27^th Sunday of Ordinary Time (C); October 2, 2022

Hb 1:2-3;2:3-4.  Ps 95.  2 Tim 1:6-8,13-14.  Lk 17:5-10

Deacon Jim McFadden

            Habakkuk is really having a bad day.  The poor guy faces violence and destruction and he yells out to God:  “I cry for help but you do not listen!  Why must I look at misery?  Why don’t you intervene?” (Hb 1:2-3). 

            Like Habakkuk we’ve all been there as you can’t get through this life without experiencing profound loss and near despair; sometimes life gets so hard that we feel, “This is just too much; what’s the point?”  So, along with Habakkuk , we cry out, which acknowledges that we can only do so much and that we are radically dependent upon the divine power.  Our cry is really one of hope; one would not turn to God if we didn’t think that God could make things better, that he would intervene.  But, Habakkuk’s cry is lamenting God’s apparent indifference. It seems that God has turned a deaf ear to his anguish.  God just doesn’t seem to be there, that he’s missing in action.  So, what grieves the prophet and us is the apparent absence of God’s tender care when we need him the most. 

            So, we yell out to God:  “You’ve got to do something!  You’ve got to be God here and now!  Please make this situation better.  Oh, God, remove my pain and suffering!”

            God does finally respond to Habakkuk, not with an easy answer or a quick-fix, but with a vision.  We’re not told what the vision is, but he’s instructed to write it down on tablets so that the message can be announced at the appointed time. 

            From the perspective of the risen and glorified Christ, we know that the appointed time has come and that the vision has been revealed to us, but it’s probably not what we’ve been looking for.  It’s the foolish vision of the Cross that draws us into the mystery of Faith that Jesus speaks  of in the Gospel.  Just what does the Cross entail?

            • the Crucifix is not a symbol of progress, success, pleasure, or power;

            • the Crucifix is not an icon of the American experience;

            • the Crucifix is a sign of vulnerability, emptiness, abandonment, and     

              powerlessness.

The vision is simply the Paschal Mystery: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  Jesus reveals the Paschal Mystery not so that we can spectate and applaud what he as done, but participate in the same mystery.  Death and resurrection is  our path as well.

            Do we want that vision.  If so, we have to join Apostles and say to Jesus, “Lord, increase my faith, which  is the starting point.  We hear in today’s Gospel that “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you would be able to say to (this) mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted into the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Lk 17:6).  The mulberry is a robust tree, deeply rooted in the ground and is very resistant to the winds.  Thus, Jesus wants us to understand that faith, even it is small, can have the power to uproot something formidable as the mulberry. And, not only that, but it can cast it into the sea, which is even more improbable.  The point being is that nothing is impossible for those who have faith because they are not relying upon their strength but in God who can do anything.  We just have to tap into his power not our own. 

            This kind of faith is not proud or self-referential.  It does not have grandiose pretensions, but recognizes that without God we can’t do anything good.  So, it is a faith that is humble, which feels a great need for God and in its smallness surrenders itself to God, trusting fully in God.  It is a faith that gives us the ability to look with hope in the daunting circumstances of our life and helps us to even accept defeat, failure, and suffering with the awareness that evil will never have the last word.

            How can we be assured that we have such faith that is, while very small, is genuine, pure, and simple?  The measure of faith is contained in service.  Jesus brings this point home with a parable, which at first blush is disconcerting, because it presents the figure of an overbearing  and indifferent master.  But this master’s modus operandi highlights the core of the parable, which is the servant’s attitude of willingness to do the master’s will no matter what.  Jesus wishes to say to us that this is how people of faith are with regard to God the Father: they completely give themselves over to his will no matter what—without calculation, pretexts, or convenience. 

            This attitude towards God is also reflected in the life of the community: it is shown in the joy of being at service towards one another, finding one’s reward in the act itself not the outcome, and not in the recognition and benefits that may be gained from it.  This is the point that Jesus is making at the end of the narrative when he says to us, “When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do” (v. 10).

            “Unworthy servants”—that is, we do what God expects of us not because we’re going to be thanked or rewarded, but simply because it is God’s will, which is reason enough.  “We are all unworthy servants” is a recognition of humility: God is God and we’re not.  So, we simply do the Father’s will, which does much good for the Church and recalls the right attitude as we go about our ministry: namely, humble service, which Jesus models for us by washing the feet of the disciples (cf. John 13:3-17).  And, driving home the point, the Lord says, that “If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet” (v. 14).

            So, brothers and sisters, find a place to serve, which will reveal your faith.  I don’t think we can be rightly situated in the world or in our relationship with God, if we’re not giving our life away.  The 12-steppers get it: they know if you’re not giving it away, you’re don’t really have it because the nature of the Paschal Mystery is the outpouring of itself and has to be passed on according to the gift that you are. 

            So, love the vision of Christ; rekindle the flame of faith in our time and place.  Habakkuk had done his part; now, is the appointed time for us to live  the vision!  Amen.