I once had a boss who would only authorize projects that he thought were his own ideas. Normally, if you proposed a plan to improve some area of the business, he would find some flaw in the plan and rule it out.
After experiencing this pattern for a few months, those of us working for this fellow figured out that we could get a plan approved very easily if we convinced our boss that it was his idea in the first place. We would discuss projects in meetings and say, "That was a great idea you had last week. We are ready to do it." He would smile and embrace our plan.
It has been said many times that there is no limit to what you can do if you don't care who gets the credit. We've all probably been in situations where good work was slowed down, or cancelled while leaders squabble over who "owns" a project. It happens in business. It happens in churches. It even happens in families and relationships.
In today's Gospel reading, Jesus heals ten lepers and only one of them, a Samaritan, returns to give thanks to God for his healing. "Ten were cleansed, were they not?" Jesus asks. "Where are the other nine? Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"
If you're like me, you're not very good at giving credit where credit is due. I usually behave like the nine lepers who are healed but neglect to thank God for their recovery. I can see these nine lepers, after their encounter with Jesus, marveling at their good fortune as their health improves.
Like them, I am quick to come to Jesus with my problems --- nothing stirs me to prayer like some kind of health or financial crisis --- but I am much slower to come to God in prayer when the crisis dissipates. Nor do I automatically assume that, as conditions improve, God has answered my prayers.
I have much to be thankful for. That doesn't mean I am always thankful. I often behave like my former boss, smiling and taking the credit for things that I have nothing to do with. I am no more responsible for the good things that are present in my life --- my family, my friends, my church and my career --- than I am responsible when something goes wrong. We all live in dependence on the love and compassion of God.
The Gospel calls us to a lifestyle of thankfulness. We are called to acknowledge that God is the source of all that is good in our lives. To think otherwise is to believe that we some how earn our good fortune as payment for superior service to God. If good fortune were earned by righteous living, I for one would be in dire straits.
Thankfully, the kingdom of heaven does not operate on a merit system. To be thankful really means to be humble --- to acknowledge that we do not manufacture our happiness and success by our own will power, but we receive it as a gift from God. To be thankful is to give credit where credit is due for all that is good in our lives and our world.
From Oct. 3 (27th Sunday):
Most of us would probably like to have more faith. I mean, if you're reading this column, you most likely are someone who likes the idea of having faith in God.
The more confidence we have that God is real, alive, and at work in our lives and in our world, then the more we will live the way God calls us to live. When our faith wavers --- meaning when our belief in God's reality and God's presence wavers --- then we tend to lose confidence in God's ways and live like everyone else, struggling to take care of ourselves.
It would seem like a natural and reasonable thing to ask God for more faith. Faith, we're taught, is a gift. So if we lack faith, we can't necessarily manufacture it ourselves. This seems to be what the disciples want to do in today's Ggospel reading: "The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith.'"
While it might seem natural to you and I to ask for more faith, Jesus doesn't seem to respond to warmly to this request. "If you had faith size of a mustard seed," Jesus responds, "you could say to this sycamore, 'Be uprooted and transplanted in the sea,' and it would obey you.'" If I were the apostles, I wouldn't expect a package of faith underneath my Christmas tree!
Jesus seems to suggest that the problem with the apostles is not that they lack faith, but that they are not applying the faith that they have. Clearly they have some confidence in the love and power of Jesus to guide their lives, but I would infer from Jesus' response that they might be reluctant to summon the power of Christ, and to act in his name. Perhaps it doesn't matter how much the apostles believe in their heads that Jesus is Lord, but what matters is how much they live their lives as if Jesus is Lord.
Does this mean you and I have enough faith to send trees flying out of the ground and into the sea? I've never contemplated trying this trick. While it would be spectacular, I don't see how it would be much benefit to myself or to anyone else.
I think that Jesus may be using a little sarcasm here to needle his followers. We don't need to be uprooting trees. We do need to be serving the neediest members of our communities, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and practicing generosity, compassion and forgiveness.
Today's first reading reminds us that in a world of violence and corruption the prophet Habakkuk cried out for God's help. God's answer was to tell Habakkuk, "The just man, because of his faith, will live." We are called to live by faith, to live the Gospel, not just to hoard intellectual belief in God.
If faith meant merely acknowledging the existence of God, being a Christian would be simple, easy, and very private. But today's readings tell us that faith is about how we live, not just what we think. The way to increase our faith is not wait for some kind of mental transfusion, but to live our faith every day. Bill Peatman writes from Napa. |