Faith for Miracles is Not Faith In God

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

St. Mary of Assumption Church, Whittier, CA

Sunday, October 2, 2016

There is a story of a man who fell off a mountain cliff. Half-way down the cliff, he managed to grab a tree branch. As he was there dangling on the branch, not being able to pull himself up and knowing full well that letting go of the branch would definitely mean falling down to his death, he suddenly got an idea of what to do. He looked up to the sky and shouted, “Is there anyone up there?” A voice replied, “Yes, I am here. I am the Lord. What do you want me to do for you?” The man replied, “Please save me.” The voice asked him, “Do you believe in me?” The man shouted back immediately, “Yes, Lord, I believe in you. I really believe. Please help me.” The Lord now said to him, “It’s all right my son! If you really believe in me, then you have nothing to  fear or worry about. I will save you. But you have to let go of the branch.” The man screamed, “What?” God replied, “Let go of the branch.” The man thought about it for a moment and then shouted back, “Please, is there anyone else up there?”

Beloved in Christ, this is only a fabricated story, but it explains many of the believers attitude and approach to faith and God. Is the man in the story a believer? Of course. he is. He believes that God exists. He believes in the power of prayer. He believes that God is able to help and save him from his unpleasant situation. And Oh yes, he even prayed to God. But if he truly believes in God as he claims he does, why did he not take God on his word? Why did he refuse to let go of the branch? Is God not powerful enough to save him? 

Many of us would smile or laugh at this story because we can recognize ourselves in the man. We believe in God, we pray to God, we believe that God has power to save, but when the going gets tough, when the chips are down and things we planned did not work out as we expected them, we turn and look elsewhere for help. We believe in God, but we are people of little faith. The Apostles of Jesus like us were also people of little faith. They struggled in their faith. They had certain deep doubts about Jesus and his message. When they saw the soldiers approaching in the garden of Gethsemane, all of them abandoned Jesus and fled. Even Simon Peter who promised, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will” (Matthew 26:33) did not only abandon him but also denied him thrice. The Apostles believed in Jesus, but still had some unresolved issues in their faith in him. But they wanted to grow in their faith. They wanted to be people of great faith. They were not comfortable with having “a half-baked faith.” They were not comfortable being half-baked believers. They wanted to believe completely everything that Jesus taught and did. So, in today’s gospel taken from Luke 17:5-10, they came to Jesus with a request: “Lord, increase our faith.” The Apostles knew that their faith was not adequate and sufficient enough and they took steps to grow and improve it. 

Responding to the request of his Apostles to increase their faith, Jesus told them the parable of a servant who returned from working on the master’s farm, and instead of yearning for rest, went straight to the kitchen to prepare dinner for his master, served him and waited on him. It was after his master’s needs were fully satisfied that the servant then attended to his. You may ask how this parable answer the Apostles request for more faith. In this parable, Jesus is simply saying that if we have great and mature faith in him, we will always put God’s will first in our lives. If our faith in God has matured, we will never complain and grumble that we have been working for God all day long, now we are tired and it is God’s turn to attend to our needs. If we have a grown up faith, we will continue to work for God, serving him with all we have and are without counting the cost. 

Now, faith for deliverance from hardship is not faith in God. Faith for healing is not faith in God. Faith for protection is not faith in God. Faith in good life and good health is not faith in God. Faith in prosperity is not faith in God. Faith in breakthrough is not faith in God. Faith in ease and comfort is not faith in God. Faith in victory over adversity is not faith in God. Faith in trampling over serpents and scorpions is not faith in God. Faith in conquering witches, demons, voodoos, magic, etc is not faith in God. Faith in becoming an overcomer is not faith in God. Faith in defeating our enemies is not faith in God. Faith in crushing the head of Satan is not faith in God. Faith in God can make all those possible. But believing in all those is not faith in God. Faith in God means whether I am delivered now or not, I will continue to believe that God loves and cares for me. Faith in God means whether I am healed now or not, whether I am victorious now or not, whether I experience breakthrough and prosperity now or not, whether I overcome my enemies- human and spiritual enemies now or not, whether I enjoy life of ease and comfort now or not, I will not walk away from God. I will not curse my God. I will still believe that he loves me and cares for me.  This type of faith is called the Shadrachan Faith. This kind of faith is called the Meshachan Faith. This sort of faith is called the Abednegoan faith. Remember the three young men in the Book of Daniel 3:8-30- Shedrach, Meshach, and Abednego. King Nebuchadnezzar had made a gold statue and decreed that everyone in his kingdom must worship it as their god. He also decreed that anyone who does not bow down and worship the statue will be thrown into a blazing furnace. When worship time came, Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to worship a false god. In total faith to the living God and absolute defiant to King Nebuchadnezzar, the three young men said to him: “Your Majesty, we will not try to defend ourselves. If God whom we serve is able to save us from the blazing furnace and from your power, then he will. But even if he doesn’t, Your Majesty may be sure that we will not worship  your god, and will not bow down to the gold statue that you have made.”

Brothers and sisters, that is what faith in God means and entails. The mistake of the man caught in the mountain cliff is the mistake of many of us. He has faith in his own deliverance, but not in God’s infinite power and love to save him. God’s love for us is unconditional and his unconditional love demands our unconditional love and service to him. The Christian Faith has been reduced by many modern Christians to mean our ability to obtain healing, deliverance, breakthrough, prosperity and miracles from God. But in today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us that mature faith consists not in how much God attends to our immediate needs, but in how willing we are to serve him unconditionally, without counting the cost. Faith in God does not consist in how much we are able to obtain material things from God, but how much devotion we have for God and God’s matters. If our faith is not yet matured, let’s join the Apostles to ask Jesus, “Lord, increase our faith.”