Imagine if we had the opportunity to go to a master or expert of whatever activity we were interested in and simply learn as much as we could so that we ourselves could become masters or experts in that activity. That could be a really neat opportunity. Maybe we wanted to learn how to cook gourmet meals and so we could meet with a chef who trained at the top culinary schools in the world. Maybe we want to train to be a great athlete and so we get to train with a professional athlete. We could learn about music, science, writing, how to build things, how to fix things or even how to do a new hobby or pastime that we've always wanted to learn, from the greatest minds in the world today. This could be awesome; but what if when we meet these great minds all we did was ignore their advice and just continued to do what we like to do, or even told them how we think it should be done? What if the gourmet chef is trying to teach us the finer points of various spices and herbs in a recipe, but we just continue throwing in whatever ingredients we like? What if the professional athlete is trying to teach us about having a healthy diet, but we continue to eat the same old food we've always ate? Not only would it be incredibly rude for us to just completely ignore the advice of these experts, but we would also be missing out on a wonderful chance to grow in knowledge.
We must be careful not to allow our own pride to get in the way of growing intellectually. We must also be careful not to let our pride get in the way of our spiritual growth; in allowing our faith to grow. We may very well have a great deal of faith, thanks to the grace provided by God. If we allow pride to rule in our lives, however, if we think we have it all figured out that we don’t need God’s help to do anything, then whatever faith we do have will never grow and will never flourish.
A lot of people, I think, don’t realize that the root of all sin really goes back to pride and that pride was the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve. When the Serpent talked with Eve about what God had said about not eating the fruit, he started planting the seeds of doubt in her mind that God really had her best interests in mind. He suggested that God only gave the rule forbidding eating the fruit in order to stop the two of them from becoming like God. So Adam and Eve began questioning God’s motives. Pride entered in and they convinced themselves that only they knew what was best for them. They ate the fruit, knowing that God had forbidden it, because they thought they deserved it. When you think about it, that is what all sins are. We do what we want because we think we know what is best, because we think we deserve it. If we would simply allow humility to enter in and be one of the virtues that helps guide our life, however, our faith would blossom and our relationship with God would grow all the more.
The Gospel for today talks about this idea of how those who are humble grow in faith. Today’s passage starts out with the Apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith. When you think about it though, it seems like right from the beginning they are going about this in the wrong way. It’s good that they want to increase their faith, but the way they worded their request suggests that they are looking for some sort of “quick fix”. Come on Jesus! Just snap your fingers or bless us or give us something to do so that we can have more faith. I don’t know if all people thought this way, but many of the Pharisees certainly had this idea that the more pious action that person is doing, the holier and more faithful that person must be. Perhaps the Apostles were thinking along those lines when they made their request. “Increase our faith”. Even that simple phrase suggests that they were not being all that humble right then. They think they deserve it and they want it now.
Jesus answers by trying to change how they look at faith. First He explains that faith is not something you need a large quantity of. Nor is it something we are meant to show off about, like bragging that I have more faith than some other person. He uses the analogy of the mustard seed to show that they we really don’t need that much faith. A mustard seed is a very small black, sphere shaped seed; just a little bigger than a period you’d find in book. Yet if we had faith of a comparable size, we could actually cause trees to be uprooted and moved and even cause entire mountains to be moved as we hear in another version of the story. Even a little bit goes a long way.
Jesus then goes on to another analogy, explaining that faith is not something that we earn by doing a bunch of actions or things to impress God. Instead, by humbling ourselves and making ourselves to be servants of God, we receive grace as a gift and we can therefore grow in faith. A master, Jesus explains, does not reward his servant for simply doing what was expected of him. Rather, the servant is expected to continue to do what was asked of him and not expect anything in return. Just so, we shouldn’t act all pious and holy and expect God to shower us with blessings. We must simply continue doing what God wants of us, praying, following the Commandments, loving our neighbor as well as our enemy, being a humble servant of God. Those gifts of grace that we receive to help increase our faith are not earned because we happened to do what we are told to do. In reality, it is a free gift that we receive from God even when we aren’t being that ideal servant. But by being humble, by not assuming that we just deserve these things, by not allowing pride to rule our lives and make us think we know what is best, we finally open ourselves to what that gift of grace can do in our lives. It is truly a wonderful gift!
By living out our Christian vocation as humble servants of God, we really help ourselves to persevere in what God wants for us. St. Paul tells us, “Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” God will give us the strength, and we will be able to do what He wants for us. Let us continue to serve with love for all.
No comments:
Post a Comment