Sunday, December 30, 2007

I Christmas, Year A

“AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US”
Isaiah 61: 10 – 62: 3 --- Psalm 147 --- Galatians 3: 23 – 25, 4: 4 – 7 --- John 1: 1 – 18
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 (Read by Mr. Barney Bruce, Licensed Lay Worship Leader)


Wow! “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”

The “Word”? Who is this “Word”?

And while we are trying to define some of the terms we read in these first 18 verses of the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel according to John, what does John mean when he talks about the “light”?

Who (or what) might John be talking about?

Jesus Christ, of course….John takes the time to make it clear just who he is talking about….

We read the first indication that help us to establish the identity of the light in verses six through nine, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to bear witness to the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but be came to testify to the light. The true light that enlightens every man, was coming into the world”.

So the writer of the Fourth Gospel places the coming of the light, the true light, in the connection with the explicit witness of John (the Baptist). From our reading of the other three Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark and Luke), we know that John bore witness to Jesus.

Then, we have the second indication, of the indentity of the “Word”, found in verses 14 through 17, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” But then, going on a little further, we read another reference to John (the Baptist), “John bore witness to him, and cried, ‘Thus was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’ ” And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

Now, we can understand perfectly that it is Jesus Christ who is the “Word”, the “true light that was coming into the world”. For we remember (from the other Gospel accounts) John the Baptist’s exclamation about Jesus, or as John puts it in our reading today, “He who comes after me ranks before me.”

As we look a little more closely at these first verses of the Fourth Gospel, we see a pattern:
  • God’s eternal “Word”, the “true light light that enlightens everyone”, through whom all things were made,

  • Takes on human flesh, dwelling among us in time and in history in the person of Jesus Christ.

The overall pattern is a union of:

  • the eternal with the temporal,

  • the divine with the human,

  • the greater to the lesser.

In the process, the temporal, the human, the lesser, are forever changed.

Your life and mine are forever changed, not merely by the events that occurred in a time 2,000 years ago and in a place called Bethlehem, Nazareth, Capernahum and Jerusalem, but here and now.

Your life and my life are forever changed, not merely by the life and teachings of the person Jesus of Nazareth, but by the coming of the eternal “Word” into this world, the world (as John reminds us) that was created by that very same “Word”.

The eternal nature of the “Word” means an ongoing presence….Once the Word took on human flesh and entered our common life, there was established an ongoing, eternal presence in our lives. Jesus Christ is present with us today, with the same force and effect as He was for those who ate and drank with Him, with those who sat at His feet and heard Him teach.

We ought to pause right there for a moment, and reflect on the ancient Hebrew understanding of words (or, in the case of Jesus Christ, the eternal “Word”)….

To ancient peoples, speaking a person’s name had the same force and effect as if the person were physically present with the persons uttering the name. We modern people tend to separate ideas from physical reality. No such distinction existed for ancient peoples, however. To them, there was a unity between thoughts and concepts, and the physical reality of the world they lived in.

That unity extended to persons, through their names, not just to concepts or ideas.

The Gospel writer takes considerable time and effort to make sure we understand the full divinity of Jesus Christ. (Theologians call this emphasis on Jesus’ divine nature high Christology.)[1] “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, John writes. And to underscore this high understanding, John continues, “He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.”

In the light of Jesus Christ, the “light of the world”[2], we are able to see God the Father, for, as John continues, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”[3]

Cosmic stuff, these first 18 verses of John are…..

That God the Father, creator of the world through the work of the eternal “Word”, would care enough for us human beings to send his Son into the world to redeem the world,[4] is the cosmic part of this amazing story.

These 18 verses draw us into a deeper understanding of God the Father’s work in Jesus Christ, His only-begotten Son.[5]

They invite us to take our part in the eternal plan of God for the world and for the people in the world. John puts it this way, “But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

They urge us to expand our thinking and believing, understanding that we are swept up into the great, eternal plan of God.

Thanks be to God the Father, for sending His Son, the “true light that enlightens everyone”.

AMEN.




[1] Conversely, the emphasis on Jesus’ human nature is called low Christology.
[2] John 8: 12: Jesus said, “I am the light of the world, he who follows me with not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
[3] John 1: 18
[4] John 3: 17
[5] John 3: 16

Monday, December 24, 2007

The Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord, Year A

“BEHOLD, IT IS VERY GOOD, AND WORTH SAVING”
Isaiah 9: 2 – 4; 6 – 7 -- Psalm 96 -- Titus 2: 11 – 14 -- Luke 2: 1 - 20
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker and given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Monday, December 24th, 2007 (Christmas Eve)


“…and God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good.”

Remember where those words come from?

Of course: Genesis 1: 31….at the end of the account of the creation of the world.

“And God saw everything that He had made, and it was very good.”

Whenever we might have occasion to read that first chapter of the Bible, our eyes might tend to glance over these words. The full impact of what they convey about the nature of the created order, that is, this world and everything in it (including people) might elude us.

So, let’s unpack those words just a little….

What they essentially say is that the world is good, because God created it to be good.

In addition, what these words say is that the world is not a place to be avoided, to escape from, or to simply tolerate during our time on this earth.

No, the creation account in Genesis tells us that God seems to want us to care for the world He created, even as He put Adam and Eve there to till the Garden of Eden and to tend to it.[1]

Down through time, people the world over have come to various conclusions about the world, its origins, and the involvement of a god (or gods) in its creation and ongoing existence….

Let’s name some of the ways of looking at the creation of the world, and its importance from a divine point-of-view:
  1. The created world was abandoned by its creator: This view was held by the Deists[2], a group that were quite prominent during the 17th and 18th centuries….They believed that the world had, indeed, been created by a divine being, but that divine Creator had no further, ongoing involvement in the world after its creation….A simple way that theologians describe this outlook is to use the illustration of a clock being wound up, then being thrown off to run on its own until the power ran out. So, according to this way of thinking, we human beings are “pretty much on our own down here (on earth)”.

  2. Some lesser god created the world: This view says that there is a hierarchy of gods, and some god that was lower in rank created the world, not the real – or highest – one.

  3. The gods exist not for the benefit of the created world, but to interfere in it: It’s probably fair to say that many of the ancient Greeks and Romans held to this view, for some of their pantheon of gods were viewed as having malicious intent toward the world and the people in it.

  4. An accident: A more modern notion of the world’s creation and ongoing purpose is to regard it as being some sort of a big accident. No divine power was – or is – at work in its creation, nor in its sustenance.
Against these conceptions, Holy Scripture stands as witness to a radically different understanding, namely that:
  • The world and its people are the deliberate creation of God (the highest and “real” God), and are not accidents.

