The Way of 'Yes'

The Way of the Cross is the Way of Yes - of saying yes to the one who calls us, draws us, sticks with us, never abandons us, comes down to us, lives in us and through us and is ever creative, ever longing for newness of life not the deathliness of sin and all that harms. This is the One who beckons us on today, who invites us to drink deeply and eat richly from Christ whose body and blood is freely shared at such great cost yet is to be consumed without money or price by us today. The Way of the Cross is costly - of course - it is hard, it is tough, it does not stop. But it is the Way of Yes, it is the Way of Freedom, it is the Way of Joy and Life. Dear friends, say yes today to the Way of the Cross. And say no to all that deflects you, distracts you or denies you your place on this path. Whatever big 'no' you have woken up with this morning - be it the mists of the dreams that clouded your vision on waking, or the perhaps more usual mindsets of 'I am not worthy to be here', or 'I am a fraud' (which is my usual doubt-filled default setting) - whatever the big 'no' you carry - come and hear the Gospel invitation of Isaiah 55.1-9 for you and the Gospel of Second Chances of Luke (13.1-9). These are for you. Come and join the Way of Yes to God as you walk with me on the Way of the Cross today.

Look again at the Isaiah reading from the exultant and generous and invitational 55th Chapter. Isaiah never spares the truth. Isaiah does not gloss over the various dissonances of human life in the face of the God of justice and mercy and truth. Isaiah tells it as it is: you will know of the chapters of sorrow and grief over the sins of the people, all the ways in which the people have said no to the generosity and justice of God's ways and replaced them with meanness, and grasping and greed. But here in Chapter 55, Isaiah announces an invitation to abundant life. Isn't it amazing that here in the middle of Lent, a time historically of renunciation and cheek-sucking, we have the most bountiful descriptions of the invitation to abundant pardon and sharing? This is not the God who wags a finger or jabs an accusation - the God of NO! - it is the one who says YES, come. Isaiah describes living in God's way as being part of a feast of abundant life - of living generously and in the generosity of God.

We live in a time of state meanness - there is not enough to go round: austerity is a mindset, a choice. Yet, for life to exist everything is dependent upon generosity. What have you eaten today? It was produced by someone, someone dug it out of the ground or cared for it, someone else sweated and worked hard to produce it, someone gave of their time and life to transport it over vast distances. Food and drink production depends upon life poured out all over this globe. Brexit can't stop our inter-connectedness, our inter-relatedness, and interdependence. Life thrives on generosity. Who will you pour your life out for today? Who will you thank today?

We are all in debt to so many. But we do not get overwhelmed by this. Instead, we are set free to live, through God’s grace and kindness. We take and we receive. We sin and are sinned against. We receive forgiveness and we forgive. We live, stumblingly, bumbling along, by the prayer we pray every day – the Lord’s Prayer. And woven into that prayer is the profound truth – we are called to live as those who bear fruit of forgiveness and thankfulness. We live as people of the Way of the Cross, the Way of Forgiveness, the Way of God's Yes and many, many chances. The Parable of the Fig Tree is a story of grace but also bears a warning.

Sin is to be taken seriously. But the thought that suffering is a punishment for sin is something that needs challenging. Job challenged it when his friends counselled him that all the suffering that had befallen him must have been because of ‘something he had done’. Jesus challenged that attitude to. He faced the suffering of two groups of people – some pilgrims slaughtered by Pilate and the 18 people who died when a tower fell. Two tragedies that were the news of the day. The story doing the rounds as Jesus approached Jerusalem was that the suffering of those people must have been deserved. Jesus says simply – we have all sinned. The Galilean pilgrims and the people crushed by the Siloam tower were not especially bad or deserving. Jesus does not dwell on the blame game. Instead, Jesus gives us the enigmatic Parable of the Fig Tree.

The fig tree normally took three years to begin to bear fruit. This fig tree has been in the ground for three years. It’s had its chance, says the owner of the vineyard. But the gardener – a kindly figure in the story – suggests just one more year of nourishment. It gets another chance. How many chances do we need to bear fruit that will last? Oh, so many, is that not so? How long does it take for us to be humble and address our own sin rather than hurl blame at others? How long does it take for us to truly confess our own sins and receive the balm of forgiveness – one of the greatest blocks to receiving forgiveness can be our belief that we are useless – like the fig tree – and deserve condemnation.

But, dear friends, hear this – there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. He comes to us not as the harsh owner but the kindly gardener. On his tree he took all the blame that we might live free from blame. He comes as the one who longs for the fruitfulness of forgiveness not the barrenness of blame.

So often, our media – and I was one of those who worked in the media – is driven by blame culture. ‘Who is to blame?’ is often a question you will hear John Humphries ask over breakfast or the Radio 5 presenter hosting a talk show over lunch or an investigative reporter in a late night documentary. When people are knocked out of shape by pressure and stress – you and I, Prime Ministers and football managers – all of us, we all start to seek to blame, point fingers, try and find a scapegoat for our situation. Human societies – from the tribal living of Iron Age civilisation to the tribal living of our current culture – always seek to find scapegoats or enemies.

What we know is that human thriving, the kind of thriving that will takes us into fruitful living rather than the desert of blame, will only happen when we understand the Gospel message that we all of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.

When we kneel at a communion rail and hold out our hands for the bread and wine that represent Jesus’ loving life laid down, we are all equal. We are all saying we need this nourishment, this sacrament of grace, this bread of forgiveness and wine of life. This is the Way of the Cross in action. The Way of Invitation. Why do we expend so much of our energy on blame-life that does not satisfy? ‘Listen to me carefully,’ says the Lord through Isaiah the prophet, ‘and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me; listen so that you may live.’

Lent is a time of freedom. It is a time of fruitfulness. Hear the good news of the Parable of the Fig Tree today. This is the tree of the second chance. It is also the tree of warning. If we refuse chance after chance after chance from God – if we turn a deaf ear to God’s call, if we let our hearts become calloused with hardness, meanness, blame and scapegoating, there will come a time not when God has shut us out but when we, by our deliberate choice, have shut ourselves out from God.

God save us from that! Let us be People of the Way of the Cross - the Way of Yes to God.