Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
There are some tell-tale signs that we are in the Fall: Friday night high school football, college football Saturdays, less daylight each day, cooler evenings and mornings, young ladies are starting to break out their uggs and ordering pumpkin spice everything. Fall is upon us! And it can be tough with less darker mornings and evenings. Even during the days, it seems like there is more and more dreariness.
It can also feel darker and darker sometimes in terms of our city. As you might have guessed, when I told people I was going to Flint, most people quickly responded with, “Don’t drink the water.” Our water crisis, though we have started to address it, rages on. As of April 2015, the unemployment rate in Flint was still 9.7%; city-data.com still lists Flint as a high crime area. It seems like there is little good news for us!
In spite of this, the Word of God gives us some encouragement. The Book of the Prophet Habakkuk, written likely in the 7th century BC, is written shortly before the Babylonians sack Jerusalem and exile the Chosen People to modern-day Iraq. There was not very much good news for them, either. In fact, the prophet says, “How long, O Lord? I cry for help but you do not listen! […] Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?” Perhaps this is our prayer as well. But the Lord does not remain silent. He responds, “the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.” God promises not to abandon his people, even if things look very dark. What are the people to do in the meantime? “The just one,” Habakkuk writes, “because of his faith, shall live.”
Faith is hard, because, as the Letter to the Hebrews states, it is the “evidence of things not seen.” We see darkness around us. The light is not visible to our eyes. It takes faith to trust that the dawn will break forth and scatter the darkness. When our experience is negative, it’s hard to know there is any positive at all. And we can sometimes rationalize not having faith by saying that we’re realists.
But if we wish to see better times, then faith is necessary. And we don’t need a large amount of faith, but only the size of a mustard seed, one of the smallest seeds around. If we have faith that small, then we can command trees to move to their death, and they will do it. Now, I’m pretty sure the Lord is not telling us to have faith that so we can landscape differently. But he is saying that if we have a little bit of faith, anything can happen.
Having faith has made a difference in my life. When I was a parochial vicar in East Lansing, there was a young man I knew who was attending Michigan State. I had taught him a little at Lansing Catholic High School. One day he contacted me and asked for prayers because his bike, which was locked on a bike rack, was stolen, and the police had very little hope of getting it back. He relied on the bike to make it to class and to football practice. I prayed, through the intercession of St. Anthony and St. Dominic, and had faith that God would answer my prayers according to His will. I pleaded with God that this young man needed his bike to be a good student, and that getting his bike back would strengthen his faith. A day after I prayed, the bike was found and returned to its owner. This definitely did help to increase that young man’s faith. This young man had been sure that he would never see his bike again. The police were sure he was right. Faith made the impossible happen.
If we have faith, what we see is not what will always be. That’s true for our spiritual lives: the struggles we have, if united to Jesus, can one day lead to glory in heaven. It’s true for our city: I see signs of hope that Flint is coming back, and if we follow God’s will we can once more have a thriving city. And I am excited to be a part of that renewal right here in our parish. If we have faith in God’s will, and trust in God, we can be major contributors to the flourishing of Flint. Things may still look bleak, but the Lord invites us to follow Him and trust in Him. “For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; if it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.” Trust that being obedient to God’s will will give us things that we never thought could be. Have faith!