  • Despite the subsequent destruction of the world’s initial goodness by human sin and disobedience, the world continues to be a good place, a place that is worthy of God’s continued involvement.
And it is to God’s continuing involvement that we now turn… God has a habit, the Bible tells us, of:
  • Saving His world (and the people in it).

  • Using human beings to do the saving.
Let’s look at the biblical record. For example, God saves His people through the efforts of:
  1. Noah: When the Great Flood occurred, God instructed Noah to build an ark, providing safe passage through the flood waters for his family and for the animals that had been collected.

  2. When God’s people were in bondage in Egypt, God led His people back to the Promised Land through the leadership of Moses, who led them through the waters of the Red Sea and through their Wilderness journey.

  3. Cyrus: The Persian king Cyrus was the instrument of liberation for God’s people in exile in Babylon. With Cyrus’ conquest of the Babylonian Empire, the way was cleared for the Jews to return to the Promised Land in 538 BC (See Ezra 1: 1 – 4 for an account of the return home).

We could name many other persons who were God’s instruments, persons who made possible the saving of God’s people.

But now, we come to the ultimate act of God’s saving actions: the birth of Jesus Christ….Remember that we have said that:
  • God saves His people

  • He uses people to do the saving.
Both elements are present in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to take upon Himself our human condition….that is the reason – the central reason – for the Christmas celebration we are gathered for tonight….We celebrate God’s saving of His people, and God’s use of a human being, Jesus, to do the saving.

Our Lord’s coming among us demonstrates in tangible ways that God continues to regard the world as being good, as being worthy of saving. God continues to be active in the world He created. We are not left alone here, to make our way without God’s presence in our lives. Nor are we the products of a gigantic accident, which would make our lives and our existence on this earth of no particular purpose or value.

The scriptural witness says, “No” to any thought that this world – and its people –are without purpose, without value, without meaning.

Jesus’ birth signals God’s intent – made understandable only by the power of Jesus’ resurrection – to save His people, the people He created to be in relationship to Him.

For in the Lord Jesus Christ’s resurrection, we see the power of God to make the whole creation new. We see the demonstration of God’s love, come to us in human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man.

Praise to God the Father, who saves His people through the work of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

AMEN.


[1] Genesis 2: 15
[2] Some of the Founding Fathers of our country were Deists.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

4 Advent, Year A

“GOD’S POWER, COME AMONG US”
4 Advent -- Isaiah 7: 10 – 17 -- Psalm 24 -- Romans 1: 1 – 7 -- Matthew 1: 18 – 25
A sermon by, The Rev. Gene Tucker and given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, December 23rd, 2007


Some years ago, I had occasion to take a trip to New York City (from Washington, DC). It was a cold, late November day, and as we headed north from Baltimore and entered an area north of the Susquehenna River (in northeastern Maryland), suddenly, the train stopped. The emergency lights went on, but everything else went dead: the train itself, the air conditioning system, the appliances in the café car, everything.

It was late in the afternoon, after sunset, and there we sat.

The bright and shiny cars, impressive as they whisked down the tracks at over 100 MPH just a few minutes before, seemed almost worthless in the dim light of the battery-powered emergency lights and the encroaching cold. Without the overhead electricity to power not only the train but all the other systems as well, they could keep us dry (if it had been raining), but that was about all.

Time went along, and eventually members of the train crew came along and told us that there had been a derailment somewhere northeast (ahead) of us, and in the process of completely blocking the tracks, the derailed train had also pulled down the overhead catenary wires upon which our train (and the other trains behind us) depended for movement and for the welfare of the passengers.

As time went along, and the temperatures inside the car began to drop, it dawned on all of us that we were powerless to help ourselves. Not only was the way ahead blocked, but that blockage had also deprived us of our own ability to get around the blockage. We were stuck.

As more time went by, the train crew informed us that they were sending a diesel locomotive from Baltimore to come and couple up to our train. The diesel (which had the power to circumvent the lack of electricity) would pull us backwards, travelling southwest, back to the Susquehenna River, where we would follow the rail line that hugs the eastern shore of the river northwestward, all the way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Once we reached Harrisburg, the train would then be reversed again and we would proceed to Philadelphia, and then on to New York.

Needless to say, the trip was a long one….We reached New York in the wee hours of the morning. A trainload of very tired and disgruntled passengers got off at Pennsylvania Station to make their way, about eight hours’ late from our original arrival time.

Now this story is engraved on my mind, not so much for the length of the trip, nor for my offer of assistance to the train crew because one of them didn’t know how to disconnect the air hoses at the end of the car, but because of the relevance to our spiritual journey through this life.

Let me explain: If we are honest about our situation, we have to admit that we are: 1. powerless to extract ourselves from our capacity to do wrong; 2. the way to wholeness and a deep and abiding relationship with God is blocked by the condition of the sinful world in which we live; and 3. the encroaching chill of our isolation impresses upon us the danger we are in by virtue of our inability to help ourselves.

But God is the actor in the drama that unfolds as Jesus Christ is born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. God is the engine of rescue, redeeming us from our predicament.

And so, with that background, the background of God’s intervention to end our isolation from Him, let’s look now at Matthew’s birth account, as we heard it today from chapter one, verses 18 to 25….

Note immediately what Matthew does not relate to us about Jesus’ birth. But then, as we make our way through chapters one and two, Matthew relates other details of Jesus’ birth and early life in the visit of the Wise Men, the flight into Egypt, and the slaughter of the Innocents at Bethlehem as King Herod the Great attempts to stamp out any possible threat to his rule as king.

As we read Matthew’s account, it seems almost matter-of-fact…notice that he says (verse 18), “His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; before their marriage she found she was going to have a child through the Holy Spirit.”

As we read those words, we might be tempted to say to ourselves, “Well, yes, we know the words of the (Nicene) Creed where it says of Jesus Christ, ‘By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary…’” We say those words every Sunday (maybe even rattling them off without much thought or contemplation).

We know the story, don’t we!

But remember, we have what literary scholars call “The Readers’ Perspective” , that is to say, we can sit down and “read the book”, seeing the story from beginning to end, and from the perspective of 2,000 years.

Is it possible for us to put ourselves back in the place of Joseph, or of Mary, as they are told that the child to be born will be the work of God himself, working through the power of the Holy Spirit?

(Can’t you imagine their wondering, “well, who is this ‘Holy Spirit’?” Remember, all of this was quite new to them, and to everyone else who heard the news.)

