Ordinary Time

In today’s Gospel we hear the apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith. It looks as though faith was their top priority too. This is one of only two occasions in the Gospel of St. Luke where the apostles make a precise request of Jesus. Real faith means committing oneself to a person and putting all one’s trust in him. And for the Christians that person is Jesus Christ. He is not expecting us to litter the sea with uprooted trees. It’s just a bold way of saying that faith can do the impossible. At the same time, trusting in the Lord is not the same thing as meekly accepting whatever happens in our world, without so much as a word of complaint. Just look at today’s first reading, where Habakkuk the prophet rebukes the Lord because a fearful enemy is approaching and it looks as though violence and power are going to win the day. Our Lord is big enough to accept our anger and our cries of indignation, provided only that we do not lose hold of our faith in God.

In our heart of hearts we all know that faith is a gift to be cherished as a top priority. Faith is the basis of our relationship with the Lord; without it, we can have no friendship with Him; without it, the reception of the sacraments would be worthless; without it, the words of the Bible would lose their power for us; without it, coming to Mass would be pointless; without it, we’d never understand, as today’s Gospel tells us, that even when we’ve done all that the Lord requires of us, we are doing no more than our duty. If faith is as vital to us as that, then we want not simply to hold on to it but to cultivate it, to encourage its growth. Apostles asked Jesus “Lord, teach us to pray.” Faith and prayer go together. If we pray, our faith grows; if our faith grows, we are drawn to prayer. Of course, “Lord, teach us to pray” is itself a prayer. It’s a prayer we could make especially our own today; perhaps we could repeat it time and time again throughout this day.

We are tempted to say that this kind of reflection is political and not religious; the Church’s job is to deal with worship, we say. But the Bible says something else. Amos is not a professional prophet – he doesn’t earn his living by uttering prophecies at shrines and sanctuaries. He is an outsider, since his real job is as a shepherd and agriculturalist: people do not expect him to speak in God’s name. The Holy Land is split in two after the reign of King Solomon, and Amos belongs to the southern section, to Jerusalem and its hinterland, which is called Judah. But God sends him to the northern kingdom of Israel, precisely to preach justice. He addresses the people of both kingdoms. His description of the rich is bitterly sarcastic: ivory beds, luscious meals, drinking, self-indulgent entertainment. “Watch out,” he says: exile and deportation are just around the corner. Why? Because you have lived unjustly, because you have been corrupt, because you have appropriated the land of those who are poor, and reduced them to slavery. The well-being of the country as a whole is forgotten, because you, the rich, are selfish beyond words. St. Luke reminds us that Jesus was equally concerned with social justice. The story of the rich man and Lazarus seems to be about two individuals. The rich man dresses in purple and feasts magnificently, while at the the gate is Lazarus, starving and covered with sores. Jesus underlines sadly the inability of those who are rich to change their ways: “They will not be convinced even if someone should rise from the dead.”

Respect for every human person, human solidarity that is stronger that the urge to feather one’s own nest, these are central to the Church’s teaching. The Church offers the world her teaching on the Eucharist, her explanation of the Bible, directives on sexual morality, the beauty of pilgrimage, the rosary, lovely music. Catholic social teaching is not an optional add-on to these. It is an integral part of the same message. We can thank God that so many Christians have taken this to heart.

One of the stranger elements of parables is that they can seem at times to be encouraging behavior that may not be in line with the Gospel message of love and mercy. Kings are harsh; their stewards deceitful. The content is not necessarily moral as such. They are rather stories that highlights certain choices and predicaments, with the sting always in the tail. The end of today’s parable has the rich man praising his steward for his astuteness. He has managed to get himself out of a sticky situation by getting his master’s debtors on his side. What matters is his cleverness in avoiding the full consequences of his actions. Jesus does get exasperated at times by His followers and especially those who claim to be righteous. He has just told the parable of the prodigal son, a story aimed not so much at the wastrels of the world but at those like elder son who are self-righteous.

