If you are able to remember your High School
chemistry class, perhaps you can recall something called a litmus test. This is a very simple test in which you take
a strip of special paper and dip it in a liquid. Depending on what color the
paper turns, you know right away if the liquid is acidic, basic or neutral. It
is such a quick, simple and accurate test. What if I were to tell you that
there is a kind of litmus test that will tell us immediately if we are a
committed follower of Jesus Christ or not? You would probably want to test
yourself, wouldn't you? Well, I think that there is such a test and I will tell
you what it is … just not right away. Let’s try to figure out together what
this litmus test could be. We will begin with the incredibly loaded question
that Jesus asks at the end of the gospel.
“When the Son of Man comes, will He find
faith on earth”? Jesus wonders aloud if, upon His return to earth at the end of
time, He will find people of faith on the earth. This question is the key to
understanding the parable we heard in the gospel. At first glance it seems that
the message of the parable is this: keep asking God in prayer for what you want
and eventually He will relent and grant you your request just as the unjust
judge did to get the widow off His back. There is a problem with this
interpretation, however. God is not an unjust judge. The question cannot be
whether God will grant us what we ask for in prayer. God is a loving Father, He
always will give us what we need; we don’t need to wear Him down. The question
is not whether God will be faithful but whether we will remain faithful to Him.
The question is whether, through all the ups and downs, struggles and joys of
life, we will continue to have faith in God, trust Him, pray to Him and desire
a relationship with Him. Jesus holds up the widow as an example for us because
she did not grow weary, she preserved and did not give up. When the Son of Man comes,
will He find people like this widow? Will He find faith on earth?
When we look at the world today, the answer does
not seem very promising because the number of those possessing the faith of the
widow is decreasing in many places. In fact, we can become discouraged because
it can appears that the longer Jesus waits to come back, the less faith He will
find on earth. We have all probably heard stories in the media telling us that
religious practice is on the decline. When we look at the numbers, we find a
more complicated picture. Globally the number of Christians is increasing. In
2010, the number of Christians in the world grew by a net 28 million. Looking
closer we find that the Church is growing in the global south while it is
shrinking in the West. Let’s discuss Vancouver in particular. When the
archdiocese of Vancouver did a census in November 2012, it was found that just
under 100,000 people were attending its 77 parishes. This makes Catholicism
this region’s largest religious group by far. Many parishes are in fact growing
in numbers, particularly as a result of immigration. But there is another side
of the story. Though about 100,000 Catholics were counted at Mass on a given
Sunday, there are approximately 250,000 baptized Catholics in the Vancouver
region who do not practice their faith with any regularity(more). I do not mention
this to depress us. It is however the reality and should get us thinking and
hopefully move us to action. The numbers lend an urgency to Jesus’ question:
“When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth”? When we look around,
especially in the West, the answer does not seem very encouraging.
The Church has a mission to ensure that when
Jesus does return He will find that there is still faith on earth. The Church
exists to evangelize. We have the job to help increase the number of people who
have the faith of the widow in parable. Certainly as Catholics we want to
nurture those already within the Church, but if we stopped here we would not be
fulfilling the mandate of Jesus to make disciples of all nations. This Sunday
we celebrate World Mission Sunday. As Archbishop Miller wrote in his letter we
read last Sunday, today the global Church has the opportunity to recommit
itself to its task of bringing the gospel of Jesus to all people, both those
who have never heard it before and the baptized who are inactive in their
faith. Today we have the opportunity to support missionaries, both with our
prayers and with financially in the collection. Today we are also reminded that
we are called to bring others to know Jesus Christ. Again, the Church exists to
evangelize – it is our reason for being. We have a mission to ensure that when
Jesus returns He finds that there is still faith on earth.
As Christians we should have a natural desire
to evangelize. If Christ is the center of our lives then we should naturally
want to lead others to come to know Him. The world “missionary” sometimes
brings to mind the negative image of a Bible thumper, someone who uses guilt or
fear to get people to go to Church, someone who shoves their beliefs down
other’s throats. True evangelization is
not like this. I think of it this way. Have
you ever watched a movie or read a book that you enjoyed so much that you couldn't stop telling people about it? Don’t we go around telling people, “listen
you have to watch this movie or you have to read this book”? If we have
experienced in our own life a glimmer of what it means to have a relationship
with Jesus Christ and what it means to be part of the Church, will we not want
to do the same? Being a missionary is not about imposing our beliefs on people,
it is saying to people “listen, we have something truly incredible here, come,
join us and share in it!” This doesn't have to be intimidating or scary. It can
be as simple sharing with people your own experiences of faith in a truthful,
non-judgmental way. You can talk about your struggles of faith, how you trust
God to help you change in your life or how you are really trying to live like
Jesus even though you fail. Or it can be as simple as asking people the right
questions to get them thinking. Maybe ask them what they do when life gets
hard. Or if they share some struggle or joy, ask them where they see God in all
of this. Evangelizing doesn't need to be complicated but it is not optional. When
we encounter something truly good in our lives we have a natural tendency to
want other to share in this. If we never feel a desire to lead others to come
to know Jesus then we should stop and ask ourselves why that is. If our
commitment to Jesus is true, then we should have a natural desire to
evangelize.
There is really a simple litmus test that can
help us determine whether we are really committed to Christ and His teaching. No
one else can do this test for you and in the end the results are just between
you and God. If we feel we fail the test, we should not get discouraged; we are
all really a work in progress. At least we know that something needs to change.
If you have not guessed what the test is by now, here it is. To know whether we
are in fact committed Catholics I think we only need to ask ourselves two
questions. Do I have the desire that those around me have a relationship with
Jesus? Am I taking some practical steps to make this a reality?