But Matthew takes great care to ensure that we understand that Jesus’ conception was not due to any activity of Joseph and Mary…In typical Matthean fashion, he tells us twice that (verse 18), “before their marriage” Mary was pregnant….Actually, the Greek says this, “Before they came together”. And again (verse 25), (Joseph) “had no intercourse with her until her son was born.” Here again, the Greek says this, “(Joseph) “did not know her until she bore a son.”

So the net effect of both verses is that say that God is the prime mover, the actor, the power behind Jesus’ birth.

Now, let’s look at the other aspect of Jesus’ coming among us: Matthew records the angel’s words to Joseph , “Do not fear to take Mary home with you to be your wife. It is through the Holy Spirit that she has conceived. She will bear a son, and you shall give Him the name ‘Jesus’ , for he will save his people from their sins.”

And so, from the angel’s instruction, we see that Jesus has come to do something that people cannot do for themselves: save themselves from their sins.

We began with the story of my train trip to New York.

Returning to that experience, might it serve as an object lesson from today’s Gospel reading?

For example, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit we’re stuck, isolated, in the “middle of nowhere” with respect to our relationship with God.

It’s only by the outside intervention of God, just like that diesel locomotive so many years ago, that we can be rescued from that isolation, and from the encroaching cold that the absence of God in our lives always leads to.

But Jesus’ birth should be as welcome as a locomotive headlight, the bright and shining morning star, announcing that God’s rescue is at hand.

And so (if I can press the illustration just a bit more), on this fourth Sunday of Advent, can we with honesty say that we have looked for the brightness of God’s Son as He approached, bringing salvation with Him, as we look back down the tracks of our lives?

Do we look for the brightness of His coming to us again and again in our lives today?

For we are helpless, unable to pull ourselves out of our situation. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus Christ came among us to “couple up” with us as one of us, taking on humanity completely and fully. And the reason for His advent is to rescue us from our sins.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

3 Advent, Year A

“STIR UP THY STRENGTH….FOR WE ARE SORELY HINDERED”
Advent III: Isaiah 35: 1 – 10; Psalm 146; James 5: 7 – 10; Matthew 11: 2 – 11
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, December 16th, 2007


Today is “Stir Up Sunday”……

“Stir Up Sunday”, you say….Where did you get that idea?

From the Collect for the Third Sunday of Advent, which prays:

“Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.”

So, today is “Stir Up Sunday”, a title I first heard from the Rector of my seminarian parish.[1]

“Stir up thy power, O Lord” seems to be at the root of the puzzling question John the Baptist asks Jesus, heard in our Gospel today, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”…If we were to characterize it somehow, we might say that John is asking Jesus to “prove his identity”…. “’Stir up your power’ and prove to the world that you are the one we’ve been waiting and looking for”, John might be asking Jesus.

John’s question is puzzling…For we - 21st century readers - know who Jesus is, so surely we might be tempted to think, John the Baptist - who baptized Jesus - ought surely to know who He is as well.

But remember, we today have the advantage of what is called “the reader’s perspective”…that is to say, we can stand outside the story and see the entirety of it….the announcement of Jesus’ birth, His baptism by John in the Jordan, His temptation, teachings, miraculous healings, His betrayal, suffering and death, and most of all, His glorious resurrection.

But John the Baptist, asking through his own disciples this question of Jesus, does not have our perspective….His encounter with Jesus was new and fresh. It was an encounter with the “new thing” God was doing in Jesus Christ….no wonder John asks, “Are you the one who is to come?”

No, John’s fiery message (heard in last week’s Gospel), “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near” is born of John’s burden for God’s people, who may have become callous[2] to God’s call for repentance that comes from the heart.

And although John (in last Sunday’s Gospel) says, as part of his message, “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me”, John does not identify Jesus as being that one.

Go forward into chapter three of Matthew a little further[3] from last Sunday’s passage, and we read of Jesus’ baptism by John….Notice that John tells Jesus, “Do you come to me? It is I who need to be baptized by you.” Apparently, John was aware of Jesus’ uniqueness, but was unsure of much else, it seems.

And so now, John has been cast into prison (see Matthew 4: 12) at the hands of King Herod Antipas[4]. In prison, John had been able to send and receive messages through his followers. Hence, today’s question of Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”[5]

Perhaps John sensed that the end of his life was near….if so, then John’s question has an urgency to it beyond wanting to know if his statement about the “one coming who is greater than I” was to be fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth.

Maybe John wanted to be certain, as his life drew to a close, of the sort of person Jesus was…..

If Jesus was the promised one, maybe even the Messiah, then was Jesus to be the sort of figure who conquered and restored Israel’s fortunes to that of King David 1,000 years before?

Or, was Jesus to be a one who would restore God’s people to a time of peace and prosperity of the sort promised in today’s reading from Isaiah? Isaiah 35 (read today), promises a time when “the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped”, a time when “the lame will leap like a deer, and the dumb shout aloud.”

Could Jesus be linked to a restoring of God’s original intent for humankind of the sort that Isaiah chapter 11[6] promises, when “the wolf will lie down with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid”?

Military conqueror, the restorer of peace and justice, or the messenger of God’s promised dominion over all peoples and all of creation….all of these concepts about the “promised one of God”, the “Messiah”, were circulating in the world that John the Baptist knew among the God’s people.

So John asks Jesus to “stir up his power” and “come among us”, if, indeed, you (Jesus) are the one we have been waiting for.

John’s situation is our situation: If we are to live with understanding, to know God’s purposes for our lives and to have fullness of life, both here in this life, and in the life of the world to come, then we must know the answer to the question John asked, “Are you the one who is to come?”

So now we turn to Jesus’ answer:

Notice that is an indirect answer…..they often were, as we read Holy Scripture…. Jesus says, “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” Essentially, Jesus then offers the proof of His ministry, which points to who He is…. “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus recounts for John’s disciples the miraculous deeds that He has done, as Matthew records them in chapters eight and nine.

In many of the cases, Jesus’ healings restored those who were the religious and social outcasts of His day….Remember that, according to the Law of Moses, those with physical deformities and impairments were often outside the worshipping community of Jesus’ day, unable to enter the Temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

We should pause for a moment in our consideration of John’s question and Jesus’ answer to recall that Jesus was very inclusive….Reaching out to the lame, the blind, the deaf, the lepers (and in other places and cases, to the prostitutes and the tax collectors), Jesus was very inclusive, a trait of Our Lord’s that people are fond of remembering these days. But if we are to be complete in our assessment of Jesus’ inclusiveness, we also have to remember that the purpose of Jesus’ association with those who were on the fringes of society, or even outside of it, was to heal them, to move them from where they were to fullness of life in God, not to leave them where they were, telling them (in essence), “you’re OK with your situation.” No, an encounter with Jesus never left them (or us) where we were when we first encountered the Lord.

