27th. Sunday Year (C)
(Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4. 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14. Luke 17:5-10)
Why did the Apostles say to Jesus: Increase our
faith? Were they imagining some lack of,
insufficient ‘quantity’ of, faith given them, for some difficulty or failure on
their part?
Luke does not give us any information about what
had occasioned this request by the apostles, but, whatever the reason, their
request highlighted their ignorance of the true nature of the gift of faith;
and Jesus' answer seems intended to nip-in-the-bud any possibility of their doubting
God’s providence as His disciples and ministers of the Gospel, by helping them better appreciate the wondrous power of authentic
faith:
If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to
this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,' and
it would obey you.
Notice that Jesus did not call their faith into
question; He didn’t say, ‘If you had
faith’, but, ‘If you have faith as a
mustard seed’. In the Christian life it
is not that God’s gifts are insufficient for our real needs, but rather that we,
so very, very often, fail to appreciate the wonder of what has already been
given us, as St. Paul himself said in the second reading:
Therefore,
I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you.
Let me now give you a short description of the
mulberry tree (Barnes' notes) and you will have a clearer idea of the
significance of Jesus' parable.
Look, now, at this tree: its ample girth, its
wide-spread arms branching off from the parent trunk only a few feet from the
ground. Next, examine its enormous
roots: as thick, as numerous, and as wide-spread into the deep soil below as
the branches extend into the air above.
What power on earth can pluck up such a tree? Heaven's thunderbolt may
strike it down, the wild tornado may tear it to fragments, but, surely, nothing
short of miraculous power could pluck it up by the roots."
At that time the apostles still had Jesus with them
as the centre of their minds' attention, their hearts’ affections and expectations,
and perhaps for that reason they were not, as yet, able to appreciate the power
of that supernatural gift of grace which had made them into disciples and, most especially, Apostles
of His. And so, Jesus now goes on to hint
that at a time close to hand He will no longer be with them at their side. He pictures a time when He Himself will be
"resting", and they will be expected to continue working, apparently
alone, but, in reality, working on His behalf under the guidance and in the
power of, His most Holy Spirit:
Which of you, having a servant ploughing or tending
sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, 'Come at once and
sit down to eat'? But will he not rather
say to him, 'Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me
till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink'?
Speaking in this way Jesus opens up a further
aspect of the apostles' incomprehension:
God does not bestow His spiritual gifts on his servants for them to
possess as do children who cling to, and at times boast of, presents they have
received. God gives us, and most
especially His Apostles, His chosen blessings in order that thereby they might
live in ever closer communion with Himself, empowered to co-operate in the
spread, and promote the understanding, of the Gospel Good News among all peoples and
throughout all times. Jesus, in short,
wanted to counter any possessiveness on the part of the apostles, to protect
them from that innate tendency to selfishness and pride that would shortly
incite them to argue amongst themselves about which of them was the greatest. He needed to ward off the perennial
threat to all those who are specially gifted, by warning His apostles and their
successors, against the pride and arrogance so commonly seen in the widespread, then and now, abuse of worldly and
even spiritual power.
He spoke only a few words because the apostles were
not yet ready for more, but the words He chose covered all that needed to be
said; and, being simply expressed, certain aspects could be readily understood
by the apostles, while the more hidden depths would subsequently be revealed by
the Spirit to Mother Church -- who treasures all such words of Jesus in her
heart – through all the ages of her mission here on earth:
So likewise you, when you have done all those
things which you are commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants. We have done
what was our duty to do.'
Which, relating to the request they had made so shortly
before, meant: ‘bearing in mind that what has been given you, the endowment already
bestowed on you by God, is immeasurably superior to whatever may be asked of
you as Apostles, you should be saying with heart-felt gratitude and
sorrow: We are unprofitable servants; we have only done our duty, we have only
done what was well within our power to do.
Jesus was preparing His Apostles for the time when
they would soon be without His comforting presence, alone, yet commissioned to proclaim
the Good News of their Lord and Saviour to a largely alien world where they
must never dream of calling God into question, where they must never
ever, allow themselves to indulge in such self-pity.
