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2nd October 2022

Homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

READ: (Hab 1:2-3; 2:2-4; 2 Tim 1: 6-8, 13-14; Lk 17: 5-10)

REFLECT: Faith and Faithfulness to God

My dear friends, we all have faith in God. Faith in God makes us strong. Very meaningfully letter to the Hebrews gives what is this faith all about. “Faith is the assurance of what we hope for, being certain of what we cannot see,” (Heb 11:1). Although we cannot see God, we have faith in God, we have hope, because God assures of what we cannot see or think or hope like future events and happenings of our lives; God assures of what we need and what we require for daily sustenance of life, provided we have faith. The liturgy of the word invites each one of us to introspect what it means to have faith in God, live by faith in God and be faithful to God. So based on the readings of the day, I would like to share with you three points of reflection;

1.     Have faith in God:

Just as gold is tested by fire so also our faith is tested in times of crisis. Usually when we are in pain or sorrow we call for help and support, because we want a way out to be happy or find consolation. Something similar we find in the first reading from prophet Habakkuk. There is a cry for help and safety but God answers him to write the vision on the plain tablet, so that those who read it will run away. God asks him to wait for the vision but assures him that there will be a vision for sure. We see here the assurance of God for a vision, but why the Lord asks him to wait until the vision. Perhaps these words of God may imply to see whether Habakkuk would wait for the vision until it comes with faith and confidence in God. The Lord plainly replies to the question or complaints of Habakkuk in (2:2-5), commissioning the prophet to write the revelation, a revelation centering on righteousness and faithfulness.

We humans have natural tendency to be filled with complaints, but we mostly complain in the wrong directions. For example, we tend to talk about God rather than to talk to him; we tend to complain about God rather than complaining to him. Habakkuk took his complaints directly to God. He questioned how God could remain silent while the wicked prospered (Hab 1:2-4). When God answered Habakkuk’s first complaint with the revelation that God would raise the Babylonians to punish wicked Judah (1:5-11), Habakkuk was confused as to how could God use such a wicked instrument to punish the people of God (1:12-17). The very fact that Habakkuk took his complaints to God can help believers to be honest in prayer, taking all our burdens to the Lord. Habakkuk’s experience shows that God is willing to hear our needs and to help us deal with our problems, even when God does not answer in the way that we expect or in the way that we ask.

In our lives to at times we are worried or confused about the silence of God. We force God to answer instantly, expecting instant results and answers. But we understand that not even prophet Habakkuk could force God to answer what appeared to be a burning or an immediate issue.  All that prophet Habakkuk could do was to wait on God, for God’s timing. Yes that is the faith I feel. Having faith in God would mean waiting for God’s appointed time, waiting for God’s word and waiting for God’s action for things that happen or for the things that we expect. Waiting is a kind of test for the faith we profess.

Mostly, Impatience is the normal human response to God’s promise to answer his people. We become so impatient at times when we don’t get any answer from God for good times or for the problems we experience. But we need to understand that the answer of God would surely come, but we need to wait for his time just as prophet Habakkuk had to write down the message and wait for God to take control of situations. So it is not our point of view but the view point of God that makes our faith steady and strong.  Moreover in the Gospel Reading too the apostles ask Jesus to increase faith. Jesus very fluently says “if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed and say to the mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea, it would obey.” Jesus does not say that one needs to have faith as huge as the size of a mountain or hill rather just a size of a tiny mustard seed. That’s quite sufficient to move a tree from one place to another place. That’s the power of having faith in God. So let us have faith in God and experience wonders in life.

2.     Live by faith:

Living by faith means to live and abide in the faith that we profess or inherited from our ancestors and parents or elders. The last verse of the first reading from prophet Habakkuk makes a clear reference to faith, “behold his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by faith. Those who live by faith in God are righteous and righteous people make sure that whatever may be the circumstances and conditions, they abide in God and live by faith that they profess and confess in God.