What is Jesus asking us to do? He isn’t asking us to be as deceitful as the steward, for he goes on to stay that you have to choose to be the servant either of God or of money. So what are the skills a follower of Jesus needs that display the same ability or astuteness in matters of the Gospel that unjust steward reveals in his commercial dealings? The main quality Jesus highlights, something the unjust steward is certainly not an example of, is trustworthiness. He also asks for freedom from greed and from a devotion to riches and money, again the opposite of the unjust steward. Jesus uses the example of the steward to turn upside down the world and call us to defend with the same energy and passion his new option for those who are poor. We are to use all our wit and wisdom to promote the values of the Gospel and the recognition of those who are vulnerable and weak in the eyes of the world.

Jesus is not requiring us all to go home and hate our families. He is calling His disciples to something quite radical. This is a passage that speaks of the great cost of discipleship, the cost of remaining close to Jesus. The difficult, costly thing is that this is loving in God’s way, and not only in the ordinary ways that make life secure and happier for ourselves.

All this means that to be Jesus’ friend and follower, we are called to live lives of loving others. This is costly: ultimately it costs our lives, which is why we cannot “love” our ambitions, plans, investments and so forth, as if they were the real things of living. What Jesus teaches, and what we see reflected in the lives of saints like Therese, is a way of loving that calls us beyond these things, a sharing in the Wisdom of God, who sees things differently from our world. This is one of the reasons the Church encourages us to “give” up things – through fasting and almsgiving, through the dedicating of time to prayer and care of people in need. Jesus promises, it is in this giving away of ourselves that we will draw close to Him, and discover a new way of living and loving. In such a culture we cling to what we possess, with a kind of love and, often, a kind of selfishness. Inspired by today’s readings, let us pray to be able to lift our eyes to look beyond our own concerns and learn to pay the cost of discipleship – the cost of a love beyond our own needs and wants.

Jesus seems to be concentrating on the positive side of the honor code of society in His time. In Mediterranean societies of Jesus’ day public shame and public honor were of very great importance. His advice seems to be about how not to be shamed in public, and how to be wise enough so that you are more likely to be honored. Don’t sit in the top seat in case you’re moved down, but do sit in the lower place so that you have the chance of being moved up. There is a certain practical wisdom being deployed. However, Jesus is surely saying much more than that. Heaven is often compared in the scriptures to a wedding banquet, so we can assume Jesus is using this imagery here. The context is one of eternal salvation. So in the case of getting to the heavenly banquet, do not presume that you are worthy and better than everyone else. Presumption, St. Thomas Aquinas says, comes from pursuing something beyond our powers. Authentic humility is necessary because without it we can never benefit from God’s grace. If we think we are self-sufficient, God will respect that, but we will never be able to enjoy the banquet of eternal life. Presumption is better than despair, better than false humility, but all should be avoided in favor of genuine humility.

So how we are to be invited to the great wedding banquet of eternal life? First of all we are called to realize that there is absolutely nothing we can do to deserve, earn or buy an invitation. The invitation is an entirely free gift of God. That is the first reason why we should not presume to think we should even be there, let alone sit at the top place. Secondly, the invitation we have been given is always available through the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. How do we respond to the invitation? We can do so by participating in the sacraments. Through the sacrament of penance we show the necessary and fitting humility to accept the invitation. Then the Eucharist is the great feast in this world which anticipates the heavenly banquet. In the Holy Mass, Jesus is the lamb of sacrifice, the high priest and the bread of life. In the whole sacramental system, we have a new way of conducting human affairs – it is the renewal from within of our human interaction, with the added benefit that is also helps us interact with and be more closely united to God.

All of us find times in our lives when we need the help of others. It is no different with the life of faith, except that in every moment of that life we need the help of Jesus Christ. The narrow door of our salvation is the help that God sends to each one of us in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The life of a Christian is one that centers upon Jesus Christ and the help He sends to us.

Through sharing in the life of the Church we receive the help we need to find healing and begin our journey to the kingdom of God. On this journey we are transformed, so that we, as instruments of grace, become the means through which Christ’s healing and transforming presence is given to others. This journey will not be easy, as we will need to face our own frailty and the sickness of this world. Yet we don’t do this alone, but through the help of Jesus Christ and those He sends to aid us in our struggles.

