27th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Cycle C 21-22
TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4 | 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14 | Luke 17:5-10
Almighty, everliving God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. And we ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever, amen.
The music by Ryan Harner is just always so interesting to me, because it seems to lead me into a deeper understanding of what I want to say, and I pray that it does the same for you. We used to have a lot of songs on the program, but now we have this more meditative thing. And I like it. I think it’s really helpful, because I have an intention when I’m sitting at this microphone. And I want to talk about that for a few minutes, because I’ve been going through some things that have been really interesting, questioning my authority to speak the way I do, and you can maybe even hear it in my voice. It seems like I’m not as comfortable as I usually am with who I am, which is not a bad thing at all. It seems to fit the readings, but I’d like to say something about our relationship. I was with some friends that are going on retreat the other night, and one of them came up to me afterwards and said that he had been listening to me for 20 years. I immediately felt this connection with him, and I thought to myself, “I don’t know how many of you out there have been listening for a long time.” But it just strikes me that, in many ways, some of you — there are a lot of those people, and I just feel like you’ve been listening and responding positively to what I offer. And it just makes me feel so valuable and loved and safe, which are three things that I think every human being needs, and I thank you for that kind of affirmation that I feel. I don’t need to talk to you so much. It’s just I know it’s there.
And I was also struck by the fact that, when I get up to preach, and everybody gets up to preach, the scriptures are so interestingly wide open to all kinds of interpretations. And now that we read from the Old Testament on a regular basis, I realize that there’s a side of God in the Old Testament that’s a little bit terrifying. It seems that he’s really disappointed in human beings, that he’s not happy with the way they turned out when, at the time of Noah, he was ready to kill everyone until an angel pointed out, “There’s Noah, and he’s got this little ember inside of him. There’s something good in him,” because God had said, “Their hearts are filled with darkness and hate and evil,” a terrible thought. So what I’m looking at then is this whole idea of, when I get up to preach, or anybody does, there’s almost any way we want to take the scriptures and use it. We can talk about an angry, judgmental, condemning God, and we can also talk about a loving, inviting, forgiving God. Which is he? Well, obviously if you follow the story completely to the New Testament, he is the former. He is a lover. He is a servant. He wants nothing more than for you and me to grow into the unique person that God has created us to be. That’s the goal. That’s our vision — our vision.
So I know that each of us who get up on Sunday mornings, or wherever we are every day when we’re preaching, have it as an intention to give to the people what they need, and I pray that we’re open and God uses us. Sometimes we need to be harsher. Sometimes we need to be kinder. But what I feel my ministry has called me to at a time that is seemingly perfectly depicted in this set of readings, we need comfort. God came to give us comfort. So we look at the world as it is today. I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I think a lot of people are having trouble sleeping. Whenever I mention to somebody that I’m having trouble sleeping, they’ll say, “So am I,” and they give me their tip. I have more tips than I can use, but the interesting thing is that there is a time, like the one we read in Habakkuk, that we’re experiencing right now. There’s a lot of misery that we see, a lot of destruction, a lot of violence, strife, discord. So what do we do with all of that? It’s easy to see that the world is not in a healthy place, but what I want to say so clearly to you is it’s always been the way it is. It’s just that it’s not been so clearly seen before. Everything that is hidden is being revealed, and that’s positive. That’s amazing, that we’re in a period of time where the things that have been going on in secret, in the dark, the way people have been treated by other people, the abuse, all of that keeps coming out and out. And we might say, “The world is worse than it’s ever been. This has never happened before.” I’ve never been afraid to go to a mall and think that I might be harmed by someone who is confused and deranged, but that’s the way we live right now, and that’s what we have to accept. And one of the things that I love about this particular passage from this rather obscure prophet, Habakkuk — we don’t know much about him, but he does say the most beautiful thing. “Write down clearly — when you’re in this world that you look at it and it doesn’t seem to be a healthy place, write down a vision.” And the vision is so beautiful. It’s the one I just mentioned. Our God is a God who, if I listen attentively to the opening prayer, and that’s one way to really set a homily in the right direction, we prayed as a church, and there are millions of millions people listening to these readings today. And there is God saying, “Look, I came. I’m in Father Don, and I have a desire. And my desire is that he pour out my mercy upon you, pardon what you think is awful about you, and give to prayer the power of taking care of you in the midst of your not being able to care for yourself.” You hardly can dare to ask that if you’re feeling full of shame and unworthiness.
So it’s time to focus on the vision, and here’s the key. It’s exactly what it’s supposed to be, exactly. This vision of you becoming fully who you are and living a life of giving, loving and having the Holy Spirit, Jesus himself, God the Father living inside of you is such a beautiful, powerful vision of our way of waiting for the vision, because he’s saying, “It will be fulfilled. You will never disappoint.” And you think it’s delaying. Wait for it. It’s not going to be late, and if you have real integrity, meaning if you have the truth living inside of you, you’ll know that you are called to believe that, to believe. So interesting this thing called faith. I always wonder where did it come from. Where do I get my faith? I feel like, at times like now, maybe I don’t believe in myself as much as I did, or maybe I don’t believe that the world is going to be saved like I always did or something like that. And that’s, I think, a really healthy place to be so they can make it clearer to you what you really do believe.
