It is the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost. Today’s Bach cantata is the second part of the cantata we heard the first part of last week: “Die Elenden sollen essen” (The miserable shall eat):

Today’s Gospel reading is Luke 17:5-10:

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.

“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”

The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:

Who rests in Jesus alone,
and is driven by self-denial,
which in God’s love
he practices in faith,
has, when earthly things have disappeared,
found himself and God.

. . . .

O poverty, like no other kingdom!
When out of the heart
the entire world departs
and Jesus alone governs.
Then a Christian will be led to God!
Grant, God, that we do not scorn it!

What God does, is well done,
I will cling to this.
Along the harsh path
trouble, death and misery may drive me.
Yet God will,
just like a father,
hold me in His arms:
therefore I let Him alone rule.

Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]