Living Out Our Faith – A World Communion Sunday Reflection

This Sunday is both the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost and World Communion Sunday. In the Presbyterian Church (USA) the denomination receives a special offering called the “Peace and Global Witness” offering on World Communion Sunday. This offering, according to the Presbyterian Mission Agency encourages the church to cast off anxiety and fear, discord and division, and embrace our God’s mission of reconciliation to those around the corner and around the world. (https://specialofferings.pcusa.org )

The Gospel reading for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost is Luke 17:5-10. Perhaps the most well-known portion of that reading is Jesus’ comment—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 (verses 5-6) One might wonder why the apostles asked the Lord to increase their faith. 

In the passages leading up to today’s lesson, Jesus had been teaching the disciples some hard lessons about discipleship and putting God first. It’s no wonder that they were feeling a bit overwhelmed and wanted to make sure they were prepared for the work they were being called to do. His story about the mustard seed Jesus was teaching that it wasn’t about how much faith you have, but rather living your life out of that faith. It reminds me of a quote attributed to Mother Teresa—Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love. It’s about how we live our lives each day.

Using the example of a servant or slave, Jesus instructed the disciples that following his commandments to love and forgive wasn’t something special that deserves an award. Living a life of service in his name is an essential part of the calling of a Christ-follower. In the lectionary commentary, Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Joseph R, Jeter, Jr, says the following about living such a life of service in relationship to World Communion Sunday. 

On World Communion Sunday (the first Sunday in October), congregations across the world partake of Communion. Someone has described the sacred table on this day as 25,000 miles long. In our fragmented world, in which groups often relate with suspicion and violence and even try to destroy one another, the churches of the world coming together to break the loaf and drink the cup is a sign of God’s intention for all people to live together in love, peace, and justice… Worldwide Communion Sunday begins on the other side of the International Date Line, so that the observance starts first on Sunday morning in the churches of the Tonga Islands, Fiji Islands, New Zealand, Australia, and so on towards the West during the twenty-four hours of the day… In a time when there is so much disunity, here is an opportunity to witness in a broken world to an unbroken Christian fellowship. (Preaching God’s Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year C, p. 417) (https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Gods-Transforming-Justice-Lectionary/dp/0664234550 )

These words especially hit very close to home for me: In our fragmented world, in which groups often relate with suspicion and violence and even try to destroy one another, the churches of the world coming together to break the loaf and drink the cup is a sign of God’s intention for all people to live together in love, peace, and justice. I believe that these words speak to the current national and world environment. Far too often we are so busy erecting barriers and dividing people into “us” versus “them” that we forget what we were created to be and, in whose image, we were created. We cannot love our God unless we love our neighbor, and we cannot fully love our neighbor unless we love ourselves.

Part of the faith community’s responsibility is to build bridges of love, justice, mercy, and peace in a broken world. Until we celebrate the unity that is found in the midst of our diversity, we will not be living out the calling to be disciples and followers of Jesus.

In his Alaskan Journal (p. 308), Thomas Merton wrote about communion, and unity. The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words. It is beyond speech. It is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity, but we discover an old unity. (https://www.amazon.com/Alaskan-Journal-Thomas-Merton/dp/0918824575 )

My prayer for this World Communion Sunday is that we can discover that old unity which is found in the love of God and love of neighbor just as Jesus taught so long ago. Then we will realize that it isn’t about the greatness of our faith or tossing mulberry trees into the ocean but rather it is about living our faith by humbly serving God and one another.