27 Sunday Ordinary Time, C, 6 October 2013, Luke 17:5-10

Perspective

Perspective is Everything

I had the wonderful privilege of spending a part of the summer in Florida. I have been to the same place on a number of occasions. It is the parish of St Christopher in Hobe Sound.

One morning after Mass, I was waiting behind in the sacristy for some reason or other. I was talking to a few of the ‘seasoned’ gentlemen of the parish, who decided to share some of their collective wisdom with me about taxes, and other weighty public matters. They explained to me that ‘gas’ (petrol as we call it) had become way too expensive.

From their perspective, the price of petrol had gotten way too high, and the main culprit was taxes. They explained that Florida was supposed to be a low-tax state. They explained that many people move to Florida because there are no city or state taxes. The only tax is a tax on sales, or as they call it, ‘sales tax’. This is added onto the price of everything when you bring it to the till.

For Floridians, any other form of tax is unacceptable. After all, they moved to Florida in order to avail of low taxes!

I explained to them about how petrol and diesel in Ireland is approximately double the price that it is in Florida. I also explained that we have high income tax, as well as many other hidden taxes. We take this for granted. You cannot have all of our public services without taxes. For them it is also a no-brainer, the sales-tax is all that public services can call on to fund themselves.

Perspective is Everything

For the disciples in our gospel today, their perspective is quite religious. What one of us, also disciples, would not ask the Lord to increase our faith? But which of us would expect the Lord to give the snappy, almost cheeky, answer that he gives!

"Were your faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you."

Perspective is Everything

The disciples want ‘magic’ Jesus, and we are not that different. They want Jesus to wave a magic wand over them to increase their faith. Very often, so do we. They want Jesus to do the Lion’s share, while they sit back and lap it up. Its a little bit like our European sense of government. We don’t live in the do-it-yourself culture of the United States. Perspective is everything. Jesus knows that we human beings have to work at it in order that we might ‘own’ it. And so, he effectively rebukes his disciples. He then tells them the parable of the Master and the Servant finishing with that wonderful sentence:

"So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, 'We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty.'"

So, my friends, a tough question bears down upon us this Sunday: Whose perspective am I seeking to adopt: my own, or the Lord’s? The gospel today poses not just the question of faith for us, but also the question of the source of our faith, which is both the Lord himself, and our duty as servants of that same Lord.

Around about six years ago, I was preparing for ordination as a priest. At the beginning of the final year in seminary, I was asked to type up my goals for the year. These goals had to be related to my life-history, and they had to include a plan for my final year in formation, taking account of all of the areas of formation. Finally, this plan had to finish with a theological reflection based on a passage of Scripture of my own choosing.

I chose the passage that forms the first line of our second reading today:

"I am reminding you to fan into a flame the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you." 

It is from 2 Timothy 1:6.

I chose that passage, because it reminded me of my ordination as a deacon a few months prior. Also, I was conscious that I was in preparation for the final step of my time in formation, which was to be ordained priest. That line spoke greatly to me of the position that I found myself in, between the two ordinations, as it were. It is rooted in remembering, but directed towards the future, as I was. Paul exhorts Timothy to remember the gift that God has given him, not at any old time, but at the time when Paul laid his hands on him.

I first came across this passage in the writings of the German Jesuit, Alfred Delp. In his book Advent of the Heart, Delp ponders on his own ordination with the assistance of this text from 2 Timothy.

Some months later, best plans made, some resolutions kept, others not, I was in final preparations for my own ordination. I made my retreat with the Benedictines at Rostrevor in Co. Down. There, on the first night, at the Office of Vigils, on the evening of the 3rd June 2008, in the middle of a rather long reading from Scripture, I heard that sentence being read out by the reader:

"I am reminding you to fan into a flame the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you."

I was stuck to the seat. The line echoed deeply in me, bookending my year’s preparation, and confirming the Lord’s call in my heart. I was stuck to the seat, as if I had been struck by lightning. Any doubts that I had about the Lord’s call were suddenly, unequivocally, and finally, dispersed. I knew that I was in the right place at the right time.

Perspective is Everything

"I am reminding you to fan into a flame the gift that God gave you when I laid my hands on you." 

That day I was ready to say:

"I am merely a servant: I have done no more than my duty."

The gift of faith is a gift. It is given to us, much like a packet of seeds. It needs planting, watering, nurturing, care and attention. It needs an investment of time, money, talent, energy. Finally, for it to really develop into a prize-winning shrub, we have to go the whole way, and invest our complete person. We have, finally, to give ourselves to the Lord who has created us, redeemed us, and offered us salvation, not with magic tricks but in and through our own humanity.