Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time • Year C

Do you pay attention to every little pebble on the path? Possibly not. They are just insignificant. Do you pay attention to every little twig on a tree or the littlest piece of wood? Possibly not. They are just insignificant. Do you pay attention to every little bug hovering nearby? Probably not. For many of us, they are just insignificant.

A pebble, the littlest piece of wood, and a bug are all insignificant until they are not.

Because when that little pebble gets into your shoe, it is not so insignificant anymore. It becomes annoying. We will even stop, take off that shoe, and get rid of that pebble. When that little piece of wood is a splinter in your finger, we all know that it is not insignificant anymore. It hurts. We cannot wait to get that splinter out. When that bug stings you, often, it catches your attention. It is not so insignificant anymore.

The pebble, the splinter, and the mosquito are all insignificant until they are not.

There are many things we consider insignificant, even the things we do every day. We may even have moments when we look at and reflect on our own lives, and we ask the question: With all the things happening in our world today, am I making a difference? Am I being significant?

Two characters in our readings today, Moses and the widow, may be considered insignificant.

When we think of a battle, or war, like Amalek’s war against Israel, the crucial elements that come to mind would be soldiers, officers, ammunition, and things of the like. These are the significant persons and things we would think of. Religious leaders, like Moses, would not be foremost in our minds when it comes to war.

What can an old man with a staff do against the great army of Amalek? Physically, Moses was not a very strong man, as he needed to sit down and be supported during the day. If you were
a tactician, focused on battle strategy, you might think that Moses or his role was insignificant.

And similarly, this was the perception of the woman in the parable today. She was a widow who was expected to be silent. It would seem like she had no one else to speak for her, no adult male. We can assume this because she was speaking for herself and asked the judge to render a just decision for her against her adversary. She was vulnerable, and she needed to speak up for herself.

Because the judge would not pay attention to her for a long time, we can say that he considered her to be insignificant. Her cries for justice were considered “insignificant,” her plight was “insignificant,” and as a widow, many in her society would consider her “insignificant.”

Both Moses and the widow were insignificant until they weren’t.

Moses showed that one’s strength and significance are not about one’s physical strength or knowledge of battle strategies. Rather, they are about one’s faith and trust in a God who is
faithful and mighty. It is about having faith that strength will be given to you in your moment of need, when your arms are weakening and your body is just giving out.

The widow showed that one’s significance lies not in how society has constrained you or how society has labeled you. Rather, it is about the strength of one’s conviction to pursue justice against all odds. It is about trusting in a just God, who will not let any injustice go unanswered.

In both stories, with Moses and the widow, we are reminded that with faith, we are significant. With faith, the things we do will make a difference in our world.

Perhaps it is disheartening to see injustice happening all around us. The poor are not finding enough food, homelessness is everywhere, violence is experienced even in schools and
places of worship, and there is an increasing disregard for the dignity of each human person.

It is scary to speak up. It is easy to think: “What can one person do?” “What can I do against all these?”

But Jesus is calling us to hang on to faith, to take courage, and to persevere because, through God’s grace, we matter, our voice matters, and what we do matters.

Many may judge you to be insignificant, without a voice, and without authority, until you are not.