3rd October, 2010 Twenty - seventh Sunday of the Year - C
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I think this gospel passage is really a key text. It is challenging, and surprising, but it is saying something very profound that all disciples of Jesus do well to heed and put into practice..
In the beginning of the Gospel, the disciples ask Jesus to increase their ‘faith.’ In reply, what Jesus seems to be saying is that what counts is not having more or less faith but rather having a strong faith and putting it into practice. We strengthen faith by practicing it. It is like saying that we learn to love by loving. We learn to believe by believing. Faith cannot be increased independently from putting it into practice.
In this unusual gospel….. there is a strong distinction being made between doing just the bare minimum….. ‘being 9-5 Christians, being weekday or Sunday Christians only….. and having complete faith and conviction.
TO understand the difference, we have to know that God's love is complete and unconditional and available to us all the time and that from this comes God’s desire to help us …..Knowing this, we're confident that he can accomplish anything God wants in us and through us. If we care like God cares, (not just like a reluctant employee.. but as a beloved shareholder and heir of God’s business……. Then…………we go the extra mile with him. If we get hurt or tired, he restores us.
I think that the mindset of looking at things from a self-serving mindset is not only the opposite from what Jesus is teaching his disciples… but it also taints and lessens all the good work that a Christian disciple can do, if they turn around and expect something other than merely the sense that they may have helped God’s Kingdom values to be established…
I have a little rule of thumb…. If one finds themselves thinking or saying… “after all that I have done for them, this is the thanks I get..” (that is an understandable feeling or saying) but according to today’s teaching from Jesus… its not the mindset of the Kingdom of God……. The response of a Christian disciple is…
“after all I have done… I am merely doing the work of Christian discipleship…. And expect nothing more than that.” (It is a very challenging teaching… but if you tink how many things can go wrong in a community or in the world or amongst a group of people, when other agendas and self-serving actions can distort the direction and focus of things…. it sounds like good advice….
I think we can benefit from this gospel teaching very much……. Just thing of all the good work done by so many if later on, down the track… the person ‘metaphorically ‘calls in the debt’ by demanding something be done for them and citing all the work that they had done in the past as a reason for assuming that they can demand the benefit or favour…. In doing so, they have absolutely , according to this parable, cancelled out all credit for the Kingdom…. And have forgone reward in the Kingdom…… And have undermined the original good motive of doing what was needed for helping God’s Kingdom….. we need to be on guard for this always….. in ourselves in and others…. As it is a corrosive dynamic…..
Let us reflect this week…….. let us think of examples of service that show the difference between doing our duty and doing more. How does our actions, our values reflect the idea of “volunteering to serve above and beyond what's expected reveal God's love?”
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REFERENCES:
· FR. PAUL W. KELLY
· SHARING THE WORD THROUGH THE LITURGICAL YEAR. GUSTAVO GUTIERREZ.
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