27th Sunday in ordinary time, Cycle C. Today’s readings: Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4; 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14; Luke 17:5-10
In a neo-liberal and consumerist world as is ours, where everything has a price tag, seldom do we find anyone who does anything without ulterior motives. It is therefore not surprising if we notice that even religion has fallen prey to this way of thinking.
Consuming Religion, by Vincent MillerThis is the point made by US theologian Vincent Miller in his book, Consuming Religion. Miller convincingly argues that religion has been swallowed up by the dominant cultural practice of consumption. The whole dynamic of the commodity, he believes, is set in motion even in the realm of faith.
As with a consumer culture that promotes the dogma of choice based simply on taste, even faith ends up being an option among many. Of course, then it is not a real faith, an internal conviction or firm persuasion in God. Rather, it is a faith emptied of all meaning, keeping only the external symbols and rituals. In such a culture, symbols and rituals are abstracted from their original meaning and inserted in a new web of meanings that often jar with what they originally represented.
Unfortunately we are witnessing a situation where religious devotions and traditions that once served for the flame of faith to be passed from one generation to another or from one community to another in times of trial have changed meaning altogether. Now they have themselves become objects of desire as they are sometimes used as a means of gaining political power or social status.
In a recent study published by Discern, Representations of Catholicism, it was revealed that Catholic youth in Malta affirm that faith is central to their lives, yet they struggle to express their faith’s transcendental dimension. Notwithstanding, there appears to be a drive towards a more socially-oriented Church.
It would certainly be anachronistic to imply that Jesus’s words in today’s gospel, expressed in a culture so far removed from ours, somehow refer to religion in a consumerist culture. Nonetheless, in our day and age we have plenty to learn from the disciples’ heartfelt plea to Jesus to increase their faith and his startling response.
The disciples’ cry begging Jesus to increase their faith is also ours as we long to have a faith that is more steadfast in Christ. Like the mustard tree that Jesus asks his listeners to imagine, we want a faith that is simple yet intense, deeply rooted in Christ. This helps us avoid the pit hole of turning our faith into a puerile genie’s lamp, synonymous with the theologies such as the “prosperity gospel”, where it is believed you can get anything your heart desires if only you had just a bit more faith.
The faith Jesus is speaking about increases in quality as it grows in maturity, especially in times of hardship. As Habakkuk in the first reading says, when trouble comes, “the just ones, because of their faith, shall live” (Hab. 2:4). The disciple who has such a faith does not expect anything in return. Faith cannot be reduced to resemble a commercial transaction, otherwise it is no faith at all, just as love cannot be expected from an exchange of goods, otherwise it is no love at all.
The faith Jesus is speaking about increases in quality as it grows in maturity, especially in times of hardship
The image of servants who expect nothing in return for the work that they do, not even a sign of gratitude from their masters, is disquieting, at least in our day and age. However, it effectively drives Jesus’s point home that faith demands nothing in return.
Indeed, nothing can be more fitting than likening faith to unexpecting servants serving at table. This is what Jesus did, he who girded himself with an apron and served his disciples with his own body and blood.