The prophet Habakkuk had also spoken, as did Jesus,
about the time for labour in this world, when rest is longed for but -- though
its promise be sure -- its fulfilment is, and has to be, delayed:
Write the vision and make it plain on tablets; (it)
is yet for an appointed time, at the end it will speak and will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it;
because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
Lovers of this world, the proud, the sinful, cannot
abide such delay, for, as you heard, “the rash one has no integrity”, his soul is not upright in him; he cannot
reconcile himself to waiting in trust, neither can he humble himself in the
service of a cause where success is not in some way readily apparent or
tangible. Such selfless devotion is only
for those whom God has specially blessed, as the prophet's words make
abundantly clear:
The just shall
live by his faith.
St. Paul told us how God the Father has blessed all
who are in Christ Jesus:
Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have
heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.
We have been given two gifts in Jesus St. Paul
tells us there: the gift of faith to hold fast to ‘the pattern of sound words’ contained
in his teaching and that of Mother Church, and the gift of love to seek and serve
Jesus P/personally in our daily living of that teaching. Now, with two such gifts, our call to
selflessness does not mean a life of sheer endurance as we journey through a
desert of aridity in the face of storms constantly exposing our weakness and
anxiety; rather is it a life which, being gradually emptied of self-love, is
thereby made ever more capable of receiving the gifts of the Spirit, of being filled
to overflowing with the peace, joy, and love which are to be found in Christ
Jesus alone.
As Jesus told His disciples, the gifts already
given us are sufficient for all our needs:
If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to
this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,' and
it would obey you.
And not only are God's gifts sufficient for all our
needs, they are more than enough for all our desires! For faith is a treasure, and love of
Jesus is not only the fruit, beauty, and glory of that treasure, but also the
tool whereby we can come to appreciate what He has given us ever more and more:
Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have
heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed to you,
keep by the Holy Spirit Who dwells in us.
The Apostles had to learn, as we too must learn,
that a disciple of Jesus has to work not only outside, in the mission-field of
daily life and witness in the world, but also on the inside, in the secret
depths of his own being. The one, true,
Faith is not merely a public form of words and practices to be believed and fulfilled,
it is also a personal treasure to be quarried and appreciated ever more deeply in
one’s mind and heart. When worked on in
that way the treasure which is our Faith yields up great beauty for our inspiration
whilst it bestows a godly power, immeasurable indeed, but not one for boasting
and self-aggrandisement as the early apostles were tempted to imagine, but one,
on the contrary, that empowers us to respond with humble, quiet and consoling, sympathy
and ‘adequacy’ to what is now almost ‘within our reach’, as we stretch out with
holy obedience for correspondence to the beauty of God's truth, and with faith-enflamed delight to share more and more
in the wonder of His love, thereby inspiring us to become ever more selfless
and wholly other, to the extent that, as St. Paul puts it:
It is no longer I
who live but Christ lives in me. (Galatians 2:20)
Christ, by the power of His Spirit in us, leads,
guides, encourages and empowers us to work ever more at and with our treasure
trove of our Catholic and Christian Faith:
Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God
which is in you through the laying
on of my hands. For God has not given us
a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony
of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for
the gospel according to the power of God.
We are not to repeat the failure of those in the time
of the prophet Habakkuk who, echoing the horrors of abidingly-sinful humanity, cried out:
Why do You make me see iniquity and cause me to
look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me; strife exists
and contention arises, yet You do not save.
The time of rest, the time for rejoicing over the
ultimate conquest of evil is not yet.
Jesus Himself is in heavenly glory, but we, His disciples, have work
still to do for Him on earth:
Prepare something for My supper, and gird yourself
and serve Me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink.
For that purpose, we have been gifted with
"the faith and love that is in Christ Jesus"; let us then aspire,
with sure confidence and firm hope, to the fulfilment of His promise:
Blessed are those servants whom the Master, when He
comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that He will gird Himself
and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. (Luke
12:37-38)
