My mother was a great cook and rather good at making pastries – cakes, pies and my favorite, cream puffs filled with real whipped cream and drizzled with dark chocolate. Whenever we would celebrate our birthday, my mother would let us choose what we wanted for dinner, including dessert; what a treat that was! My mother was also good at teaching us how to cook and eager to help us do well. One day, as my mother’s birthday approached, my older sister, Yolanda, announced that she would make the dessert: cherry pie, my mother’s favorite. Yola was only 11 years old but she was very sure of herself. We weren’t so sure and we teased her about it. Of course, this only made her more determined to try it! That Saturday morning, she shooed us out of the kitchen but we watched through the window in the kitchen door as she carefully measured out the flour, rubbed in the cold lumps of butter and added the icy water. But, as those of you who have made pies know, it is not so easy and it requires a great deal of patience and expertise. Before long, the rolling pin, kitchen counter and Yola herself were covered in grayish lumps of wet flour. We could tell that she was getting frustrated but she was determined not to ask for help. The harder she tried, the worse it got. Finally, she threw the mess of flour and butter on the counter and cried out for help. Mom, who had been doing laundry next door, gently pushed us aside and came in to help. She helped Yola clean up and they started all over again, this time under my mother’s careful guidance. In the end, Yola regained her composure, learned some important lessons in pastry-making, and we all were able to enjoy a delicious cherry pie as we celebrated Mom’s birthday! All of this was the result of love, and we all learned many lessons in love that day!
It is love that pervades today’s readings: misdirected love, half-hearted love and total love. In today’s first reading, we hear the Cliff Notes summary of God’s love for his people in ancient Israel. As we hear in the reading, “early and often” God sent messengers to his people to lead them to him “for he had compassion on his people.” Despite their misdirected love, turning away to love and worship false gods – the abominations of the nations that we hear about in that reading – God continues to love them. And then, when they were at their lowest point – slaves to the king of Babylon – God saved them by, of all people, a foreigner – Cyrus, the King of Persia! St. Paul picks up this same theme as he speaks to us in today’s second reading: “even when we were dead in our transgression,” Paul wrote, God brought us to life through his son. And, how did he do that? Through the cross!
We hear in today’s Gospel about the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus at night for fear of being discovered, thus demonstrating his half-hearted love. Jesus tells him that the Son of Man must be lifted up so that “everyone who believes in him may have eternal life!” That is why the centerpiece of every Catholic Church all over the world is a crucifix. It reminds us of what we heard proclaimed so plainly in today’s Gospel: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” Later on in the same Gospel of John, we will hear Jesus assert, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Our God couldn’t demonstrate his love for us any more clearly than by offering his own son.
What is striking is that God’s love for us has nothing to do with how good we are or even how hard we try. Quite the opposite, it is often when we find ourselves “dead through our sins” that God comes closest to us to show us that it is not from us but “is the gift of God.”
St. Paul goes on to remind us that we are God’s handiwork. Becoming God’s works of art requires handing ourselves over to be recreated in Christ, shaped by the Father’s love and given a new life in the Holy Spirit. This happens most profoundly when we give up on our own efforts: when we admit to ourselves that we are lost, at the dead end of our own plans and weaknesses, just as my sister finally did.
It is good for us to think about this as we continue our Lenten journey. We have been called to observe Lent through more intense prayer, through fasting and a generous sharing of what we have. On this, the fourth Sunday of Lent, many of us are feeling like my sister, Yola, in the kitchen: frustrated because we just can’t do it! We’re not up to the enthusiastic commitments we made as we started Lent four weeks ago. Or, we may be feeling smug and content because we have been able to stick to our commitments. Of course, in their own ways, both of these places are places of mess and muddle – places of wilderness shaped by our determination to be self-reliant, achieving our own goodness. What the joy of this Sunday calls us to is something else: a real acknowledgement that our human mess is the exact place where God’s infinite and saving love is to be found. That’s why we call this Sunday Laetare Sunday – Laetare is Latin for “rejoice!” – and that’s why we have flowers in front of the altar!
So, let’s rejoice as we continue our Lenten journey, grateful to God who finds us in our mess, cleans us up and helps us to redirect ourselves back to him. Let us return to the light of Christ so that, as we hear in today’s Gospel, our “works may be clearly seen as done in God”!