The effect of Jesus’ healings was to restore these persons to wholeness, to allow them to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy, made some eight centuries before (Isaiah 35: 9 - 10), “And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

Those who were outside of God’s fellowship, outside of the community of God’s chosen people, had been redeemed and restored to wholeness of life and to the worshipping community.

That is the net effect of Jesus’ work, and it is a fulfillment of God’s ancient promises, made through His prophet, Isaiah, so long before.

“Stir up thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us.”

We stand in need of God’s movement among us…. “Stir up thy power”, we pray, for restoration and for wholeness of life, for we are sorely hindered by our sins, which alienate us from God’s presence, casting us again to the outside edges of an intimate relationship with God.

Stir up thy power, O God, for we are hindered by the confusion of life, which casts doubt on Jesus’ identity and His role in our lives.

Stir up thy power, O God, for we are hindered by our unwillingness to continue to search for a fuller understanding of your revelation in Jesus Christ.

Stir up thy power, O God, for we are hindered by our reluctance to trust the proof of your continued power to heal broken bodies and lives through the power of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Stir up thy power, O God, and with great might come among us, for we are sorely in need of your saving grace and mercy.

AMEN.


[1] Christ Church, Port Tobacco Parish, La Plata, Maryland
[2] This was the theme of last Sunday’s sermon, callousness.
[3] Matthew 3: 13 - 14
[4] A son of Herod the Great.
[5] Matthew records John’s imprisonment and eventual martyrdom in chapter 14: 1 – 12.
[6] Also read last Sunday.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

2 Advent, Year A

"CALLOUSED PEOPLE"
Isaiah 11: 1 – 10; Psalm 72; Romans 15: 4 – 13; Matthew 3: 1 – 12
Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL; Sunday, December 9th, 2007


Ever met a “calloused” person? (My dad would call them “hard boiled”.) You know, the sort of person whose hardened attitudes make them indifferent to others, to life in general.

Webster’s dictionary describes “callousness” in just that way: “made hard, hardened, indifferent, insensitive, unsympathetic”.[1]

Sometimes, when we encounter a “calloused” person, it’s because of the life experiences they’ve had…Perhaps some tragedy or another that has deeply wounded their spirits, and they form a hard shell in response. In other cases, simply going about the routines of daily life can make us calloused, for we can easily begin to think “this is the way it’s always going to be (including my problems and situation in life).”

Life gives us callouses.

It was to a calloused people that John the Baptist’s voice rang out, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near!”[2]

The Jewish people in John’s day had good reason to be calloused….

  • In their daily life, they struggled under the brutal occupation of the Romans. Though theirs was a “recognized” religion, and they had the ability to build a Temple in Jerusalem and to observe their religious practices, the past glory of their nation was trampled under the feet of the Roman army, day-by-day. The hundreds of crosses that dotted the landscape, bearing the bodies of crucified Jewish men,[3] was testimony to the fact that they were an enslaved, conquered people.

  • Their religious observances strictly followed the mandates of the Mosaic law. The 400-some-odd provisions of the Torah were rigorously studied, so as to apply their provisions to every facet of daily life (think, for example, of the debates between the rabbis of that age with respect to what a person could – or could not – do on the sabbath day). Consistently, the New Testament writers portray the religious atmosphere of 2,000 years ago as being one of outward observance, but inward hardness, callousness.

Against these two streams of life that were present in his day – hardship and routine – John the Baptist’s voice rings out, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.”

So, before we consider our own situation in life, we ought to spend some time taking a good, long look at John the Baptist….

John the Baptist’s father, the Temple priest Zechariah, predicted his son’s future role….In the Song of Zechariah [4](latin name: Benedictus Dominus Deus) (found on page 50 of the Book of Common Prayer, 1979), he said, “And thou, child (John the Baptist) shalt be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation unto his people for the remission of their sins.”

And so here, in Zechariah’s words, we hear the two key themes of John’s purpose and role:

  • To be called the prophet of the highest,

  • To go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

  • To give knowledge of salvation unto his people for the remission of their sins.

And indeed, John’s baptism was a “baptism for the forgiveness of sins”, as we read in the Book of Acts, chapter 19, verse 4, and as Luke confirms in today’s Gospel passage, as we learn that people came, “Confessing their sins.”[5]

Furthermore, John confirms his own role in preparing the way, as he tells those who had come for baptism, “One who is more powerful than I”[6] is coming.

Then, too, John’s role was to complete the prophetic strain which had as its focal point the coming of the Messiah.

We should stop there for a moment, and unpack the prophetic strains that find their union in John the Baptist….there are two strains present, and we see them both in today’s reading:

  1. The “Elijah” strain: As a brief review of Old Testament history, remember that Elijah was the 9th century BC prophet who was active during the exceedingly wicked reign of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. It was an age noted for its idolatry in the worship of the Caananite god Ba’al. Worship of the true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, fell out of favor, and at one point, Elijah laments that, “I, alone, am left.”[7] It was also a time of relative peace and prosperity for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. So Elijah was God’s prophet in a time of callousness toward God, callousness caused by indifference to the claims of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which was accompanied by the distractions of the worship of Ba’al, all occurring during a period of relative prosperity and lack of outside threats.

    a. Similar descriptions of Elijah and John the Baptist: Identification between the two prophets becomes stronger when we realize that both wore similar garments: In II Kings 1:8 we read that Elijah was a man with “a garment of hair and with a leather belt around his waist”, matching almost exactly the description we have before us today in our Gospel reading, that John the Baptist wore “camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist.”[8] Furthermore, Jesus confirms John the Baptist’s identification with Elijah, as we read His words in Matthew 11: 14, “He is the Elijah who was to come.”

    b. The significance of the Elijah connection with John the Baptist: In Malachi 4: 5 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.” The expectation in much of ancient Jewish thought was that Elijah’s appearance would herald the coming of the Messiah, God’s anointed one.

    To summarize what we’ve learned thus far about the Elijah strain which is present in John the Baptist:

    i. Their ministries took place during times of indifference to the worship of God, caused by distractions.
    ii. Their plain dress contrasted with the fine dress of royalty of the 9th century BC (Ahab & Jezebel) and the religious royalty (the Sadducees & Pharisees) of the 1st century AD,
    iii. The coming of Elijah would signal the coming of the Messiah.

