Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)                                                       September 29, 2019
 
An old man gets an urgent phone call from his wife while driving home.
"Herman, I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on the freeway. Please be careful!" Herman replied, "Dear, it's not just one car. There's hundreds of them!"
 
If you are like me, you probably can’t stand it when people don’t have a sense of urgency, can’t stand it when people seem to be completely complacent about things that might demand a more aggressive or “hurry-up” approach. 
 
In a certain sense, all three of our readings today address the problem of complacency—at least when it comes to our spiritual lives, our moral lives, our lives of faith. 
 
In the First Reading from Amos the prophet speaks about it emphatically: “Woe to the complacent in Zion!”
 
Some people in the community had evidently become a little too content with their own comfort and pleasures and had begun neglecting their responsibilities to the less fortunate in their midst. 
 
It was as if their faith was put on the backburner when times were good, when their needs and wants were being fulfilled.  Suddenly they didn’t need God so much or didn’t need to worry about helping their neighbors.
 
And in the Second Reading from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy he reminds him to” “Compete well for the faith.”
 
Paul wanted Timothy to maintain a sense of urgency in both living and preaching the Gospel.  For Paul, there was no time to waist.  Faith demanded one’s all, a total effort, a sort of persistence and dedication and relentlessness.  Paul knew that Jesus deserved our very best, not a lukewarm or half-hearted response.
 
And in the Gospel passage from Luke we heard one of the most sobering stories in all of Scripture—one in which a rich man dies and is tormented in the netherworld; while the man he ignored, the man he was indifferent to, the man who was invisible to him, dies and is carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham. 
 
And this difference in their respective destinies wasn’t because of something harmful the rich man did to the poor man, or because he had defrauded him in some way. 
 
Rather, it was simply that he chose to do nothing, chose to look the other way, chose to enjoy his life without lifting a finger for a man who desperately needed his help.  In a very real sense, the rich man was guilty of simply saying in his heart, “You’re not my problem.”
 
Complacency, complacency, complacency—a trait we often don’t like seeing in others, but one we often embrace when it comes to living out the demands of discipleship.
 

• I’ll get around to this “discipleship thing” eventually. 
• I’ll be a better guy tomorrow or the next day or the next.
• Somebody else will take care of it.  Why do I need to get involved?
• That problem is too big.  I couldn’t possibly make a difference.
• I’m tired.  I worked hard enough. And I deserve everything I have.

You get the picture.  There is always some reason, some excuse for not being the person God calls us to be.  And yet, time is one thing not promised to us.  And the person in need standing before us this moment may not pass our way again.  And we can never presume that someone else will pick up the slack. 
 
All we have is this day, this hour, this moment—this singular opportunity to do the right thing for the right reason for the right person.
 
We know the saying well: “patience is a virtue”.  Well, that is probably true when it comes facing the struggles of life, or in dealing with others.  But patience is no virtue when it comes to creating that best-version-of-ourselves.
 
In fact, it may be the exact opposite.  So let’s stop being complacent, or lazy, or indifferent.  Rather, let’s be completely impatient in our desire to be again that best-version-of-ourselves.   
 
The world needs us—not a year from now, or a month from now, or even tomorrow—but this very day.  God can wait—but he shouldn’t have to.  You have permission today, to be incredibly impatient.