Oct. 5, 2025 | Word Out!
Download the Bulletin from October 5, 2025
Sermon – Guest Pastor Kristy Daniels
The Church of Steadfast Love
October 5, 2025
First Reading: Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4
1 The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.
2 O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law becomes slack,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous;
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
2:1I will stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
2 Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
3 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.
4 Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faithfulness.
Second Reading: 2 Timothy 1:1-14
1 Paul, 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. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I 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. 6 For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, 7 for 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, in the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, and this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher, 12 and 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 the deposit I have entrusted to him. 13 Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 14 Guard the good deposit entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.
Gospel: Luke 17:5-10
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6 The 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 plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? 8 Would 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’? 9 Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? 10 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!’ ”
Sermon:
Well, it’s so good to be here with you the 17th Sunday in this long green season, “Sundays after Pentecost,” and you’ll recall that we use the color red at Pentecost to remind us of the Holy Spirit, and the gift that that was, that the disciples received, as they are propelled out into the world, to continue the work that Jesus had begun. We switch to green during this season to remind us that it is a season of growth, and a season of life. We are meant to be growing in what it means to be disciples, what it means to pick up our crosses and follow Jesus.
And so we have this somewhat-objectionable text before us, that talks to us about having faith. The disciples understand that they would be better disciples if their faith was stronger. I feel like we probably all could find ourselves in that camp at some time; sometimes we have no faith. Sometimes our faith is really strong.
So we look back to our New Testament reading for today, which I just love. (Thank you, John for reading it so well, like in the Biblical voice.) That there are people who have gone before us, that have helped us on this journey, who have planted that seed within us, and shown us by their example what it is to keep going—even when we’re not sure. When times are difficult and dark, we know that we can go forward. So we have—even if we didn’t grow up in the faith—there is this cloud of witnesses that surrounds us that, by their testimony, lived in and spoken, we know whose we are. And if we’re doubting it, then we are called to just trust that is true, and to keep doing the work that has been set before us.
I had a lot of things coming to my mind while I was thinking about these texts this week, and they feel like they are just speaking to us now, all four of them, with what is going on in our world, and calling us to faithfulness and to right living ,and to be reminded whose we are, and why we were created.
So we were created, it says right in the scripture, to praise God. That is the work that we have been called to, a life of praise with all that we are and all that we have. And that points to what we more commonly hear, right: We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our mind, our body, our soul, and our neighbors as ourselves.
When we’re going through difficult, challenging times like this, we are to cling to God’s word, and what God has given us.
So while I was reflecting on these texts this week, what kept coming to my mind was my dad. And for those of you who know me well, you know my dad died 10 years ago now, and when he was dying of brain cancer, he would still say, “This too shall pass.”
This too shall pass: this challenge, this difficulty, this darkness, this pain, these things will all pass away. We will be surrounded by God’s light and God’s love.
I did not hear those words, and I know that they were not intended to be an excuse, to not do what we have been created to do, and what we know we are to do: to love our neighbors as ourselves, to be reminded that we are Children of Light for the sake of all of creation; that we have been given voices and hands and feet and hearts, so that we can respond to what is put in our way, that that can be so overwhelming.
And so we get back to this text for today, which my Bible studiers did not like. They did not like it because it has this “slave” language in it, and I believe Jesus used it intentionally, to remind us our work is not to be the superstars and the heroes and the look-at-me’s and the glamorous people. We are to do the work that has been set before us, faithfully and well, no matter what it is, without thanks, notbecause we are less-than, but it’s because it is the work that is to be done. It is the work that comes our way, through every facet of our life.
So that gets us back to the Lutheran understanding of vocation. And I know I’ve talked about vocation probably every single time I preach to you, and my church gets tired of it, so I’m not surprised if you are too, but that’s the role we play in our lives, every single role we play in our lives, throughout our lives.
So right now, my vocation is preaching. That doesn’t mean I don’t have other vocations that I’m also living out during the day, of wife, and friend, and daughter, and sister and driver and sitterer-in-traffic during the weekend, this weekend, right? All of those things we are called to do to the best of our ability with the gifts that God gave us.
I see there’s at least one other multiple-birth person out there. We are often judged by our siblings, but we are called to live out our vocations to the best of the ability that we individually were given, and we are to be growing in those roles.
So some of my roles are not my favorite, like I would love to be yelling out the window, and honking my horn, and revving the gas as I drive along the road, but that is not what we are called to do, so I have a responsibility as someone driving on the roads to be a good, safe driver, and if I realize that I shouldn’t be driving anymore, then I need to put away the keys, right.
Those are things that we are called to be and do that we often don’t think about in our life of discipleship. Every single role that we play is about faithfulness, and community, and returning thanks for what we have been given.
I was just given the opportunity to speak between the services to some people, and I was asked what’s my favorite part of the ministry, and it is: getting to experience and live out people’s joy with them. There’re so many joyful things that happen, and we don’t expect that when we’re serving, maybe, in a community in Pioneer Square with people who are experiencing homelessness or poverty, but it is a wonderful witness, that we as disciples are to be looking for beauty and joy. We are to be working for peace and justice, for the sake of all of creation.
And again, we don’t do it alone. We do it with those around us, those who have gone before, and those who are here right now on this journey with us. Because when we gather here, something miraculous happens. We become the body of Christ.
We are God’s word for the sake of the world, and I know this is kind of maybe a strange thought on this, but as I was reading these texts and thinking on them, last Saturday, I helped to lay to rest a good friend, and we sometimes say at the end of the service, and these texts made me think of it, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Well done, good and faithful servant—because we are perfect and without sin? No, because we are human, striving to live out the call that God has placed before us. God recognizes us as sinful human beings in need of forgiveness and grace and mercy, and welcomes us, invites us in, looks at each of us and says, “You are my beloved child.”
It is not a lie. This is a God who has created and called us good, who welcomes us to this table so that we can lay down our sins, our pain, our doubt, our fears, everything that keeps us up at night; be fed and nourished by this body that has been broken and shed for us, so that we can go out into this world and declare in word and deed: whose we are, and what that means.
Thanks be to God, Amen.