Mass readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Habakkuk 1.2-3; 2.2-4 Psalm 95.1-2, 6-9 2 Timothy 1.6-8, 13-14 Luke 17.5-10
The gospel passages of recent weeks have been focussed on the nature of discipleship with its call to prayer and service; for example, last week we had the mandate of charity to the poor and marginalized. To borrow a phrase from Ecclesiastes, we’ve been presented with the business with which we are to be kept busy.
But prior to undertaking this business, there must be this radical act of surrender to Christ, of acceptance of his mercy, of reconciliation with God through him. That is the grain of faith, the tiny mustard seed, that initial concession of authority to the Son of God.
Given that demand, I can see how people, the first to hear Jesus’ teaching, and those of us who’ve just come to pay attention to him more recently, I can understand how we can kind of look past that to other mandates of the disciple’s life as the substance of Christian living: to be more charitable toward others, to practice forgiveness, to love our enemies. And those things would likely strike a lot of people as the real hard part of Christianity; but at heart, that’s a gamble on oneself – can I do it? Maybe I can, and I can understand this as a virtuous life and so worthy of my efforts. It avoids making the real wager; to trust in Christ in a very real way, and not simply as part of a rote statement of faith that might roll off our tongues when we recite the creed, or make baptismal promises on behalf of our children. Do we really believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that through him, and only him, can we be saved, redeemed; in terms more intelligible to people today – is this the guy who can show me the way through the perils of life such that in whatever time I have, I will have meaning, purpose, true fulfilment of soul and peace in my spirit, and a confidence that this life is only part of a greater life connected to the source of life, God.
I can imagine that for the first of Christ’s followers, those first century Jews of the Galilee, some of what Jesus had to say was taken on with some resignation: “Love your enemies…” this is required for participation in the Kingdom of God; and they would understand the kingdom as a radical program that might just restore Israel – so, let’s give it a try.
“Love your enemies” was a major challenge to them, as it is to us. I’ve spoken before about the difficulties of life at that time, and the sense of threat that Jews, and indeed, most people, lived under; and that enemies weren’t simply people you didn’t particularly like, but were those who were actively hostile toward you: Roman colonists trying to displace you from your homeland, the culture of the empire that was converting your young people out of their faith and into holding pagan, “Roman” values; and as for the local rulers, they weren’t friends but collaborators with the forces that were fast extinguishing the community. Enemies were everywhere.
It would have been a lot to take on in first century Galilee; it’s a lot to take on in 21st century Ontario.
We shouldn’t forget that there were other spiritual offerings out there at the time either; other religious messages that held a great deal of appeal because they didn’t ask you to love your enemies, or to forgive those who had hurt you, or to be merciful, or particularly generous to the poor and marginalized, let alone to strive to make them brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is all to say that it’s very human for people to go shopping around for the best spiritual deal; to ask of the latest messiah, or the yogi, the mystic, the wise man, “what must I do to earn heaven, have final justice, eternal peace?” What will it cost? And then see if you can make the payments.
The Pharisees, we know, offered a deal: follow the strict letter of the law, right down to the least of religious regulations; not only will that please God, but if enough of us do it, he will free Israel, vanquish our enemies, restore the kingdom and put us on top, above all other kingdoms and empires.
Today we still have a lot of that thinking, and there are major religions that have that transactional thinking at their core; and it converts many people frustrated by the evil corruption of this fast-degenerating western civilization. A strict religion will save me, save us.
Today’s secular deal is a very popular one despite it’s not offering that much. Eternal life is not part of what the culture offers non-religious, but there is a deal: accept whatever nonsense as reality, however obviously contrary it is to the truth, and you can think of yourself as a good person – we shouldn’t underestimate how important that is to people.
But if we as Christians, at least those who are ostensibly Christian, understand Christianity as work in exchange for heaven, in any sense as a “deal” with a pay-off for us, we’ve missed the point. We’ve either signed up for a lot of hard work and come to resent it; or we’ve already quit and gone looking for that better deal elsewhere.
Jesus will have none of that thinking; and Jesus’ message, for all his talk of prayer, and forgiveness, and charity, was not that prayer and forgiveness and charity will save you.
It’s believing in him that saves you. Faith in Him was and is the answer, faith in Him even as infinitesimal as a mustard seed.
With that faith we could uproot a hundred-year-old mulberry tree, towering twenty feet over our heads and plant it in the sea; we could move mountains. We could live as our Lord has commanded, and find joy in it… provided we, indeed, have faith in Him.
Not faith in charity, not faith in forgiveness, not faith in prayer. Our confidence in these as the hallmarks of discipleship, as the way to holiness and eternal communion, only comes of faith in Jesus Christ.
Apart from faith in Him, this is all just so much work – we’re just meeting the requirements of the law, we are being obedient slaves focussed on the work and afraid of the consequences if we fail to do it. And so, what joy is there in it? how does this free us? We are then like slaves coming in from the fields, dirty and tired, dreading to meet with our master who is going to give us more work making his dinner.
Jesus, earlier in Luke’s gospel tells a very similar parable to this one. In that story, the master tells his servants to sit down, and he puts on an apron, and he serves them. These servants have similar duties, but Jesus talks about them as deserving the master’s service because they are watchful slaves, they look for the master’s return even as they work; they labour in expectation of his coming.
“Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes…” (Luke 12.37)
Our first duty, our first act of true faith is to believe that Jesus Christ can save us and to watch for him in this life; to see how his sacrifice on the cross redeems; how His love rescues. Once you become watchful and aware of Him as the one who has come and will come again, there is no burden that cannot be borne, no struggle that cannot be endured, no sacrifice that cannot be offered by us. What we do in this world is then not done then out of obligation, or as part of a transaction; it is done out of joyful thanksgiving because, my God, we are saved. And so, when we come in from the fields, dirty and tired, we don’t encounter a glowering taskmaster who has yet more work for us to do, but one who greets us as friends.
And so, when we come into this place; we may come dirty and tired, worn out by the world; but it is the master who invites us to sit down to a meal he provides; and it is not nourishment that comes from the sweat of our brows, but rather from his very substance, from his very self comes the Eucharist.
Whatever we receive we have not earned, because our God does not pay his children, his adopted sons and daughters; we are not to be in his employment, or suffering in his enslavement, but we are meant to be whom he has created us to be as his children who represent Him to the world, and so, in joy He invites us to his table like a family at Thanksgiving. Recall the story of the prodigal from two weeks ago, the father says to his one son, all that I have is yours; it is for us to believe that is true for us in Christ Jesus.
I come into this church when it is empty to pray, I sit here and there; and I fix my eyes on that tabernacle, and I look at that great crucifix, and my every effort is to believe more deeply in my Lord and his story of life, death and resurrection, because if he who is who says he is, and his story is true, then my petty struggles are all worth it. I’m working that mustard seed’s worth of faith. But more than my private prayer, I need to come in from the fields with you, and to celebrate this Eucharist with you. Not just because it is the fulfilment of my vocation, but rather because if I can bring my tiny grain of faith to this, and you bring your fragments, bits and pieces, then this place fills with a greater faith, and the Holy Spirit will not fail to nourish us further in what we so need: more faith.
Increase our faith, the disciples demanded – it starts with trusting in Him, believing in Him. Then, we can plant that tree in the ocean, move that mountain, feed the poor, minister to the lonely, bring hope to all. Amen.