Saturday, October 4, 2025

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Hab 1:2-3; 2:2-4; 2 Tim 1:6-8, 13-14; Lk 17:5-10

“Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and clamorous discord.”
So said the prophet Habakkuk 
nearly three millennia ago.
But he certainly could be writing today:
war and destruction from Gaza to Ukraine,
political turmoil and violence in our own land,
the federal government shut down 
amid strife and clamorous discord,
our anxieties stoked and manipulated 
to make us fearful of our neighbors.

We know little of Habakkuk, 
but still he is familiar,
for we hear in his words 
the cries of a multitude 
stretching down to our own day,
all those who call out to God:
“How long, O Lord?  
I cry for help
but you do not listen!
I cry out to you, ‘Violence!’
but you do not intervene.”

And we hear as well in his words
the reply of God: 
“the vision still has its time…
if it delays, wait for it.”
The vision is of the unfolding of God’s reign,
the ongoing divine work that somehow heals
destruction and violence, strife and clamor,
through the power, wisdom, and goodness 
of the God who loves us,
a vision that presses on to fulfillment
and will not disappoint
if only we can wait for it in faith.

I’ve been thinking about this word “wait.”
We use it for sitting around as time passes,
anticipating the arrival of someone or something,
doing nothing, it seems, except, perhaps,
growing ever more agitated. 
Because we’re not very good at waiting.
The impatient foot-tapping
as we stand in line:
“How long is this going to take?”
The reiterated question 
emanating from the back seat:
“How long until we get there?”
“Are we there yet?”
“How many more minutes?”
Waiting for the light to change.
Waiting for a guest to arrive.
Waiting in enforced inactivity,
suffering the slow passage of time
that we are helpless to control
but must simply let wash over us 
as we lament, “how long?”

But we also use the word “wait” in another way,
as it is used in today’s puzzling parable:
the master says to the servant,
“Put on your apron and wait on me 
while I eat and drink.”
This is “waiting on,”
not “waiting for.”
Those who work in restaurants will tell you,
waiting on people does not involve
standing around tapping your foot
or repeatedly asking, 
“how many more minutes?”
There is more than enough to do,
and, if anything, the passage of time
is accelerated as one moves from task to task.
The “waiting on” that occurs in Jesus’s parable
is not enforced inactivity but tireless labor: 
from plowing and tending sheep
to serving at the master’s table.

Waiting in faith as we suffer time’s passage 
amid violence and clamorous discord
somehow involves both these kinds of waiting:
we wait on God as we wait for God.
It somehow involves actively serving God and neighbor
while at the same time recognizing that all our labor
does not hasten the fulfillment of the vision
that we must await in faith.
We declare ourselves unprofitable servants
because we know that the vision’s fulfillment
belongs to God, not to us mere mortals,
and yet we are still called in love 
to wait upon God and our neighbor, 
to bear, as Paul writes to Timothy,
our share “of hardship for the gospel
with the strength that comes from God.”

This might be a recipe 
either for frustration or for freedom.
We might find it immensely frustrating
that all our labors cannot shorten 
our time of waiting.
Or we might find it freeing to know 
that our service of God and neighbor
will not be measured in terms of success
but of the love with which we do it.
I am liberated to undertake 
the seemingly impossible,
for, as St. Paul says,
“God did not give us a spirit of cowardice
but rather of power and love and self-control.”
And what makes the difference 
between frustration and freedom is faith,
even faith the size of a mustard seed.
As St. Theresa of Calcutta put it,
“God doesn’t ask that we succeed in everything, 
but that we are faithful. 
However beautiful our work may be, 
let us not become attached to it….
The work doesn’t belong to you but to Jesus.” 

The work of God in Christ through the Spirit 
is what drives our world forward 
through days of destruction and violence, 
days of strife and clamor,
toward the fulfillment 
of the vision of God’s reign. 
And as we wait, we throw 
our mustard-seed-sized faith into the mix
by serving God and neighbor out of love.
And if we think God ought to be 
grateful to us for this
we have failed to understand 
how the whole God thing works.
For all that we are,
all that we have,
all that we do,
is always already God’s gift to us.
Even our efforts are given us by God
so that we might be caught up 
in the great work of God,
so that God might labor 
in us and through us—
we who on our own 
are mere unprofitable servants,
but who through faith
can shine with the fire of the Spirit.

And so, we wait for God 
as we wait on God.
We cry out “how long?” 
amid violence and destruction 
even as we work as servants 
of God’s reign of peace and healing.
And as we wait, 
we pray that God who is merciful
will have mercy on us all.

 

A Wedding Homily

Readings: Tobit 8:4b-8; 1 Jn 3:18-24; Mt 19:3-6

“Call down your mercy on me and on her,
and allow us to live together to a happy old age.”
Tobiah’s prayer, uttered back in the 8th century BC,
gives voice to what I suppose every couple wants:
a long and happy life together.
And, like every couple, 
Tobiah and his new wife Sarah,
had obstacles to overcome.

Well… maybe their obstacles
were not exactly like every couple.
Sarah was hounded by a demon named Asmodeus,
who had killed her seven previous husbands
on their wedding night.
She prayed to God to die,
but God in his love had a better plan,
and sent the angel Raphael 
to make sure that she met Tobiah,
whom she married immediately.
Sarah’s parents delayed the wedding feast
until the next day,
since they suspect that Tobiah would meet 
the same fate as her previous husbands;
in fact, they went ahead and dug a grave for him.
But that night, instructed by the angel, 
Tobiah drove away the demon 
by burning a fish’s heart and liver,
which created a stench so bad 
that Asmodeus fled
(and who can blame him).

I know Karlie and Mason 
have faced some challenges
getting to this day,
but I’m hoping they didn’t involve
husband-murdering demons.
Also, I believe Mason and Karlie 
met via a dating app,
not through the intervention of an angel.
Still, I am confident that God has had a hand 
in bringing them together
no less than he did 
in the case of Tobiah and Sarah.
And I believe that God 
will answer their prayer
for a long and happy life together
no less than he answered the prayer
of Tobiah and Sarah.
And it probably won’t involve
burning a fish’s heart and liver.

But it will involve work on their part.
The key to this work is summed up
in our reading from the first letter of John:
“Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth.”
Of course, words of love are important,
but the words ring hollow 
without deeds of love.
And in marriage these deeds of love 
are many and varied:
each day brings an opportunity
to show your love for each other:
grand romantic gestures,
but also mundane things
like taking out the garbage
or watching some television show
that you hate but know
the other one loves.

In the vows that they will take
in just a few minutes,
Mason and Karlie will promise
to be faithful to each other
in good times and in bad.
These vows have 
a bracing realism to them.
As beautiful as it is,
this event we celebrate today is not 
some sugar-coated fantasy.
In their promises today, 
Karlie and Mason acknowledge
that there will be both good times and bad—
perhaps not husband-murdering-demon bad,
but bad times all the same.
Despite this realism, 
this wedding is a joyous 
and a hope-filled event,
because God is here,
the God who is greater than our hearts 
and knows everything.

Mason and Karlie,
your deeds of love will carry you
through good times and bad,
because in those deeds God will be at work,
the God who loves you in your love for each other
with a love that surpasses all human love.
Lean on that love.
Find ways to grow together in that love,
for the love of God will make you one flesh,
that no human power can separate.
May God bless your love,
and through your love bring blessings
to your family, your friends,
and all whom you meet.