Sunday Sermon, 5 October 2025

Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

A reading from the Gospel according to Luke

The apostles said to the Lord, ‘Increase our faith!’ 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.

‘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?” 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?” 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!”’

Luke 17. 5-10

‘Lord, increase our faith!’ I wonder how many of us have made that prayer. What do we make of Jesus’ response to his disciples? Is it disappointing? He doesn’t say, ‘Here you are’ and hand out a slice of faith. Instead, he seems to be saying, ‘Make use of what you have; a little faith can go a long way.’ His point is that faith is not about quantity but about trusting in God enough to use our mustard-seed faith in God’s service.

Faith enables change and inner transformation, and that change expresses itself externally through a life of service. Yet, as Jesus makes clear, the service is its own reward; as servants of the living God we do not, and should not, expect praise and thanks. On the contrary, faith and the life of service are gifts from God which we receive gratefully.

Yesterday was the feast day of a man who managed to turn his life around and become a true servant of Christ; a man who renounced riches and fine living to choose a life of extreme poverty. That man was Francis of Assisi.  His was a tale of riches to rags. Born the pampered son of a wealthy cloth merchant in 12th century Italy, Francis led a riotous life as a youth; spending money like water and passing his time in hi-jinks and revelry. When war came to the region Francis signed up to fight, confident that he would achieve fame and glory as a knight. In the first battle he was taken prisoner. Upon his release, a year later, he signed up again, ever the optimist, but the night before the battle he had a dream that changed his life. He heard a voice ask, ‘Who can do more good for you, the Lord or the servant?’ Francis replied, ‘The Lord.’ The voice in the dream then said, ’Then why are you abandoning the Lord for the servant?’ ‘O Lord, what do you want me to do?’ asked Francis, and the answer came, ‘Return to Assisi and what you are to do next will be revealed to you.’

It must have taken a lot of courage to return to Assisi knowing that people would think that he had chickened out of the battle, but that’s what Francis did. He used his mustard-seed of faith to completely change his life. From now on instead of aspiring to upward mobility and the life of a nobleman, Francis chose the path of downward mobility. Over a short period of time, he gave up everything he owned and became an outcast, disowned by his father, who felt betrayed and let down, unable to understand what had happened to his son.

Francis preached the love of God wherever he went, in spite of the jeering and humiliation he endured on the streets of Assisi. He survived by working in return for food and sometimes had to resort to begging.  Just as a small child trusts that his parents will feed, clothe and love him, so Francis knew that God would provide for his needs. As his love for God increased so did God’s grace become increasingly apparent in him, attracting others to join him in his life of holiness. And so began the Friars Minor, or Franciscans as they are known.

Francis was a nature mystic; his love for the earth shaped his whole theology. He believed that everything we see in creation is a reflection of the creator and he treated everything in creation as if it were his brother or sister, because we all have the same heavenly father.  Francis worshipped God through creation; for him the world was a prayer book where the footprints of God could be found everywhere. He realised that it wasn’t just people who were waiting to be liberated from sin, but the whole earth.

C S Lewis makes the same point in the final book of the Narnia series, the Last Battle. With the establishment of Aslan’s kingdom, everything in Narnia is transformed, and looks as if it means more, even the flowers, the stones and the mountains; they all looked, “as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream”.

We tend to think that we are the centre of the universe and that God is only interested in saving individual souls rather than all creation. The condition of the earth would be a lot different today if we all saw the world as Francis did; if we appreciated, respected, and cared for the planet and all that it contains. Everything in the natural world is connected – if we destroy it, we destroy ourselves.

There is so much we can learn from Francis: the most important thing was that his life hinged on his devotion to Christ and to the gospel of Christ. Everything he did was literally following the example of Jesus. How many of us can say the same? How many of us feel that we really are servants of Christ? We hear the words of the gospels but manage to sift out the bits we don’t like; the bits that make demands of us or make us feel uncomfortable.

So what else we can learn from Francis?

• His rejection of materialism and consumerism – living the simple life untrammelled by possessions or the desire for possessions. I wonder what he would make of all the souvenir shops that abound in Assisi today?

• His love of all creation, which he saw as a reflection of the glory of God.

• His love of community, his love of people, for he knew that all were made in the image of God.

• His spreading of peace in a violent society. He greeted everyone he met with words of peace, even when insults were hurled back at him.

• His acceptance of, and love for, the outcasts of society.

Can we use our mustard-seed of faith to transform our lives, and thus the lives of others, through our role as servants? Are we able to move to a simpler life by stripping away the non-essentials, which can often be obstacles to our own liberation? Are we able to share the power available to us – our resources of wealth, education and access - with those who have been denied those things?

We are not asked to be St Francis, but we can try to follow his example and adapt our life accordingly, aspiring to gain something of his childlike sense of trust, awe and wonder. His life can be summed up by the final line of his great Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon – a song he wrote which is thought to be the first song ever written in Italian. It finishes like this:

Praise and bless my Lord and give him thanks and serve him with great humility. Amen.