27th
Ordinary Sunday (Year C)
First
Reading: Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4 Second
Reading: 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14
Gospel Reading: Luke
17:5-10
“LORD, I
BELIEVE; HELP MY UNBELIEF; INCREASE MY FAITH!”
Was
it Archimedes, the ancient Greek scientist, who said, “Give me a
lever, long enough, and a place to put it on, and I will move the
world?” What a claim! Surprising of course.
Theoretically,
the claim of Archimedes is perfectly sound. But evidently, in the
physical world, it may seem an impossibility. However, in the
spiritual realm, it is definitely possible. For, there IS such
a lever, and it is called 'FAITH'; there is a place to put it
on, and it is called 'GOD'; and there is a power that can
swing that lever, and it is called 'MAN'.
Another claim we also find in the
Gospel Reading of today from St. Luke: “If
you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this
mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted
and planted in the sea,' and
it would obey you.” Is
it really true? Can it really happen? ...........?
Today
is the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time; and the Scripture
Readings focus on the virtue of faith. Faith is a cardinal
virtue and is the most basic of all. It is that virtue which makes us
hold on to God's hand. It is about belief, and it is about trust and
loyalty. Do we really have faith in God? Today we are called to be
faithful servants of God.
“WHERE
IS GOD IN ALL THIS?”:
Habakkuk
is one of the lesser known prophets. From indications in his short,
three-chapter book, we glean that he ministered in the years
immediately before the fall of the Southern Kingdom of Judah when
Babylon was at the apex of it’s imperial powers. He was witnessing
the overwhelming destructive power of that pagan empire.
In the First Reading of
today we see Habakkuk is in a situation of distress and he cries out
to the Lord in his distress. He laments the mistreatment of the
chosen people by the invaders. His view is that evil and destruction
are without sense, without justifiable reason. Even God's faithful
ones have been trampled on by their enemies. He pleads with God for
an explanation. Why doesn't God help them? He perceives that his
outcry to God remains unheeded. God then speaks to the prophet,
telling him to write down a vision that reveals how God will
intervene in the future. The violent ones will, by their sinfulness,
bring about their own defeat. The just ones, by their fidelity to
God, will enjoy lasting happiness.
Sometimes
we may have the same feelings as the prophet in today’s First
Reading. Why is there so much injustice and tyranny and oppression
everywhere? Why so much outrage and violence? Often, in these
situations, people are reduced to a sense of helplessness and
hopelessness. One might begin to ask, 'Where
is God in all this?'
Why does he not protect his children, especially the most
defenseless? And the answer is, if we are a just person and act
justly to others with integrity, our faith will be strengthened as a
result of our living, and even though the rewards are delayed, we can
be sure they will come.
“THE FAITHFUL SERVANTS OF
GOD”:
In
today's Gospel Reading from St. Luke, we hear Jesus teach about faith
and service
to God. The context is a continuing dialogue between Jesus and his
followers about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. The two
sayings of Jesus in today's gospel make us wonder about the other
side of the story. When the apostles ask, "Lord,
increase our faith,"
are they secretly quite satisfied with their record of faithfulness?
Jesus tells them that if they really have faith they can tell a tree
what to do, and it will do it! The story about the faithful servant
tells us that Jesus' disciples should be grateful to God. When we do
God's will, we should not expect to receive a gold medal. We have,
after all, done no more than "what
we were obliged to do."
a) “Lord, increase
our faith!”
Certainly being a
disciple of Jesus requires faith, and the apostles were discovering
that. They must have been impressed by the assurance that Jesus had,
by the way he spoke of God as Father‚ with a conviction and an
intimacy that they had not met before. And understandably they wanted
to have the same conviction and intimacy; they wanted to see things
the way Jesus did and share his outlook. It is often said that 'faith
is caught, not taught,' and they must certainly have
caught it from his assurance and conviction. But they realized that
their faith was still weak and fumbling. They had a long way to go
before they could know the Father as he did, know His will and
purposes. And so they said, “Lord,
increase our faith!”
Rather disconcertingly,
Jesus does not answer their question, at least not directly. Instead,
he seems to give a mild reproach, “If you
had faith the size of a mustard seed...you could say to this mulberry
tree, 'Be uprooted and planted
in the sea, and it would obey you.'”
