Piankitank Priest

4th Sunday of Lent B

March 18, 2012

John 3:14-21

During the first three weeks of Lent we considered various aspects of our covenant relationship with God and the privileges and responsibilities that flow from it.

Today we turn our gaze on God’s covenant relationship with us, and we are astounded at what we perceive.

Despite our infidelity, God remains faithful to us;

despite the steps we take toward our own destruction, God continues to offer us a second chance at life.

Such is the “depth and breadth and height” of God’s love.

However—and it is a significant however—God does not force anything upon us. We are free to choose.

We can accept God’s loving gestures, or we can refuse them.

We see this in today’s readings.

Before the Israelites could return to the land, they had to return to God.

In the Gospel account, Nicodemus was told that people can choose to believe or not believe in Christ;

they can prefer darkness to the light.

There has always been a choice.

Today the choice is ours to make.

Will we make it?

Very few people explicitly choose against God, but can we honestly absolve ourselves of actions that resemble those described in the first reading?

Haven’t we—today’s political leaders, religious leaders or ordinary people—sometimes “added infidelity to infidelity?”

Do we heed the warnings of God’s messengers, or do we scoff at them—even silence them?

Are we not sometimes so entrenched in our own transgressions that we do not see how the consequences of our arrogance may cause our world to fall down upon us?

If we are honest, we must admit that this has indeed been the case in our personal lives;

lately we recognize that it has happened in our church;

it has certainly been the situation in our country and in the broader world.

This may have been the case in the past and perhaps even in the present, but what about the future?

We are not bound to perpetuate such deplorable situations.

We are able to make new choices.

So—what will we choose?

Despite this focus on our own sinfulness and the dire consequences that flow from it, the predominant theme for this Sunday is divine mercy.

But we can comprehend its magnanimous character and boundless scope only if we see it in relation to our own culpability.

As the readings show us how important it is to acknowledge our guilt and to return to God,

they concentrate on God’s eagerness to enfold us in the warm embrace of divine mercy.

Confident of God’s merciful love, we are able to repent, return to God and start anew.

Like the people of ancient Israel, we can indeed rebuild our broken lives and our disgraced church.

We can create a world based on cooperation rather than competition, on respect rather than discrimination.

God’s love has been offered; the choice is ours.