So listen to Timothy’s words. “This faith that you have, it’s in you. It’s this ember. It’s this thing inside of you that God saw in the people when he said, ‘I won’t destroy these people.’” And so God has given us this gift through the redemption of the work of Jesus on the cross, and we have this gift given to us. And what it is, it’s the Spirit that’s powerful, loving and able to control our thoughts and our feelings so that we don’t get caught up in something that is just a normal emotional response to things that aren’t the way they should be. It’s a normal response to be nervous or afraid or want to do something. That’s all healthy, but when those things are out of our control, when they are just things that seem to be in the world and we see the division and the discord that’s being caused and we want it to stop, we can’t go into their lives and stop them, but we can stop it in ourselves. That’s the wisdom that comes from a time like we’re in. Look at the effects of division. Look at the effects of people having ideas that are not opinions but truths and are threatened by someone who doesn’t have the same truth, who doesn’t believe the same truth. It’s a time to reflect. It’s a time to think about all of that and to recognize that we are sometimes ashamed, ashamed of our testimonies, as Timothy says. And that doesn’t mean — I think that what that means is that he’s saying don’t be afraid of looking at yourself and saying, “I have these doubts. I have these fears. I have these worries.” It’s okay. Don’t be ashamed. Look at him. Look at — Timothy’s in prison. What did he do to get in prison? Maybe he shouldn’t be in prison. Maybe it was his fault. Who knows? Maybe he felt it was his fault. But bear it all. Share in the hardship, and you know that, when you share in that hardship, you are receiving, in a mysterious way, the strength that only comes from God. So I love the image of this reading, which stir up, use the Holy Spirit. You use God inside of you to help you to stir this flame of faith inside of you, and the flame of faith is your capacity to be a loving, forgiving, inviting person into a world of truth, oneness, wholeness. And when it’s the darkest, it’s the most important that you be that and trust in that.
And then we look at the wonderful gospel, and this is just — I love this gospel, because it’s like the apostles are looking at this plan that God has for them. And it does include a dying to the self, a dying to the ego that likes to control and likes to force people to do certain things, likes to force you to be somebody, not because of grace, not because of whatever gift God is going to give you and let you use it for the good. No, it comes from a kind of negative spirit of demanding, judging. Demanding, judging, that’s not the Spirit of God, even though we see it in the Old Testament. But that was another time, and we have to be so careful of what it is that we listen to from this incredibly complex and wonderful story. This story is our story, every man’s story. Did you ever wonder what it would be like without the gospel, without the Old Testament, New Testament, all of it? Where would we go to find truth? And yet it’s not a kind of truth where you can sit down and say, “Okay, this is what everybody needs right now.” It’s a truth that’s dynamic, living and active inside of each person, and each person is going to get what they need. What I love about my relationship with you, these conversations we have every Sunday, or whenever you listen to the podcast, it’s really a beautiful thing that I feel that I am being chosen by you, and you listen to me, because perhaps you really do need what I’m saying. And what I’m saying, I want you to believe in a gentler God than sometimes is presented, something so beautiful when you’re in stress or in doubt, that there’s a God that wants to comfort you and say, “There’s a thing I’m going to give you, and you’re not going to feel it all the time. You’re not going to be assured of it all the time, but it’s called faith.”
And so the disciples are looking at him and saying, “Okay, I know I’m supposed to believe in the way that you’re describing your life, Jesus, but —” Can you imagine what it was like to be a disciple? I guess the disciples were close enough to the theology, let’s say, of the temple, and Jesus was doing crazy things. He was disregarding rules and laws that were considered to be absolutely necessary to do these things if you wanted God’s favor, and he would flaunt those in some ways. Then he would talk about a dying that was different than anything they could have imagined, and they may have just thought it was all about a physical death. But it’s not about a physical death. It’s about the death to a part of you that is more reflective of a God in the Old Testament working with people with much less consciousness than we have today and somehow demanding that they change. And if they don’t, fear is used as the means of getting them to not do what they’re doing. It’s not a changing of heart, or it’s not a transformation of who they are. But it’s more of a power over them, and maybe people need that at sometimes. I’m sure they do, but not you, not me, not now, not so many people, in my estimation.
So here we have this beautiful image of increase our faith. So how do you do that? It’s so beautiful. The Lord says, “Look, it’s a gift. I gave it to you. It’s sometimes like a little ember inside of you that isn’t really a raging fire yet purifying you of your doubts and your insecurities.” Sometimes it’s just this little thing, but when it’s in you, you still have this power. You can do the things that human beings can’t do. No human being can tell a tree, “Hey, get up and move.” So it’s this faith that gives you the ability to do the impossible. So he says, “Here’s the deal. Faith is in you. When you don’t feel it, you’re going to be feeling like you need to be cared for.” But here’s the thing, this work of working with faith and helping you to deepen it by doubts and insecurities and all that sort of stuff, that’s what you’re here to do. It’s your role. It’s your service to yourself and to the rest of those that love you, and when you do that work, when you’re serving the process of transformation that brings you into the fullness of who you are, you’re doing your work. And you’re not going to be given some great award. You just have God looking at you, looking into your eyes and saying, “Yes, you’ve got it. You’re doing it. I’m with you. I’m comforting you. I’ll send people to you to comfort you,” as he’s done to me. And you’ll find life. It’s all about trust and hope. And hope isn’t saying, “I hope it works.” No, it’s, “I know it will work. I know there’s new life through suffering.” God bless you.
Father, we pray for wisdom, the mysterious gift of the Holy Spirit. Stir within us an understanding of the mysteries that we’re asked to live, to surrender to the processes you’ve placed just perfectly for us. And with that, we’ll find the trust that we need, your faith — our faith in you. Thank you for that gift. And we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.