Twenty Seventh Sunday October 02, 2022
Habakkuk 1:2-3;2:2-4; 2 Timothy 1:6-8,13-14; Luke 17:5-10
Is the man in the story a believer? O course, he is. He
believes that God exists. He believes in the power of prayer. He believes that
God is able to help him and save him from his predicament. And, yes, he prays
to God. But if he truly believes in God as he claims he does, why then does he
not take God on His word? Why does he not let go of the branch to which he is
clinging for life? Is God not able to save him? Many of us laugh at the story
because we can recognize ourselves in this man. We believe in God, but when the
going gets tough and things do not work out as we expect we take matters into
our own hands or look for help elsewhere. We believe, yes; but we are people of
little faith.
A beautiful example is found in the first reading of the
day. Destruction, violence, strife, contention, these had become the norm of
the day. Habakkuk was frustrated because the Lord was not taking control of the
situation. He complained that the Lord God would not save the people.
Responding to Habakkuk's cry to Heaven, the Lord God answered, telling him to
write the vision and make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read
it. In His message, God said that there
is still a vision for the appointed time which speaks of the end and does not
lie.
Faith is not about giving intellectual agreement to a
particular doctrine or idea. Faith is not about how much or how strongly we
believe Jesus’s words or actions. When we speak about a married couple’s
faithfulness we do not mean they believe or agree with each other’s ideas or
even a particular understanding of marriage. They are faithful because they
have committed themselves to each other in love and trust. They are faithful
because they continually give their life to the other and receive the other’s
life as their own. They are faithful because they carry with them that one
relationship wherever they go, in all that they are and all that they do. So it
is in our faith-relationship with Jesus.
Faith, however, is not lived out in the abstract. It is
practiced day after day in the ordinary everyday circumstances. Some days when
the pain and heaviness of life seem more than we can carry it is by faith,
relationship with Jesus, that we get up each morning and face the reality of
life.
Faith for my deliverance is not faith in God. Faith means,
whether I am delivered now or not, I will stick to my belief that God loves and
cares for me. This is the mistake of the young man caught in the mountain
cliff. He has faith in his own deliverance, not in God infinite power to save
and unfailing love for him. God’s unconditional love for us demands only one
proper response from us, our unconditional love and service of God. So many of
us Christians today believe that true and mature faith consists in our ability
to obtain miracles from God. The truth that today’s gospel shows us is that
mature faith consists not in how much God attends to our immediate needs but in
how willing we are to serve God unconditionally, without counting the cost. Let
us today join the apostles in asking the Lord to increase our faith.
Happy Sunday
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