The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’
Collect
Hear the prayers of your people who call upon you;
and grant that they may both perceive and know
what things they ought to do,
and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil them;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Kol Nidrei, sung by Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Central Synagogue Manhattan
First Reading – Lamentations 1: 1-6
1How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.
2 She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.
3 Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting-place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
4 The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals;all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve,*and her lot is bitter.
5 Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper,
because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away, captives before the foe.
6 From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty.
Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture;
they fled without strength before the pursuer.
1How lonely sits the city that once was full of people!
How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!
She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal.
2 She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks;
among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her;
all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.
3 Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude;
she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting-place;
her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.
4 The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals;all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve,*and her lot is bitter.
5 Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper,
because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions;
her children have gone away, captives before the foe.
6 From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty.
Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture;
they fled without strength before the pursuer.
Thomas Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah I, Festival Alte Musik Zürich (8min)
Psalm 137
1 By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, ♦︎
when we remembered Zion.
2 As for our lyres, we hung them up ♦︎
on the willows that grow in that land.
3 For there our captors asked for a song, our tormentors called for mirth: ♦︎
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion.’
4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song ♦︎
in a strange land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem, ♦︎
let my right hand forget its skill.
6 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, ♦︎
if I set not Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Second Reading – 2 Timothy 1: 1-14
1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, my beloved child:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. 4Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. 6For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; 7for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
8 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, relying on the power of God, 9who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher,* 12and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.* 13Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
Gospel Reading – Luck 17: 5-10
5 The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 6The 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 ploughing or tending sheep in the field, “Come here at once and take your place at the table”? 8Would 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”? 9Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10So 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!” ’
Collect of the Word
Faithful God, have mercy on us your unworthy servants,
and increase our faith, that, trusting in your Spirit’s power
to work in us and through us, we may never be ashamed to witness to our Lord
but may obediently serve him all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Reflection
The cry of the disciples to the Lord, “increase our faith,” resonates very
much with us today. Is being a person of faith harder today than it has ever been?
In one sense no: previous generations too had to struggle. Looking back at Old Testament times, I try to imagine what faith struggles the people of Israel had to endure. Our first reading from the Lamentations of Jeremiah and the Psalm tell us about the hardship, pain and loss, including loss of their faith, during the Babylonian captivity. Jerusalem lay in ruins, people were displaced, enslaved and had to make this long and hard journey in an unknown future. Generations of Israelites were traumatised by this experience. In Jewish history, this wasn’t going to be their only exile – many more years of having to migrate and of being dispersed were to come. How did they keep their faith, one wonders? Despite all various traditions and differences in religious teachings, the sense of belonging to a faith community was kept alive. Religious holidays, communal ceremonies, prayers and festivities were and still are held high, whether in worship in synagogue or in rituals in the family home. Community is as central to Jewish faith now as it was then. And it gets renewed and passed on from generation to generation by a desire for God and by practice of prayer and rituals.
How strong their faith must be.
For Christians faith also had and still has its challenges. I am thinking of the very early Christians, in our Gospel Reading they were in fact still Yews. They must have felt that their faith was very small and fragile, not strong enough to face the challenges of spreading Jesus’ teachings in a hostile and dangerous environment. Jesus reminds them to take the approach of slaves, of servants, and to basically plough on. Doesn’t the idea, wanting to first have a faith ‘big enough for everything’ before going out there and being a strong Christian, sound familiar? But faith grows by a desire for God, by practicing prayer and prayerful practice.
Some decades later, Paul writes in the second letter to Timothy about upholding the faith. Christians at the time often faced persecution, imprisoning and death for openly practicing their faith. Also they might have been ridiculed for it. Hence the idea of being ashamed for ones faith. Paul reminded them as much as us that God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. And in this spirit Christians ploughed on.
Even today faith has its particular challenges. For the most part, public discourse is against faith in general and against church in particular. It would be easy to lose heart. On the other hand, faith is instrumentalized as a tool of power. One think of white supremacism, going hand in hand with homophobia, misogyny and justification of oppression, terror and even war.
Keeping the faith, Christs faith of servanthood, compassion and love can be hard enough, not to mention growing!! But let us remember we grow in faith by desire and by practice—desire for God and the practice of prayer. The present times again call us to focus on the heart of the Christian project—Jesus and the Gospel—and on the heart of prayerful practice, of discipleship—love and service. In community we can support each other in love and fellowship and build one another up. And plough on. For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
PRAYER
God, our loving and faithful creator, remind us of the spirit you gave us, the spirit of power and love. Trusting in this is enough to get us moving.
In times of self-doubt and scepticism, in times of lack of trust, touch our hearts so that we do not give up. Even a small bit of faith gives us strength to serve your purpose, and by ploughing on, we will grow in faith.
We thank you for giving us your son as guide and loving teacher, and for community, your church, where we can find belonging and a spiritual home.
We thank you for being our rock of salvation. For being invited to return to you, no matter of failing or shortcoming. Your faith and trust in us, and your love for us make us strong and keep us serving you and your people.
We pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, who lives and reigns with you, now and for ever. Amen.
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