Reflection for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Hello. My name is Gary. I am not God. I am just a servant of God. A broken and wounded person in need of healing.
But that’s OK And that’s enough.
Like you, my faith is at times challenged. You and I go through times of joy, and we go through times of despair. We pray, and sometimes it feels good. And other times it seems empty. And sometimes when we most need God, God seems absent – not because God is, but because our pain prevents us from seeing God.
But, we pray anyway.
And that’s OK. And that’s enough.
We hear in today’s Gospel how the disciples struggled with their faith, how Jesus says they have less than a minuscule amount, less than a “mustard-seed” of faith. Like the servant in our Gospel parable, we sometimes forget that a servant’s place is to serve and it is foolish to think of our role in any other way. Too often our attitude with God is to ask ‘what’s in it for me?’
But, we serve anyway.
And that’s OK And that’s enough.
And sometimes we forget that from the littlest seeds, great trees can grow. That even a tiny mustard seed bears much fruit. That even our small, unsure, doubting, imperfect seed of faith can be used to bring about the reign of God.
But, we have faith anyway.
And that’s OK And that’s enough.
We want to be more caring persons, who can make a positive difference in people’s lives. Who can help others realise what an incredible gift they are. But then we get filled with self-doubt and our brokenness and fears cripple us. We forget that even small, little acts of love and trust, even little sacrifices for the good of others, even our little actions of humble loving service of others will bring about the reign of God.
But, we show our care through little acts anyway.
And that’s OK And that’s enough
In our opening prayer today we asked God to pardon what “conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask”.
We fear what conscience dreads, because it reveals to us the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves. Sometimes it is hard to believe that there is someone who loves us unconditionally because of all of the experiences we have had of conditional love, or of offering love only to have been hurt and hurt deeply. And it is so hard to get past those pains, that brokenness, that prevents us from deeply believing that God can love us abundantly and unconditionally. We fear the parts we hide from ourselves and from others because we fear losing their love. And so we dread those parts, we hide those parts from God because we fear that we will lose God’s love.
But, we love anyway.
And that’s OK. And that’s enough.
And in our opening prayer, we asked God to give us what prayer does not dare to ask. The healing we need from the consequences of the choices we have made in the past, or healing of the fear we have of the choices yet to be made. We don’t dare to ask because we fear God will answer those deepest prayers, that our lives will be changed in some unknown way, and that we will be overpowered by the realization that God IS real, and active within us, and that scares us.
But, we ask anyway.
And that’s OK. And that’s enough.
Hello. Our name is disciple. We are not God. We are just servants of God.
We are broken and wounded persons in need of healing.
But – we pray, we serve, we believe, we care, we ask, and we love –
anyway
And that’s OK. And that’s enough