The Audacity Of Faith!

(Homily 27^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Yr. C)

     The dominant theme of this Sunday’s liturgy of the word is faith, which reoccurred in the three liturgical readings. Faith is indeed an on-going process, for it ought to grow as we grow, and mature as we mature. Truly, the faith of our childhood cannot sustain us in our adulthood. However our experiences of faith reveal that sometimes we feel God's special presence, but at other times when life seems to be confusing, full of darkness and doubt, it appears that God is silent and seemingly absent. And yet, even in times of spiritual dryness and darkness, confusion and loneliness, God really is present. Behold, it is at such points and moments that the deepest religious experiences can occur, and the light of faith enables us to see reality from a new angle, for when we listen and dig deep we hear His voice. The word of God today offers us once again the possibility of interpreting the daily events of our life in the light of faith, of rediscovering the value and meaning of our faith and of discovering joy and enthusiasm in the expression of our faith. At the end of the first reading, the word of God accentuates that “the just shall live by faith”, St. Paul will later make reference to this phrase (cf. Rm.1:17; Gal.3:11) and the same phrase will equally have great resonance in the Christian doctrine. In the Gospel Jesus underlined the efficacy of faith, even a faith as little as a mustard seed. Lastly, in the second reading, St. Paul urges Timothy to bear witness to his faith in Christ Jesus, and to accept with faith and love the message that he (Paul) has passed on to him.

          The first reading (Hab. 1.2-3; 2:2-4) presents the state of violence and oppression in the time of Prophet Habakkuk. He could perceive violence, iniquity and plundering. Before this dramatic situation the prophet raised his voice of lamentation to God.  Prophet Habakkuk decried of the state of injustice and suffering in which the Israelites found themselves, and upon consideration of this state of things, he decided to make his appeal to God thus: “How long, Yahweh, am I to cry for help while you will not listen; to my cry, ‘Violence!’ in your ear while you will not save?” (Hab. 1:2). This is similar to the interrogation of Isaiah to Yahweh when he was called as a prophet and sent to deliver a message to the people, he asked: “Until when, Lord” (Is. 6:11). Sometimes just like Habakkuk when crisis come we concentrate on the crisis and not on God. Behold, the Lord responded and exhorts the prophet to have trust in Him and not to grow weary. It could appear that God is delaying, maybe is deaf or He does not see, but in truth He does not abandon those who put their trust in Him. God was not and did not remain silent over the pleas of Habakkuk, for He (God) later gave him His words thus: “Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets to be easily read. For the vision is for its appointed time, it hastens towards its end and it will not lie; although it may take some time, wait for it, for come it certainly will before too long” (Hab. 2:2-3). And the passage ended interestingly with the following words: “The upright will live through faithfulness” (Hab. 2:4b), indeed, no matter what the situation maybe, the just, those who fear and trust in the Lord will live by faith.

     The interrogations of Habakkuk to God are always raised by every Christian in distress in any time and epoch. The happenings in our world today are not too different from that described by Habakkuk, or worst still in our own case, violence, iniquity and plundering have been maximized. Many a times we are tempted to ask just like Habakkuk, ‘Lord, how long will you keep silent?”. The response that God gives us today is not different from the one He gave to Habakkuk: “The just will live by faith”. Indeed, faith is capable of giving life to believers. Pascal Blaise in his famous argument on the existence of God known as ‘Pascal’s Wager’ opined that man can bet on God, that God is a safe bet. He said that the belief (faith) in God is the best bet! The anguish and the doubts that the people of Israel were experiencing at that time are not far-fetched from what we are existentially experiencing today. As at the time of Habakkuk it was difficult for the people to continue to believe in God, likewise today, the happenings and events in our society seem to erode our sense of trust and confidence in God. However, in the face of all this, we cannot but bet on God, that is, to trust firmly in Him.

     The passage of the Gospel (Lk. 17:5-10) presents the episode of the apostles’ request to their Master, to increase their faith. But did Jesus increase their faith? No, because you cannot measure faith in a scale. Rather he admonished them that what matters is having faith, no matter how little. We need to activate always our faith and not to bother on how to increase it. The disciples of Jesus must have seen the enormity of his faith, which renders his words and works efficacious (healing and miracles), thus they asked for the increment of their own faith too. Before the giant faith of Jesus, the disciples could not grapple with the insignificance of their own faith; they must have felt very far from the ideal. And we may well ask: what is faith? It is a supernatural gift from God, in the words of St. Paul: “It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith, not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God” (Eph. 2:8). Jesus invited the apostles and he invites us in the same vein today to activate our faith, and when we activate our faith, it liberates and saves us, just as it did in the case of Barthimeus “Jesus said to him, ‘Go, your faith has saved you’. And at once his sight returned and he followed him along the road” (Mk. 10:52) and a whole lot of others (cf. Lk.7:50; Mk.5:34).

      Prior to the passage of today’s Gospel Jesus asked his disciples to detach themselves from riches and inordinate possession. He equally recommended that we should forgive “seven times a day” (Lk. 17:3-4), that is to forgive always. Certainly it is in the context and in the face of these exigencies of the Gospel that the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith (v.5). Prior to this, elsewhere, they have implored Him: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk. 11:1). In response to their prayerful demand Jesus told them: “If you had faith like a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea”, and it would obey you” (v.6). Most probably, the apostles least expected this type of response from Jesus, they asked him to increase their faith, and he reproached them that they do not even have faith as small as the mustard seed, otherwise they could have had power to uproot the mulberry tree and transplant it in the sea, that is to say, they could have had power to do things that are humanly impossible, because it is God himself who works in and through those who believe in him, “for nothing is impossible to God” (Lk. 1:37; cf. Mt. 19:26). What matters is the quality or the authenticity of our faith and not the quantity.

