Readings (Year C):
Habakkuk 1:2 – 3; 2:2 – 4
Psalm 95:1 – 2, 6 – 7, 8 – 9
2 Timothy 1:6 – 8, 13 – 14
Luke 17:5 – 10
Reflection: We are called to do the absurd
We pray with the psalmist: “If today we hear God’s voice, harden not our hearts.” But sometimes I wonder, “God, have you hardened your heart?” How are we to sing joyfully, as the psalmist invites us to do?
We beg with the apostles: “Increase our faith!” In a war-torn and violent world—increase our faith! In a world of crushing poverty—increase our faith! In communities divided—increase our faith!
God replies to the prophet Habakkuk and to us: “ For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it.”
“How long?” we ask. And God tell us to keep walking. The vision will be fulfilled. God is speaking, and the psalmist reminds us that the vision is fulfilled in soften hearts—hearts like Christ’s heart: vulnerable, willing to risk being wounded.
This prayer of the psalmist, this vision, doesn’t make sense to the world. This prayer seems absurd. “Toughen up,” the world says. “Soften your hearts,” the psalmist urges. Jesus Christ, the heart of God walking among us, knows about vulnerability and risk. God does not ask the impossible of us. Perhaps the absurd, but not the impossible.
The apostles, like us, hear Jesus proclaiming the unearned and wide embracing love of God. They, like us, hear the invitation to be embraced by love and live in love. They, like us, know that this invitation is paradoxically the simplest and hardest thing to do. The apostles, missionary disciples like us, sent to proclaim the love of God in Christ, see how some people turn away from this love, how some choose money and power over the radical love of God that is expressed in the radical love of each and every person. They wonder with us: “how long?” And they beg: “Increase our faith!”
Jesus responds with an absurd image. “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed,” he says, you can move things where the world says they don’t belong. Now, I don’t think that Jesus was inviting them or us to move trees into the sea. But I do think he is inviting us to faith that is willing to do the absurd—to push beyond the boundaries of the world and to love like God loves. When we hear God’s voice, we are called to do the absurd, to soften our hearts in a world too often hardened. To love everyone. Each person.
With faith the size of a mustard seed, we do the absurd. In a violent world, we practice the vulnerability of love. In the face of radical inequality, we give without counting the cost. In a wounded world, we heal. We witness love incarnate and we sing joyfully.
Yes! Increase our faith! We know the vision presses on and it does not disappoint.
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