Pentecost 17, Year C, Oct. 6, 2019 (full size gallery)
Carey Connors joined us as the Preacher and Ron Okrasinski as Officiant and Celebrant. (Catherine was away at a family wedding). We had 31 in the congregation.
Carey’s sermon was centered around the Gospel, the mustard seed story. This reading of the mustard seed compares it to faith, full of creative potential unlike an earlier reading when the mustard seed is compared to the Kingdom of God. It is inherently of God and will grow according to God’s plan.
In the Gospel, the apostles ask Jesus to increase their faith. Faith is not about how much or how big but of what kind of faith. It can grow and move. Faith comes from servant hood, daily life carrying for and about God’s good creation. It is deepened by showing up and wrestling with the challenges of discipleship.
Today’s readings call us to believe in God’s ability to make the impossible possible. Habakkuk is called to patience and faith in the face of incomprehensible evil. Paul encourages Timothy to endure in power and love, guarding the truth of the gospel. Jesus teaches that faith thrives in simple obedience.
The readings
Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
We don’t know much about Habakkuk. It is surmised from his writings that he was, perhaps, a member of the temple choir (cf. 1:2-2:4). This reading features a dialogue of some bravado between the prophet and God. The setting is around 600 B.C.E. God’s people are in trouble. They have been unfaithful, and another nation is making war against them
In a time when Judah, the southern part of Israel, was threatened by enemies from without and by moral and social corruption within, Habakkuk struggles to understand God’s ways and timing. He cries out about God’s apparent toleration of injustice and violence. God explains that the Babylonians will be the instrument of God’s judgment.
Habakkuk then complains that, while Judah was corrupt, Babylon was even more unrighteous. How could a holy God send the wicked to devour God’s chosen people? God answers, not in explanation, but in assurance; the time of full vindication will come. Meanwhile the righteous shall “live by their faith”–not mere theological belief, but faithfulness, steadfastness and absolute trust.
Psalm 37:1-10
This psalm echoes the wisdom tradition that taught how to life fully and well. From his age and experience (v. 25), the psalmist claims that those who patiently trust in the Lord will soon see good triumph and evil receive its retribution (vv. 10-22). The wicked assume that God is ineffective against their oppression of the lowly, but the poor and needy will be vindicated (vv. 10-13).
2 Timothy 1:1-14
There are several clues from this letter that indicate that the Church was settling down and defining itself. Timothy received the “gift of God” (v. 6; Greek, charisma) by the laying on of hands (probably a ceremony of special commissioning).
The teaching of the Church has been organized into “the standard of sound teaching” (v. 13), which is to be guarded as a “good treasure” (v. 14). A sense of continuity is present in the believing family (vv. 3-5) and between apostle and disciple. Yet all this cannot be taken for granted, but must be rekindled in living witness each generation.
Luke 17:5-10
This reading consists of a saying on faith and a parable on a servant’s duty. The image about the tree is a great exaggeration, emphasizing that the issue is not the power of faith, an unquantifiable concept, but the power of God. Faith commands according to God’s will.
The parable, found only in Luke, is based upon the hard reality of a slave’s existence. The slave’s time and toil belong without limit to his or her owner. The parable warns against self-righteousness and teaches that God’s claims on us have no limit. The rewards of God are always of grace, not of debt. A similar point is found in an ancient rabbinic source: “If you have learned much Torah, do not claim credit for yourself, because for that purpose you were created.”