Why have you struck us down
     so that there is no healing for us?
We look for peace but find no good,
     for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.
~Jeremiah 14:19b,c

At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them!
~2 Timothy 4:16
 
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
~Luke 18:13-14
 
In these interesting times it is not easy to span the differences among us that are so glaring and seem so weighty. Team tax collector, team Pharisee. We know which one we are on and we know who is on the other side as well. We have little doubt of the damage the other side is causing and little time to look in the mirror when so much is on the line. And that, it turns out, is what is so tricky about this familiar story Jesus tells in Luke’s gospel. In the parable Jesus blurs the lines with a truth that is sharp and unsettling. He seems to reward reflection and humility and question conventional wisdom and the sluggish assumptions it welcomes.
 
What might there be here for those of us whose politics are clearly married with our faith? We may imagine ourselves the tax (or toll) collector in the story, but our lives likely track more closely with the Pharisee’s. Is there an invitation here for us that might help find peace, a time of healing in a moment of terror and no good?
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22 † Psalm 84:1-7 † 2 Timothy 4:6-18 † Luke 18:9-14
 
About the Art: Anonymous. Seven Sins to Be Avoided in Life, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55752 [retrieved October 13, 2025]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SEVEN_SINS_TO_BE_AVOIDED_IN_LIFE.jpg.

But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
~Genesis 32:26

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
~Luke 18:6-8
 
Along many shallow tributaries and streams of Pacific Northwest rivers you can smell the stench of death and rot these days. It is a perfectly natural, and extraordinary thing—even if you don’t ever get used to the smell. On a small, unnamed tributary of the Nooksack, below Mount Baker all five species of Salmon return to the same small stream they have for millenia to spawn the next generation and die.
 
The takeaway, though, is not the death, but the amount of life energy that persists long past a casual observers expectations. A discolored, rotting Pink forces his way through three inches of water, his powerful strokes propelling him completely out of the water as he makes his way to the next redd—a depression made by the female that acts as a nest for her eggs. A female Chinook lies sideways, half out of the water, gasping for oxygen. This goes on forever, it seems. She persists.
 
The biblical stories this week speak to the persistance and forcefulness of life, of its insistence on getting what it wants, what it needs. Jacob wrestles with God, and he is blessed with a promise and with a wound to remind him of the blessing. A widow with no resources batters, like a boxer, a judge who just doesn’t care about her, until he relents and does what is right by her.
 
And the question Jesus leaves for those with ears to hear is this: will this generation have such faith? Will we recognize the power of life to reproduce goodness and mercy and justice and lovingkindness?
 
Enter into worship.
 
Readings: Genesis 32:22–31 † Psalm 121 † 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 † Luke 18:1-8
 
About the Art: Moyers, Mike. Israel, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57141 [retrieved October 6, 2025]. Original source: Mike Moyers, https://www.mikemoyersfineart.com/.
 
Background: “A Painting depicting the night when Jacob wrestled with God. After the match was over, Jacob was given the name “Israel,” which means “God Wrestler.” This painting is intended to remind us of our tendency to struggle and wrestle with God’s calling, mystery, and sovereignty.” [from: https://www.mikemoyersfineart.com/about].

[S]eek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
~Jeremiah 29:7

Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
~Luke 17:17-19
 
Seek the welfare of the city. And for good reason, according to Jeremiah’s apparent logic: your welfare, our welfare is caught up in your neighbor’s welfare—no matter where you live, no matter your status, no matter how you’ve been treated.
 
Insiders and outsiders both inhabit all these texts. Jeremiah’s letter is sent to the Jerusalem exiles who have been remanded to Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. He fills his pastoral letter with practical advice. Set up shop. Have a family. Make the very best of the situation you can. Be a good neighbor there just as the faith calls you to be a good neighbor at home.
 
This is, of course, an easier path if things are going well for you, and easier instructions to give if you aren’t the one making sacrifices. We should not lose sight of this!
 
In these stories, though, it is Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, caught up in loss who can find his way to faith in a God who redeems, in a world in which the logic of generosity, grace, and justice, in the logic of a God who is present keeps him in hope. It is not that different for Jesus. The healing of the lepers not only restores their health, but enables them to return to their communities where they, too, can presumably begin to rebuild.
 
But the one who returns to say thank you, the Samaritan, has no place in the community. His people are enemies of Israel, and he cannot be cleansed of his Samaritan-ness. Turning back to Jesus seems not only to be about gratitude, but about a turn toward a different kind of community, and a different way of community that resists the labels and limitations that end up restricting us through all sorts of othering. Could it be that the turn away from the common sorting systems of the leper’s day and ours may be the turning that Jesus is thinking of when he says to the Samaritan, “your faith has made you well”?
 
Enter into worship.
Readings: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 † Psalm 66:1-12 † 2 Timothy 2:8-15 † Luke 17:11-19
 
About the Art: Bill Hoover, Ten Lepers, from BillHooverArt.com. Retrieved September 22, 2025 from https://bishopandchristian.com/2017/11/24/daily-bread-for-lepers/.
 
Background: Bill Hoover has been making art in Omaha Nebraska for over thirty years. His art is a dynamic synthesis of his interior and exterior worlds, with a strong emphasis on storytelling.

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, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace.
~2 Timothy 1:8-9a
 
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
     [God’s] mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
     great is your faithfulness.
~Lamentations 3:22-23
 
“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,” Jesus tells his followers, you can move mountains, or, in this telling, transplant “a mulberry tree” in the sea (Luke 17:5). Small steps. Perhaps its better we aren’t trying to match Matthew 17:20’s confidence these days. Replanting a simple tree in the sea may feel a big enough lift in these faithless times.
 
But that’s just it. It’s not about the size of faith. A sesame or a watermelon or an avacado seed-sized faith won’t make up the difference in any of these scenarios the gospel tellers imagine. It’s not about that. It’s not so much, “once more, but with feeling.” It’s in the doing—and not so much our doing…”relying on the power of God, who saved us,” relying on God’s “mercies” that never come to an end.
 
Jesus had faith. Real faith. Bigger than an avacado. A Coco de Mer, say (look it up). And he was executed by the power of the empire that could not tolerate the possibilities he spoke of. He was raised to new life. How? In all honesty, we don’t really know, except, by the power of God.
 
This cycle of life is not unfamiliar. Cycles of injustice and unfaith are not unfamiliar. The poet of Lamentations saw it. The gospels see it.
 
Discipleship is a practice. It requires memory and exercise of all sorts. We need reminders of this story for our stories to go well. But the size of your faith is the least of it. And for that we can say together, “Thanks be to God!”
 
Enter into worship. Enter into hope.
 
Readings: Lamentations 1:1-6 † Lamentations 3:19-26 or Psalm 137 † 2 Timothy 1:1-14 † Luke 17:5-10
 
About the Art: Young, Art, 1866-1943. Jesus Wanted poster, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55832 [retrieved September 15, 2025]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_wanted_poster.jpg.
 
Background: Art Young was a well-known American cartoonist and writer. First published in “The Masses” in 1917.