17th Sunday after Pentecost 2025

Texts: Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4 ; 2 Timothy 1:1-14 ; Luke 17: 5-10

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Martin Luther once said that faith is “a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times”. Faith, meaning trust in God, consists in putting our very lives in the hands of this God revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. Knowing that if there is one thing of value in our earthly lives, it is to follow Him who loved us first. So precious is this grace we receive from God, that our unsatiable nature is able to be satisfied with the direct grasping of God’s love by faith in Christ. God’s grace fills us when we are empty, it strengthens us when we are weak, it gives us courage when we falter, it uplifts us when we are cast down, it softens our hearts when we harden it, it has mercy on us when we were harsh, it turns weeping into joy, and sorrow into gladness, it redeems our suffering and channels it into acts of restorative love. This faith we are gifted in Christ transforms our discordant lives into a hymn of love for the world. We can sing alongside the fifth Evangelist, JS Bach: “I have enough, I have taken the Savior, the hope of the righteous, into my eager arms; I have enough! I have beheld him, my faith has pressed Jesus to my heart; now I wish, even today with joy to depart from here.” God can take our little faith and do wonderful things; and with openness in faith, God makes us whole, we can say “we have enough!”. Therefore, it is not strange to see the insistence of our scriptures today on keeping this faith, to remain steadfast in it. Today I want to testify to you, beloved, about what happens when our faith presses Jesus into our hearts.

Jesus speaks of the power of this faith, that even as little of it as a mustard seed, you can do what you thought was impossible for you to do. Because you trust God with your life, because you know that your existence is rooted in this eternal love of the Father, your worldview starts to change, what is possible for you also starts to change. So like in the disciples in our gospel reading today, our prayer every day should include their yearning: “Lord, increase our faith!”. Lord, increase the way that my life can change for the sake of love, increase the faith that allows me to love my neighbor as myself, increase the faith that gives me the peace that surpasses all understanding, that nothing in this world can take away. What a grace that Jesus tells us that this desire for increase, with just a little bit, you can do the impossible. See how Jesus uses hyperbole in this saying: “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.” This is not about fantastical thinking, Beloved. It is about the avenues of life that are opened up to us through faith. As Luther said, it is the living, daring confidence by which we can stake our life a thousand times.

So how are we called to be faithfully daring? It first calls to take a good look at the time and place we live in and to dare to incarnate the life the Word of God inspires in us. We listened how the prophet Habakkuk saw the times he prophesized to: “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous; therefore judgment comes forth perverted.” This reading is a call and a response. The prophet sees how the world is

suffering, and confronts God to answer in the time of trouble. Why would the God of justice and love allow all these terrible things to happen? Does God not see what is going on? We are not exempt from these questions even in our own time. Echoing the words of Rev. Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Lutheran pastor, that in the midst of a genocide in Gaza, he asks: where is God? And ultimately, he asks, how do we muster faith in such a time? The response to the prophet Habakkuk was: “ For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faithfulness.” God asks faithfulness in return, for He does see, and shall rightly speak to the trouble. Rev. Munther Isaac has said in the case of Palestine, that indeed their faith in God’s justice and solidarity with their suffering is the only thing that cannot be taken away from them. Faith is the sign of an indomitable confidence in God’s love for the oppressed, that in Christ, God has spoken a Word for all eternity, where true life is about love and mercy, that God sees the violence of the world, and is present and active against it by being the strength of the weak. Faith preserves dignity. For a little faith can make an oppressed people strong in upholding what is right. This is the vision that the Lord gave to the prophet Habakkuk: “Though the fig tree does not blossom and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will exult in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer and makes me tread upon the heights” In the face of oppression, God says to His people, I am your strength. With that little faith that stood watchful against the world,

it produced the hope that grew into newness of life. To receive in faith that the Lord is my strength is to realize that any sign of life in us in the midst of adversity, any ray of joy in the midst of sorrow, any just persistence against injustice is the result of faith, through which God is actively present in us and sustaining us. What a gift this faith, and indeed we cry with the disciples: increase our faith! This faith that overcomes the world by pressing Jesus to our hearts. As Rev. Isaac so movingly described in his book, Christ in the Rubble, faith is the ultimate testament to the truth of who God is and how God acts in the world. Through our little faith, God through Christ creates communities and people that are rooted in love and mercy, shaping the world towards its intended goodness, in complete solidarity and support for the weak and suffering of this world. Beloved, such faith is a treasure worth keeping and sharing.