  2. The “Isaiah” strain: It is Isaiah’s voice we hear in today’s reading (Isaiah 40:3), as Matthew tells us that John the Baptist was the “voice of one, crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”[9]

    a. A time of difficulty: Many biblical scholars call the portion of Isaiah from chapters 40 to 55 as Second Isaiah. Written, many scholars believe, during the time of the Babylonian exile (586 – 538 BC), it was a time of deep distress for the chosen people, as they were a conquered people, seemingly without hope.

    b. A call to return home: Chapter 40 is essentially a call for God’s people to return home to the promised land, and especially to the Holy City, Jerusalem. Its description is of a highway in the desert, a way for God’s people to return home.

    So, to summarize the “Isaiah” strain which is present in today’s Gospel:

    i. Isaiah’s words were written during a time of difficulty,
    ii. They offer hope to a conquered people,
    iii. They create the vision of a way to return home, a “highway in the desert”.

So, now, to return to John the Baptist…We see that his words are a call to a people whose callousness has been created by the routines of life….their religious routines, that is. And specifically, we might say the outward religious observances, but the inward indifference toward God. Perhaps it’s fair to describe the people of 2,000 years ago as being “stiffnecked”, as Moses did in Exodus 32: 9, or as one of the first deacons, Stephen, did in Acts 7: 51.

One reason for being called “stiffnecked” is pride, and the sin of pride seems to be what John the Baptist is attacking when he addresses the Sadducees and Pharisees who had come out to the Jordan River: “You brood of vipers,[10] who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Do not say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.”[11]

But the other issue with which God’s chosen people were dealing was the lack of hope that their status as a conquered people offered them. Many, no doubt, longed for the day when the hated Romans would be overthrown, and the glories that they remembered of King David 1,000 years before would be restored. Their callousness seemed to stem, in part, from the hardships that life as a conquered people offered them daily.

Life gives us callouses.

As we enter more deeply into this season of Advent, a time of preparation, the two themes before us today call us to:

  • Set aside the distractions, the routines of life, that obscure the central place that God ought to have in our hearts and minds.

  • Seek the help of the Holy Spirit to heal the wounds of life’s traumatic experiences that create hardness of heart and a lack of hope for a better life.

To do so is to confess our sins of indifference and hardness of heart, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us”,[12] in order that a way may be made through the deserts of life for God.

AMEN.


[1] Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House, 1996
[2] Verse 2
[3] Capital punishment in the form of crucifixion was reserved for slaves and for conquered peoples. A Roman citizen could not be crucified.
[4] Its complete text comes from Luke 1: 68 – 79.
[5] Verse 6
[6] Verse 11
[7] I Kings 19:10
[8] Verse 4
[9] Can’t you hear the marvelous setting of these words as they occur in Handel’s great work “Messiah”, in the opening recitative, sung by the tenor soloist!
[10] Literally in the Greek, “children of snakes”
[11] Verses 7 & 8
[12] From the litany for Ash Wednesday, Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 268.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

1 Advent, Year A

“AWAITING THE MOBILIZATION ORDER”
Advent I -- Isaiah 2: 1 – 5; Psalm 122; Romans 13: 8 – 14; Matthew 24: 37 – 44
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007


Once upon a time in my life, I was on fulltime active duty with an infantry battalion of the Virginia National Guard. Part of the famous 29th Infantry Division,[1] much of our work as “full timers” was involved with making sure that the unit and its members were ready for mobilization.

We would work to make sure that our soldiers’ records were up-to-date, that the equipment we would need to take with us was available and in good repair, and so forth.

In fact, whenever we would muster for training, the reality that we – like our previous members during World War II – could be called up to meet some need or emergency was never far from our thinking. That realization colored and shaped our entire schedule of work and training….our whole lives – in short – were focused on being ready whenever the call to duty came.

As we look at today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, chapter 24, it seems to me that what our Lord Jesus Christ is describing is a mobilization of His own people, calling them out of their places of work and living, and into a new situation, much like soldiers who are mobilized, who leave their places of work and living to answer the call.

Our Lord’s words hit us in the face, like the shock of an order to report for duty….it must be Advent!

For in Advent, we have two main themes before us:

  • Preparing for Our Lord’s first advent, at Christmastime.

  • Preparing for Our Lord’s second advent, when God’s purposes for this world and the people in it are fulfilled at the end of time.[2]

In this Year A of our three year cycle of readings, we will be spending a lot of time reading Matthew’s Gospel account. As we hear today, and as we will encounter again and again in the Sundays to come, Matthew has (what a priest friend of mine once called) a “hard edge”….It is the “hard edge” of judgment[3]…Jesus describes the time of Noah, saying, “Far as in the days of Noah were, So will be the coming of the Son of Man.” The time of the Great Flood was a time that is described as God’s judgment….So we hear the harsh words of judgment today (verses 40 & 41), “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.”

Words like this, “One will be taken, and one will be left” make us want to shy away from the hard truths that Jesus is describing.

But for us soldiers, the hard truth was that not everyone who was a member of our infantry unit would, in fact, be mobilized with us….at our “separation point”[4] some would be sent home for various reasons, being found unfit for a variety of reasons for the service that we would be rendering to the country. We would say good-bye to friends and comrades-in-arms we’d known for many years as some were taken, and others were left.

That was the reality that we faced, and it is the reality that Jesus lays before us today: some with whom we may be “rubbing elbows” will be found unfit to answer the call, and will be left. Attached to that reality is the attendant reality that the separation between the “fit” and the “unfit” will not be made until the time of the coming of the Son of Man.[5]

Jesus’ words call us to reflection….

  • Am I looking for the call of God in the return of His Son, the Son of Man?

  • How does the reality that – in God’s good time[6] - all things and persons will acknowledge Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords affect and color my everyday activity and focus?

  • Am I “fit for duty”? Will I be found worthy of being taken into the Lord’s service on that day?

  • What am I doing to be ready to answer the call when Our Lord comes?

All of these questions call us to look at the “hard edge” of the reality of God…the reality that God’s plans might be quite different from our own conceptions. So today’s text calls us to see things from God’s perspective, not our own.

AMEN.

