S1 Ep. 26: Faith the Ruffles Feathers

Transcript

Carol Vassar:

From SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut, I'm Carol Vassar, and this is Living in Faith, Hope, and Love. Each week, our Pastor, Father Mark Suslenko, delves into Scripture, shares insights from the saints, prophets, and theologians, and discusses practical ways to cultivate faith, strengthen hope, and embody love in the world around us. Through his reflections and spiritual encouragement, this podcast aims to inspire you to live your Catholic faith with joy and purpose. Welcome. 

As a Christian, have you ever ruffled feathers for the sake of your faith? Speaking the truth of the Gospel isn’t always easy. It can challenge the way people think, upset the status quo, and sometimes even make us unpopular. But it’s also part of our calling. Father Mark explores why that mission can be so difficult — and why it’s worth the effort.

“Faith That Ruffles Feathers,” by Father Mark S. Suslenko, Pastor, SS. Isidore and Maria Parish, Glastonbury, Connecticut

Father Mark Suslenko:

Anyone who does any kind of gardening knows that this time of year presents us with the battle of the weeds, those little creatures that seem to grow overnight and encroach on our gardens. Well, I noticed the other day that my eggplants were being overcome by these aggressive weeds. They weren't there a few days ago, but they were certainly there that day. And so I said, "if I'm gonna have these eggplant do anything, I'd better get rid of the weeds." So I'm pulling and I'm pulling and I'm pulling, and these things aren't moving. Those roots are in there strong. I get the trowel and I'm digging and I'm digging and I'm pulling and I'm pulling. And, you know, you have those really long tubular things that go down and, you know, if you don't get the whole thing, it's just gonna come back next week anyway, but I'm pulling and pulling and all of a sudden it let go.

And I was relishing in the fact that I was finally successful, only to realize that the very plant I was trying to save was also in my hand, so I no longer have an eggplant. That's another story. Remember how hard it was to get rid of those weeds. 

St. Oscar Romero says that the mission of the church is hard. The mission of the church is hard. And he says the mission of the church is hard because its primary task is to uproot sin. To uproot sin. And we know how much weeds can have a grip on the soil and they don't want to release. You can imagine how hard it is to uproot sin. Now, sins can be very generally described as those things that turn us away from God, that pull us away from God, that dim the presence of the divine image within us, that take us off our proper axis of truth. We spoke to you the other day about the need for universal truth, but if there are no universal truths and everybody's creating their own as they go along, well, then the idea of sin goes away too, because the benchmarks are gone.

And so it's important to understand sin is those things that pull us away from God, turn us away from God's kingdom, and diminish the divine image. The church's mission is to uproot those things that do that. And he says the church's mission is to uproot sin from several different places. One is from history. The other is from the political order. The other is from the economy. And the other is from wherever they exist. So, sins from history, sins from the political order, sins from the economy, and sins from wherever they exist, the church's mission is to uproot them, and it is a hard mission.

He goes on further to say when the church begins to embark upon that mission and understand church as being you and I, not somebody somewhere whose job it is to do this, but you and I are the church. As we embark upon this mission of uprooting sin, we're going to meet conflict. We're going to meet conflict. And then we're gonna also meet some other things like selfishness, vanity, pride, and many people who want to take those very sins, those things that turn us away from God and enthrone them into other gods that are then worshiped and adored. And so we're going to meet conflict, we're going to meet selfishness, vanity, pride, and this enthronement of sin that wants to convince us that what is wrong is really good.

And so it's no wonder that division occurs because when people are challenged, they resist. When people don't want to hear the truth, they push back. And so the mission of the church is hard, and it's going to ruffle some feathers. So here's a good question to ponder this week, all of us, in your life as a Christian, so far, however old you are, however long you've been a Christian, in your life as a Christian so far, how many times can you identify that you have ruffled someone's feathers because of their faith? How many times have you tried to uproot sin? It's an interesting answer, I'm sure you'll receive for yourself. 

See, we live in a world where everything's got to be politically correct, where I can't encroach on anybody's space, where my opinion has to be my own, where it's hard to challenge someone to think differently. In fact, it goes so far that more and more we're hearing that if you're a person of faith, do a faith thing in your building. We don't want to hear about it in the public square; the voice isn't welcome out there. If you wanna be a person of faith, you do your thing and then leave it when you leave those doors.

