Three impossible things before breakfast.

An audio recording of today's gospel and blog can be accessed here.

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Today’s gospel (Luke 17:1-6) gives us a taste of Jesus at His most demanding: in this case, He apparently wants us to achieve three impossible things before breakfast.

Obstacles are sure to come, He says, but alas for the one who provides them. But how am I, a sinner, to avoid being an obstacle – a scandal – if even the just man falls seven times a day? And, how, thereby, am I to avoid being the one cast into the sea with the dubious, sartorial distinction of a millstone for a necktie?

Next, Jesus also commands, if your brother wrongs you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you to say, “I am sorry,” you must forgive him. But Lord, we might say, surely the brother or sister who says sorry so often has rendered the word as meaningless as it is in the mouths of polite English gentlemen. To forgive one offence seems noble; to forgive liberally seems to make forgiveness cheap.

And lastly – as if these commands were not already impossible – the Lord gives us an outlandish measure against which to assess our Christian belief: Were your faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it would obey you. Well, if mulberry trees are not common in our own country, it is certainly not because of the faith of the people! If we have ever taken pride in the bellowing chorus of Faith of our Fathers, we might reflect in our more sober moments on the fact that the local trees are probably quite safe in our presence, God helps us.

Jesus never heard of SMART targets - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely – but then His targets are so much more than any we can conceive of. Indeed, this is our challenge here: not to assume we can achieve in any concrete sense the demands that He places on us, but rather to confess our insufficiency before the task of redemption ahead and our utter dependence on Him.

Will obstacles – scandals - come because of our actions? God help us, there is every chance that they will. Which should be a reminder to us that our renewal in grace depends on our returning again and again for the Lord’s forgiveness. For our weaknesses before the calls of the Christian life are legion, but so too are the gestures and mercies of the Lord of grace who comes to our aid and makes haste to help us. The first impossible task, therefore, is to refuse to believe we can stand except by God’s power: if any man think he can stand, let him take heed lest he fall, says St Paul to the Corinthians, and perhaps it is also to cover our unsteady tracks across the sands of time with a torrent of prayer poured out for those in whose lives we did not play the role assigned to us by Divine Providence. Moreover, there is this further consolation that if we have fitted the yolk of prayer for others onto our shoulders, perhaps there will be no room for that millstone that is otherwise destined for us.

And, if God can be our sufficiency in that regard, He is also our sufficiency with regard to our constant need to forgive. To always forgive is not to be weak or cheap; rather, it is to choose the peace of God before what Thomas Hobbes called the war of all against all. How easy it is to elect persecution and conflict, to choose to protect our sense of self by damaging that of others. So many of the ancient religions of the world purged their social conflict through persecuting the innocent, and here is Jesus, the victim of sin, who chooses not to retaliate; who chooses to say peace be with you, even to those who have connived in His death. To tell us to forgive our brothers and sisters seventy times seven is no less a task than to tell us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. And here again, our sufficiency comes not from our own strength, but from His grace that pours out upon our hearts the impulse of His love and the peace that it engenders.

In this light, we can also lastly hope that our faith might not remain smaller than the mustard seed. The mulberry trees might remain safe in our presence, but who can plant trees in the sea if not the One who walked on the water of the Sea of Galilee? Like our torrent of prayer for those for whom we have been obstacles, here we may offer another kind of prayer: 

Lord, increase my faith or else, Lord I believe, help my unbelief; please help that part of my scandal-causing, unforgiving soul that still says “no” to you, just help it to dab its finger in your precious blood and write Credo – I believe – in the sand of my life.   

We cannot do three impossible things before breakfast; we cannot even do one. But we can do all things in Him who strengthens us: whose grace prevents us, and whose mercy refreshes our taste for peace. And, then, in the light of the Morning Star of our Mother, we can turn our meagre faith heavenwards once more.