[1] The one that led the assault on Omaha beach during D Day (June 6th, 1944).
[2] Notice the bifurcated vision (literally “two-forked” – coming from the Latin bi + furcia = two + forked) in this comprehensive understanding; the world of the here-and-now, and the world-to-come.
[3] Today’s passage lies about in the middle of a major section – Our Lord’s last major teaching in Matthew – that extends from Matthew 23: 1 - 25: 46. Often entitled “The Judgment Discourse” by biblical scholars, it contains three chapters’ worth of Jesus’ teaching, as He issues warnings, woes and speaks of the coming judgment of God.
[4] For military units, the “separation point” is the place from which the unit departs to go into the area where they will serve, having been thoroughly equipped, tested and found to be ready for duty.
[5] Verse 44
[6] Beware of any who claim to know God’s plan in its specifics, or in its timing (verse 36)….televangelists, especially, beware!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Last Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

“THEOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON JESUS CHRIST, KING OF KINGS”
Proper 29 - Last Sunday after Pentecost: Jeremiah 23: 1 – 6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1: 11 – 20; Luke 23: 35 – 43
A sermon by: The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 25th, 2007


During my seminary days, I once had a theology professor who would begin each and every class with this phrase, “Class, it’s a pleasure to do theology today.”

As we come now to the end of this liturgical year, standing as we are at the end of a year-long journey with Christ, as we have awaited His birth during Advent, celebrated His incarnation in His birth at Christmas, carefully noted the spreading of His divine light into the world during the Epiphany season, prepared for His passion and death during Lent, and stood with awe at the open and empty tomb at Easter, we then began applying the His teachings to our lives once the Holy Spirit had come upon us at Pentecost, as we made our way through the season that follows Pentecost.

So now, we are at the place where we can reflect on the meaning of Jesus Christ’s coming among us. It’s appropriate on this Christ the King Sunday that we engage in the “pleasure of doing theology”, as we have walked with Christ during the Church Year, which will soon give way to a new Church Year.

Let’s do some theological reflection on Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Before we begin, we should offer some basic definitions that are before us this Christ the King Sunday:

  • Christ: God’s anointed one. The title comes from the Greek word for “anointed”. (“Messiah” comes from the Hebrew word meaning the same thing.) It denotes Jesus Christ’s unique person and purpose, given by God the Father, to be the Savior of the world.

  • King: A sovereign or monarch; who holds by life tenure the chief authority over a country and people.[1]

  • Lord: a person who has authority, power or control over others; God; Jesus Christ, the Savior.[2]
In Jesus Christ, God’s great design comes together, binding the whole of human history together with God’s eternal plan to redeem and save the human race from its fallen state.

So we begin with the thread of human history as it is woven into God’s plan, beginning with our reading from Jeremiah….Writing in the sixth century before Christ, Jeremiah laments the shepherds of God’s people who have led the Chosen People astray. Soon, Jeremiah would live through the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC and the subsequent deportation of much of the population eastward to Babylon.

But Jeremiah is able to look beyond the depressing circumstances of his own day to foretell the time when God would raise up a successor to David, a righteous branch who shall reign as king and deal wisely. God will gather His people together in this time of renewal, Jeremiah predicts.

After Jesus’ ascension into heaven, and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, His followers began to understand that these events were the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, as people everywhere were gathered together into God’s fold, a “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.”[3]

Similarly, in Jesus’ suffering and death, they were able to see that was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant (chapters 52 and 53).

And so, by this understanding, it’s clear that Jesus is King not of the nation of Israel, a military conqueror like King David who would drive out the hated Romans and re-establish the “glory days” of ancient Israel. (As a side note, it’s important to remember that this understanding of the coming of the Messiah – as an earthly king - was one of the main reasons so many Jews resisted Jesus’ ministry and message. It was most likely one of the bases for Pilate’s decision to crucify Jesus – remember the sign that was erected over Jesus’ head on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.[4])

But the cross is the part of the human thread that doesn’t make sense….indeed, St. Paul acknowledges the difficulty….Writing in I Corinthians 1: 23, he says, “But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles….” If we might unpack Paul’s statement a little, we can understand the Jews’ resistance to the importance of the cross, for in Deuteronomy 21: 23 we read, “Anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse”. Likewise, the Greco-Roman world honored leaders who were mighty conquerors, not victims of a criminal’s death…..No wonder the Jewish leaders scoffed at Jesus on the cross, as Luke reports.

The cross is the door through which we may understand Jesus Christ’s true nature, His eternal kingship. For the cross is the way to the resurrection: Good Friday leads us directly to Easter morning.

Death, the ultimate enemy, has been conquered forever. On the other side of Easter, we can clearly see Jesus Christ not only as a human being – Jesus - born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, but as the eternal Son of God, “True God from true God” (as the Nicene Creed puts it). And it is to this “cosmic” Christ, the Christ that embodies all the glory of God, that St. Paul refers. Writing to the Colossians, he says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him.”

Theologians would refer to St. Paul’s portrayal as high Christology. That is, Paul is describing Jesus Christ’s divine nature. (Low Christology refers to Jesus Christ’s human nature.)

Eventually, the Church would come to understand that, in Jesus Christ, His humanity and His divinity were united, without diminishing either nature.[5]

Even the name by which we know Our Lord refers to His human – Jesus – and divine – Christ – natures.

Returning now to the idea of Christ the King…What reflections might we consider as we wrap up this old liturgical year, about to pass into history? Our thoughts might include:

  • Jesus Christ’s enduring Kingdom: If Jesus had been an earthly king, a successor to King David as an earthly ruler, then we might read about his dominion and rule in history books (perhaps the Jewish historian, Josephus[6], might have written about his military exploits, and about the rule that he established). But almost certainly, such an earthly rule would be a matter of history, not of the current age. However, Jesus Christ’s kingdom – which He repeatedly said is “not of this world”- is an enduring one, and the victory that ensured its creation – the cross of Calvary, and the victories – over addictions, sin and death – that ensure its eternal nature, are permanent expansions of the Lord Jesus Christ’s rule and dominion over all.

  • The distinct nature of Jesus Christ’s kingship: Our Lord Jesus Christ comes as servant of all, even as He is Lord of all….He came to immerse Himself fully in our human experience, even to the point of a humiliating death on the cross. God takes the initiative by reaching out to us, and this is the distinctive mark of the Christian faith: that God cared enough to send the very best – Himself – to save us from our own sinful predicament.

  • Our humanity is forever changed by Christ’s Incarnation: The eternal life we have as a guarantee by the merits of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection are ours to claim and possess now. A foretaste of the heavenly life we will enjoy in God’s presence in the world to come is also ours here and now, the “already-and-not-yet” reality of God’s kingdom.
One final thought: how might we see evidence of our Lord’s kingship in our own lives? What victories have been ours by His divine power during the past year (or years)?

Thanks be to God for the gift of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”.[7]

AMEN.