In today’s Gospel we hear Jesus tell His followers that He has “come to bring fire to the earth”. He describes the divisions that will happen even within close-knit families. Jesus presents the inevitability of discussion that may or may not lead to actual conflict. What He is not doing is to offer disagreement as automatically causing the breakdown of family life. In speaking of religious belief, Jesus refers to something that touches the deepest part of a person’s soul: the person’s relationship with God. If our understanding of God were not so important, were only a trivial matter, it would never be divisive.

A proverb declares that, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.” Few of us will make much impact on the world on the world stage. However, in recent years, huge strides have been made in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue. We are unlikely to see full Christian unity within our own lifetime, but “unity” doesn’t necessarily mean believing the same things: it does mean working together in peace. Little by little, our efforts to speak to each other are making a world of difference.

The universal longing for a safe and permanent homeland is one that finds an echo in all of our readings today. The letter to the Hebrews speaks of the faith of Abraham and Sarah as they leave their old home and place their trust in God’s promises of a new homeland. The book of Wisdom recalls the night of the first Passover, when the oppressed people of Israel were liberated by God from slavery in a foreign land so that they could make their long journey to their homeland. The people need courage for their journey and they stand in solidarity with each other… In the Gospel Jesus tells His “little flock” not to be afraid – the Father has already given them the kingdom. They have a homeland awaiting them. But there is a note of caution struck: the people have to be ready, prepared, actively about their master’s business, living faithfully according to His commands, if they are to be ready to greet the master when He returns.

That longing for a homeland lies deep within each of us. Jesus promises that the Father has prepared the kingdom for us. But He tells us to be prepared. How do we do that? Jesus warns us that we have been entrusted by God with tasks and responsibilities – and that if in the meantime we start to act selfishly, greedily or violently, then we will be denied entry to the promised land. The first reading speaks of the people sharing the dangers together. It is the solidarity of knowing that we have one common Father – that we feed those who are hungry, clothe those who are naked, visit those who are sick and welcome those who are strangers, then we are storing treasure for ourselves in heaven and are on the right path to the kingdom. Are we journeying on the way to the kingdom, or will we be denied entry? To answer that, we can simply look at our lives to see if we are traveling alone or in genuine fellowship with others, living for ourselves or leading a life of service, building up fences or creating community. Such solidarity is all the preparation we need to make for our homecoming.

In today’s Gospel, two brothers are seen arguing over money and inheritance. Jesus hears the request but is very clear that He has no intention of getting involved in a family argument. It is not His place to go round dispensing justice in the lives of others. Jesus doesn’t miss the opportunity to tell brothers, and everyone else who cares to listen, that big issue here is not who gets what, but how important it is to persevere the security of life that comes from loving one another. Security of life is a spiritual reality that unfolds us when we are enfolded in love by family and friends, and when we learn to allow ourselves to be embraced by the love of God. Money does not do it. To bring some truth, Jesus tells a story in which the only people to feature are a rich farmer and God. It is a lonely story. The farmer has a big problem. “How do I keep all this wealth for myself? Build a larger barn and store it all, and sit back and pour yourself a glass! No problem.” This man only talks to himself and only listens to himself. Death comes and you must leave it all behind.

Greed of any kind will kill us. Greed does not want to know about anybody else. Greed fouls up friendship and causes family lives to fester. Wanting everything for yourself and wanting your own way in everything is the high road to misery. “Securing our country’s future” is a frequently heard political value, and everyone wants to feel secure. It is a natural desire. What of the vital importance of being able to meet another and to talk to another and to persevere in preserving all our relationships – whether internationally, or nationally, or in our family and community life? Jesus clearly states that our security is not achieved by what we have, or what we posses; this is true whether it means riches or a wealth of fire power. Our security is maintained by the kind of people we are and try to be. Strip off your old self and your old behavior, St. Paul says us today. Put on Christ. And if you want to be rich, be rich in God.