. And I am certain he does this because “How” is a better question than “Why.” Why narrows the way… How opens the way. Why tends toward the past… How tends toward the future. Why is definitive… How is imaginative.
So instead of asking, “Why is this happening?”, a better way forward asks, “How do we find our place amid uncertainty, turmoil, and madness?” Instead of asking, “Why are people they way they are?”, a better way forward asks, “How do we not lose ourselves to the pain and tragedies of our lives and world?”
Instead of asking, “Why are people so judgmental and cruel?”, a better way forward asks, “How do we remain Christ-like in the midst of conflict and violence?” Instead of asking, “Why are people so vicious and cruel?”, a better way forward asks, “How do we keep our hearts soft and keep hope alive? How do we live amidst death?”
And Jesus answers that “How” question with a clear and concise answer… “Repent.” That’s Jesus’ answer to the “How” question. “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Unless you learn from the “madness” they endured, and turn and go another way—a better way, God’s way—which is what “repent” means, then the madness is going to just go on and on.
Move 3
So I am curious…Jesus’ call for repentance… How does that land for you? Because I think our understanding of repentance is often too small. We make it only about behavior and changing from bad to good. Which, there’s nothing wrong with that and I’m in favor of good behavior, but Jesus is very clear that he is talking about more than bad behavior.
Listen to what he says: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you.” “Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you. But unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Jesus is not offering a cause-and-effect explanation, he’s offering a choice between life and death. And that choice is always before us. Every moment is a burning bush moment of divine presence, hope, new life and more life. The only question is whether we will “turn aside to see this great thing.” Will we turn aside to find the courage, hope, and perseverance needed in the moment? Will we turn aside to address the needs and interests of another? Will we turn aside and break our usual patterns of thinking and acting? Will we turn aside to see the opportunity for love, compassion, forgiveness? Will we turn aside to do justice, bring peace, welcome the stranger, and love the enemy? Will we turn aside from the fear, busyness, distractions—the “madness”— that keeps us from living the life that wants to enter the world through us? Will we turn aside from the “madness” and see in enlarged magnification, the great thing God is doing?
Conclusion
“Is your March Madness? Find Peace Inside.” That clever church sign helped me realize Lent brings with it “madness”—“Lenten Madness”—because Lent intentionally magnifies the madness of our lives, and of the world. But Lent also magnifies the greatness of God and the greatness of Jesus—and that can change everything—especially the madness all around us.
Moses didn’t ask why the suffering was happening. Moses wondered how the “madness” could be stopped. And God said, I’m going to stop the “madness” by sending you. And that is what God is saying still today…to us. If the madness is going to get turned around, then we need to be part of the effort to turn it around—just as it was for Moses.
And today Jesus tells us how to turn the madness around—through repentance. Because repentance is continually turning us back to new life in a world where tyrants act, towers fall, tragedies happen, and madness ensues. Repentance opens our mind, even changes our mind, gets our life turned around, and moving in a better direction. Repentance guides us to reimagine ourselves, to be larger than what has happened to us or what we have done and left undone. Repentance, in the midst of everyday madness and Lenten Madness, is what magnifies the greatness of God. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, March 23, 2025, Lent 4
Holy God, the madness of the world surrounds us, and often overwhelms us, challenging our beliefs, our trust, our hopes that you are at work and your work is still bending toward good.
It is in these times Lord when we need you to confront up, and guide us to take a moment and reimagine ourselves as more than our history, and help us understand, this Lenten journey you have set us upon isn’t about undoing or redoing the past. It’s about learning, and seeing, and experiencing firsthand how you want us to live this moment, the next, and the one after that. For you are calling us to reimagine our life, reimagine our relationships, reimagine how we might live beside and respond to the tyrants, fallen towers, and tragedies in our life and world.
So implore us to hear your still small voice, faithfully, yet poignantly, “What do you see? What is the madness asking of you? What do you need to do, change, reclaim, or let go of in order to start living your reimagined life today?”
For these are the guiding questions, and guidance itself, you inject into our lives so we can look at the madness in a way that won’t cause us to become filled with fear and hopelessness, but rather will guide us to know, confidently, with faithful trust, that your power and grace ensues; your vision is still being cast that shows the better way forward; your peace and love are still being poured out; and the light of your Son has not and cannot be overshadowed—not matter how determined the world might be to do so.
Help us, Holy God, to see the madness, but not to be overwhelmed by it. Help us to let go of the “why” questions, and instead open our minds, hearts, and spirits, to seeing, embracing, and enacting all the ways you are showing us how to overcome the madness.
May the prayers of our hearts and spirits be heard and tended to as we lift them to you now in this time of Holy Silence.
All that we share and pray, we do so in the precious and powerful name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our…”