Some teachers are really good at being teachers, and some are not. Some doctors are good doctors, and some are not. Some priests are really good at being priests and some are not. It is not that poor teachers, doctors, and priests lack intelligence. They are very bright. However, they lack hope. (Taken in part from “Lift Up Your Hearts”)

I am sure that my first grade teacher was very smart. I, however, wasn’t, and I had a hard time learning to count and do math problems. Instead of encouraging me and helping me to believe in myself, Sr. told me that I was hopeless. I may have been. But she didn’t have to tell me. To this day, I have a difficult time with math.

This past fall I saw an old friend standing in the hallway at the hospital. She was crying. She told me that her husband was very sick, and they were preparing for his death. He had a bad heart and lungs. That morning, one of his doctors told her that her husband wasn’t improving and nothing else could be done for him.

This was her second husband. She had buried her first husband a few years earlier. She did not know whether she could bury another.

As we talked, his other doctor came into the room. With compassion in his voice, he asked her husband how he was doing. “I’m not feeling too well, doc,” he replied. The doctor then said, “but your vital signs look better. I also got the lab report back, and it shows improvement as well. I think you will be fine.” With those hopeful words, the family’s attitude changed. I asked myself, “should the doctor have given them false hope?” I am not sure it hurt. He lived for five more months, which gave his wife time to grieve and prepare for his death.

The parable that Jesus tells about the gardener offers true hope. For three years, the owner of the fig tree had searched for fruit on the tree, but there was none. So he wanted the tree cut down. But the gardener convinced the owner to allow him to tend the tree for another year. “Let me give it a little more attention. I’ll prune it, cultivate around it, and fertilize it; and let us see if it bears fruit in the future.”

We don’t think of Lent as a season of hope. We think of it as a time of wandering through the harsh desert. Not much there to hope for. We think of Lent as a penitential time. We kneel and admit our sinfulness and conquer pride. We think of Lent as a time to pray more, fast more, and perform more works of charity. Behind all of these actions is a hopeful God -- a God who gave us his Son in the hope that we would reach out to him and follow in his ways of mercy, peace and love.

God is the ultimate gardener. Like the gardener, God looks at us with great hope because God loves us unconditionally. There is no sin too small or too big for God to forgive, no person unworthy of salvation. We only need to use God’s mercy, peace and love as tools to cultivate, prune and fertilize our Christian lives so that we might bear fruit.

Earlier I mentioned teachers, doctors and priests, noting that some are not good at what they do. But I said nothing about the priests. About three years ago, I went through a very difficult time in ministry. Shortly after the priest scandal broke, I actually thought about leaving ministry. I was not sure what God was calling me to do. My spiritual director observed that I seemed hopeless. If I didn’t have hope, how could I inspire others to hope? I began to pray that God rekindle the spirit of hope that was deep within me. May God cultivate that same hope within all of us.

sdrose@bellsouth.net
3-28-2007