Trust in the Lord, but be prepared. We receive this message from God in our readings today. There is a wonderful quote from the comedian Woody Allen that I have always liked. Film director and screenwriter Marshall Brickman, a good friend of Woody Allen, told an interviewer: “As my friend Woody Allen said, ‘80% of life is showing up.’ Sometimes it is easier to just stay in bed.” Showing up has taken more meaning for us since the pandemic. After staying at home quarantined in place and working from home remotely, it has gotten harder for some of us to just show up. Many churches have reported that parishioners have not a hard time getting back to Mass in-person. There may be many reasons for this. Sometimes when we get out of the habit of doing things, getting back into the habit is hard. Sometimes we may be having a dry period on our journey of faith. Sometimes we may feel that we are searching for God, but don’t feel his presence in our lives. We may want an answer to a particular prayer, to a particular need we have in life, but that prayer seemingly goes unanswered. Yet, we must put one foot in front of the other in our journey of faith, no matter how difficult that may seem. Even when it is hard or painful to do so, we need to continue to reach out to God, continue to go to Mass, continue to pray, continue to be a part of our community of faith. As Woody Allen implies, nothing can happen if we don’t show up. That has to be the first step.
Having trust and faith in the Lord is the subject of the reading from the letter to the Hebrews. Today’s reading gives us one of the most explicit definitions of faith in the New Testament: “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” The author of Hebrews was trying to strengthen the faith of Jewish Christians by using the example of their ancestors who had believed in the promises of God even when those promises had not yet been fulfilled. Abraham, the great patriarch of the Jewish faith, was called out of his homeland to a new land God promised to him and to his descendants. It was a huge leap of faith for Abraham to respond to that call! Out of his faith, Abraham follows God’s promises, even being willing to sacrifice his son at God’s command. Abraham’s journey of faith was not always straight forward, but he always put his trust in God’s promises. The Jewish Christians who originally heard this message from the letter to the Hebrews were no longer welcome in their traditional Jewish institutions, but, under the new covenant in Christ, they were assured that the promises of faith given to them were greater than those given to their Jewish ancestors.
We are assured of the promises that Christ makes to us, but in response, we are called to be vigilant and to be prepared. As our students start the new school year, there is promise and hope as they meet their teachers and find out about the year ahead ahead of them. Back when I was studying in seminary, I had two master’s degrees to complete in my four years up at Sacred Heart School of Theology in Milwaukee. With my many activities, ministry internships, and my part-time job at the seminary library, I needed to be prepared and organized. When I was taking a class in the synoptic Gospels, I had a large research paper to write, which included a 15-minute oral presentation of the research. I chose the story of the three wise men from Matthew’s Gospel for my research. That semester, I stayed on campus during the spring break, getting a lot of the paper written. I worked very hard on it, had two other students proof-read it for me, and I was confident that I had done a good job. I even finished it about a week ahead of the deadline to turn it in. On the afternoon the day before the paper was due, I saw one of my classmates from that course in the library checking out a big pile of books. I asked if he was relieved that that big research paper was behind us and that all we had to do was turn it in tomorrow. He had a puzzled look on his face as he responded, saying, "Yeah, I think I’ve finally decided on the topic I am going to choose for my paper. I need to start looking through these books to get some more ideas. Then I’ll start writing. I’ll probably be up all night." You can imagine the look of surprise and horror on my face at that moment. I was not someone who could wait until the last minute to do my school work. I just cannot operate that way. Next morning, right before class, this same student, who was habitually late, was waiting for the professor frantically 15 minutes before class started. I knew what had happened: he had not finished his paper and he was requesting an extension.
Perhaps we could say that this seminarian did not heed Jesus’ command for us to be prepared always, to keep our lamps ready, so that whenever the master returns, we will be ready to greet him. The first generation of Christians in the Early Church were confident that Christ would come back in their lifetime. Yet, when he did not come, they needed encouragement that they still needed to be prepared for his return. Should Jesus come back suddenly and find us well prepared, the Gospel assures us that we will be blessed for our vigilance and preparedness. Jesus tells us, that to be prepared and to strengthen our relationship with God the Father, we must constantly grow in our faith through our prayer life, through our participation in the sacraments in the Church, through the study of Holy Scripture, and through acts of Christian charity. God gives us the grace and the courage to remain faithful, reminding us that he will reward our faithfulness.
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