THE TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – C

Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4
2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14
Luke 17:5-10

Dear Jesus,

I am struggling. What does it mean to be a person of faith? I used to think that I knew. For me it meant to believe in you as my Lord and savior. That expressed itself in my desire to walk with you with the sense that you lived in me. Along the way I think I assumed that this kind of faith would result in tangible blessings and deliverance from sufferings. There would be rewards if I lived a life of faith. You would bless me, deliver me, and keep me safe. I would never know exile. I would always be comforted, even in the worst of times, by your love.

All that is fine until there is a challenge to faith. I remember many years ago, forty or more now, being called to a home because something had happened to an infant. I set out not knowing what that something was. I got out of my car and walked to the backyard of the home because I could see people gathered there. And as I came through the gate I caught sight of the swimming pool and a fireman pulling the limp body of a pink –clad infant from the water. The child’s mother shrieked and sank in a faint. I did what I could, praying with and offering condolences to the parents. Afterwards I returned home, walked into my room and, where no one could see me, sobbed.

Did I ask then how an infant, child of devoted and faith-filled parents, could drown in an accidental and untended moment as I had just seen happen? Should it have been my role to help the parents see God’s will in this horrible event? I did the best I could at that time, I think, but I wonder now if I didn’t simply skirt the issue and refuse to go into the how and the why of it all, convinced that time would heal the terrible wound and God’s love eventually would be felt. There would be healing with the renewed hope of reunion in heaven.

You say in this Gospel passage that if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you. How do you quantify faith? Why did you use the size of the seed of a weed as the determinant? Surely, this is a case of your using hyperbole. Still I wonder what comfort someone would find in that text after experiencing some terrible defeat or confronting a terminal illness or the death of a beloved child.

Sometimes, when I struggle with a text I go back and check the context. I did that this time. I came to realize that just before the disciples’ request for an increase in faith you had been talking about the demands of discipleship. More particularly you spoke of your expectation that disciples would be lavish in forgiving as they had been forgiven. You said that if an offender sins against you seven times a day, and seven times a day turns back to you saying, “I am sorry,” forgive him/her. There must have been a collective gasp and the unuttered question, Who can do that?

The believer can. It takes faith to do what God loves doing for us. You have told parables that gave vivid examples of how lavish God is in forgiving. The listener probably took great comfort in thinking of him/herself as the one upon whom that forgiveness was poured out. Did they hear you ask which one of you wouldn’t act in the same way? Perhaps not. Or, if they did, they might have breathed a prayer of thanks that some would be able to replicate that forgiveness even if they themselves could not.

You press the point and do not allow the wiggle room for escape. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. And when you have done that, forgive again. The task will never be completed. The mulberry tree to be uprooted and cast into the sea? The heart that is too hard to forgive. Grace, faith can thaw the heart, can bring water to the desert and make the land lush again. I had thought that you didn’t mean the flying mulberry tree to be a symbol of the wonder works that faith could make possible, but I think now that that is exactly what you meant. Who can forgive over and over again without becoming bitter, without feeling taken advantage of? God may do that, but can I?

So, I come back to the question with which I began this letter – what does it mean to be a person of faith? Perhaps faith begins when I change my expectations. You spelled it out when you invited your disciples to see the world’s reality. There is nothing extraordinary about a servant’s doing a day’s work only to be expected to continue in that service at day’s end. I realize you spoke before today labor laws determined the workday to be 8 hours. And of course you were speaking about indentured servants. But the point is still well taken. There is no special praise for simply fulfilling job expectations, for doing what we are obliged to do.

Maybe that is the point you are asking me to get. Do I want to be a disciple? Then I have to be willing to pay the price, to do what is expected of a disciple. I have to do the work of a disciple that is always to be your other self. I must give primacy of place to the poor. I must welcome sinners and eat with them. I must be vulnerable to those I serve. And if someone offends me seven times a day and each time asks for forgiveness, what then? I think you nod your head as I ask and you think that perhaps at last I am getting to know what it means to believe.

You are loosening the roots of the mulberry tree. Please, Lord, let that tree fly away and be buried in the sea.

Sincerely,

Didymus