We are approaching the half-way point in Lent. In some circles people are asked whether they are having a good Lent. Are you? What does that mean? I believe that ‘having a good Lent’ means that we are growing in our faith, learning more about God, spending time with Him and preparing for the Good News of Easter. It is about enabling others to share in this and letting God use us in the best way. Today’s readings do not at first seem to directly relate to this but with a bit of analysis they can help us in our Lenten journey.

Today’s Gospel reading looks as if it is starting with a question about ‘suffering’ but in fact it is much more complicated than this. Although we are not told exactly what had happened in Luke’s gospel, other sources suggest that some people had been on a pilgrimage, offering sacrifice at the Temple, when Pilate sent in the troops, perhaps because he feared a riot, and slaughtered them. The fact that the blood of these victims was mixed with the blood of the animals for sacrifice served to pollute the Temple in addition to the tragedy of their deaths. The people were coming to deliver this shocking news to Jesus and it may be that they were warning Jesus that Jerusalem was a dangerous place to be. However they were also trying to understand what had happened and why. Was it the beginning of something worse? In the previous chapter Jesus had been warning the people about the danger of hypocrisy and had told them the Parable of the Rich Fool. So it is perhaps not surprising that the people were asking Jesus whether the people who had been killed had deserved their fate. No doubt they were surprised by his response:

“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?”

“Don’t even go there!” Jesus seems to be saying, because you are just as bad as them and unless you repent you will also perish in a similar way. But the key to this is that IF they repent they won’t perish. So we are reminded again that it is not appropriate for us to pass judgement on others, we need to concentrate on our own failings and deal with those. If we repent, we will be forgiven, if we get obsessed with others’ faults, rather than our own, we may fail to repent and we will have to deal with the judgement that is rightfully ours.

The story of the fig tree, in the second part of the lesson shows that God is willing to give extra time for repentance but eventually this will run out. Do not be like the Rich Fool and assume that you can repent at leisure – make sure you devote your time, talents and energy to God now, not when you get round to it. So we must concentrate our energies on serving God – this will require us to spend time with Him, learning from Him and listening to Him.

The Old Testament reading also tells us that we must spend time with God but does so by pointing out our need of Him every day. We should not delude ourselves into thinking that we can manage without Him, to do so will result in all sorts of long and short-term problems. Isaiah is not just speaking about the physically thirsty, but also the spiritual dryness. Don’t waste your money, eat what is good for your soul. For this we need to come to God. Further on we are told, as in Luke, to

Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
But this invitation is for everyone:
Let the wicked forsake their way,
And the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

And just so we really get the message:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.

We probably think we know what that means, and maybe we do but I think it can be illustrated by looking at the story of Zaccheus. Jesus was on his final journey to Jerusalem and was passing through Jericho. The man Zaccheus, who was a tax collector, had obviously heard about Jesus and he wanted to see him for himself. Tax collectors were used as pawns by the Romans who wanted to collect as much tax as possible. To encourage the collectors to do this they were given a percentage of the tax that they collected and no doubt many collected more than was due, to help their own finances. These people were seen to be helping the state to repress God’s people, and thus to be against God as they helped the Roman Empire to expand and grow. No doubt Zaccheus was lonely and he knew it would be no good asking for a place in the front of the crowd, in fact he was very brave to consider mixing with the crowd at all as they were no doubt hostile towards him. Being rather short he realised that he needed to climb a tree if he was to see anything at all. He wanted to see this man everyone was talking about but I wonder what he expected.

When commanded to come down from the tree and play host to Jesus he acted without delay. Perhaps he was taken by surprise or maybe he had an inkling that Jesus could offer him something very special. Perhaps he had even heard the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. But whatever the background, Zaccheus was an unlikely person to receive God’s salvation. He certainly would not have been chosen by the Pharisees who considered that he was working for Rome and no doubt feathering his own nest in the meantime. But Zaccheus had need of salvation and through Jesus he found it. He was given the opportunity to sit and talk with the Son of God and that encounter changed him completely. His priorities changed and he no longer wanted lots of money. He had had his fill of possessions, what he needed was love and that day he met with the God of Love and his concerns were transformed. We hear no more of Zaccheus but we can learn a lot from his story.

God’s ways are not our ways and our thoughts are not His.   No one is to be deprived of God’s salvation and we, as His followers should be prepared to share that message with those we meet.

In the Lent groups this week we will be looking at how God calls us each out to fulfil our vocation. Unfortunately we are very good at putting up barriers which prevent us moving forward. It is tempting to sort out our lives first and then spend some time asking God what He wants us to do but of course that is the wrong way round. Zaccheus had sorted his life out, or so he thought, but because he was not living the way God wanted him to he was deeply unhappy. That is true of many today and God needs each one of us to tell others about Him.

If we are going to listen and act on God’s call we have to work at it and accept the consequences. We all have habits that can get in the way of God’s calling to us: maybe we are too busy to spend time in prayer or reading the the Bible; perhaps it has been a busy week at work and we really need to have a lie-in on Sunday rather than going to Church, or perhaps a bit of retail therapy would do us good. We can all come up with a long list of excuses but we need to stop, we need to show ourselves to be willing to change and God will help us. Repentance must mark the beginning of our journey just as it did for Zaccheus and just as we are exhorted to do in today’s Bible readings. And if only we will do that we, like Zaccheus, will find our lives transformed.
Three years ago I had no idea that I would be standing in this pulpit and if anyone had suggested it would be so I would have laughed. But after the APCM in 2007 I heard a still small, but insistent voice, calling me to be a Reader. Once I got over the shock I looked back over the last few years and l could see that there was a path laid which  had equipped me for this calling.  So I decided to go forward and see what happened.  There have been times when it has been very tough but I knew that if God was with me I could not fail.  God has a special job for each one of us.  Listen for that 'small quiet voice' speaking to you, trust Him who created you and gave you your gifts and use these to serve Him and tell the world of His Love.  If you listen to God calling you out you may often move out of your comfort zone, friends and family may question you as to why you are going in a certain direction but if God is speaking to you and you are listening to His call for you, you can do no other. God will support you through the ups and downs and you will be richly blessed.

During Communion the choir will be singing ‘Lead me Lord’ by Samuel Wesley. The words, based on verses from Psalms 4 and 5, say this:

Lead me Lord, lead me in thy righteousness, make thy way plain before my face.
For it is thou Lord, thou Lord only, that makest me dwell in safety.

Never underestimate what God may call us to be or do but know that we can trust Him to keep us safe as He makes His way plain.

Amen