| 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=59079 [retrieved October 5, 2025]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_wanted_poster.jpg. |
I’m a fan of the Chicago Cubs. Even though I grew up on the South side of Chicago, I’ve been a Cubs fan for most of my life. The reason is fairly simple:
In the summer – and during the school year when I was home sick – Bozo’s Circus came on at noon. And sometimes, after Bozo’s Circus, there would be a Cubs game.
Our television had all twelve channels – 2 through 13 – although there were only broadcasts on channels 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. The White Sox were on a UHF channel – something our television didn’t have.
The Cubs had a long period without winning the league pennant: they won one in 1945 and the next in 2016, a mere 71 years apart. There were people who were alive for both of those pennants, waiting faithfully all those years.
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
Here are some names some of us may recognize:
Martin Niemöller
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Anne Frank
These were people of faith during a time of oppression.
Most of us have heard of Anne Frank from The Diary of Anne Frank. The Diary may have been assigned reading for some of us. Others may have found it banned from our schools.
Anne Frank was born in Germany to a Reform Jewish family. When she was four years old her family moved to the Netherlands to escape Nazi Germany. She was ten years old when Germany invaded the Netherlands.
She began a diary at the age of 13, documenting the way Jews were restricted along with the usual things teenage girls write about. She continued to write after the family moved into hiding. Anne died, likely from Typhus, in a Nazi prison camp in early 1945. But her written testimony lives on.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in the German Evangelical Church. After attaining a Doctorate in Theology in Germany, he went to the United States to study here. Unimpressed with American theology, he found the African American churches to be more interesting.
After returning to Germany, he spoke out against Hitler. When Hitler imposed new church elections, Bonhoeffer campaigned for non-Nazi officials. He became part of the Confessing Church, a church independent of the German state. He lead an underground seminary for training pastors for the confessing church. He was also involved in the resistance against the Nazis, for which he was executed.
Martin Niemöller was a Lutheran Pastor, supporter of Hitler, and a self-described anti-semite. He was against the socialists, the trade-unionists, and Jews – except for Jews who had converted to the Christian Church.
He was against the state taking over the church, and against the imprisonment of Jews who had converted to Christianity. This put the German state against him, and he was imprisoned on concentration camps, narrowly escaping execution.
He later wrote the famous “First they came for…” poem.
These were people of faith who made a difference in the world: documenting, opposing, and speaking against fascism.
There are times that will feel the way the prophet Habakkuk described in our Hebrew text this morning:
O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?
3Why do you make me see wrong-doing and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise.
4So the law becomes slack, and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous; therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
Habakkuk 1:2-4, NRSVue
What can we do?
Our Gospel reading tells us
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.”
Luke 17:6
We have power that lies in our faith, in our hope. We can use that power for positive change. The prophet Habakkuk tells us that
2 the LORD answered me and said:
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.
3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.
4 Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faithfulness.
Habakkuk 2:2-4, NRSVue
We can document what is wrong. We can cry out for what is right.
I will be honest here: I have a fair amount of apprehension about what is happening and what will happen.
I am out as a transgender person. And some are calling for transgender people to be institutionalized.
I am in a same sex marriage. And some are calling for same sex marriages to be invalidated.
I am married to a person with disabilities. And some are calling for people with disabilities to be allowed to die.
Legal immigrants are being deported.
Citizens are being arrested because they cannot prove they are here legally.
Birthright citizenship is under attack.
Indigenous people are having their rights restricted.
Women’s rights are under attack.
These are disturbing times. But if we have “faith the size of a mustard seed,” we can “write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.” We can claim a promise in simple terms that anyone may understand.
The vision will come.
So my challenge to us this week is to find that mustard seed of faith.
Find that grain of hope.
Find that thread of promise we can follow.
Let us hope, when hope seems hopeless.
Amen
Let’s sing NCH 461 Let Us Hope when Hope Seems Hopeless
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
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