Lectionary Reflection: Fourth Sunday of Lent

Readings:

• 2 Chronicles 36:14-16, 19-23
• Ephesians 2:4-10
• John 3:14-21

Thoughts for your consideration: by Fr. Stephen Dunn, CP

Last Sunday’s Gospel re-lived Jesus’ surprising and prophetic act of “cleansing” the Temple which had been magnificently re-built by King Herod. Today’s reading from Chronicles takes us further back in the history of the Temple. Back when its destruction triggered the Israelite Babylonian captivity. It had been laid waste because “all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people” had become unfaithful, despite the preaching of the prophets. The author remembers one of Jeremiah’s prophetic warnings. The exile will last: “Until the land has retrieved its lost Sabbaths, during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest while seventy years are fulfilled.”

That caught my eye. The Sabbath is the day each week when the devout are focused on the worship of God. When that focus has integrity, it means refraining from work — not just human labor, but also the work of cattle and even of the soil in the fields. Even the land is not to be forced to work for human gain. So there is a great irony in Jeremiah’s prophecy: “all the time it lays waste it shall have rest”. For seventy years, the people endured slavery for their sins, but the land, though laid waste, “shall have rest”… the rest entitled to it by the Sabbath.

Since Divine creativity pervades the Universe, it is fitting to understand our Earth as, in its own way, God’s Temple. In this century, we have (or surely ought to have) great apprehension about the growing threat to this Temple, due to the severity of climate change. I remember, some years ago, a musical lament called “Song for the Earth”. It grieved over what is happening to the trees, to the air, to the animals, and very plaintively, to the Oceans. The reference to the Oceans explained the mood: “When she dies, everything dies”. Current information affirms that the dying is well underway. For us, the land of “lost Sabbaths”, the land “laid waste” is the entire planet! The author of Chronicles, however, ends his account more positively. The destruction need not be final.

As we mark the middle of Lent today, our Liturgy too, is meant to be positive, to give us courage. Today is traditionally known as “Laetare Sunday”—“Rejoice Sunday”. Can there be rejoicing for the Temple of the Earth?

Many years ago, concern for the Earth at the United Nations inspired an observance called the Eco-Sabbath. It established an interfaith project to prayerfully begin allowing the land to regain its “lost Sabbaths”, as Jeremiah had expressed it.

 John the Evangelist takes up the theme of Jeremiah’s complaint about unfaithfulness. His comment is “people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” But, in his conversation with Nicodemus, when Jesus describes how that can be changed, he does not suggest a punishment, such as exile. He says, simply, when people see “the Son of Man lifted up” they will be cured of their evil, just as people were cured in the desert by gazing on an uplifted serpent. What will they see when they see Jesus lifted up on the Cross? Suffering, surely, but as St. Paul declares in the reading from Ephesians, “mercy [and] great love… By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God”. It seems so little to do in order to “raise up” the shattered Temple. We are to fix our gaze on “the gift of God”.

A recent book has discussed the implications of that kind of gaze. It urges us to look deeply at the gift in all dimensions of life, and especially of the Christ event. A shallow appreciation of gift won’t do. But a radical openness to the reality of gift can melt the life destroying tendencies that generate human destructiveness. In today’s Gospel, the Temple of Christ’s body is our major focus of gift-awareness. However we have every reason to extend this gaze of gratitude to the Temple of the Earth. The book makes that connection in its title: Gaia and Climate Change: A Theology of Gift Events.

Learning to gaze appreciatively at the gift of Earth may lead us perhaps to contemplative practices we would have avoided previously, feeling they were not overtly religious. To gaze at the Earth as a living organism (Gaia Theory) is to become astounded by the complexity of eco-systems, but especially to rejoice in their ability to weave the web of life. Together they provide the gift of life we know and enjoy as the biosphere. Cyrus was a pagan king. Nevertheless he was the catalyst to a renewal of faith among the Israelites. We have neglected the Temple of the Earth for too long. Although to some this wonder may seem merely secular, it can lead us back to religious reverence.

Abusing the Temple leads only to destruction and exile. Respect and gratitude for the Temple brings joy. Our Liturgy began: “Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her.” This is Laetare Sunday, let us rejoice that our Biosphere is indeed God’s holy Temple.

Questions for Reflection in your Faith Sharing Group:

• How is the environmental crisis affecting you and your community? 
• How is it affecting farming or coastal communities? 
• Is the image of environmental degradation affecting your spirituality and prayer life? 
• How do your public officials respond to the issues of the environment? 
• How are you demonstrating your commitment to promoting the integrity of creation?