Jesus replied, 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

Transcription

1 Jesus replied, 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). 27 th Sunday in Ordinal Time October 6 th, 2013

2 First Reading: Habakkuk 1:2 3; 2:2 4 (NRSV): 1:2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you Violence! and you will not save? 3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. 2:2 Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. 3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. 4 Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. Second Reading: 2 Timothy 1:6 8; (NRSV) 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7 for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. 8 Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, 13 Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

3 Gospel Reading: Luke 17:5 10 (NRSV) 5 The apostles said to the Lord, Increase our faith! 6 The Lord replied, If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you. 7 Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, Come here at once and take your place at the table? 8 Would you not rather say to him, Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done! Homily We have a Hebrew Bible First Reading from a short little book of a so-called minor prophet, who in the face of severe threat, is questioning God s purposes and intentions. Some have suggested that this passage reflects the earliest questioning of God in Israelite literature, and of course, later writers of Psalms and Job raised this genre to a fine art. Jewish complaint was an art form, so to speak. At the time referred to in Habakkuk, Judah was desperately anticipating an invasion in 597 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar, and the prophet accuses God of doing nothing whatsoever about it. There is a contrast in attitudes as the Israelites anticipate calamity and do not see rescue coming. Likewise, today, as we look upon human events in our own era, we can see the vast scope of inequity, iniquity, the breaking of promises, the collapse of mercy and grace, the pathologies of our own culture, where some continue to glory in taking advantage of others. It is no different than what the Israelites were facing, and we too see no end to destruction in our world. We see in Habakkuk two paths in response that we may take. Some choose to rely on themselves, which makes them proud, trusting in their personal resources. Scripture depicts them as becoming unstable, rash, with an insatiable appetite for destruction. What does this mean? In our own era, we might label this path as self-destructive or self-abusive because ultimately, they turn in on themselves. It is like a closed system where there is no solution. It is like a stuck record, that plays the same tune over and over, because it takes energy from outside itself to move the needle.

4 The other stance is taken by those who rely on the Lord, and who live by his fidelity. With total trust or faithfulness that permits new information, a person has the tools to live a just or righteous life. It is noteworthy that the phrase in Habakkuk (verse 2:4a) is the same one which Paul used in Romans 1:17 and Martin Luther thereafter in his theological development of justification by faith: For in the Gospel a righteousness which God ascribes is revealed, both springing from faith and leading to faith [disclosed through the way of faith that arouses to more faith]. As it is written, The man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith. [Habakkuk 2:4] (Romans 1:17, Amplified Bible, italicized and underlined material by the current writer) What can we find here that is different from the path where one turns to and relies only on one s self? We begin with what may be a tiny glimmer of faith, and as we practice it in faith, it will lead to stronger and greater faith. Let s see how this may come about. How does God answer the prophet? His response is lengthy and we only have a part of it here, but he encourages Habakkuk, telling him that the vision and its fulfillment still have their time, and even if there is a delay, it will not be disappointing. Perhaps we ourselves may be prone to want an answer right now, but God seems to say that our faith will increase through the delay. Perhaps our souls and spirits are not yet ready to receive the fullness of relationship with him so we re being encouraged to wait. Perhaps, as we think about Habakkuk and the Romans passage, we can see that with time, as we open ourselves to new awareness and new knowledge, we gain more perspective, and the delay is good for us. In the Second Reading, we are urged to rekindle God s gift of faith which was passed down to us, and to hold fast to what has been entrusted to us. Faith was not a static doctrine passed down via family nor simply a consequence of a ritual of the laying on of hands. Rather, faith had to be developed, and constantly fed and reinforced. It is interesting that suffering is a natural and normal part of this growth process. But we as human beings are given to complaint and forsaking our path of faith when things don t go smoothly or quickly, or as we think they should go. Especially in our era, we are a generation seeking instant gratification. As life moves along, it is not all tumultuous disruption. We also experience quiescent and peaceful times in the natural scheme of things. It is real, and it is good, but it is transient, fragile, and inadequate for the long haul. It doesn t hold up when we re in the middle of times of inevitable suffering. What is the best example of dealing with those times of suffering? At the last supper and while he was dying, Jesus offered us his gift of peace, which is available to us no matter how bad things are. He reminds us that even as he was dying, he had absolute assurance that he was connected to God, the source of all life, and this connection is unconditional, unchangeable, and lasting. It cannot be severed. We are held, and we are stable.

