The Following of Jesus and His Good News
The Good News for the Day, October 2, 2022
The Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (141)
The Gospel
The Apostles asked their boss: “Increase our faith.” He replied, “If you have faith as wee as a tiny seed, a mustard seed, say, then you could tell this large mulberry tree, ‘Uproot yourself and plant yourself in the sea’—and it would do it!
Which of you would tell someone who works for you—someone coming in from plowing or shepherding out in your fields, ‘Come right here now and sit down for a meal!’
Wouldn’t you rather tell that person, ‘Get me something to eat. Put on clean clothes and wait on me with food and drink. You can have something to eat and drink when I finish’?
Would any boss be grateful for and employee just for doing what was part of the job? In your mind, that’s the way it should be When you have finished doing everything you are supposed to do—just admit, ‘We come up short because we have been doing only what we were supposed to do.’” (Luke 17)
Reflection of the Word of Jesus
In practicing real love and real caring, you and I do that little more than what is necessary. We like to add a tiny flourish not just as fun, but because it is part of real loving. It is the extra that marks something authentic. It is the laughter, and a sweet smile that comes from someone who realizes you have taken that extra step.
Now let’s apply that to our love of God and neighbor. Let us consider the practice of love embedded in our faith.
We do faith as a form of love. Faith is a bond between two people – a bond of respect for the other, the pleasure in their company, a trust in their consistency, and the hope that it is mutual. It is a trust in another person’s spiritual qualities. Faith in God is a trust in the consistent love and the consistent “more-than-duty” in creating us. God likes us! God has faith in us, and we have faith in God.
You and I show faith by loving our neighbors, God’s creations. Faith and Love mean you are believing in neighbors. And you take that extra step, show that extra tiny effort. You and I try to understand, try to be quick to forgive. We look for the hidden child within the angry adult, and so respect our neighbor as God does – each in their individuality. Our neighbor has worthiness as well as need, their own achievements, and their own inadequacies, so much like ours.
If you want to increase your faith – and we need to – love a new neighbor. Forgive an enemy. Understand your dumbest opponent. Respect someone no one else does.
The Important Point
These are the extra steps Jesus asks of us. The good news is that we do these things – we have the courage and the grace to do the extra.
And so your faith increases along with your love. The more you practice these things, the more you discover the meaning of God, the depth of that Love – and the meanings of life, faith’s abundant richness and the extent within your heart of God’s peace.
The Good News is that you find yourself – unexpectedly – miraculously – at peace within the kingdom of God. You have moved a mountain – and moving it still!
Sunday, October 2, 2022
The 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time
“Increase Our Faith.” Answer, “Love More.”
I never measure up, but that’s all right.
This message calls for growth in faith and care–
To change in quality and depth and height
And not by adding more beyond compare.
So do your best, he says, but something more.
Perhaps you dance or add a grin – that touch
Of extra in your love extends your core,
Your very soul. This miracle means much.
Your change is breakout choice – that kingdom come
You pray that prayer so often for – a door
Of magic more than dreams conceive – a sum
Beyond arithmetic – what life is for –
Not mere achieve, nor popularity
But all that extra which is grace, you see.
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