Homily for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Oct. 5, 2025. Luke 17:5-10. Theme: That Amazing Mustard-Seed-Sized Faith!
In today’s gospel, Jesus teaches us about the power of a genuine faith and how it can bring about amazing and unexpected results. He uses the very tiny mustard seed that his listeners were all familiar with to illustrate this truth. Just as that mustard seed contains within it the potential of bringing forth a huge bush, so does an act of confident faith contain within it the power to do the impossible and accomplish much good in the world. But quite often this requires that we be willing to step out of our comfort zones to do something that we did not plan to do or even something that we do not think we can do. But this is where trust in God comes into play and once we take that first step in faith, God’s grace rushes in and enables us to do amazing things. Two inspiring examples of this mustard-seed sized faith at work happened right within the lifetimes of many of us.
In 1948, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was just an ordinary nun like so many others who spent their days teaching wealthy girls in India. But every day she had to come face-to-face with the destitute poverty and ravaging hunger of the poor outcasts in the city’s dirty streets. Her mustard-seed sized faith told her that God was asking her to do something about it. It was telling her to move out of her comfortable convent, to exchange her fancy nun clothes for a typical poor Indian woman’s sari, and to go live among the poor as one of them.
Mother Teresa trusted and then she began to do what God seemed to be asking of her even though she didn’t fully understand it. She took that first step of faith into the scary unknown and dedicated herself to a life of service among the poorest of the poor. At first she was all by herself but soon other women came to join her. Many of them had once been her wealthy students but now they had become her Sisters in a brand new religious community called the “Missionaries of Charity”, which is just another way of saying, “Ambassadors of God’s Love”.
Many years later, after she was world famous as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Mother Teresa was asked how it all started. She replied, “I never thought of doing anything big. I just saw one poor abandoned dying man lying in the street and so I picked him up and brought him home.” Today, there are over 4,000 Missionaries of Charity Sisters and Brothers, as well as lay Co-Workers of Mother Teresa, relieving the suffering of hundreds of thousands across the globe. All of this good happened because of God acting through one person’s mustard-seed-sized faith that was built upon confident trust in him.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a devout Christian black woman in Montgomery, Alabama, was on a segregated bus-ride home after a long day at work. At one of the stops, 4 black passengers were told to give up their seats for the newly boarding white passengers. Three of them got up. But Rosa stayed put. She was tired from a long day of work and and was even more tired of giving in to injustice and discrimination. Her mustard-seed sized faith inside her told her not to move. It reminded her that she had dignity as a human being, as a child of God, redeemed by Jesus Christ just like anyone else. The police were called and Rosa was arrested on the spot. She then lost her job.
Once word of what she did spread, the entire black population of Montgomery boycotted the bus system for 381 days. They brought it to a stop-still, causing it to fall right down on its financial knees. This protest eventually resulted in a Supreme Court decision of opening up the doors to racial equality to all Americans, no matter who or what they are. It jump-started the civil rights movement that became a tidal wave of justice washing across the entire nation. All of this good happened because of God acting through one person’s mustard-seed-sized faith that was built upon confident trust in him.
What small act of charity or justice, needing the power of a mustard-seed sized faith to jump-start it, might God be asking each of us? Is there something that we know we could be doing but don’t have the courage to step out of our comfort zones to do? Is there some person or group that needs our help but we are hesitant to get involved or change our schedule to do so? Whatever it might be, don’t fall for the lie that it has to be something great and significant in order to make any real and lasting difference in the world.
Mother Teresa never had the slightest clue that picking up one dying man off the streets of Calcutta would result in an international movement of charity on behalf of the poorest of the poor. And Rosa Parks had absolutely no idea that her refusal to give up her seat on that segregated bus in Montgomery would become the catalyst for a worldwide awareness of racial equality and justice. Each one of them was simply activating their mustard-seed sized faith and started off by doing just one seemingly little thing that they thought needed to be done at that time and in that place.. But it just goes to show us that it’s absolutely amazing what God can do through one person’s mustard-seed-sized faith when we have confident trust in him.
Mother Teresa & Rosa Parks, 1981
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