I was thinking of George this week when reading the passage in Luke about the man in the vineyard pleading with the owner to give him time to ‘dig around’ the stubborn vine, which bears no fruit, ‘and manure it’.
Moses is such a key figure because he was the one who emphasised the need for a response from the people. Up to then the people of Israel had been carried along like young children in a family who never have to make a decision. Now they had to decide and Moses gives them a stark choice which we read on the very first day of Lent after the Ashes: ‘I set before you life or death, blessing or curse.’ Well, we know what they did. As Elijah put it, they stood on one leg one time and another another.
God waited and goes on waiting. He gave them time and he gives us time. The world is groaning in one great act of giving birth (Romans 8). When I came to Zimbabwe (it was still Rhodesia), I remember being shocked to see many of my fellow countrymen and women supporting Ian Smith. Surely, they had learnt, after hundreds of years of English rule in Ireland, that oppression of the people you rule brings no blessing? Much more seriously, and topically, surely the Jews, who were so unbelievably cruelly treated by the Nazis in the 1940s, have learnt what it must be like for the Arabs they now rule to be treated ‘without mercy’?
Why do we take so long to learn the lesson Moses told the people: ‘God is full of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in faithful love …’ (Ex 34:6). This is the message given to the very people who are now full of anger towards the people whose land they took and who have tried to protest. And as a result, they too are full of anger and resentment. How long will it take? How long must the vinedresser dig around?
These thoughts take us far away from our own daily reality. But we have to keep reminding ourselves that justice and peace are contagious. The more we try in our small way to live justly and bravely, the more ripples will go out to stir the waters of compassion and ultimately peace.
23 March 2025 Lent Sunday 3C Ex 3:1…15 1Cor 10:1…12 Lk 13:1-9
We regret to inform our readers that after 20 years of publication this 1000th edition of Ngoma column will be the last. We are extremely grateful to the author for his faithful crafting of these inspirational columns every week for the past 20 years. Many people have been comforted, challenged, moved, encouraged and blessed by the wise and thought-provoking words of Ngomakurira. We trust The Almighty will reward him richly.We are delighted that many of these columns have been immortalised in book form by Weaver Press. For more info please contact weaver@mango.co.zw
Post published in: Faith