     As a matter of fact, the parable of the farmer and his servant which follows serves to clarify what it means to have faith. Jesus seems to present God in the image of a farmer, who is egocentric and greedy. But instead it signifies that in the Kingdom of God, our service has to be disinterested and gratuitous. The disciple of Christ has to be conscious of not bragging with his work and commitment, because all that he has and can do are given to him by God gratuitously, in the words of St. Paul: “Who made you so important? What have you got that was not given to you? And if it was given to you, why are you boasting as though it were your own?” (1Cor. 4:7). Indeed, to have a similar faith, that is committed to the service of the Lord and in his vineyard without ifs and buts, without vain glory (to seek one’s own glory) and presumption (to feel indispensable and important), we need to rediscover the splendor of a silent service that emanates from a convinced faith, “when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty”’ (v.10). Even though it is not easy, but that is the true faith, and as such, we need to pray ceaselessly asking God to increase our faith. Faith, indeed, continues to perform miracles!

     Our Christian life and sojourn will be meaningless without faith, for “It is impossible to please God without faith, since anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and rewards those who seek him” (Heb. 11:6). In this eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews we encounter an enumeration of some icons of faith, those who excelled in their commitment and faith in God, like Abel: “it was because of his faith that Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain…Though he is dead, he still speaks by faith” (v.4); Noah: “It was through his faith that Noah, when he had been warned by God of something that had never been seen before, took care to build an ark to save his family. His faith was a judgment on the world, and he was able to claim the uprightness that comes from faith” (v.7); Abraham: “It was by faith that Abraham obeyed the call to set out for a country that was the inheritance given to him and his descendants, and that he set out without knowing where he was going” (v.8); Sarah: “It was equally by faith that Sarah, in spite of being past the age, was made able to conceive, because she believed that he who had made the promise was faithful to it” (v.11); Isaac: “It was by faith that this Isaac gave his blessing to Jacob and Esau for the still distant future” (v.20); Jacob: “By faith Jacob, when he was about dying, blessed each of Joseph’s sons, bowed in reverence, as he leant on his staff” (21); Indeed, the list can continue on and on, but as the sacred author puts it: “What more shall I say? There is not time for me to give account of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, or David, Samuel and the Prophets” (v.32).

     From the message of the second reading (2Tm. 1:6-8.13-14) we could imagine that the situation of persecution in which Timothy and his community lived put their faith and their fidelity to the Gospel to test. As such, St. Paul exhorts Timothy as the Responsible (Bishop of Ephesus) of the community to rekindle his faith and remain firm even in the face of challenges. St. Paul charges Timothy to fan into flames the gifts God has given to him. He thus, reminded Timothy of the gift of his ordination and he urged him not to be ashamed. Timothy most probably was an introvert, timid and less courageous, and St. Paul exhorts him to do two things: ● to rekindle the gift of the Holy Spirit he received during his consecration as a Bishop (v.6), God’s gift is power and divine audacity, “for the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, his Spirit fills us with power, love, and self-control” (v.7). ● not to be ashamed of witnessing for our Lord, nor to be ashamed of me (Paul), a prisoner for Christ’s sake. Instead take your part in suffering for the Good News with the power God has given to you (v.8). Indeed, we need to appropriate this exhortation of Paul to Timothy, to ourselves, for we live in a time when it is not very easy to be a Christian and live in a corresponding manner. In the midst of all the anomalies and common trend in our world today that tend to erode the values and power of the Gospel, let us not be “ashamed” of our faith, instead, let us be happy and consoled for suffering for the sake of Christ and his Good News. Let us not forget, that we too received the Holy Spirit when we received the sacrament of Confirmation, what we received was not the “Spirit of timidity, but of power” and audacity.

     Conclusively, from the three readings of this Sunday, we could discover some qualities that a concrete and existential faith has to possess: ● a faith based on humility: this is exemplified in the Gospel passage, “when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘We are useless servants: we have done no more than our duty”’ (v.10). What we have to do is to serve God and do His will, always conscious of our nothingness before Him and dependency on Him. ● a faith full of hope: as manifested in the first reading, we should not allow tribulations and sufferings to diminish our hope in the divine intervention. We have to be patiently hopeful and allow God to intervene in His own time. ● a witnessing faith: of which St. Paul urged Timothy in the second reading, faith is a gift and a responsibility that God has given to us, and we have to realize this daily in the different life situations we find ourselves, even in arduous and difficult times. Indeed, we too need a faith that is humble, hopeful and capable of bearing witness, even in situations and places that are abhorrent and hostile to our faith. May we echo our voices together with those of the disciples in imploring the Lord: “increase our faith”. Let us build the foundation of our hope and faith in God so that in difficult and trying moments, we will not despair, for “the solid foundation that God has laid cannot be shaken” (2Tm. 2:19), truly, God’s foundation is sure! Lord increase my faith, help me to trust vehemently in your Word, Amen.

(Fr. Vitus M.C. Unegbu, SC)