Nineteenth Sunday August 12, 2007

Ecclesiastes 2: 21-23 Ps 90 Col 3: 1-3, 9-11 Luke 12: 13-21

faith and faithfulness

1. If you needed two words to summarize today’s message from the readings, they would : faith and faithfulness. Faithfulness being the fruit or result of faith.

The Israelite Community trusted in God’s promises. They decide to flee from the most powerful nation Earth - the Egyptian army. By human logic they would be wiped out. But as the SECOND READING written many years later would say: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for”. In this faith the Israelites leave. In this faith, they are victorious.

However, there are two difficulties here. The Book of Wisdom(Ecclesiastes) was written long after these events took place. Did they read into something that they knew had happened. Did they read God’s promises into these historical events?

Secondly if they had this deep faith in God, if they were secure in the knowledge of God’s promises how is it we find that they complain against God and against Moses.

God has brought us here in the desert to die.

we long for the flesh pots and good food of Egypt.

they want to return to Egypt even as they are on the very doorstep of the promised land.

However, the writer of the Book of Wisdom utters this song of praise of God’s fidelity to promises made to the Israelite Community. It is also a praise of the faith of the Ancestors who trusted in the Lord, a faith that should be imitated by the present Israelite Community.

2. HEBREWS: Much earlier than this Exodus community, we find Abraham whom we rightly call our Father in faith. The writer gives us three examples of things human logic would not accept, but which Abraham takes in his stride because of his faith that God will keep the promises.

Abraham leaves his comfortable homeland fr the land God has promised will be better. This was signified by being “rich in milk and honey”

Again, against human logic, he believes in God’s promise that his family will number more than the sands on the shore, even though he has no children and Sarah is way pass her child bearing years.

And then as a “piece-de resistance” - Abraham is willing to sacrifice Isaac the only possible means by which Sarah and he could “increase and multiply.”

Abraham, Sarah, Isaac are concrete, are physical fruits of God’s fidelity to promises made to Abraham. Having received two powerful examples of faith, we are invited to show the effects, the fruits in our lives of faithfulness to God.

3. In the Gospel, we are called to be ready with lamps lit, because we do not know the hour when the Master of the house is coming back. When the Master arrives, the slave has everything in readiness with a meal prepared.

People in rural India (they number over 400 million) can relate to this story. The husband/father leaves early in the morning to work in the fields. When he comes home at dusk. He expects to have a hot meal ready for him and the wife/mother to be in attendance. Human logic would tell the wife/mother to eat her meal and await the arrival of her husband/father because unlike the Master in the Gospel, she DOES know the hour when he will return.

However, tradition and custom are very strong. Even dynamite will not change this ritual. She will await the man of the house before she herself will sit down and eat. With this tradition one can understand today’s Gospel.

However the Gospel overturns human logic. The Master who must be served by the slave, reverses the roles. The Master serves the slave. The slave who has been doing nothing but waiting patiently is served by a Master who is tired after a day of travelling and work.

And so in singing the praises of God who is faithful to promises made, our reading gives praise also to the faithfulness in the actions of the believing Community. As the Letter to the Hebrews puts it:

FAITH is the assurance of things hoped for.

FAITH according to the Gospel means “be not afraid.”

FAITH means taking the risk of trusting in the Word of God when human logic would dictate caution.

FAITH is taking a leap in the dark, because although not seen by human eyes , we know with spiritual insight that God’s safety net will protect us.

STORY ONE:

A woman in our parish would stay after Mass and close her eyes in intense prayer. People would go and light candles in prayers. Others would stand and talk - some loudly, insensitive of people who want to carry on praying. But she managed to shut out the noise and the movement. Occasionally a tear would run down her cheek.

Once I asked if I could help and she said, “please pray that my faith remain strong.” She told me that her husband had a stroke and was crippled and at home. She had an autistic 21 year old daughter who was unpredictable in behaviour. But there was an alcoholic son who did not live at home, but would visit when he was really on a drunken binge. That would upset the father and sister and often it would be days before they could back into a routine. To crown it all, they were downsizing in her company and she could loose her job. Eviction from the house was a strong possibility.

I was astonished. How can you still believe and pray to God? And she looked me straight in the eye, and simply asked: How could I NOT believe in God at this stage?

STORY TWO:

A friend of mine who is a prison chaplain somewhere in the Caribbean told me this story of a person who put all his faith in God. The chaplain was talking to him - but could not place whether he was a catholic or not. So she asked the man very casually whether he believed in God. Believe in God, he asked with astonishment. Of course I believe in God. How could I have survived without believing in God.

at the age of 14, I was gang-raped. But I knew God helped me from sickness and despair.

at the age of 20, I was stabbed several times. If God hadn’t been there I should have died.

I then met with a severe accident, as my friends and I stole a car. All of them died, I was the only one who survived. If God had not been there, I should have been burnt as the car burst into flames.

God has saved me for a purpose, in spite of all the crimes and sins I have committed. My chaplain friend told me that she was absolutely astonished at the faith of this man.

Here was a prisoner who could only see the hand of God even through the hell-fire he had experienced here on earth.