In 2nd Timothy, the writer of the letter says: “for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, in the power of God…” Because of the new life in God we have received in Christ Jesus, because Jesus has pressed us into His own heart, we can trust God to take us in journeys we never thought we could take for the life of the world. I will testify to you from my own experience. I have had the opportunity to pastorally care and pray for detained people, mostly for those who are Spanish speaking. Like Habakkuk, I see a lot of moral absurdity in today’s world, and wonder what is God’s response to all of this, and then what am I to do in such a time. So I have tried to have a little faith, faith that God is present where He says He is, faith that He sees, faith that He sends us and empowers us to bring good news to an ailing world. And so there

I am, entering to this place of human misery, and as I entered the belly of the beast, I’m wondering to myself very humanly, how in the world did I get here? What am I doing here? What change can I effect by being here? What can I even say to a stranger who does not know when he will be released, or how can I console someone who is can barely see the light of day? Even worse, how can I bring hope to one broken by injustice, to one that you cannot guarantee that justice will be served in a court of law? I could be anywhere else, but here. Yet, that little faith calls to me. That Jesus in whose heart I hide and take refuge in, says to me, go and be brave. Through tasers and barbed wires and security doors, I carry with me just one thing, a Spanish Bible. I wonder, will this be enough? Beloved, I can testify to you, what God has done with this little faith. It has shown me how God is struggling alongside the detained. To those in despair, amidst uncertainty and tears, these men have had the faith to say the Lord is my Strength and to keep together against cruelty. I’ve heard how they say to me: I know God will give me justice, in the meantime I must serve those who are here with hope. And that little Spanish Bible that I bring, I open it and out gushes forth springs of living water, promises that God keeps to those who are suffering. I’m seeing how with so little, God is showing up, tending to the hearts of those brought low, all because I said yes with fear and trembling. All because I trusted God in His goodness, that even if I make no change, here I am representing the Kingdom of God and it’s vision for the world. This faith transforms a bad situation into an opportunity to hope, and change, and love, and service. Beloved, through a little faith, God can surprise us to love a little bit more, to expand the wideness of our mercy, to minister to those we never thought we could, to enter into places we never thought we would be in, to

forgive those we never thought we could, to hope in hopeless situations and have the strength to step on the other side into a new life. Faith accomplishes the impossible, God is with us until the end.

This is the reason, I have heard Jesus’ stark words to the disciples today: “Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 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!'” not in any oppressive way. On the contrary, I get out of the detention center saying just as much: I’m a worthless slave, I have done only what I ought to have done! Because when you see all the human need in this world, when you see the amount of work that remains to be done, when you see the constancy that is required for life to flourish, and in addition I have taken in the Lord Jesus into my eager arms, I can only declare with the disciples: increase my faith, for there is much to be done Lord! I have only come to fulfill the place God has already set to be filled. Beloved, to hear and see the struggles of the world is not meant for us to shirk at the largeness of the situation. No, this is a time for a little faith, for more heart to heart with Jesus, to expand the rooms of our hearts for more love and mercy, to increase our compassion. These times are meant for us to press Jesus closer to our hearts, and then trust that He will lead us and send us to what we must do in the every day, for each day will bring new opportunities to love and live our faith in this God that is Love, new opportunities will come where we will be forgiven and strengthened anew for the sake of our neighbors and ultimately ourselves also. What a life we are called to live, a life that truly is life. Take that little seed of faith, Beloved. Move the world with your faith. Let us pray: