Sunday Homily

Fr. Tom Lucas, S.J. 

October 5, 2025

A friend recently sent me a few lines, a kind of testament, from former President Jimmy Carter, who died almost a year ago. Carter may not have been the best president we ever had in terms of his political moxie or programmatic success, but in the intervening years since his term in office, he emerged as more than just another elder statesman. He was a Christian gentleman of profound depth, true humility, great gentility, and rock-solid faith that showed itself in deeds. He devoted himself to his neighbors, to Habitat for Humanity projects, and to monitoring at-risk elections all around the world. Well into his nineties, as he faced down brain cancer, and broken hip, he continued to teach Sunday school every week. 

This is what he said: 

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something…My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to try to make a difference.” 

The Gospel always challenges us to examine our faith, and what we do with it. Is it as big as a mustard seed, the size of a flake of coarsely ground pepper? If so, Jesus assures us, we could tell an old growth redwood to uproot itself and plant itself into the cold waters of the North Pacific, and it would obey us. It all depends on faith. 

I believe, don’t get me wrong. I say my creed: I believe in God who creates, in Jesus who saves, in the power of the Holy Spirit, but honestly, a lot of the time I don’t want to be bothered by what that belief demands of me. I’m not ready to start talking to redwoods, or even to go out on their limbs. And that’s the point of the parable of the servants we heard last week: the demands that my faith make on me, if I’m going to do more than talk about it. As my dad used to say, “talk is cheap, but liquor costs money.” Boy, was he ever right. 

Am I the entitled servant who expects the master to do all things for me? He has set this table for me again and again, and consoled me. My belief in the goodness and mercy of God can make for a sense of entitlement, rationalize it into a reasonable, even comfortable option. God is bigger than I am, and more powerful and more loving. I can leave the business of saving the world, or even saving my little corner of it, to God. That’s the attitude of an unworthy servant, comfortable in the presumption that comes from knowing how infinitely good God is. 

Yet if we listen hard to what Jesus says, and look hard at what he did and continues to do through good people like Jimmy Carter and Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day and Pope Francis and Pope Leo, if we look at the focused generosity of Loaves and Fishes and St. Vincent de Paul and the Sacramento Life Center, we encounter not lovey-dovey Hallmark card messages, but hard demands: that we care for one another, for those who are down on their luck or down in the dumps; that we serve, and don’t expect to be served in return; that we delight in being faithful servants and not in lording it over those whose lot is worse off than ours. 

The message of Jesus isn’t only that we don’t believe enough in what our faith can empower us to do. Rather, it tells us that our contentment is a trap if it becomes misplaced confidence that removes the urgency of Jesus’ message. We are called to be faithful servants who work hard to bring about the kingdom Jesus entrusted into our feeble hands and to our limited imaginations. He believes that we can bring that kingdom into realization, and he trusts us to do just that. But do we believe that? “When you have done all that is done all that is commanded you,” can we dare to say, can we proudly say “‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what is our duty.’”

“My faith,” Jimmy Carter reminded us,“ demands that I do

Whatever I can

Wherever I am

Whenever I can

For as long as I can

With whatever I have

To try to make a difference. 

And that makes all the difference.