______________________________________________________

World Communion Sunday! Our passages take on a global feeling in that the first two scriptures reflect a smidgeon of the feelings and thoughts that those who have been displaced might feel even today (Psalm 137 and Lamentations 3). Second Timothy provides byte-sized instructions on faith and faith’s object, Christ. The gospel lesson also speaks of faith and faithfulness-envisioning the life of following Jesus as one of being a servant to others.

PSALM 137-ZION FROM AFAR

This psalm was written from afar. Zion and Jerusalem have receded from the landscape and a once proud people now sit along river’s edge in Babylon remembering a very different life in their homeland. The festive songs of Zion (the pilgrim psalms?) are now thrown back at them in a taunting haughty manner. Instead of a mirthful song, the writer speaks longingly, lovingly of Jerusalem and the resolve never, never to forget beloved Jerusalem. The psalm can remind us of the pain that immigrants and displaced people around the world feel when forced to leave the land of their forbearers.

LAMENTATIONS 3:19-26-DEFEATED, ENSLAVED, AND SHAMED

This book, rarely used in worship, is a collection of five laments that bewail the fall of Jerusalem to the Neo-Babylonians in 586 bce. The laments may well represent a sample of the liturgies recited on public fast days commemorating that dire event. Chapter three is composed of three-line strophes, the alphabetizing scheme is sharply intensified by extending it to ever line, so that there are three lines beginning with the Hebrew letter alef, bet, gimel, etc. The passage bears witness to the extreme grief and torrential emotions that coursed through a once proud, but now defeated, enslaved, and shamed people.

2 TIMOTHY 1:1-14-FROM MENTOR TO STUDENT

This letter, purportedly to have been penned by the apostle Paul to his protégé Timothy, begins with the typical Hellenistic letter format. In this first chapter, the writer informs Timothy that he has been the object of constant prayer. Faith has worked powerfully through this recipient’s family line-a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you (v. 5). Thus armed with such a legacy of faith, Timothy can banish cowardice and boldly stand with Christ and Christ’s prisoner, Paul The paragraph ends with an early kerygma that recounts the salvific work of Jesus.

LUKE 17:5-10-BIG FAITH, BIGGER FAITHFULNESS

Jesus has just excoriated the Pharisees for their commitments and behavior; he now focuses on his own group of disciples and speaks words of warning against being like the Pharisees. This lesson falls out into two parts: vv. 5-6 and vv. 7-10. In the first paragraph, Jesus responds to their question: "Increase our faith!" (v. 5). In the second paragraph, Jesus speaks about the nature of discipleship, describing the role of the disciple like that of a household slave in the Graeco-Roman world. In both roles, it’s not about me, but all about serving someone of higher status. Such is the life of a disciple.