[1] This meaning adapted from Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary.
[2] Ibid
[3] Revelation 7: 9 (NRSV)
[4] All four Gospel writers – including Luke, read today – record the title that Pilate set up over the cross.
[5] The Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) articulated the orthodox Christian understanding of Jesus Christ’s human and divine natures. Please see the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p. 864 for the statement which this council produced.
[6] Josephus lived from c. 37 – 100 AD.
[7] Revelation 19: 16

Sunday, November 18, 2007

25 Pentecost, Year C

"SOME THINGS PASS AWAY, OTHERS ENDURE"
Proper 28: Malachi 3: 13 – 4: 2a, 5 – 6; Psalm 98; II Thessalonians 3: 6 – 11; Luke 21: 5 – 19
A sermon by Fr. Gene R. Tucker, read by Mr. Barney Bruce, Licensed Lay Worship Leader, at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 18th, 2007

“Some things pass away, others endure.”

That seems to be the “bottom line” for Jesus’ teaching, heard in our Gospel reading for today, Luke 21: 5 – 19.

Let’s remind ourselves that Jesus is in the Temple in Jerusalem, and as He walks its grounds, some of His disciples look around and notice how splendid a structure it was.

Notice that word: “was”….For by the time Luke was writing his Gospel account, that magnificent Temple no longer existed….it had been utterly destroyed by the Roman army in the year 70 AD, and not one stone rested on another, just as Jesus had predicted some 40 years before.

So the Temple had passed away, but Jesus’ words endured.

What might Jesus be saying as he strolled across the Temple’s grounds that day?

As I ponder that question, more and more I think one answer might be : some things pass away, and some endure.

So, let’s look at today’s reading from that perspective, noting those things that were – and are – no more, and those things that continue to be.

But before we consider the two, let’s remind ourselves about the Temple….

King Herod the Great began the building of the Temple in the year 20 BC, when he had been king for 18 years. Its building extended almost until the time of its destruction (beyond Herod’s lifetime). By the time Jesus walked through its courts, it was complete enough to grasp its monumental nature, and its grandeur. The Jewish historian Josephus (who lived from c. 37 – 100 AD) tells us that 1,000 priests labored on it, supplemented by tens of thousands of others.

It was ornate: Josephus describes it this way (in his volume The Jewish War):

“The sacred edifice itself, the holy temple, in the central position, was
approached by a flight of twelve steps. The façade was of equal height and
breadth, each being a hundred cubits (roughly 150 feet!); but the building
behind was narrower by forty cubits (60 feet), for in front, it had as it were
shoulders extending twenty cubits (30 feet) on either side. The first gate
was seventy cubits (105 feet) high and twenty five (40 feet) broad, and had no
doors, displaying unexcluded the void expanse of heaven; the entire face was
covered with gold, and through it the first edifice was visible to a spectator
without in all its grandeur, and the surroundings of the inner gate all gleaming
with gold fell beneath his eye.

The exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or
eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun
was no sooner up than it radiated so fiery a flash that persons straining to
look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays.”

Even if Josephus was exaggerating a little (and some scholars think he might have stretched the truth a bit here and there), the magnificence of the Temple comes through to us, even considering his archaic writing style.

No wonder the disciples were awed by its grandeur and its size…it seemed so permanent!

After all, the Temple Mount, upon which the Temple itself stood, was enormous, with walls 50 to 80 feet above the surrounding streets and the Kidron Valley on the eastern side. Its walls were made of gigantic stones, some of which weigh 20 tons. (I often wonder how they moved those heavy stones!).

The Temple Mount can be seen today, the stones of its walls bearing the distinctive edging that Josephus describes as being a mark of construction projects that Herod undertook.

And yet, the Temple itself was utterly destroyed….its permanence disappeared, its significance had passed away. Today, an excavated street on the western side of the Temple Mount bears silent witness to the stones from the Temple that were thrown down, crushing the paving stones 50 feet below.

Some things pass away, others endure.

And so, we return now to the text, and to the things that have passed away, and to the things that endure:

We’ve already considered the Temple’s passing.

Yet Jesus’ prediction endures….

In fact, in verse eight, Jesus warns of the false prophets who will be present during the time of the destruction of the Temple. He says, “Beware that you are not led astray, for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, “The time is near!’ Do not go after them.”

Josephus’ words seems strikingly similar to Jesus’ prediction. In The Jewish War he says, “A star resembling a sword stood over the city; a comet continued for a year; a light as bright as the day shone around the altar for half an hour; a cow gave birth to a lamb in the Temple; the great brass gate of the inner court swung open of its own accord; chariots appeared in the air and armed battalions hurtled through the clouds; and one Jesus, son of Ananias, stood up in the Temple and pronounced woes on Jerusalem.”

Now even discounting the symbolic language that may be a part of Josephus’ description, we can still come to the conclusion that the awful times that Jesus predicted did, in fact, come to pass.

But Jesus’ prediction goes on. Now, He turns His attention to the hardships that His followers will face: They will be:
  • arrested and persecuted

  • handed over to synagogues and prisons

  • brought before kings and governors

  • betrayed by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends, and

  • some will be put to death.
In short, Jesus is describing His own betrayal, trial and crucifixion. He is saying that those who follow Him would face the same things He did.

And so, this part of Jesus’ prediction had already taken place by the time Luke set his account to writing….the first organized persecutions took place under the Emperor Nero about the year 64 AD. These hardships followed the imprisonments, trials, and martyrdoms of people like James, Peter and Stephen (see Acts chapters four through eight, particularly).

Jesus’ words endured.

And yet, before we leave today’s text, we ought to note two statements that don’t seem to go together….They are:

“And they will put some of you to death.” (Verse 17)

-and-

“But not a hair of your head will perish.” (Verse 18)

How can those two statements go together?

Maybe the answer lies in things that are passing away, and things that endure….

Here is a possible explanation:

If some of Jesus’ followers would be put to death, then their earthly life passes away, it ceases to exist. Returning to the image of the temple, their earthly temple passes away.

And yet, if “not a hair of their heads” will perish, then their eternal existence with Christ endures, just as Jesus’ words endure. For we read in Matthew 10: 28 – 30, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”

And so, Our Lord encourages us, concluding with these words, “By your endurance you will gain your souls.”

Some things pass away, and others endure.

Thanks be to God!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

24 Pentecost, Year C

"THE LIFE EVERLASTING"
Proper 27 -- Job 19: 23 – 27a; Psalm 17; II Thessalonians 2: 13 – 3:5; Luke 20: 27 – 38
Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 11th, 2007


“We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”

With these closing words of the Nicene Creed, we affirm our belief that there is life with God at the end of our earthly life.

