Sermons – October 2025

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” Luke 17:5
If you were met at the entrance to Pont Street by members of our welcome team –
with the question: Good morning, how is your faith today?”
a sort of COVID era, thermometer test of spiritual health;
how would you answer?
Confident to enter? Or a little uneasy –
a sneaking suspicion that you were entering under false pretences;
uncertainties, guilts, angers – “unchristian” thoughts – all potentially infectious?
“Good morning, how is your faith today?”
Fine thank you. Excellent actually.
reasonable, sincere – mixed, faltering, frail?

American writer and theologian, Kathleen Norris recorded:
“Faith is still a surprise to me, as I lived without it for so long.
As a child and into adult years, –
she had no part in, or connection to, a church community;
she “found faith” in her forties;
Reflecting on the journey of her spiritual life:
“Now I believe faith was merely dormant,
in the years I was not conscious of its presence.
(And) now I have become better at trusting that it is there,
even when I can’t feel it, or when God seems absent from the world.”
For Norris faith is less something you have/don’t have,
more, something you do/don’t do.
“Good morning, how is your faith today?”

On the road to Jerusalem, the followers of Jesus asked/propositioned/demanded/begged (?)
“Increase our faith!” Luke 17:5

It sounds such a worthy request – to be applauded –
make us better followers, more faithful.
Yet, this doesn’t appear to make the disciples top of the class.
Why so?
The Teacher is after all not against faith.
In the Gospels he commends it on various occasions:
the woman who controversially anoints his feet,
the Samaritan leper who returns to thank him,
the hemorrhaging woman who grasps his cloak,
the Roman centurion, symbol of the hated occupiers:.
“Such faith I have not seen in all of Israel!”

Why do these receive commendations,
while the apostles’ plea appears rebuffed?

It seems the only thing those commended have in common
is that they turn to Jesus.
Even when it is difficult – particularly when it is difficult –
they trust him.

When the disciples ask for increased faith – Jesus takes a different tack.
Maybe he senses their request for more faith at this point
is actually a request for a safer passage.
A faith that will somehow carry/cushion them – inoculate/vaccinate,
against the suffering/along the way, that Jesus said was his own.

So, No – followed by the heart of Jesus’ reply:
“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.”
A characteristic exaggeration to make the point.

Don’t overlook what you have;
no faith is too small or insignificant.
The smallest seed contains tree-like potential.
Don’t overlook what you have;
The implication: “You have faith already.”
“Make our faith greater!” “No need,” says Jesus. “You’ve already got plenty.
Do faith — and faith will increase.

The Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor writes
that we waste time and energy
“looking for the key to the treasure box of More.”
We lack the imagination that we already have everything we need.
As she puts it, the thing missing “is our consent to be where we are.”

Last week our visiting preacher, Revd Christopher Rowe spoke to us
about his parish of Colston Milton, in North Glasgow,
outlining some of the factors that make it an area of severe deprivation.
Yet, bleak as that sounded, what was clearly conveyed ,
was that he loves ministering in Milton.

At the start of their Sunday service, they begin with the call and response:
“Milton belongs to God – the City of Glasgow and all its people.”
There is no guarantee that his church building will survive
or the congregation with its minister will continue in its current form.
But they he appear to have learnt to live with that –
Remaining committed to that place and its people
whether there are recognisible signs of success or not.
The small, but growing congregation,
consent to be where they are,
Showing others, like ourselves, who have so much more available resource,
what enough might look like – enough faith that is.

“Good morning. How is our faith today?”

This week, news of the appointment of a New Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullaly – former Chief Nurse and current Bishop of London.
One of her predecessors, Rowan Williams wrote:
“Faith is most fully itself and most fully life-giving
when it opens your eyes and uncovers for you
a world larger than you thought –
and of course, therefore a world that’s a bit more alarming than you ever thought.

If we were to consider/pray for/do our faith,
What would it open our eyes to?
This morning’s combination of Harvest celebration and Harvest Appeal,
combined with baptisms for Charlie, Freddie and Isla.
offer various potential avenues to explore –
inspiring some to adorn the sanctuary with the fruits of the season,
or bring food for the hungry;
some to welcome or cook, to sing or pray;
to gift money or precious time;
or parents, to place a precious child
in a circle of belonging and meaning,
beyond the familiarities and securities of home.

There are of course wider horizons, beyond our walls.
Again, the question, doing faith, what might our eyes open on to?

Over the summer, a chance meeting with the parent of a former Hill House pupil –
the school that comes to St Columba’s for its weekly Wednesday assembly.
In the course of the conversation, the mother, who is Jewish,
explained that she was considering relocating her family to Israel,
because she felt it increasingly dangerous to stay.

This week two men lost their lives, with others injured,
in the attack of the Manchester synagogue, on Yom Kippur.
I do not know what/how this touches or bypasses the life of St Columba’s,
but as the example of a small urban priority parish in North Glasgow
may have something to tell us,
so I finish with words sent this week.
They are from a letter sent from The Parish of St Clement & St James,
in the north part of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
(the borough in which St Columba’s resides.) –
the parish which encompasses the Grenfell tower –
A letter of condolence to their neighbours at Holland Park Synagogue:
“to express more our sorrow over the dreadful attack in Manchester
and our solidarity with our neighbours in the local Jewish community.”

The letter continued:
“We are blessed in this part of London to live in an area of extraordinary diversity
with, in St James’ Gardens alone,
a synagogue, a mosque and a church
and, just around the corner, the Sikh Gurdwara.
Members of the parish of St Clement & St James
cherish our relationship with the Holland Park Synagogue
and have greatly valued events like the Faith Walk
to local places of worship earlier this year,
our participation in Mitzvah Day
and the guided visits that children from our parish primary school
have been able to make to the synagogue in recent years.”

Last night at a long-planned RBKC council meeting held in St James’ church,
before the meeting began, “I thought you would want to know that everyone stood in an act of remembrance, followed by a minute’s silence out of respect for those who died yesterday.”
Signed, Fr Gareth Wardell, Vicar of The Parish of St Clement & St James, W11

“Faith is not synonymous with certainty …
(but) is the decision to keep your eyes open.”

Faith – small yet precious, fragile but resilient, battered but beautiful,
Faith – dormant or developing; hopeful and humble, serving and sufficient,
Faith Enough; already with us,
if we would but keep our eyes open.