Sunday, October 5, 2025
Proper 22C, 2025
Luke 17:5-10
One of my favorite movie lines was from Katharine Hepburn in a scene with Henry Ford. You may remember the movie called On Golden Pond.
It’s a story about aging. Henry Fonda plays an aged man who is grumpy, apparently he is grumpy because he is aging. Most of us remember the dynamics between him and his daughter played by his real life daughter, Jane Fonda. But the story is really about a marriage, a marriage between two people who have lived a very long life together and are still taking care of each other.
The scene is just after Ford’s character gets briefly lost in the woods and then tells his wife about how much this rattled him. He is open and honest and vulnerable with his life partner. So she responds naturally with love and encouragement reminding him that she still admires and relies on him. She tells him that he has the strength to always get back on the horse that he may have fallen from. She tells him that, the line goes, “You’re my night in shining armor and don’t you forget it!”
Today’s lessons have me thinking of the juxtaposition between strength and vulnerability. Jesus tells his disciples a couple of strange parables when they ask him for more faith. Paul writes to Timothy and says in the opening paragraphs to “suffer for the gospel, (and) rely on the power of God”. And Habakkuk has some “woes” - especially for the proud.
So what are we to make of this?
What does it mean to allow ourselves to be vulnerable? What does it mean to practice power? What did Timothy mean when he said, “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline?” Or later in the passage, “Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us”? And what does it mean to have faith the size of a mustard seed?
I enjoyed attending, this past week the annual Gathering of the Ministerium - a time when pastors and deacons and SAMs get together in Virginia Beach. It was wonderful to get to spend some intimate time with Bishop Milton and her staff at a time set aside for newbies like me.
Bishop Milton spoke briefly with us about a theme which the Synod has been deeply considering. There is reference to this on the Synod web site under the “About Us” tab where you can find the Synod Vision and Mission statements.
It is a theme of strength and courage in response, she said, to the fear and conflict all around us all the time - especially lately in our culture and in our politics. This Synod vision statement is in reference to the 9th verse of the 1st chapter of the prophet Joshua which tells us: “To be Strong, To be Courageous, To be Fearless, For God is with us.”
So, in her introduction for us newcomers to the synod, our bishop talked about power and courage. And she quoted this letter from St. Paul to Timothy which we have read this morning: “For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.” And she emphasized further about joining Paul in suffering for the gospel and, again quoting Paul, “relying on the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to (God’s) own purpose and grace.”
So there’s a lot to consider about power and courage and also about vulnerability this morning.
When I was a first-year seminarian, I worked weekends at a town about an hour’s drive outside of Atlanta. I would drive out for the whole weekend and stayed with a farming family. As the youth director, part of my job was to provide a children’s sermon each Sunday. This was completely new to me.
When the parable of the mustard seed came up, I asked my host for help. He he went out to his barn and came back with a small bucket of mustard seeds suggesting I could use that as a visual aid. Have you ever seen how tiny mustard seeds really are? I was amazed to learn this. They are smaller than pepper corns
So the next morning, when 20 or so children came down for the children’s sermon, I handed out a handful of seeds to each child and talked with them briefly about how small these seeds are and how just a small amount of faith is enough for God.
Or something like that.
I don’t think they paid much attention. Looking back, I think maybe they were scheming while I was talking.
The janitor must have wanted to kill me the next day! Some of the children ate their seeds and some pocketed them for later, but most of them threw the seeds at each other. We had mustard seeds everywhere! Under the pew cushions, between the hard wood planks in the floor and down the neck of the lady sitting in front of at least one child. It was a huge mess!
So, I’m thankful for Linda and our other lay leaders who are willing to lead the children’s sermons.
The parable of the mustard seed is told twice by Jesus in the gospel of Luke. If we are reading through Luke, we will have already encountered the mustard seed as an image of God’s reign in chapter 8 (vs. 18–19).
In our gospel lesson today, we find the disciples begging Jesus for more faith. And he tells them a second time about needing only a small amount of faith, as small as a mustard seed with which we can move mountains. Or, in this second reference to the parable, mulberry trees into the sea.
The point is not about faith giving us enough physical strength to destroy things like mountains or trees. The point is about faith. And faith is not about the kind of power which destroys.
Again, for context, it might be helpful to look back a page at the passage just before today’s gospel lesson. In the beginning of chapter 17, Luke gives a compact version of Jesus’ teaching on accountability and mercy.
The disciples are asking Jesus for more faith because he has just told them they are responsible for their treatment of the vulnerable. Here is part of that passage. I would think it is very familiar. Jesus said:
It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. (Luke 17:2)
Then Jesus goes on to outline some rules about how important it is to hold each other accountable and to forgive each other. This is one of the places were he said you must forgive seven times a day, if necessary. (Luke 17:3-4)
But he doesn’t say strength is just about rebuking others. Power is not about bullying others into your way of doing things. Power in the Lord is more akin to vulnerability. Power turns our egos into warriors where vulnerability is about openness, honesty, and trust in the Spirit to lead us.
Being strong in the sense that Jesus would have us to seek power, does not mean outsmarting or overpowering our enemies. It actually means loving our enemies. It means living into our God given gifts for compassion. It means taking action on behalf of others who society deems as weak, less than - you know, the poor, the sick and the lonely. Being strong as Jesus would have us be strong only takes a small amount of faith and a small amount of what we think of as power. Being strong with Jesus actually means being vulnerable - even to the cross.
We usually think of strength in certain traditional ways - men are strong. Men have upper body strength. Men are tough. But women are strong too. We might start laughing when we think of men passing out in the delivery room or feel impressed that women can feed a huge crowd at family gatherings. Women can sit up all night with a sick child. Women are the strong ones at funerals.
But these are all stereotypes. And we know it. These types of strength cross the gender line - you know some men are the better cooks or nurses, some women can do pull ups - with a baby attached to them in a harness! Men can literally bear the weight of a coffin when asked to be pall bearers.
We are all strong in some way. And we all have weaknesses and vulnerabilities. It’s not how we outshine each other with strength, it’s how we serve the Kingdom of God through the strength which are born out of our vulnerabilities.
If we really want to be like Jesus we have to be willing to not only carry our cross but be crucified with him. Which again is not to out-do Jesus, but to learn the qualities of vulnerability in our lives.
This is a difficult section of the Gospel that we are working our way through this Fall. I hope you are feeling as challenged by these readings as I am. Jesus is showing great strength and accountability of his disciples and we need to answer the call to step up to the plate - with courage and strength and fearlessness.
This does not mean to beat down those who don’t agree with us. It’s much more difficult than that. It means responding to fear and hatred and contempt with love, and patience and compassion.
That is what Jesus would do. And we are called and commanded to go and do likewise.
So how do we do this? From the heart. From that place in us that not only prays to but listens to God. From our daily walk with God, our every effort to follow the Way of Jesus - even to the cross. And we know we can do this with the smallest amount of faith because we were born to do this.
God created you in God’s image.
God gave you certain talents and certain types of strength when you were born.
Don’t you ever forget it.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Kathy Kelly