It's not the 'quantity'
of faith, but the 'kind'
of faith, that matters. Even a tiny speck of a faith that is
sincere and wholehearted, that totally trusts God, can achieve
amazing and seemingly impossible things.
But why does he give this
bizarre example of the mulberry tree, which has an extensive root
system, and it would be difficult to uproot, let alone plant in deep
water? And what would be the point anyway? To impress people by
showing miraculous powers? So it is not a saying which should be
taken quite literally. Instead it is surely one of Jesus' typically
Hebraic exaggerations to emphasize his point. He is saying that by
faith you can do the difficult, the unexpected, the unlikely‚ if
this chimes in with God's purposes. With his metaphor of the mustard
seed, a very tiny seed, Jesus tells them that even with a small
amount of faith, God will hear them and answer their needs, even if
it was something that needed a miracle. But Jesus also tells them
that their faith at this point is very weak. He doesn’t mean this
as a put down. Jesus explains that the Apostles do have faith and
that with the amount of faith they already have, they can do
impossible things.
Perhaps our faith may be
smaller than the already small mustard seed; i.e. it is not big
enough to move mountains. But it should be big enough to enable us to
reach out to God's hand so that He will help us walk up the mountains
of problems confronting us. To have faith is to acknowledge our
inadequacies as we place ourselves entirely in God's hands.
b)
“What we were obliged to do”:
The next part of the
Gospel Reading of today presents 'the
parable of the dutiful servant,' who is expected to go
about his ordinary tasks in a responsible, devoted and self-giving
way. Luke often uses the roles of the master and the servant or slave
to talk about discipleship, faith and faithfulness. Here the point is
that you can't expect a reward if all you are doing is your duty. The
bottom line is that obedience is not a means to some reward. It is
simply what being an apostle and a disciple is about. Christ,
in the Gospel, reminds his followers that they are 'the
faithful servants of God'
and that their humble submission is necessary to grow in faith.
Therefore, the quality of our relationship with God must accord with
what the Gospel says at the end, “We
are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.”
“LOYALTY TO THE GOSPEL”:
In
the Second Reading of today St Paul exhorts Timothy to remain firm in
his vocation, to preach the truth without being inhibited by human
respect. To preach the Christian faith at a time of terrible
persecution requires great courage. 'Loyalty
to the gospel' always involves a certain amount of
hardship for any disciple. Anyone who teaches or preaches the faith
must also be true to the tradition handed down by Jesus through the
apostles. St.
Paul encourages Timothy to place his faith in the Holy Spirit, which
will enable him to be a courageous witness to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. While it is true that we are merely servants, the Holy Spirit
can do wonders with those who place their faith and trust in him.
The
2nd
Timothy text is a powerful reminder of what Gospel faith is and what
it is not. It is not passive, disengaged, groveling and diminishing.
It is, rather, the fruit of God’s Holy Spirit, the Spirit of power,
love and self-control. Power here connotes strength to engage and to
do something; love is that profound compassion which is larger than
all other emotions; and self-control is that prudent self-discipline
which allows one the best of responsible freedom and integrity; in a
word, wisdom.
CONCLUSION:
Faith
is not faith if kept in reserve for emergencies. Faith is lived daily
and shapes the way we think and behave. It is about receptivity to
God's presence in our daily lives and it is seen in our faithful
behavior. Someone has said, 'Charity means
pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means
hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith
means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all.'
It
is easy to say that we have faith in Jesus when everything is going
fine. But when there are big problems, crises, calamities, well....
But Jesus wants us to have faith in him, even and especially in
moments of crisis so that we can triumph over them. Today’s message
is an invitation to many of us who have found life to be unbearable
because God seemed to have abandoned us or God seemed to be silent.
Faith is trust, not certainty. Our commitment to God’s sovereign
Will will enable Him to forge for us a solution beyond our
expectation.
In
conclusion, sometimes people say that, in response to the tragedy
they have encountered, they have lost faith, as if they have lost
their house keys or their wallets. The truth is, we can never lose
our faith. We may be struggling to allow faith to shape our lives
according to God’s sovereign Will. In the light of the apostles
asking the Lord to increase their faith, we ask that He will grant us
the grace of insight on how to allow our lives to be more and more
shaped by our trust in Him. Let us then today humbly pray to God and
say, “LORD, I
BELIEVE; HELP MY UNBELIEF; INCREASE MY FAITH!” And
this is the Good News of today.
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