The readings for the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost are from Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2.1-4; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; and Luke 17:1-10.
Habakkuk was distressed about the wicked conduct of Israel (like Amos in the two previous pericopes). Habakkuk assumes that God is not aware and/or not doing anything about all the evil. God reminds the prophet and us to wait for God to accomplish the redeeming work He has promised.
Paul writes encouragement to Timothy as God spoke to Habakkuk. The people of Ephesus and Macedonia were just as corrupted by evil as the people in Old Testament times, and as we are to this day. But there is hope. As God rescued the faithful Israelites, so God redeemed the most unlikely of Israelites, Saul the persecutor of the church.
Luke records Jesus teaching that the corruption of Adam in us all means that our human nature will offend. The condition of our human nature makes necessary the universe of grace that God provides and the forgiving disposition of our regenerate soul. When we are forgiving, patient, and faithful, we must remember that being so is not our work by which we impress God, but God’s work that impresses us with His own grace and redeeming work.