TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (2025)
Readings:
Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4
Psalms 95:1-2, 6-9
2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14
Luke 17:5-10
Our first reading is from the prophet Habakkuk, a prophet separated from the last two Sunday’s prophet Micah, by about one-hundred years. The Old Testament prophets are all an integral part of what it means to be a good and faithful Jew, and their messages are also part and parcel of what it means to be a good and faithful Christian. The last phrase of today’s first reading is used several times by Paul in his letters: “the just one, because of his faith, shall live.” Like all of the prophets, Habakkuk has a genuine thirst for justice, the same kind of justice that would be capable of curing the ills that afflict our society and the world as a whole.
Listen once again to the opening of Habakkuk’s message, and ask yourselves if you couldn’t be mouthing those same words in reference to our own contemporary situation: “How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen! I cry out to you, ‘Violence’!, but you do not intervene. Why do you let me see ruin [Gaza?]; why must I look at misery? [starving children in Africa]. Destruction and violence are before me [killings and fire at Mormon Church]; there is strife, and clamorous discord [all US politics].” The writings of most Old Testament prophets can easily be translated into our modern period. Why? “For the vision [of a heavenly kingdom] still has its time,” the vision is still unrealized. Remember, although the prophets provided by God spoke centuries before Christ, their message is still part of the living Word of God that reaches across the centuries, and they challenge us still today.
It is faith which leads us to today’s gospel, and which unites us as a community. Immediately before today’s gospel, Jesus has just taught His disciples that if your brother or sister “sins against you seven times in a day, you are to forgive them seven times.” Seven is not limiting as used here, for in the Bible it is often meant to convey a sense of completeness, or fulfillment (seven days of Creation!). So the disciples of Jesus (and us) are being called to a constant state of forgiveness, something that surely gave the disciples pause, and caused them to say to Jesus, “Increase our faith.” They understood if they are going to claim to be Jesus’ followers, they are going to need an increase in whatever faith they already have. They, and we, are never going to be able to muster enough faith to forgive people who have wronged us without Jesus’ help. Remember, one of Jesus’ final teachings, given from the cross He hung upon, was “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Jesus teaches them further that no amount of genuine faith is ‘too small,’ comparing faith to a mustard seed, which, though tiny, will allow you to do impossible things (“say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you”). Think about it – however strong your faith, whatever size you might consider it to be, you can accomplish impossible things with it. The size of our faith is not the issue. The right kind of faith is the issue. For it is, of course, necessary as Paul reminds us in the second reading, to occasionally “stir into flame the gift of God” that is faith. Our faith should be constantly calling us to grow, and to become more and more like our primary teacher, Jesus.
While it might seem to appear that Jesus is changing gears in what is left of the gospel, that is not the case. Jesus turns His attention to the necessary complement to faith, a virtue we have spoken about often – He speaks about humility. The “master-servant” relationship was not unfamiliar to the peoples of Jesus’ day, even, if for us, it might have too much of a tinge of slavery. The master would expect his servant to honor and obey his master, and when the tasks that have been contracted are accomplished, the servants have only to say: “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.” That takes humility, and great faith, living faith.
If we find ourselves living a sort of smorgasbord spirituality – I’ll take that teaching, and that teaching, and not that teaching, it’s too hard! – then our faith is not nearly as strong as it should be. Think of your faith as one of your most precious possessions. As Paul says in his letter to Timothy: “Guard this rich trust with the help of the Holy Spirit that dwells within us.” What does a ‘strong faith’ consist of? Paul gives us insight into that as well: “Take as your norm the sound word that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”
If we find ourselves unmoved by the plight of Gaza, if we are not disturbed by gun violence of all kinds, if lying no longer bothers us, if polarization, vengeance, and constant grievance is completely acceptable, if genocide and the starving of little children doesn’t bother us – then maybe our faith is out of alignment; maybe our faith has an on and off switch, which allows us to go through life ignoring the “What Would Jesus Do” simple rule. We must constantly “stir into flame the [precious] gift of God” that is faith. May we never live our lives without our faith perfectly aligned with that of Jesus, and may our “faith switch” always be on and burning brightly.
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