27th Sunday Ordinary Time
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Cycle C
- Q287: I always feel terrible when I hear this "Mustard Seed" parable (Lk 17:5-10)! My faith will never be so strong as to physically transplant trees.
- With the strength that comes from God.
- Q444: This gospel [Lk 17:5-10] seems to be a story that highlights the “dependency” of each one of us on the mercy of God, a servant-Master relationship. Is there more?
- Q600: Faith that can move mountains and uproot mulberry trees? Then why all the evil and suffering around us?
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Q287: I always feel terrible when I hear this "Mustard Seed" parable (Lk 17:5-10)! My faith will never be so strong as to physically transplant trees.
You are misunderstanding the purpose and intent of this parable. Indeed, if the "goal" is always to go around "testing" our faith by commanding trees to be uprooted, one of two things will happen. Either we will experience a gigantic deforestation situation, or we will have a lot of unhappy people who think their faith level is demonstrably 'zilch'!
Jesus loves to use exaggeration to make a point, a common literary device in every culture of every age. You will remember an example used by Jesus in the gospel five weeks ago ("hate your father and mother, wife and children, etc..., Lk 14:26). We call it "hyperbole," and use it regularly (e.g., "It's raining cats and dogs"). It is legitimate to use if what it describes is really true.
The "truth" is that even though the Mustard Seed looks so tiny and powerless, compare that seed with the effect its planting will bring after a few years! Faith is like that: it may seem powerless, based on an image of a dead man on a cross. But it will produce incredible results when we live that faith and share that faith, because that dead man on the cross rose from the dead, and is our Salvation! Change is always possible, because His dynamic Spirit dwells within us. It is a power so strong that it can be compared to a person telling a tree to be transplanted into the ocean! So simply do your daily Christian duties, including sharing your faith, and let God take care of the growth.
Know Your Catechism! Our faith will grow if we nourish it by daily meditation on God's word (CCC #162). The kingdom of God grows by our recognizing Jesus' self-sacrificing love on the cross, and witnessing about that love (CCC #160). Share the treasure (CCC #3)!!
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With the strength that comes from God.
St. Paul's young friend and disciple, Timothy, gets a wonderful "pep talk" in today's first reading. The Holy Spirit, says Paul, gives us the gift of courage, not the vice of cowardice. So we should never shrink from bearing our share of "hardship which living up to the Gospel entails." And we should never be ashamed to praise God to others.
The Joseph P. Kennedy family of Hyannisport needs no introduction to Americans or to the world. They have had a host of admirers and a host of foes. But nobody can deny that this Irish-American family has assumed leadership courageously. And their mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, has clearly had a lot to do with setting for them an example of courage.
When Rose Kennedy, long a widow, reached the age of 93 in 1983. A reporter for Parade magazine interviewed this woman of strong convictions and strong practical Catholic faith. Rose, the interviewer knew very well, had known tragedy as well as glory. If most of her sons and daughters had made headlines, she also had one daughter under permanent institutional care. She had lost not only her husband, but her oldest son, Joe (in war), her daughter, Kathleen (in an air accident), her sons, President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy (at the hands of assassins). But Rose had marched ahead despite her many griefs, and she still marched off to Mass each morning.
"I would rather have been" she said, "the mother of a great son than to have written a great work or painted a great masterpiece." This is a forthright acknowledgement of the creative role of a mother in God's plan.
Admitting her trials to the interviewer, she said "I have always believed that God never gives a cross to bear larger than we can carry. No matter what, God wants us to be happy. He doesn't want us to be sad. Birds sing after a storm, Why shouldn't we?"
That first sentence was an echo of St. Paul. The last four sentences are pure Rose Kennedy, a deeply Christian reflection.
If a secular journalist flattered me with an interview, would I make a point of speaking God's praises? I really wonder and just wondering makes me ashamed.
-Fr. Robert F. McNamara
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Q444: This gospel [Lk 17:5-10] seems to be a story that highlights the “dependency” of each one of us on the mercy of God, a servant-Master relationship. Is there more?
Every parable of Jesus contains a hidden surprise. One has to get “behind” the literal words and seek out the spiritual level. So it is with today’s gospel story about the Master and Servant. A servant ought not expect any special favors, when he simply does what he is expected to do. He knows what his Master wants from him, and his responsibility is to carry out that function to the best of his ability.
Jesus is really talking about discipleship – the relationship between Jesus and his followers. They have a job to do; they have been empowered to do it (i.e., they have the mustard seed of faith – now all they have to do is act on that faith). But in his usual fashion, he has a surprise meaning – but not really a surprise, in the context of seeing Jesus live out a life of service to others throughout the gospels.
We can see now that for Luke’s community (and ours), the Eucharist has turned the world upside down. As that great Dominican preacher Fr. Jude Siciliano says, we have come in from the fields of our labors and gather in community before God. We have done much to fulfill our vocations as parents, caretakers, volunteers, job-holders, students, ministers, etc. We can grow weary and we need to be waited on, and that is what God does for us! He, the Master, has us sit around the banquet table! There God serves us with a specially chosen Word to empower us, and the bread and wine to renew us with Jesus’ life for the return trip to the fields and serving places of everyday life.
Jesus is not only Master, he is OUR Servant! Such love! Such love!
KNOW YOUR CATECHISM! Jesus tells us that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet – a scandal to the Pharisees (CCC #589). But it was precisely in the washing of others’ feet that Jesus demonstrated his desire to be our servant, to wait on us at the table of plenty (CCC #786 et al). We the disciples of Christ must walk this same road that Christ walked (CCC #852), and serve each other.
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Q600: Faith that can move mountains and uproot mulberry trees? Then why all the evil and suffering around us?
First let’s look at the images that Jesus uses in today’s gospel. The mulberry tree grows to an average height of about forty feet, and it has a root system goes about six feet deep and spreads out to quite a degree. On the other hand, the mustard seed tree grows to about ten feet in height; but every seed is very tiny, about the size of just one of those little round sprinkles on your kid’s birthday cake – or even smaller. In Jesus’ time the Jews believed it was the smallest seed in existence.
Jesus uses hyperbole (exaggeration in the usual Jewish fashion) on many occasions in his stories and parables, to make a specific point. Today’s gospel (Luke 17:5-10) is no exception. Jesus is saying that the quantity (or size) of your faith is not an issue. It is the quality that counts. Faith works; no matter how timid you might be, if you step out in faith and make your tiny gifts available to the Lord, it will result in a multiplication by the Lord beyond your wildest imagination! You may not even be around to see the results.
We face a very challenging society – and a very sick one at that. The odds against us seem to be overwhelming. “What can little old me do? I’m just one voice!” Jesus says, don’t worry. Just trust in Him! Do you really believe that he multiplied the loaves and fishes on more than one occasion? Then why do you doubt what he can do with your simple act of stepping out in faith, speaking the truth, and leaving the rest up to Him? It takes great humility, and a realization that all we have is gift from God, to recognize that just plain old simple faith is all we need to bring the Holy Spirit to bear on a circumstance with which we are confronted. Be faithful in your total, trusting dependence on the Lord!
KNOW YOUR CATECHISM! We walk by faith, not by sight, and our faith can be put to the test. When tempted to doubt because of the evil and suffering around us, we look to the witnesses of faith to see their example of patient perseverance under overwhelming obstacles (CCC 164-165). Trust in the Lord! Do you think that mulberry tree grew to forty feet overnight? Patience!
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