Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time: 10-2-16

Peace be with You,

Over the last couple of Sundays in the parables of the dishonest steward and the rich man and Lazarus, we have been reminded that it is our responsibility to be charitable to those most in need, as the needy are, in a special way, identified with Christ, the God who made himself poor to be one with us.  We were taught that in giving to the poor, we give to God.  This weekend, the gospel message wants to remind us that to be charitable is not a superhuman act, but one that is quite natural to the sort of creatures we are.

In our first reading for today from Habakkuk, we find the prophet calling out to God, asking when the mistreatment being experienced by Israel at the hands of the Babylonians will cease (as he does throughout the short book).  As the prophet writes, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?  Or cry to you violence!  And you will not save?” (Habakkuk 1:2).  The reason this is so odd to the prophet, and to be sure the people of Israel, is, as the prophet explains, not only does God seem to be indifferent, but he is indifferent to the people he calls his own, his children.  What happened to the special treatment?  What happened to God’s favor?

In a similar fashion, in today’s gospel, we find the disciples asking Jesus that he show them special favor.  “Increase our faith!” they say (Luke 17:5).  This seems to be a righteous request, does it not?  Yet Jesus responds in a seemingly indignant way.  Seeming almost to criticize their lack of faith, saying, ““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” (Luke 17:6).  Then, he goes on to speak of servants, who never expect to be served by the master, but simply go about their duty, never expecting special treatment.   Then he tells them that this is how they should be, saying, “So should it be with you.  When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do’” (Luke 17:10).  Not exactly the encouraging words the disciples were expecting to hear given their request to be sure.  Or are they?

What is Jesus really saying here?  He has spent the last bit of Luke telling them that they must be charitable to those in need.  Then in the interim (the part just before this weekend’s gospel), he tells them that they are to forgive without limit as he forgives (Luke 17:4).  Now, given the huge demands Jesus seems to be imposing on his disciples, doesn’t it seem normal that they should expect something in return?  But Jesus quickly puts an end to this kind of thinking, telling them that to live in this fashion is nothing extraordinary, if they did all of this, they would simply be doing what they are called to do.  What gives?

The reason Jesus says these things is because for people created in the image of God, it is normal to be charitable, it is normal to trust God, it is normal to forgive.  In short, to be the presence of God in the world is par for the course!  To look at this and say, ‘Well, why should I do it if I don’t get anything out of it?’ is the worst way to look at it!  What you are getting out of it is exactly what you were created for, life shared with God!  It is not extraordinary to do these things precisely because you, as everything God has created, have been created good, and to live so as to reflect the goodness of God is natural.  In other words, we are by nature, virtuous.

St. Antony of the Desert, the hermit, expressed enormous generosity before he took to his life of solitude.  Growing up in a wealthy family, he gave all he had to the poor, and set out for a life of relative solitude (because people always visited him to ask advice) in order to contemplate God.  To understand this as Antony renouncing the world would be a mistake.  He didn’t see the world as an evil place, but as a place where the love of God was to be lived and share by those who possessed his image.  He exhorted people to look out for the poor, as we have been hearing in the gospels the last couple weeks.  And, as we are being told in our gospel today, he reminded the people that to be virtuous, to be good, was natural to them as people who bear the image of God saying, “For the Lord has told us before, the Kingdom of God is within you.  All virtue needs, then, is our willing, since it is in us, and arises from us…It holds fast according to nature when it remains as it was made—and it was made beautiful and perfectly straight” (Athanasius, The Life of Antony, p. 20).  Now, you may be saying to yourselves, ‘Antony seems a bit optimistic, the world doesn’t seem to be filled with the beautifully loving people he talks of.’  And you would be right, but for Antony, as we see in Paul today, this is because even though virtue and goodness are natural to us as beings created in God’s image, we cannot live according to that image apart from God.  In short, apart from God, we cannot be human.

My friends, to live the life we were created for means to be perfectly in accordance with the will of God.  How do we do this?  It takes time and effort, and a lot of help from God, which he promises us in the form of the Holy Spirit, which we receive at baptism.  This is the Spirit of power and love that Paul exhorts Timothy and us to guard and to stir into flame today by allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through us (2 Timothy 1:6-8 & 13-14).  Yes, the world we live in is not what we would like it to be, in fact, it is an absolute mess.  But we are reminded today that this is not God’s plan for us.  Rather, God’s plan, which will be fulfilled at the end of time, is that all live the life of love that he calls us, his disciples, to live starting now.  So we must continue to run the race and trust in God’s plan.  For as God reminds Habakkuk, the plan he had when he created the world will not be thwarted, but will come to fruition, and “if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.  The rash one has no integrity; but the just one, because of his faith, shall live” (Habakkuk 2:3-4).

Your servant in Christ,

Tony

Tony Crescio

Tony Crescio is the founder of FRESHImage Ministries. He holds an MTS from the University of Notre Dame and is currently a PhD candidate in Christian Theology at Saint Louis University. His research focuses on the intersection between moral and sacramental theology. His dissertation is entitled, Presencing the Divine: Augustine, the Eucharist and the Ethics of Exemplarity.

Tony’s academic publications can be found here.