2025 Sun Oct 5

Donatello – The Prophet Habakkuk (1386?-1466) 

The lectionary readings are here or individually:  

First Reading – Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Psalm – Psalm 37:1-10
Epistle – 2 Timothy 1:1-14
Gospel – Luke 17:5-10 

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 in Luke’s Gospel

Faithfulness, endurance, patience—these are the themes of walking the faithful life with God. For the people in the prophet’s time, it was to endure in faithfulness through generations in exile. In the time of Jesus, it was for the disciples to find their way to trust in Jesus, because Jesus couldn’t just give them the ability to magically trust and be faithful. For Paul’s day and following, it was for the followers to continue to live in faith by what they had been taught and had witnessed. For us, we are called to be faithful because of our tradition, our teaching, but also still, hope for the New Day, which began long ago and we can read through the prophets, through the Gospels, and through the Epistles: hope that God will continue to do a new thing, and that we will remain faithful to God.

Everywhere we turn, we see the need for reform. Sometimes our society seems like a house we can’t get clean. We get one room in order, but then another confronts us with disarray. If we improve the environment, we still have problems with education. If we manage political reform, we are still troubled by the unjust allocation of resources or the abuse of children.

Our frustration with the public scene can be mirrored in our own lives. There we find the same ups and downs: a career achievement offset by a damaged relationship; progress toward a personal goal–the setback of an illness. How does faith view this roller coaster?

In today’s gospel, Luke consoles us with the good news that even minimal faith will suffice in the face of both worldly concerns and our own particular challenges. To the apostles who picture grandiose schemes, Jesus offers the image of a tiny seed. Perhaps we won’t reform the world in our lifetime, he seems to say. What matters more is the simple service, the generous response to the demands of our particular situation. Jesus uses the ordinary example of providing food and drink, a service many people perform so often we don’t even think about it. Faith transforms duty so that even our unconscious efforts nurture many.

Peace activist John Dear writes: “Without our faith, nothing happens. The mountainous violence of the world doesn’t budge. But with our faith–behold! All things become possible. Non-violence. Disarmament. Justice.” The scriptures offer us confidence, vision, reassurance. How do they clarify our own vision?

These passages point to the importance of living in the spirit of Jesus and aiming high in our faith journeys.  Aiming low leads to personal and social destruction.  In contrast, a life of faithful discipleship creates circles of well-being that transform families, communities, and nations

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The Gospel this month focuses on faith in dialog with the disciples on the way to Jerusalem. Jesus spins several parables How to increase faith? How to apply it? What are the benefits of faith? How we should maintain it and not lose heart ? Most of all, how do we act around others whom we think are different from us. In some cases we may not think they are as righteous as we are. There are some unique parables this month, several found in no other Gospel but Luke’s Gospel.

October 5, 2025- Pentecost 17 – Luke 17:5-10

Luke connects a pronouncement about faith to an example  about how demanding it can be to live as a disciple.

Faith is considered in the context of the small mustard seed.  The apostles said to Jesus, “Increase our faith!” Jesus replies “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.  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

Faithfulness, endurance, patience—these are the themes of walking the faithful life with God. Luke consoles us with the good news that even minimal faith will suffice in the face of both worldly concerns and our own particular challenges

The second parable distinct to Luke places the disciples request increase our faith, in a social context.  The story is about preparing a meal for a slave which ordinarily would not happen The disciples service is like the service of a slave. If they follow Jesus and his ways, that should be enough to trust him and to have faith, just as a slave ought to do in their society of that day. The benefits is that simple service can feed many. Think of this in connection to the Village Harvest!

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What is World Communion Sunday? Churches this Sunday all over the world celebrate oneness in Christ in the midst of the world ever more in need of peacemaking and the universal and inclusive nature of the church. The tradition originated in the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in 1933, was adopted throughout the US Presbyterian Church in 1936, and subsequently spread to other denominations. The Episcopal Church also remembers students serving abroad, particularly the Young Adult Service Corp in the Episcopal Church.

Poem for World Communion Sunday

THE TABLE WITH NO EDGES by Andrew King

We will sit down where feet tire from the journey. We will sit down where grief bends the back.

We will sit down under roofs wrecked by artillery. We will sit down where cries sound from cracked walls.

We will sit down where heat beats like hammers. We will sit down where flesh shivers in cold.

We will sit down where bread bakes on thin charcoal. We will sit down where there is no grain in baked fields.

We will sit down with those who dwell in ashes. We will sit down in shadow and in light.

We will sit down, making friends out of strangers. We will sit down, our cup filled with new wine.

We will sit down and let love flow like language.We will sit together at the table with no edges. We will sit to share one loaf, in Christ’s name, in one world.

Rohr is a Roman Catholic priest and writer. He is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation which brings together action and contemplation .

He recently created a video on St. Francis.

Rohr discusses St. Francis and his connection with nature which he refers to as “The First Bible”.  Some points

1 The  early Franciscans taught that the whole natural universe is the first Bible

2 if we murder and mangle and manipulate and destroy, how would we possibly have the skills to reverence and use, correctly, the written Bible?

3  You grant respect and reverence to nature and you let the animals talk back to you. Once you’re inside the enchanted universe where everything is granted subjectivity, you’re never lonely