The 2 trees

Two years ago, I had the opportunity of celebrating Holy Week on the island of Camotes. As someone from a country where Christians are but a minority, it was surprising for me to witness how the liturgy of the Holy Week moved from the confines of the parish into the roads, the villages, the public square. It was as if all of life on this island was sanctified by the commemoration of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. No area of the island was left untouched by this ritual reenactment. No person was left excluded from the communal remembrance of the redemptive action of Jesus.

On Holy Thursday on this island, twelve men were chosen from the community to represent the twelve apostles. As is done in the universal church, the priest washed the feet of these twelve, instructing all of us in the way of humble service for one another. What struck me as peculiar was that these twelve were very much involved in the following days and retained their first-century Palestinian garb in the liturgies of Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter. These twelve carried the cross in the procession of the Stations of the Cross through the streets. They cradled crucifixes for the veneration of the cross on Good Friday. They assisted at the Salubong, rejoicing in the encounter of the Risen Christ with Mary. I found this tradition to be rather peculiar for we know from the Gospels that none of the twelve apostles, except for John, were with Jesus at the time when he would have needed them most. In history, the twelve fled in fear for their lives abandoning their teacher and friend. In reenacted history, in the liturgies of Holy Week in Camotes, the apostles were given a second chance to right the wrong of deserting Jesus, they were given a second chance to be with him.

Today’s Gospel is about second chances. Although the fig tree had not born fruit for three years and appeared simply to “exhaust the soil”, the vinedresser implored the owner of the vineyard to give it one more year that he may tend to the tree, digging around it and fertilizing it, so that perhaps it will bear fruit in the following year (Lk 13:6-9). We who have been given second chances in our lives know how to be grateful for opportunities to right the wrong that we have done to others, to begin anew when we have failed miserably in our endeavors, to become whole again when we have been shattered, to be forgiven when we have sinned. Lent is truly a celebration of second chances and a call to conversion. What the parable reminds us is that we cannot continue to appeal to second chances indefinitely, we must strive for authentic and lasting conversion. However, we are not left to do this by ourselves. God tends to us in love, healing our broken hearts that we may bear fruits of love in all that we do.

In the first reading, we hear of another tree, a bush “burning, yet it was not consumed” (Ex 3:2) from which God reveals God’s plan to liberate Israel from oppression and from where God reveals God’s name: “ehyeh asher ehyeh”, “I am who am” also translated as “I shall be what I shall be” (Ex 3:14). It is curious that this theophany, this self-revelation of God, comes to Moses from a thornbush. Jewish commentators pondered on this and in a Midrash (an ancient Jewish commentary attached to the biblical text) God explains why he manifested himself in such a lowly bush: “Don’t you feel that I suffer anguish whenever Israel does? Know, therefore, from the character of the place from which I am speaking to you, out of the thornbush, that I as it were, share their suffering” (Shemot Rabbah 2:7). Indeed, God reveals God’s-self not in lofty mountain peaks or in a towering cedar but in humility, in the very midst of our suffering.

This too is the meaning of God’s self-naming. “I will be with you” (Ex 3:12) ‑ God’s existence is a being-with us — Immanuel — in all our brokenness, continually redeeming, healing and bringing us to life. God is not distant and aloof. God responds to our cries and our pain. God’s self-naming reveals that God is not something static. Rather, God is someone dynamic, involved in the tumultuous history of our personal and collective lives.

We read then of two trees that serve as rich literary devices, symbols if you like, to express profound truths of our relationship to God. The first tree, the fig tree symbolizes us. By ourselves, we are trapped in barrenness and are destined to be cut down. Yet, God cares for us and allows us to be fruitful once again, to have life to the full. The second tree, the burning bush is God in the midst of our suffering. God is right there with all of humanity where there is unrest, pain, illness, war, death. Yet God is not defeated by them. On the contrary, God shows God’s might by liberating us from our suffering. Thus, in the presence of God, like Moses, we find ourselves standing on holy ground.

In the novel Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his experiences of being in the concentration camps during World War II through the fictional character Eliezer, a pious Orthodox Jewish teenager. In a central event in the novel, Eliezer and the rest of the camp witness the hanging of a child, who dies slowly and in agony. Beholding this most cruel of sights, someone asks: “Where is God? Where is he?” Eliezer walks past the dying boy, his tongue pink and his eyes clear, and weeps. He says: “Behind me, I heard the same man asking: ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where is He? Here He is ‑ He is hanging here on this gallows.’”

Ultimately, what we are celebrating in Lent is not so much that we have second chances, but that God is with us in our suffering. It is not so much that we do not abandon Jesus on the cross, but that Jesus never abandons us in our suffering. I do not mean to glorify suffering, that is to miss the point entirely. Rather, Jesus embraces all of our suffering on the cross and redeems us. Why? Because God is love. And love never abandons, never deserts.

(Rev. Mark Aloysius, SJ is a Malaysian Jesuit who is graduating summa cum laude from Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila this month. He will be returning to Malaysia for pastoral ministry and for his forthcoming priestly ordination.)