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

Wait And Trust

Reverend Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

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

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, October 2, 2022

The distressing opening line of today’s first reading, “How long, O Lord? is not unique to prophet Habakkuk. Up and down the centuries, it is also the cry of the oppressed, suppressed, repressed and enslaved people. It is the agonizing question of many believers as they read and watch the mindless destruction of lives and property in Ukraine and the growing threat of nuclear attack by Russia. It is the question of many as they see our society increasingly embrace the culture of death. Prophet Habakkuk’s question, “How long, O Lord will I cry for help, but you do not listen?” is the excruciating lamentation of people in the face of prolonged personal tragedy like infirmity and sickness. It is the weeping question of millions of people who have experienced natural disasters like drought, earthquake, tsunami, hurricane,  famine, etc. People who experienced morally impermissible acts like terrorists atrocities, genocide, extreme poverty, needless and unjust war etc. have also posed the question, “How long, O Lord?” Social unrest among our people, the threat of autocracy at home and abroad, racial and tribal wars, political infighting, the growing division among people, riots and insurrection, the devastating attacks of the pornography industry on our children, the constant breaking news alerts on our phones about many negative events can trigger us to join the prophet in questioning God’s presence and control. If you have never asked that question before, it could either mean you are too young to notice or you are just oblivious and indifferent. And if you are too young to even notice what’s happening around you, all you have to do is just to live long enough. A time will come when those words or similar words will be on your lips.

Did God answer Habakkuk’s agonizing question, “How long, O Lord?” No! God simply tells him to wait and trust. God tells Habakkuk that everything God has said will definitely come to pass at a proper time. God’s time is the best, and when that time comes, the vision, the message, the prophecy that God himself has revealed will happen. But if the time of fulfillment is delayed, God says he (Habakkuk) should exercise patience and wait. For it will surely come. God tells Habakkuk that the task of the just ones as they wait is to live with integrity and to have faith: “The just one shall live by faith.” It is that faith that the Apostles, in the Gospel passage ((Luke 17:5-10), ask the Lord to increase. What does it mean to live by faith? To live by faith is to be convinced that without the true and living God, I will not be. It is to finally believe that I am because God is. It is to make God the center of my live and to allow my life be guided by what I believe. God is the one who rescues us from the grip of death, from the kingdom of death, from the covenant with death that is brought about by sin. The great St. Paul says of God the Father, He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). That’s why St. Paul can write to Timothy in today’s second reading that, “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.”

Sisters and brothers, as we live in this world and fight for what is right, virtuous and good in God’s sight, we should not look at the world’s dysfunction and wonder how we are ever going to overcome it. Rather, look at them through the lens of faith which says  that everything that is evil in the world has been conquered by Christ and in Christ. With faith in God, stand your ground and declare, “You no longer have any place here! Your kingdom has been defeated on the cross.” After that, endeavor to join hands with other people of faith to change this world by living a life of integrity, by expressing your unapologetic faith in God who is love and good. Like the three young men in the Book of Daniel 3:8-30, tell the Nebuchadnezzars of our time, “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.” 

Saints of God, authentic faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith means surrendering your entire life over to God. It is openness to what God will reveal, what God will do, and what God will invite us to become. What do you think God will reveal and invite us to become? It is to be great! For the people of the world, greatness lies along the road to ego inflation. But as for Jesus, the path to greatness lies on the road to Calvary, to self-forgetting and sacrificial love. Imagine what happened to Jesus in Jerusalem. He was rejected, tortured, and killed. In the end, he is the greatest of all. If you like prophet Habakkuk is asking the most agonizing question, “How long, O Lord?,” if you have prayed and fasted and God hasn’t intervened yet, God is speaking to you through Habakkuk and he is saying to you, wait (that is, be patient) and trust (that is, have faith). The good news is that God’s plan for you, God’s vision for you, God’s purpose for you, God’s promises for you, that which God has reserved for you will be yours. If its realization is delayed, God says, “wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.” Do not let what you see, hear and perceive distract you. Remember, the just one shall live by faith. 

God bless you!