Sunday 2 October, 2022

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings are laid out as for the continuous form of the lectionary. Alternative related readings (OT and psalm only) are below. Hymns marked with an asterisk (*) are suggested for more than one reading

Lamentations 1: 1-6

Down the road run refugees (website only)
God of my faith, I offer you my doubt (StF 629)
How long, O Lord, will you forget (StF 630)
It's me, it's me, O Lord (StF 523)
We do not presume to come to this table (StF 601)
When we are tested and wrestle alone (StF 240)
YAHWEH (I cannot speak your name, O Lord) (website only)

Psalm 137

Hymns reflecting the psalmist’s theme

By the Babylonian rivers we sat down in grief and wept (StF 694)
Give us your comfort, Lord (website only) - a sung response
God who sets us on a journey (website only)
O come, O come, Immanuel (StF 180)
When we are living, we in the Lord (StF 485)
You call us to the wilderness (website only)

2 Timothy 1: 1-14

Author of faith, eternal Word (StF 457)
Dusty-footed, heavy-hearted (website only)
Food to pilgrims given (StF 584)
*Have faith in God, my heart (StF 466)
My God! I know, I feel thee mine (StF 390)
Now let us from this table rise (StF 596)
O thou who camest from above (StF 564)
Through the love of God our Saviour (StF 639)
We turn to God when we are sorely pressed (StF 640)

Luke 17: 5-10

A charge to keep I have (StF 658)
Come, Lord to our souls come down (StF 493)
Eternity (website only)
Father, hear the prayer we offer (StF 518)
In Christ alone my hope is found (StF 351)
I, the Lord of sea and sky (StF 663)
Lord we have come at your own invitation (StF 595)
Teach me, my God and King, in all things thee to see (StF 668)
The Kingdom of God is justice and joy (StF 255)
When circumstances make my life too hard to understand (StF 641)
When, O God, our faith is tested (StF 643)

Alternative related readings

Habakkuk 1: 1-4; 2:1-4

A bloodied child ("The boy in the ambulance") (website only)
And are we yet alive (StF 456)
*Have faith in God, my heart (StF 466)
Have you heard God's voice; has your heart been stirred? (StF 622)
Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord (StF 89)
Stupendous height of heavenly love (StF 512)
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases (StF 66)
When we were in the darkest night (StF 241)

Psalm 37: 1-9

Hymns reflecting the psalmist’s theme

Be still and know that I am God (StF 18)
Calm me, Lord, as you calmed the storm (StF 624)
Deep in the darkness a starlight is gleaming (StF 625)
Safe in the shadow of the Lord (StF 509) 

The Revd Phillip Poyner writes:

In the gospel reading, Jesus appears to be indicating that not great faith but genuine faith is needed, in part to forgive others (vv.1-4). Faith can lead to spiritual pride, but when "we complete a task, we cannot claim that we have done more than we should" (Leon Morris). 

Paul writes with gratitude of Timothy’s faith and that of his mother and grandmother and how faithful service has not brought honour but suffering; imprisonment, of which Paul is not ashamed because God has saved us. 

Lamentations 1 speaks of the immediately post-exilic Jerusalem which, by its desolation, indicates the people’s suffering "because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions" (v.5). Some find this thought unpalatable but perhaps the Lord does sometimes have to discipline for a time. Psalm 137 speaks of those suffering exiles. The Common Worship Lectionary of the Church of England, as an alternative canticle to Psalm 137, offers Lamentations 3: 19-26, which speaks of suffering that is eventually eclipsed by "the steadfast love of the Lord [that] never ceases … his mercies ... are new every morning" (vv.22-23). In Habakkuk 1 the Lord also affirms that there will be an end to suffering: "wait for it, it will surely come, it will not delay" (4:3). The message of Psalm 37 is similar. 

The simple Taizé chant Wait for the Lord might be used responsively in Prayers of Intercession.