Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost-October 5, 2025

Prayer of the Day Benevolent, merciful God: When we are empty, fill us. When we are weak in faith, strengthen us. When we are cold in love, warm us, that with fervour we may love our neighbours and serve them for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 17:5-10 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
7 “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8 Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me; put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ ”

Reflections: In the mid 1980’s late night tv aired a program featuring muscle-bound, bombastic gym rats performing feats of physical strength they attributed to the Holy Spirit. These spandex swaddled members of the Power-Team appeared powered more by steroids than spirit and they reduced faith to parlour tricks as part of their late night schtick for their form of religion.

Living in a time a friend of mine used to call ‘global weirding’, requires wonder working faith of a different variety if we are to have any hope of…well… anything.

Martin Luther reminds us that faith is a relationship rather than a ‘thing’ we carry in our pockets and purses—or cross body bags if you like.

Union Presbyterian Seminary professor John T Carroll’s words about the faith we need feel like balm and smelling salts all in one. Professor Carroll writes in Working Preacher that

”We need faith that, despite the evidence of sight and sound, what we do matters; that we can make a difference for good; that God isn’t done with this world just yet. Perhaps the key is not the size of faith but its tenacity and durability (see also Luke 18:8b). We might do well to join the apostles’ plea for more robust faith, and add to it a resolve to embody our faith in persistent, courageous action.

How does such faith connect to Jesus’s parable about the slave—a parable almost too difficult to read or hear because the very idea of one person owning another is repugnant for its inhumanity?

Again Professor Carroll’s insight is inspiring and instructive. Who among us would serve our servants? Jesus, that’s who. To quote the professor, “Jesus’ followers are to emulate that model, rather than conform to the usual quest for superior position and power (22:24–27). Persons and communities of faith are called to obedience of a different kind, serving the One who alone is sovereign.”

Disciples like Francis of Assisi—whom the church commemorates this week— renounced his wealth by literally stripping down and giving his clothing back to his merchant father. Francis chose poverty and even celebrated it and he devoted his life to care for the poor and for creation—how’s that for uprooting mulberry trees and chucking them into the drink?

Years ago our denomination communicated our shared mission with the words “in service to others”. Church is the rare institution not in it for themselves but for the sake of those who aren’t even part of it. Or at least that’s what we’re supposed to be. Imagine all the good Jesus’ followers could bring to the world empowered by a durable and tenacious faith the size of a mustard seed. Jesus’s words can be accurately translated as “if you had such faith….and you do….”. With such faith we the church could do such wondrous things like persistently and courageously loving all our neighbours. Amen