We Are Not Even Unprofitable Servants
27th Sunday of the Year
Back in the 5th century, Saint Augustine wrote in his Confessions the following prayer: Too late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside myself, and there I sought you! In my weakness I ran after the beautiful things you have made. You were within me, and I was not with you.1 What Augustine had rather painfully learned is that the God he sought ‘out there’ had been living within him the whole time. Augustine needed to look within and not without to find the one for whom his heart searched.
With Augustine’s insight in mind, it seems to me that in today’s Gospel Jesus challenges his disciples to use the same method. The disciples beg him to increase their faith; and instead of waving his hand to bless them with what they seek, he gives a rather cryptic message to decipher: 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. We typically hear this verse interpreted to mean that the disciples (and we) have faith less than that of a mustard seed, for none of us in our right minds would command a tree and expect it to obey.
But I believe that interpretation might be wrong. Jesus does not say If only you would have faith, as if to chide them for a level of faith they do not yet have. Rather, his words suggest that he could be calling their attention to the faith they already possess. He might have said: If you really do have as much faith as a grain of mustard, you would have said to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea.’ To my mind, Christ responds to his disciples’ petition for more faith by directing them to the faith they already have. They seek without, he points within. The mustard seed has already been given to them. Christ has planted it within their hearts. They do not need more than what they have been given.
Paul makes the same point to Timothy. We do not have the letter Timothy first wrote to Paul, but perhaps the troubled bishop asked his mentor and friend to pray that he would be given enough faith to sustain him in his trials and oncoming martyrdom. In his response, Paul does not encourage Timothy with the prospect of any future gift to come but rather reminds him to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands. Paul urges Timothy to look within himself to find the power and love and self-control already given by the Lord to face what lies ahead. He has already received what he needs.
We ask the Lord for faith because we want to see God. To see God is our heart’s greatest desire and humanity’s greatest quest. But too often his face is hidden, as it was for Habakkuk, behind destruction and violence, strife and discord for us to see him clearly. So, we ask for faith to know his presence in our life amidst all that makes it difficult for us to see.
In response, God does not slap us upside the head with obvious signs of him being ‘out there’. Rather, he directs our attention to look within: to his presence that already abides in our heart. He points to the mustard seed of faith we already have; and if we pay attention, he will show us, as he showed Augustine, how present he already is within us, not outside us. The Lord’s response to our plea for faith is more subtle and interior than it is obvious and exterior.
But here is the problem: we don’t have any patience for the subtle, and we go looking instead for the obvious. This gets us into trouble, because there are many things out there that look a lot like God; and once we have found one, we worship it. That was the message of the last three Sunday Gospels on the dangers of wealth: Christ is hard on wealth because it is a substitute for God; and we can say the same for power, prestige, pleasure, and all the rest like them. Despite Christ’s clear teachings that these are detrimental to the Christian life, we flirt with them anyway and build our Christian lives justifying our pursuit of them. What we pursue, we worship; and what we worship other than God is an idol.
When we worship idols, we damage more than merely ourselves – and this is the real problem that we need to address: the idolatry we have advanced while purportedly living the Christian life has borne witness. Our duplicity in serving two masters has offered an alternative to the Gospel that appeals to the modern world without challenging it in the least. We amass wealth though we are told to give all to the poor. We cry out for vengeance on our oppressors though we have been called to show mercy. We enslave others though we were anointed to set captives free. We are not even unprofitable servants. We have not done what the Gospel obliged us to do. We have deprived the Gospel of its demands and have killed it. We have taken away the cross, and now there is no resurrection. Without death to self and to our selfish pursuits there can be no life.
The fact of the matter is that we Christians seek what the world seeks as much as the world seeks it – and the world has paid attention. We have shown that Christianity proves to be nothing more than unnecessary, pious garnish on top of the same self-interested life everyone else lives. We should not be surprised that our churches are empty. The world has seen what we could not: that the Gospel is superfluous, that Christ is irrelevant, that the Church is filled with hypocrites who say one thing and do the other. But it is time for us to wake up. We cannot blame the culture or the pandemic or anything else for the vacant pews around us. We can only blame ourselves for the empty shell of the Gospel we have lived and advanced as authentic. We are not even unprofitable servants. We have not done what the Gospel has obliged us to do.
Today, across the 57 Catholic churches in Baltimore City, only 9% of their collected pews have people in them. The world has paid attention. But it is time for us to wake up. The Archdiocese of Baltimore is embarking upon a path to re-evaluate the Church’s presence and ministry in the City. Practically speaking, it will mean re-assessing buildings and even parishes. But it needs to be more than that. This initiative has been aptly titled Seek the City to Come, taken from the Letter to the Hebrews. All earthly cities, including Baltimore, are to be built according to the pattern of the city to come; and the city to come is the city that has already been given: the new and eternal Jerusalem present on earth in those who live the Gospel. To build this city, we do not need to look out there to anything else. We need only to look within: to the Gospel that has already been given.
No program or initiative in the Church will ever be effective if we do not take the Gospel seriously. We must start living distinctly Christian lives. We must live the Gospel without compromise if the Gospel will ever again be a compelling and attractive alternative. The most effective witnesses to the Gospel in this past century were those who did just that: Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Mother Teresa. And the best witness today are those who do the same. Let us be among them. It does not take a detailed plan or an elaborate strategy to bring people back to Christ and to the Church. The Gospel is all the plan and strategy we need. The Gospel sets us apart from this world; and the Gospel will be attractive to those who are tired of the banality of this world only if we show that the Gospel offers something else. The idols are losing their luster – and the world is starting to notice. There is great opportunity ahead if we seize it: if we cease our pursuit of them out there and instead look within to the God who is with us in the faith he has planted in our hearts.
A new city, a new archdiocese, and a new parish — vibrant and alive — are all within our grasp if we recognize that its seed has already been planted within us. All it takes is doing what we have been obliged to do: to live in service to the Gospel we have received.
Homily preached October 1 & 2, 2022 at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.
Augustine, Confessions, bk. 10, ch. 27.