27TH SUNDAY HOMILY OF THE ORDINARY TIME – YEAR C
HOMILY THEME: INCREASE OUR FAITH, LORD
BY: Fr. Mike Olumba
Hab 1:2-3, 2:2-4; 2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14; Lk 17:5-10
Jesus has just asked his disciples to pardon 7 times if someone offended them 7 times in a day and asked for this pardon 7 times. This means that they have to pardon without counting how many times one did so. (cf. Luke 17: 3-4). That appeared difficult and almost impossible to the apostles. Thinking that this demand will need a greater height and depth of faith, they turned to him the Master and pleaded; “Please Lord, increase our faith (which is what we need in order to be able to do this which is almost impossible for man)”.
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They realised at least that Faith is a gift, a free gift, a gracious gift. Onyinye mmuo Chukwu ji eme ogo… No one can buy or acquire it on his own. It is a gift asked for by man and given by another; by the Lord.
Jesus uses images to explain.
If you have it, even a very little one as small as Alligator Seed/Mkpuru Oseoji; it can do miracles, and the impossible things that are humanly impossible will become possible; like displacing mountains and trees.
If we respond to God faithfully;
He will grant us Faith.
If we make ourselves truly God’s servants, fully available to him, he will make us co-masters.
Aided by Faith, this great gift of God, we shall do things that naturally are almost impossible for humans.
As we become servants to God, Faith herself, a gift of God/from God (and even the Angels of God) will also become our servants.
-Faith makes us do things that ordinarily, we would not have done without it.
-Faith makes us to make projects for the unseen future.
-Faith still makes us to bulie mmanyi ilu nwanyi/to start marriage process today not minding that ufodu luru alu, ahu afoghi ha/some married people are looking for a way to come out of it. Faith makes us tell ourselves, “In spite of all, that my own will work”.
-Faith still makes us embark on the journey to the celibate priesthood without understanding fully all the pain of those already in it.
In fact, both marriage and the celibate priesthood, it is only in living them that we understand them better. None should envy the other. Each one, his or her joys and pains.
-Faith makes us go into business not minding all that we have already heard about failures etc. in business.
-Faith makes us strike up pacts of friendship not minding that some others have lost their lives and their life’s fortunes to such pacts.
As for moving mountains and hills: Perhaps, Jesus did not actually mean physical mountains or rather even if he meant that, he has given to men now knowledge to find other engineering ways of taking care of such geological feats like the use of earthmoving machines, caterpillar, graders and payloaders in moving mountains.
(The day the French people and the British engineers succeeded in joining their two ends of the English tunnel (on 01st December, 1990), i.e. the railway tunnel made/dug under the sea called the English Channel, digging blindly but with confidence in their scientific calculations and prowess that the two teams coming from different and opposite directions, will meet about 75 meters under the sea without perforating the sea bed above; and it worked out perfectly well as their engineers and mathematicians hoped.
That was another form of “geological miracle”. The builders and engineers had “Faith in God” that the order seen so far in his creation will hold out in the recesses of the earth even under the sea, and in places not yet visited once by man. They had “Faith in man” that his ability to master the working of nature can lead to great engineering breakthroughs. This is an all-round “Faith” of another form at work.
The scripture condemns having “faith in man” when this refers to one “hoping in man as if man is or can replace God”. Faith in man meaning confidence and trust that there is still some good left in humanity, some good in the heart of men in spite of all; and that all is not evil: This is even necessary for life in societies and families.
Imagine what life would be like if this does not exist.
-No marriage, no commerce, no friendship, no contract.
-All our verbal promises and signed papers would mean nothing.
-All our commercial contracts would mean nothing.
-All our marriage certificates would be a wastes of time, of paper and of ink.
In spite of all failures over and above these, Faith when it means Confidence in man is still practised and upheld as necessary among men.
How many times have you bought a bottle of beer and asked for it to be opened, tasted and tested to be sure that it is beer?
How many times have you bought a tin of Bournvita and asked for it to be opened before you pay?
-*Faith* in God helps us to do good even to our avowed enemies.
It helps you to save your neighbour’s goat from being killed by passing vehicles even when you are not in speaking terms with the said neighbour.
The same attitude with two faces:
Towards God it is called Faith.
Towards man here below, it is called Trust or Confidence.
The Christian faith is not actually meant to be used in the accomplishment of geological feats. Uprooting trees and displacing mountains…
Pay your workers to do that!
Civil Engineering Companies and Road Construction Companies do these with their earth-moving machines.
But when movement of concrete mountains or parting of real sees are necessary, God knows how and when to do it even on his own.
But in our lives there are mountains greater than the Sinai.
There are trees greater than the tallest and largest Iroko Tree in the world.
There are obstacles “greater” than any physical object in the world.
The problems that eventually become so enormous that they sometimes lead people to commit suicide are thus practically greater than any other physical object like mountains etc. in the lives of the people concerned.
In the first reading, we see Habakkuk questioning God at a difficult moment in his life and that of his people. He asked questions to God and on God.
God’s response was: “Patience. Have faith in me! I will come certainly! I will answer surely!”
In Paul’s life too; we see someone who went through the pain of the crucible/furnace and the school of Faith and Patience. He was writing from prison to encourage someone that was not in prison. Imagine this. Between Timothy and Paul, who really needed encouragements?
*Miracles:*
Miracles are instances in which God subverts the natural order he created. He does this when and how he wills.
But to think that we can find a way through prayers or whatever means to make this “subversion or suspension” of the natural order thus become or be turned into “an ordered rule for daily living” is false religiosity. And that is exactly what we are often offered today by the Miracle Centres!
A man of Faith submits to God in confidence (as expressed by Habakkuk), hopeful that God does the best in whatever it be that He gives or ordains. And sometimes, his silence surprises us & we ask:
_-Why do you look on and watch as evil is happening and you do nothing?_
_-Why do you watch our leaders pillage the land and you do nothing?_
_-Why do you not strike the evil ones?_
A magician orders nature to act on his behalf as he (the petitioner) wishes.
-As a believer, I assert that God can change our situations. He can answer our prayers when and how he wishes. When he does a miracle, we thank him. When He does not do one, we still thank him. In fact, the relationship between true belief/true believers and God does not depend on miracles. Let us not think that he is there above just looking out to do miracles for us when we know the principles and natural laws of gravity etc.
If I drink poison today, just to test him, surely I will die.
If I place myself on a train rail just to invite his miracle, I would certainly be cut into pieces:
In fact, he sometimes attracts us through miracles (just as you can use food to bring children to school) so that at last we shall need no more miracles (food) to continue believing in him and walking with him (to continue coming to school).
*Read below:*
-Habakkuk 3:17-19
“17-Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
18-yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
19-The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights”.
-Daniel 3:17-19:
“17-If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand.
18-But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
19-Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual”
-The strange coincidence is that chapter 3, verse 17-19 both in Daniel and in Habakkuk spoke almost of the same thing: Faith beyond miracles!
Even if God does not perform a miracle to save us, our faith goes beyond the desire and performance of/or the search for miracle.
This is a Faith above the desire for miracles.
This is the Maturation of Christian faith in God.
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