5 So, what is the point of Jesus hyperbole about faith of a mustard seed and uprooting a tree into the ocean? The sycamore is actually a black mulberry tree, and the mustard seed moves a mountain in the Gospel of Matthew and commands a tree to jump into the ocean in today s Gospel. Perhaps a less dramatic analogy might be tiny seeds that grow into tufts of grass in small cracks in an area of pavement that inevitably grow and grow until they break up the pavement. In other words, a seemingly small and barely discernible source can lead to very large and disproportionate or incommensurate effects or results. Perhaps another example will be helpful. Imagine that you re charting a path to a distant location using longitude and latitude coordinates. You know precisely what the goal is. But as you set off on your journey, you re somehow off by just a few degrees, a slight tilt in your trajectory. But it will not become apparent to you until you re a considerable distance down the path. At the beginning, you may not notice that you re off. But as you continue on, in time the end-point will be drastically different. Our life decisions are like that. It may seem that the choices are not that big. The little choices we make today and each day may not seem to make a discernable difference. But there is something of a domino effect that will not become apparent until much later. We all make a series of choices, or perhaps we choose not to choose, which is a decision and a choice as well. I am reminded of a patient that I saw while I was an Air Force psychologist in about Without going into too much detail, Ruby was a woman who seemed to have made choices of not to choose, not to do what needed to be done on a daily basis. She was a military dependent and her husband at times had to be away from home. He was beside himself and did not know what to do. She underwent every kind of diagnostic procedure that could be devised, trying to understand the cause of her indifference to reality. Everything basically came back normal. There were no neurological, medical, psychiatric, or psychological findings that could explain her problem. She seemed impervious to any form of help or intervention. We made no progress. She was not responsive to positive reinforcement, behavioral interventions, nor was she interested in exploring her internal state or her lack of motivation for change. Finally, with great reluctance, we had to transfer her out of the Air Force hospital, because it was something chronic that we were not equipped to handle. I remember vividly the day that she was to be transferred to the state mental hospital. The proverbial men in the little white coats arrived to transport her. Her Air Force hospital identification band was snipped from her wrist. She screamed and cried as she was taken away. As a young clinical psychologist, this event was burned into my brain. I pondered what it could be that we did not know that perhaps could have made a difference. What was the missing key? Of course, in 2010, it is possible that there would have been some data that we were not able to find in Still, from the perspectives available to us then, she seemed to have all the normal capacities for making decisions and carrying out her

6 responsibilities in life. But Ruby somehow chose not to do the simple things that were needed. When her hospital ID band was clipped away, I retrieved it from the trash. I carried it in my wallet for years, as a reminder to me that not to choose was to choose. We come to a difficult segment in the Gospel reading, one which I ve researched extensively with little insight or help found to understand it. The saying about what one would say to one s slave is more difficult to decipher and make sense of. Here s one possibility. Servants were to act like servants, to do what servants do, to do things expected by the master. They wait on the master and are not waited on; that was the natural, expected and fixed social order of things in that era. Perhaps we are being told not to expect a disruption to the natural order of events. And when we do what is expected, it is not cause for expecting a big reward or payoff. A doulos or slave, in this text segment, which apparently came from an early source which was unique to Luke s Gospel as it is not found in the other synoptic gospels, had already taken on a Christian contextual coloring even though it was probably written or passed down orally well before the time it was incorporated into Luke s Gospel. Tilling the soil, caring for sheep, and servant metaphors were common for explaining the role of Christian disciples. One interpretation was that our salvation would not be derived from merely doing the good works that we were expected to do. So a servant who expects to be waited on would have been a great anomaly and likewise, expecting to be served is not consistent with the role of a Christian in service to others. It is not our due to be taken care of by others. Such a servant is not the minister or priest who expects others to cater to him or her. Early on in Christianity, such individuals appeared to take advantage of the community of believers. In the Didache, a document about church discipline that was probably written about 100 CE, the community is warned about socalled prophets or teachers who come into town and expect to be kept up. The phrase worthless slaves is a puzzle, however, and may be misunderstood in the NRSV version we ve used as well as other translations. It is obvious that a servant who does what s/he is expected to do certainly isn t worthless. Nor is s/he unprofitable (NAB), or unworthy (RSV and NIV). Jesus is not berating the person who does what s/he is supposed to do. The Greek adjective literally means without need. When translated from the Syriac, derived from Aramaic in an edition of scripture completed about CE, the word was rendered with an idiomatic phrase meaning owed nothing. The New English Bible comes close to this and translates it as deserve no credit. Dr. John Pilch, an early mid-eastern cultural expert at Georgetown University, suggests that the phrase due nothing may be consistent with Jesus style of language, where the issue for us as Christian servants is surrendering a sense of entitlement for what one should doing in the normal course of events. In other words, like Ruby, we get no brownie points for doing what is required in life.

7 In capsuling our complex readings for today, we might say: Seemingly inconsequential decisions lead to major and unforeseen results. Our awareness and our options will increase as we practice our faith on a daily basis, seemingly when there s nothing of consequence going on. There s no big insight to be gained nor a big reward for doing what we are supposed to do on a day-to-day basis. There will be a difference between self-reliance and choosing within our own closed system of self-understanding which leads to chaos and opening ourselves to a faith path where our choices are guided by an open, healing, instructive system, the Compass of God s guidance. O Lord, be with us and guide us as we choose daily, enlightening us to Your path. Remind us that not to choose is to choose and strengthen us to make choices that further your Kingdom on earth.. Help us not to rely on our own resources, which leads to chaos, but to open ourselves to your path of wisdom and direction and to grow in confidence even when we cannot envision the end result. Amen. One by one they come. Dragons called strife come and sit on our chests and they suck out the air from us. Some from outside, some from within. Make belief our vision, Lord; let faith be our shield. Your battles are our battles. Give us your victory Holy Spirit, kindle your love in us. Stir the coals of our lives till they flame out with your love

8 everlasting. Jesus, what is it that works great miracles? Faith the size of a mustard seed, a pinhead s worth, is enough, you say, to root up the mulberry tree. Make us your faithful servants who trust that whatever faith you give us is enough for us. Amen. Prayers in green only. Copyright 2013, Anne M. Osdieck. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce for personal or parish use.