“Lack of Faith prevents Miracles!”
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – B
Bishops often avoid sending newly ordained priests to their home parishes. Something once said by one of a parish’s Grande dames in which a native son was just assigned after ordination is a case in point. He was confronted at the doors of the church just after his first Mass in the parish: “I used to help your mother change your diapers. Don’t you try telling me what to do!”
This young Priest knew well, then, what Jesus felt. He also knew well what Aesop said in his fable “The Fox and the Lion” some 500 years before Christ: Familiarity breeds contempt.
Nothing can thwart God’s power, not even a lack of faith. But our lack of cooperation with God can hold up the Kingdom and prevent many good and holy things from happening.
The spiritual climate within our parishes also affects what our parishes can accomplish. If we take our parish for granted, it will be limited in what it can accomplish. We can prevent outreach to the elderly from taking place. We can prevent food from being given to the Poor, we can alienate those we do not welcome.
Last week our readings told us of what can be accomplished with faith. A woman who had suffered for 12 years from incurable hemorrhages had been cured, and a little girl was raised from the dead. We were told, too, that to believe that God had power over death could bring us peace. Today we experience the consequences of a lack of faith: “He was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people.”
Our challenge today is to examine a strange possibly.
- Are we so familiar with God that we no longer pay attention what He has to say to us through the Scriptures?
- Are we so familiar with the Church that we resent its efforts to guide us in our faith and values?
It is interesting that the Church gives us this Gospel and this passage from Ezekiel. Admittedly, Ezekiel did some very bizarre things to get people’s attention, but the people dismissed Ezekiel. There was no way he could be speaking for God. Israel refused to hear anything this man had to say – that is, until word came to Babylon that their precious temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. They were crushed beyond telling – and only then were they ready to listen.
Most of us, when honest about our prayers, will admit that we do not get on our knees until we are desperate for God. This statement is an admission that we take God for granted – that is, until word comes to us as it did to the Israelites that something precious has been destroyed or taken from us, our job, our relationships, our marriage, our family. Our faith is all too often a faith born in desperation rather than in love of God.
The early Church had to wonder why the Jews rejected Christ. It was a serious problem and an obstacle to spreading the faith. The Gentiles especially had to wonder. Why should they place their faith in Jesus if His own people did not?
We might ask ourselves a similar question. Every year, many thousands of people across the world join the Church. Like the Gentiles, they are looking at us. If we who have been members of the Church for many years take our church and its teachings for granted, why should they do more than simply attend Mass?
But these new Catholics are committed. They are so committed that they can put us to shame. They are not so “familiar” with what we believe yet. They see our faith with new and fresh eyes. They are neither lazy nor blasé about the practice of the faith. Many who were received into the Church at the Easter Vigil come back to Mass on Easter Sunday morning just to be able to once again be fully a part of our prayerful assembly. Look around you and notice how many are not here now, just because it is summer vacation, and they are relaxing themselves from going to Mass. And of us who are here, look how many scoots out the doors before Mass is completed! As if an hour were too much to give our Lord in prayer.
Folks, we can get in the way of the movement of the Spirit in the hearts of our friends and neighbors, all by just taking God and the Church for granted.
Our “familiarity” with our leaders can lead us to dismiss the truth they have to share. Remember, once before, people’s lack of faith in Jesus prevented miracles.