A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ of Harrisburg, PA

by Rev. James Eaton, Interim Pastor ©2025

World Communion Sunday • October 5, 2025

Luke 17:5-10

One of my favorite musicals is The Music Man. Do you know this show? It concerns a con man in early 20^th century Iowa named Harold Hill. His swindle is that he gets people to believe there is trouble in their town only he can solve and only by creating a boys’ band. He sells them instruments, he sells them uniforms, he sells them on the idea that he can teach them to play the instruments and march in the uniforms through what he calls “The Think Method”. This simply consists of thinking you can play. Now, I was a trumpet player when I was a boy and part of a band. I can tell you that thinking won’t make your trumpet sound sweet, that takes practice. I was part of a marching band for a while and it’s less about thinking than drilling on making each step exactly the same as the last so that you stay in line. So none of what he says is going to work. There is a wonderful moment in The Music Man when Professor Harold Hill is found out, arrested, brought in handcuffs to the school where the boys are assembled along with the town and told to prove the band can play. He takes up his baton, and with the most unbelieving expression possible, says, “Think, boys, think”. 

I wonder if that’s the same expression Jesus had when he said the things we read today. Jesus was no con man, but he’s been teaching and preaching for a while now. The part we read pictures him alone with his disciples. They’re on the way to Jerusalem, and he’s told them already that there he’s going to be crucified and said discipleship with him means a cross. Yet they just don’t seem to get it. Do we? Just before this section, he talks about forgiveness.

So watch yourselves. “If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.

Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.” [Luke 17:3f]

Just after this section, Luke tells us that they are traveling along the border between Samaria and Galilee, on the way to Jerusalem. 

These two snippets tell us where Jesus is: he’s crossing borders. He’s calling his disciples to cross them with him. Cross the border from guilt to forgiveness; cross the border from one place to another. In those moments of crossing, the disciples ask, “Increase our faith.” It’s funny, but I’m not sure if we get the joke. These are disciples, followers, but here they are, ordering their Master like he’s a servant. So Jesus gently reminds them of their relationship to him—and ours. They all understand the relationship of servants and master, and he invokes it here: Will a servant be thanked for doing what he was done? Everyone knows the answer. Servants—and disciples—are meant to follow the Master, not have the Master wait on them.

Today, there are many voices wearing Christ’s cross but demanding that he follow them into division. So perhaps World Communion Sunday, this Sunday, is especially important. It began not far from here, in Pittsburgh, in 1933. That was a time when denominations were fiercely competitive, anti-Semitism was officially promoted and racism was rampant. The Shadyside Presbyterian Church began the service as a way of reaching across boundaries of faith. It was promoted by the National Council of Churches beginning in 1940, as the whole world sunk into the violence of a second World War. Today, it stands a reminder that Christ does not belong to us; we belong to Christ. Anyone who tells us that Christ is on one side or the other of political or ethnic conflicts is lying. The call of Christ is beyond the sides, bigger than any of them, a call from the God who loves all. 

Today, all over the world, Christians of every theology, every tradition, every background, every nation, unite to share communion. So we need to see at this table not just those of us here, but people of other colors, other traditions, other customs. It’s a reminder that we all follow Christ. And in that reminder is a miracle waiting to burst forth. 

When Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man, begins to conduct the boys’ band, something magical happens. The boys, it turns out, have actually practiced and can get some noise out of the instruments. But it’s not noise the parents hear: the parents hear the sweet melody of their children making music. The camera lets us see what they see. One man cries out, “That’s my Davey!” And somehow, the boys are transformed; they become the band they had imagined.

Christ’s call is for us to become the disciples he imagined: faithful, loving, forgiving. Like Prof. Hill, he raises his baton. Like Prof. Hill, he calls out, “All Together Now”. And waits to hear us.

Amen.