And so being a voice is difficult because it doesn't want to be heard. And so what kinds of things can we point to, call out, or challenge? Well, anytime someone, even in our own household, is replacing God with a lesser god, there's an opportunity to preach the truth. When someone who's living a lifestyle that is contrary to the gospel, contrary to the teachings of the church, there's an opportunity to proclaim the truth. When we're witnessing injustice, when conflicts are being resolved by violence rather than compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and listening, there's an opportunity to preach the truth. When someone is holding a grudge or willfully hurting another individual, there's an opportunity to preach the truth. And whether this is in our homes or in our workplaces, we all have that opportunity and that obligation to speak out. 

And it's hard, it's hard. And you know, like with our gardens sometimes, when you realize how hard it is to pull those things out, the tendency is to just say, "leave 'em alone. They'll be fine. If they kill the plants, they kill the plants, but I'm not gonna take the effort to do anything about it." And that's what happens in our world, those roots of sin are so deep they've been historically there for so long that we look at them and we say, "how are we gonna pull these things out? How can we change the tide?

When more and more people are turning their backs on God and putting other gods in his place, how do we pull that back? When people are wondering who they are and how to define themselves, how do we point them in the truth when those roots are so deep? And so a tendency is to not embark upon the struggle and just ignore it and go about the business of our lives and keep our eyes closed and our lips sealed. It's a lot easier to do that. Or to crumble under our fear of being afraid to speak up because somebody might not like me, somebody might criticize me, somebody may object to what I have to say, so I just be quiet.

So when the church begins to uproot sin, it suffers. And our savior Jesus Christ is the prime example of that. All he did was point to the sin of society, what was wrong, what was hurtful, and it sent him to the cross. And so when the church begins to proclaim the truth, when the church begins to point to sin, when the church begins to uproot that sin, it suffers. And so, therefore, all of us suffer because the mission of the church is hard. 

You know, I'm sure like myself, we've all at one point or another in our lives had a sore. Maybe we broke our wrist, maybe we broke a bone, maybe there was a laceration of some kind, but something that really hurt, and we knew that we had to go get medical help for this, and that in the process of getting help, someone would have to touch that sore. And we were dreading that moment when that occurs, because we know how much pain we're in, and we don't want somebody to touch that sore. And so we almost twitch, and we're anxious, and the blood pressure goes up because we know at some point that person is gonna come in and do that. And then, when that moment comes, we kind of resist. We twitch them more and pull back until we finally give over, and they do what they need to do to heal that sore, to heal that wound. 

Well, Oscar Romero says society, you and I, people, have so many sores that it twitches. We twitch because we don't want anyone to touch that. We don't want anybody to tell us to do something about that because that's where the voice of the church comes. The voice of the church sees something that's broken as something that is wrong and says, "You have to treat that, you have to do something about that, you have to change that." And the resistance comes, and we don't. But we always see these few courageous folks come to the surface and speak this truth, like Oscar Romero, and we know the price that's paid. He ended up giving his life as a result of it, for simply pointing out the injustice, for pointing out what was wrong, for preaching the truth.

And so all of us have an opportunity to ruffle some feathers. And maybe that could be our homework for the week, our project for the week, to ruffle some feathers, to not be so afraid to give voice to our faith, to correct the untruths, to preach the gospel, even though it's hard. And even though it comes at a price, and even though people may not want to hear what we have to say, we are all baptized, and we all have that mission and that life to embrace.

Carol Vassar:

Father Mark Suslenko is the pastor of SS. Isidore and Maria Parish in Glastonbury, Connecticut. If you like what you've heard today, please subscribe to Living in Faith, Hope, and Love on your favorite podcast app and take a moment to leave a review.

SS. Isidore and Maria is an active parish community, so whether you’re a long-time parishioner or are just getting to know us through this podcast, we welcome you to join us at Masses or any of our other community events and services. Visit our parish website - isidoreandmaria.org - for a full schedule of Masses, services, and other happenings. That's isidoreandmaria.org. We're also active on Facebook and Instagram.

On behalf of Father Mark, I'm Carol Vassar, and we thank you for listening to this episode of Living in Faith, Hope, and Love.