Twenty Seventh Ordinary Sunday, Year C
Theme: No Need To Increase Our Faith 毋須增加信德
One summer day when I was a teenager, my younger brother and I visited the Ocean Park and had a lot of fun. In one of the pools, there was a one-meter jumping board and everybody was flying off in crazy styles. So, I and my brother decided to give it a try. When I stood at the edge of the board and looked down, OMG it was scary! I hesitated for a few seconds. Seeing the queue of people behind us, my brother gave me a shove and I fell into the water below. That was fun! I returned several times to fully enjoy the coolness, creativity of motions and fun! Indeed, all of us are engaging in projects of various magnitudes at different stages of our lives. However, not only are we mortal, but we are also insecure. Some of us need more reassurance while others have no aversion to take great risks. When uncertainties arise, some take a leap of faith and dive in. Some need an extra shove from someone while others simply give up.
Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem, the final leg of His ministry (Luke 9:51). The trip looked promising at the beginning because “So many people were crowding together that they were trampling one another underfoot.” (12:1) The Lord continued proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven and teaching the crowd on various topics: on persecutions, warning against greed and reconciliation etc. Some teachings are reassuring such as the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and even the Dishonest Steward. Some are challenging and even disturbing such as divisions within families, the Narrow Gate, Herod’s desire to kill Him and total renunciation in discipleship etc. Mark reports that when Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem and foretelling three times His imminent Passion, “Those who followed were afraid.” (Mark 10:32).
The apostles “had renounced all their possessions” to follow Jesus towards Jerusalem (Luke 14:33) but uncertainties were brewing. The future had become less promising. For them, there was no turning back because they had abandoned everything. That probably explains why the apostles asked the Lord to increase their faith, to give them an extra shove to dive in. The Lord reassures them saying, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree … and it would obey you.” (17:5-6). Then the Lord switches to talk about the attitude of servants. If a small amount of faith is sufficient to accomplish the mission, why did He talk about “unprofitable servants” (17:10)? What has that to do with increasing their faith, giving them an extra shove?
But do we really need to increase faith?
I’m aging. My hearing is failing so much so that I myself even notice that I’m singing out of tune. It is because my brain is drumming inside my head more frequently. I start forgetting things and have to stop to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing … My children and my wife are worried because my words and my deeds no longer inspire confidence in them. For some time, I have tried to act and speak in a more “reassuring” way, meeting their expectations. But I could not keep it up. I’m sorry. My family members and I myself have to accept this deteriorating reality. We cannot expect my being exempted from the law of nature because I’m a servant of God. Similarly, when I served the needy in the capacity of a permanent deacon, visiting prisoners and outsourcing janitors, I expected no obstacles in rendering my service. I was never more wrong because I still received traffic tickets in my journeys, met uncooperative officers and unfriendly janitors. In a similar way, I think the Israelites, the contemporary Jews as well as the apostles had a mistaken expectation on the Messiah.
In the first reading today, Habakkuk the prophet was complaining to God. He voiced what we wanted to vent in 2019. God, why do you allow injustice and violence? We expect the government to rule in fairness. Yet, we witness corruption, self-fattening and power abuses instead. God, why do you allow them to continue their wickedness? “How long, O Lord, must I cry for help and you do not listen … and you do not intervene? Why do you let me see iniquity? Why do you simply gaze at evil?” (Habakkuk 1:2-3) God answered the prophet’s complaint by raising the Assyrians and Babylonians to conquer them. Now, the prophet complained about the brutal judgments of the alien empires! At the height of 2019 social unrests, God handed the government a COVID-19 pandemic to crack down popular demands in the name of health! What would be next?
God reassures the prophet saying, “For the vision is a witness for the appointed time, a testimony to the end; it will not disappoint. If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.” (2:3) Do you still have faith in God’s words? In fact, patience is in short supply throughout human history. Adam could not wait and ate the Forbidden Fruit. Saul could not wait and offered sacrifice without Samuel, thus losing favour before God (1 Samuel 13:13-14). Indeed, what we need to increase is not our faith but out patience, or better to adjust our unreasonable expectations.
We were created in the image of God and we tend to play God. We put forth our conception of righteousness as God’s righteousness. The just will be rewarded and the evil punished. As simple as this! When government officials are wicked, they should be punished. When the Gentiles overdid the punishment, then what’s next? Unfortunately, no prophet had lived long enough to see how the Assyrian Empire fell to the Babylonian which in turn fell to the Persian, the Greek and the Roman consecutively. When Job suffers calamities, he must have done iniquity in God’s eyes. Therefore, those calamities must be God’s punishments on Job’s iniquity, no more no less! Poor innocent Job of whom Satan made use to challenge God, whose sufferings could have no reasons at all. Sufferings just happen! Men are truly images of God. Like God, they prefer order because it gives them a sense of control and security. Human have an aversion to randomness. They need explanations. However, the more we know, the more we don’t know. There are more mysteries than theories. We need to live with them.
Brethren! No wonder Jesus talks about a master serving his servant who had just returned from ploughing or tending sheep in the field (Luke 17:7). It is unreasonable for a servant to expect such kind of presidential treatments, to expect the master to be grateful when the servant had done what was commanded him (17:9). Instead the servant should say, “We are unprofitable servants; we have done what were obliged to do.” (17:10) So, when we visit inmates in prisons and hospitals, we should not expect to be praised by God or any other people. We should not expect God to send His angels to clear away all obstacles on our path. Rather, we should be grateful for being given the opportunity to serve and to stay with the Lord. When the Lord is carrying us on His shoulder to scale mountains and to walk on stormy seas, do we need to increase our faith?
God bless!
2019 Reflection
Picture Credit: millenniumpool.com
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