The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

Over the years, an essential part of my personal ministry has been offering faith formation programs and retreats for adults. As I’ve worked with parish and retreat groups around the country, I’ve discovered that many people see a contrast or division between their private faith and their public acts of charity and service.

I’ve often wondered why that is. After all, aren’t we, as Christians, inspired to do good works because of our faith in Jesus Christ?

It seems that the disconnect comes a fear (or at least a hesitation) to talk about faith and spirituality. It’s much easier for us to talk about the things we do in life than it is to talk about who we are. And, on one level this makes sense, because our spirituality is really something that exists in our “heart of hearts”—at the core of our being.

But the danger here is that, if we keep it hidden or private, our spirituality—our faith—can become compartmentalized. And this can happen for a number of reasons:

·       We might be afraid saying the wrong thing or look like a religious zealot

·       It might mean admitting that we don’t pray as well or as much as we imagine we should

·       Maybe it’s because we have simply never had an opportunity

When we consider this Sunday’s Gospel, however, we see that we are being invited to reflect on the connection between what seems to be a private faith and what it is we are being called to share with the world.

In the passage from Luke’s Gospel proclaimed this Sunday, Jesus sends out seventy-two of his disciples in pairs to “every town and place he intended to visit.” These disciples were to let the local communities know that Jesus and the Apostles were on their way. They were being asked to evangelize—to announce the “Good News” that Jesus was coming. (Remember that our word “evangelize” comes from the Greek word evangelion, which originally meant a joyful announcement that a new king had been born or that a military battle had been won.)

The message, the evangelion, that Jesus had instructed the disciples to proclaim was simple: “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.”

Here. Now.

The disciples’ journey and their announcement of the coming of the Kingdom—and of the King himself—was the action. And of course, it is the action—what we do—that is easiest to talk about. But there is obviously more to this story than the work of proclaiming that had been entrusted to the disciples. And so, we have to ask what was bubbling beneath the surface, within the hearts and souls of those early evangelizers? What was it that lead these seventy-two women and men to step out and risk following Jesus’ instruction?

It was their faith in and relationship with Jesus and their faith in and relationship with one another.

When Jesus sent out those pairs of disciples as “laborers for his harvest,” he wanted them to work together, to share their faith, support and encourage one another when the journey was difficult, and to witness to the fact that to be a disciple of Jesus calls for collaboration and community. We see that this this Sunday’s Gospel is reminding us that living our faith with integrity isn’t simply about what we do.

We’re not simply called to be good people who do good things.

Instead, the dynamic, evangelizing faith that we are called to live has to be grounded in our relationship with Jesus Christ, with our words and actions—the things we do—being the way we manifest that relationship in every aspect of our lives. Because it is that relationship with Jesus and the communion we share with one another that defines who we are. And this is something we can never lose sight of, because if our works and words aren’t rooted in faith, what exactly is it that we are proclaiming to the world?

Now, there is another aspect of this Sunday’s Gospel that is worth noting: it is the lesson that Jesus is offering us about relationships when he urges the disciples to pay attention to the response of the people they were visiting. Yes, they were to share their message about the coming of the Kingdom, but he also wanted them to watch and listen—to be in relationship with the people they visited—sensitive to how the Good News was being received and to respond accordingly.

The mission of the disciples was to give witness to the faith they held within their hearts and invite others—all others—to join them in living into the reality of God’s Kingdom as disciples of Jesus. Through this witness, faith and action came together in relationships—in relationships that are themselves signs of the presence of the Kingdom of God here and now.

In 2016, Pope Francis highlighted what was at stake for each of us in this Gospel passage when he reflected,

“A Christian’s mission in the world is splendid, it is a mission intended for everyone, it is a mission of service, excluding no one; it requires a great deal of generosity and above all setting one’s gaze and heart facing on High, to invoke the Lord’s help. There is a great need for Christians who joyfully witness to the Gospel in everyday life.”

Today, Jesus is reminding us that “the harvest is great but the laborers are few.” And this reality is asking something of us. The quality of our witness—the witness that says to a war-weary world, to a divided nation, to struggling communities and families that “the kingdom of God is at hand for you”—is as important now as it has ever been.

Holy God, Master of the Harvest, give us the grace, the courage, and to love to offer our “yes” and to be the witnessing disciples your Son calls us to be. Amen.

Homily prepared for Three Holy Women Parish in Milwaukee, Wisconsin