PROPER 22, YEAR C

October 5, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Habakkuk 1:1-6,12-13, 2:1-4

Psalm 37:3-10

II Timothy 1:1-14

Luke 17:5-10

 

When we read the Sunday Scripture lessons, a useful question to ask is: What underlying problem, question, or complaint is this reading setting out to solve, answer, or address? 

 

In our Old Testament reading today, the Prophet Habakkuk has a definite complaint. The wonderful thing about the prophets is that they usually have no hesitation whatsoever about complaining to God. 

 

Habakkuk makes his dissatisfaction clear: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? The wicked surround the righteous—therefore judgment comes forth perverted.…” 

 

It's a familiar protest. If God is a God of justice, why does he permit such flagrant injustice on earth? Psalm 37 similarly speaks of fretting over those who succeed in evil schemes—and warns that the resulting anger and rage lead only to evil.

In the reading from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy, the implied question is why God allows his chosen servants to suffer. Paul exhorts Timothy not to be ashamed of him as a prisoner but to share in suffering for the Gospel—for Paul suffers as he does precisely as a preacher, apostle, and teacher of the same Gospel. But the question lingers: Why does God permit those who’re doing his work to suffer so?

 

In today’s Gospel, the story of the master who doesn’t thank his servants when they come in from the fields but instead has them prepare his dinner addresses an implied complaint about why the work of discipleship is never-ending and often thankless. The disciples are impatient for the messianic banquet of God’s kingdom when they can finally sit and eat—but there’s all this interminable work to be done first.

 

In each case, the Lord answers: The Day is coming when everything will be put right. But that Day is not yet. In the meantime, we’re called to persevere in faith. 

 

So, the Lord promises Habakkuk that his just judgment is indeed coming. But not just yet: “If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” In the meantime, the prophet takes his stand upon the ramparts to await the fulfillment of God’s promises.

The Psalmist similarly reassures those tempted to fret over the wicked who prosper: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him … For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait upon the Lord shall possess the land.”

 

Again, Paul reassures Timothy that despite present sufferings, God is able to guard what has been entrusted to them both until the Day of Christ’s return. In the meantime, Timothy is to follow the pattern of sound words which he learned from Paul “in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

 

In each case, moreover, the key to such perseverance is faith. Thus, the Lord tells Habakkuk: “Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.” There’s a double meaning here with respect to both the present and the future: having lived by faith in the present, the righteous shall in the end gain their lives.

 

Persevering in faith is not, however, a human achievement but a divine gift. Hence, Paul reminds Timothy to rekindle the gift that is within him through the laying-on of Paul’s hands, and he exhorts him to guard the truth entrusted by the Holy Spirit who dwells within them. In other words, we’re not in this alone. God is with us.

 

In today’s Gospel, when the disciples ask Jesus to increase their faith, he commends them for asking for the right thing. With faith as small as a grain of mustard seed, they could tell a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey them. The point of this hyperbolic image is that by faith we can do even what seems utterly impossible to us.

 

So, in their different ways, today’s readings presuppose a human complaint to God about some present state of affairs that seems disordered and wrong. God answers with the promise that the day is coming when he’ll put all things right. But that day is not yet. In the meantime, we’re called to persevere in the faith that only he can give. This faith will empower us to accomplish miraculous things in his name.

 

The question for us as we listen to these readings is: What is our complaint? What seems disordered and wrong in our lives? What do we wish that God would put right with our lives and with the world? Let’s take some time this week to ask ourselves those questions and reflect on the answers.

 

When we do that, then we can take comfort in God’s promises as set forth in today’s readings. Our calling is to persevere in faith, confident that God is leading us to where we need to be, but in His way and in His time. In the words of Habakkuk: “There is still a vision for the appointed time … If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.”