To be righteous would imply that we do right and be right in all things. The righteous are courageous to accept God’s word of promise in a world dominated by power and misery. In a world dominated by power and misery, persecution and possession what we require to obtain salvation is to live by faith in God.  The righteous people may not be perfect but live according to the relationship with God. Being righteous would mean to meet the demands of a relationship, relationship with God and with one another.

We read in Psalms that the righteous person will stand before God in the day of the judgment (Ps 1: 4-6). We also find in Psalms that who shall abide in the sanctuary of God is “those who are blameless and do what is right, who speak truth from their heart and control their words, who do not harm neighbors...” (Ps 15). There are references to people in the bible who are called as righteous like St. Joseph, the Just man in the New Testament. We too know that St. Paul becomes a righteous person after his conversion and conversation with Christ on his way to Damascus. Since then, he never felt ashamed to live by faith in God or the Son of God. As he was made righteous by God through Jesus Christ, we are to live by the faith that we profess.

Something similar we find in the Second reading from St. Paul’s letter to Timothy that reminds us of the gift of God we received by the laying on of hands and encourages not to be ashamed to testify our faith in God, but share in the suffering for the gospel, follow the pattern of the sound words, guard the good deposit entrusted to us by the Holy Spirit. Yes, St. Paul as a righteous person who lived by faith was able to say “the life I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This similar should be our attitude and feel to live by faith in the Son of God, even if it means that we may have to undergo hardships and difficulties. The fact is that we all have faith but do we live by the faith that we have or profess. Sometimes the faith that we have is contrary to what we profess and practice, because it does not correspond to the life that we live and lead. So let us not only have faith rather live by the faith we have in God.

3. Faithfulness to God

Our faithfulness to God would be seen in the manner of life that we profess the faith we have or the faith that we have received from our ancestors and parents. Very striking but an ordinary example Jesus gives us in today’s gospel reading to understand how we can be faithful to God or what it means to be faithful. Jesus narrates that it is usual that when a servant comes after his work, the servant is not given the preference to sit at table and eat rather he’s asked to prepare supper, the servant gets ready to be neat and tidy, serves the master first and then the servant eats. The master does not thank the servant for the work done, because the servant did what was his duty. Jesus appropriately concludes the gospel reading, “So when you have done all that you were commanded you need to say, we are unworthy, we did what was our duty.”  Yes realizing even in the highest pinnacle of success or even in the glories of ordinary events in life that we did only our duty or what was entrusted by God will help us to be faithful to God.

I feel this is what can be our faithfulness to God be shown as well. Accepting that we are unworthy before God and acknowledging that we have done nothing more than a duty that was entrusted by God to us and doing it well in the right spirit and right disposition. So faithfulness to God would be doing all that God commands us, doing all that God demands from us and doing all that God recommends us. Being faithful to God would mean that we do what pleases God and be completely immersed in the thought of God while being thoughtful of God’s demands and commands over us.

Today, most of us fail to be faithful to God, because we command what we want and not what God wants and we demand what we desire for and not what God desires for. When our focus is deviated from God, deviated from God’s work we become unfaithful to God and unfaithful to God’s work. Taking undue credit and undue pleasures on the passing glories of the world is our utter failure to be faithful to God. Our faithfulness to God is an acknowledgment that we are mere servants of God in the different responsibilities we are entrusted as leaders of the Church, society, community and family. So Let us be faithful to God by being responsible to the works that we are assigned. Let us ask the Lord to increase our faith and be faithful to God and to one another in our lives.

RESPOND:

Do we have faith in God? DO we live by faith that we have or profess in God?

Are we faithful to God in all that we do or entrusted to us as Christians, Catholics, laities and religious?

Let us have faith in God, live by faith that we profess and be faithful to God to obtain favour for life eternal. Amen.

“Faith is the basis and foundation of all the other virtues, but particularly of hope and charity,” (Sermons of SFS for Lent, Faith – from the book Spoonful of Honey III by Fr. Suresh Babu MSFS, p. 42)

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