27th sunday- C

27th Sunday-c 

Once there came a man saying to Jesus, “Oh Jesus, please let me see again”. 

Then another person came to Christ saying, “Jesus, I want to hear again”. Then some brought a paralyzed man on a mat, asking Christ Jesus to restore his health” 

Thus, so many people came to Christ for healing and to all those people, Christ our Lord posed one question, “Do you have faith?” And when they said, “Yes, Lord, we have faith”. Then, Jesus said, “Let it be done according to your faith and go in peace”. 

After receiving healing, restoration of their body, mind and soul, they did not go away from Christ instead they went with Him, witnessing their faith everywhere. 

Thus, those who came to Christ to find answers, after seeing His divine power, began to lose their questions. Yes, you don’t find answers, but will begin to lose your questions. 

Faith is a living and growing thing. It has its shape, size and weight. As we begin to feed our faith, it begins to grow bigger and bigger every day. That's why, we say that a seed of faith was sown in us as we were baptized and as we come to church and put our faith in to practice, it begins to grow. 

Once a little boy was forced to flee to the roof as his house was on fire. His dad who was standing on the ground below with his outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump, my son. Jump and I will catch you”. He knew that the son had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was smoke, flame and blackness. And the boy said, “dad, I cannot see you and I am afraid”. Then the dad said, “Son, I can see you and that’s all it matters”. That is called faith. We walk by faith not by sight. 

In today’s gospel, the apostles came to Christ and said, “Jesus, Lord, please increase our faith”. And Jesus might have blessed them one by one and said, “I have increased your faith and go in peace”. He might have asked to walk upside down and you would have a bigger faith. but instead he demanded from them a little. Yes, for God, little is much, and He said, “If you have faith as a size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Yes, you can move mountains of doubts and challenges and you can easily move mountains of pride and ego. Faith teaches us that we depend on God and God is the source of all. Only because of Him, we live, move and have our being.  

Today every forty second, there happens a suicide, a person kills themselves. Besides forty wars happening around the world every day and besides all the ethnical, political and social challenges, there happens every forty second a person kills herself. Why? They lose faith in themselves. They lose hope and lose meaning and purpose in their very life. 

And that is why we say, where there is faith, there will be hope and where there is hope, there is life. And where there is life, there is God. Our God is a god of the living and He wants us to live our life to the fullest and if we have faith a size of a mustard seed, we find so much meaning in everything. So, let us keep our faith alive and leave this planet better than it was before. Amen.