Romans 3:21-31
Luke 17:1-10
"Thought
we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of
one opinion?" John Wesley
Among the many challenges we face in our
Sunday evening study of the First Testament is that of the diverse opinions we
have, opinions we have come by honestly from our own diverse traditions; and
some, admittedly, rather carelessly.
That is, we have traditional understandings we have probably not tested
carefully enough. Sort of like how so
many atheists and Protestants are misunderstanding Pope Francis because of what
someone else told them he said (or meant); for instance, that the pope said homosexuality is ok. No, he did not. He affirmed that "the Church's teachings
are clear". Or that the pope said
being an atheist is ok. No, he did
not. Opinions can be good, but often
they can do more harm than good if these opinions are not based on some real,
first-hand knowledge and experience and tested through tradition and Scriptures.
The Church universal has historically
faced and continues to face a profound threat when we allow uninformed personal
and political opinions based on second-hand information or "the hairs on
the back of the neck" to trump the essential nature of the Holy Church,
the nature of which is to serve
just as our Lord came "not to be served but to serve". When we lose sight of this - and I think we
did a long time ago - it is the children who get stuck between what we grown
ups think and what we should know.
What we are left with is an age of
confusion that feeds on itself from generation to generation - and our children
are in perpetual danger of losing sight of and forgetting altogether the
essential sacrificial love that
is perfected in Christ and should be personified in His Body the Holy Church;
the sacrificial love that can bind us together ... if we are willing to put aside "our own" for the
sake of the Lord's own. This concept of
service for the sake of something greater than self is, thankfully, exemplified
and embodied in Scouting; making these young men and their leaders worthy of
our support, prayers, and encouragement!
Keep them free from politics and personal opinions, and just let them
serve!
We will not always agree on what are
essentially disagreeable opinions. Not
about denominational doctrine, not about what constitutes proper worship, not
about the Sacraments of the Church or theology in general, and certainly not
about politics. For the sake of the Holy
Church we of the faithful, however, must necessarily agree with our Lord who
more or less puts us in our place in Luke's
gospel by reminding us that His "slaves ... have done only what we ought
to have done". Not what we think
should have been done, not what we felt like doing when we felt like doing it,
and certainly not doing in anticipation of some reward or individual
recognition of achievement. No, our Lord
is clear there are things we "ought" to do simply because they need
to be done. Period. No reward.
No thank you. No recognition. Just integrity within the true nature and
character of His Church.
Before we even get to this point, however,
Jesus still has much to say. Even if
this whole text seems somewhat disjointed, there is a connection, a common
element that ties everything together. Strangely
enough, however, even this connecting point is not something many disciples are
willing to agree on. Jesus is very clear that we have duties. We have duties which go beyond a personal profession
of faith. We have duties to our Master,
and we have equal duty to our fellow disciples.
Together as the Church - the Body of Christ - we have a duty to the
communities we are called to serve.
It is especially important to allow the
preceding story of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31) to lead us into this discourse because the duty
imparted to the rich man, to his brothers, and to all of Israel is what was
revealed to them by "Moses and the prophets"; what they would have
known as the "Holy Scriptures".
The clear duty which comes from the Lord on High, the duty to have been
embraced by the faithful, would have assured that Lazarus would never have been
allowed to fester in his misery and die an excruciating death - alone.
So we come into chapter 17 and find
Jesus expounding on the idea of what a community of faith is supposed to look
like, what our Holy Father surely envisioned when the Law was revealed to
Moses. As our Jewish friend from last
week had plainly stated, it's not about how to get to heaven (that is, worrying
only about saving your own cheese); it is about how to live with and
for one another for the well-being of the entire community. Chief among these duties is the protection of
the "little ones", the next generation, be they biological children
or new believers. They need to be taught - by Word and deed. It will not simply occur to them one day
somehow by magic. And Divine revelation
and epiphany without context will be meaningless.
Notice also that Jesus is referring to
our relations with those of our community of faith when "another disciple sins" (vs 3). We have as much a duty to call our fellow
disciple on his or her sin as we do to forgive that fellow disciple who seeks forgiveness. It seems to me there cannot be one without
the other which is another way of saying the disciple may not realize the depth
of his or her offense as "sin" if we are not willing to make it
known, if we do not care about them enough to teach them - not to merely criticize them. Then we are to be as patient with them as we all
must surely hope our Lord is patient with us!
The disciples' response is rather
surprising, though I would suppose faith to be the thing to ask for. After all, Jesus is telling His disciples to
forgive without condition. Our Lord does
not recommend it nor suggest it; He says, "You must forgive." For
most of us, this is a pretty tall order!
What will an "increase in faith" do for the disciples,
though? How will having more faith make
forgiving an offense easier? Or maybe it
won't become easier to do more than it might be a little easier to
swallow our pride when after the seventh offense, the offender comes to us yet
again seeking forgiveness - no matter how we may have been personally harmed!
But I don't think Jesus is letting us
off the hook so easily because Jesus clearly states that faith the "size
of a mustard seed" can do remarkable things. So it is not necessarily more faith we need,
for even a little faith can "move mountains". Think of this request in the whole context,
and what we may discover is that Jesus is telling them they already have
sufficient faith.
How much faith they actually have,
however, is as immeasurable as yours or mine - although I would suggest we each
may have a cut-off point at which time fear may overwhelm our faith. Then more "faith" would come in quite
handy, but Jesus is not going there. He
is talking about something much more enveloping, much more all-encompassing,
much more communal.
Especially moving into that "slave
thing" which would obviously rub many of us the wrong way - after all, we are
Americans! - Jesus may be suggesting we are going to need a little more than
faith imparted. Remember the Bible
teaches us that faith, true faith, is given from Above. To understand how this faith matters beyond
self, however, is going to require something from us: first the will to
respond. And secondly the gumption to
respond. So in faith the Lord is going
to do His part to give us what we need to respond. In fact Jesus seems to suggest this much has
already been done. So then comes our
response.
We respond not for bragging rights. We respond not for individual achievement or
recognition. We respond because our "neighbor" needs us to respond. We respond because our community needs us to respond. We respond because our nation needs us to respond! We respond because Divine Love compels us to respond,
and we respond because in the faith that is imparted to us we are assured that
others will respond for us as well. We respond
not to "earn" anything for ourselves, for we already have the
assurance of the Resurrection of our Lord.
You and I may not agree on the finer
points of doctrine and we may not agree on political philosophy - and we will
NEVER agree on rooting for LSU or UofA! - but I think we can agree that the
essential nature of the Church, the essential nature of the Body of Christ, is
to "do" for our Lord by "doing" for His loved ones just as surely
as He did for His beloved Israel, just as surely as He did for His beloved Church
- long before we had a chance to love Him, our Lord clearly loves us first!
Let us agree on this, and we will find
much less to disagree about. After all,
we do not want to be mistaken as members of the Congress, do we? To the Glory of His Holy Name, let the people
of the Lord say, Amen!
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