Increase our faith

XXVII Sunday Ordinary Time “c” October 2, 2022 Luke 17:5-10 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." The Lord replied, "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you. "Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, 'Come here immediately and take your place at table'? Would he not rather say to him, 'Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished'? Is he grateful to that servant because he did what was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.'" Today’s Gospel seems to be two unconnected sayings of Jesus with the only thing they have in common is that Jesus doesn’t sound all that nice. In the first part the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith. Which seems likes a very good thing to ask for, but Jesus responds by saying, “if you had even a tiny bit of faith you could move trees and throw them into the sea.” Kind of like saying, “you have no faith.” Then, in the second part Jesus compares us to slaves and he tells us to do our job and don’t expect any payment because we are just useless slaves. Neither one seems to be much of an incentive to want to follow Jesus. So, let’s look a bit closer at the Gospel. What is Jesus trying to tell us? The disciples say to Jesus, “increase our faith.” And Jesus says, “if YOU had faith. YOU would say.” I want to put the emphasis on the word YOU here. If we had faith, what would we do. Many times, we think that faith is inaction. Someone is out of work and he or she has faith that something will come along so they on the couch all day watching the Hallmark channel. I don’t think so. Faith is work. It isn’t sitting back and just praying our rosary, it is actually doing something. Faith is action. There are a lot of concerns in our world today. We have the upcoming election, inflation, rising gas prices, global warming, the problem with the unhoused, guns, drug addiction. As people of faith, we obviously pray about all these issues, but I think Jesus also says to us, “you have faith… what are you going to do about it.” This brings in the second part of today’s Gospel. We are believers, we belong to God, I don’t like the word slave, but the point is that we are not in relationship with God as buddies, or equals. God is our Lord; the world is his kingdom, and we are called to be workers in the vineyard. Jesus uses the analogy of workers in the field. As people of faith, we are called to be men and women who are workers in the field. We aren’t up on the porch sitting on the veranda drinking mint juleps, no! to be a person of faith means that we are in the trenches, we are out in the fields working. It is what expected of us. This is so much work to be done in this world, there is so much need and we, the followers of Jesus are the ones who should be doing something about. So, we ask the Lord to increase our faith. When we see people living in our streets, we say, “Lord increase our faith.” When we have 236 families come to our food bank, we say “Lord increase our faith.” When we struggle to forgive past hurts, we say, “Lord increase our faith.” When we have children or other family members who are in need, we say, “Lord increase our faith.” When we are concerned with the problem of gun violence, abortion, rising crime, racism, and discrimination we say, “Lord increase our faith.” And Jesus tells us, “You have enough faith. Now it is time to do something about it.”