Life after death is at the heart of the question that the Sadducees posed to Jesus, heard in our Gospel reading from Luke, chapter 20, today.

But since Jesus affirms the reality of everlasting life, today’s Gospel account calls us to examine our focus on the two lives we are leading: the everyday, physical life of this world, and the eternal life that we are guaranteed by Jesus’ resurrection.

We can illustrate the dual focus by portraying each of them as a circle, and, to get a sense of the double focus we Christians are called to maintain, by overlapping the two circles….the overlapped area of the two circles represents our life in this world, and the eternal life that is already under way as a result of our baptism and our coming to faith in Christ, the two existing in our lives here and now.

Before we can consider how we might best maintain our focus on this life and the life of the world to come, we should consider the background of today’s interaction between the Sadducees and Jesus.

Not much is known about the Sadducees, who were one of four main groups which could be found in Judaism 2,000 years ago.[1] The second century historian, Josephus, sheds some light on them, telling us that they were a “philosophical school” whose name was taken from Zadok, King David’s high priest. As such, they were an upper class group, associated with the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem, who were quite traditional in their outlook (they not only rejected the concept of a resurrection, they also accepted the authority of only the five books of Moses, and they rejected the existence of angels). In maintaining each of these beliefs, they differed from the Pharisees,[2] for the Pharisees accepted the concept of the resurrection, the existence of angels, and they accepted the authority of the other writings in what we now call the Old Testament.[3] In addition, the Pharisees recognized an oral tradition which had been passed down through the ages, whereas the Sadducees rejected that oral tradition.[4]

So the Sadducees were a very traditional group, while the Pharisees were more progressive. As an interesting footnote, it’s worth noting that the Sadducees did not survive the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, while the Pharisees did, so the treatment of the Sadducees is not very favorable in the Jewish rabbinical writings of the post-Temple period.[5]

So the Sadducees “tip their hand” rather quickly in asking Jesus to rule on the rightness of their question….For Luke reminds us that they “denied the resurrection”.[6] Their question, “at the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be?” rings hollow.

Now the mechanism the Sadducees use to pose the dilemma to Jesus is the ancient practice of levirate marriage. In ancient times, if a woman was left as a widow, it was her husband’s brother’s duty to marry her (providing support for her and the surviving children in the process), and also to provide an inheritance for the deceased husband by fathering children so that the family name could survive.[7]

You see, in those days, the way a person achieved immortality was through the inheritance of children….a person “lived on” by being the seed of a new generation.

And now, as we consider the importance of raising up a new generation for the survival of the nation, we can begin to understand Jesus’ response, for the procreation of children was the main purpose for marriage (as we can see in the institution of levirate marriage).

But in affirming the reality of immortality through resurrection, Jesus instructs us that, in the life everlasting, there will be no need for marriage, nor for the procreation of children, for persons who achieve the resurrected state will never die, thereby negating the need for a new generation to replace the current one. Jesus affirms this (verse 36) by saying, “For neither are they able to die.”

Jesus’ own resurrection affirms the reality of the resurrection. His resurrection is the basis for our own hopes for life everlasting….St. Paul says as much, reminding us that, if there is no resurrection, we are the people “most to be pitied”,[8] for we have placed our hope in something that is a complete falsehood!

But St. Paul goes on to portray Jesus’ resurrection as the “first fruits”[9] of believers. In essence, Jesus’ death and resurrection becomes the “seed” of new and unending life for all who are in Christ.[10]

If then, Jesus’ own physical resurrection from the dead assures us that we, too, will join Him in His resurrection, then when does this new life begin?

St. Paul fleshes out this important point in Romans, chapter six….We read in verses three through five the following, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”

Paul seems to be assuring us that the reality of the resurrected, immortal life is already ours. It’s ours for the claiming, here and now (although we have not received this new life in all of its reality yet – we receive by way of God’s guarantee through Jesus Christ).

If he is right about that (and, it’s fair to say, that has been the clear Christian conviction since the beginning), then the new and everlasting life we have in Christ is already a reality, even as we continue to live in this earthly life.

So, this earthly existence and our immortal life overlap, like two circles which are intertwined.

And so, before we leave the topic, we ought to consider the issue of focus…

What should our focus be, since we have two realities at work in our lives at the same time: earthly and heavenly life?

Should we be like the Sadducees, firmly rooted in this physical life, anchored as they were in the truths of the past as they had been received from Moses, devoted as they were to this world, its glory and its finality?

Or, should we be like the early church in Thessolonica, whose members seemed to spend a lot of time looking into the skies, awaiting the Lord’s return in the clouds with the blast of the trumpet?[11]

Down through the ages, Christians often seem to come down on one side of the equation or the other….

For example, those who focus on the reality of this world tend to emphasize the importance of leading a moral life, doing “good works”.

By contrast, those who are anxiously awaiting their arrival in heaven, there to be in the Lord’s presence, face-to-face, often pay little or no attention to the realities of this life, and the associated problems of the world that confront us as Christian believers every day.

We are called, however, to a dual focus….we affirm this in our Rite I Holy Communion service as we hear the “Summary of the Law”, Jesus’ own words (from Mark 12: 29 – 31), “Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself…”[12]

These words call us to consider the eternal nature of God and our inheritance in everlasting life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We cannot ignore the reality of our unending joy in the presence of God when this life is over. We are called to ponder that reality, and to prepare for it by a life of study and prayer (one of the main reasons for our worshipping and studying together!). The focus of this first commandment is on God.

However, we are also called to love others, reflecting the love that our Lord Jesus Christ showers on us by virtue of his death and resurrection. (Make no mistake: the reason we love others is because Christ first “loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God”[13]…we cannot generate this sort of love on our own, nor are we able to self-generate genuine acts of love without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God). The focus of this second commandment is on others around us in this world.

Like two circles intertwined, we focus on the life we lead in this world, even as we focus on the life of the world to come.

May the Holy Spirit enable us to keep both lives in focus and in balance.

AMEN.

[1] The others were the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Zealots.
[2] The Pharisees were primarily a lay group, unlike the Sadducees, who were associated with the priestly group.
[3] St. Paul incited a heated argument between the Sadducees and the Pharisees by speaking to them of the hope of the resurrection. See Acts 23: 7 – 10.
[4] For an excellent treatment of the Sadducees, see the commentary Sacra Pagina, Volume 3, pp. 312 – 319 (Collegeville: Collegeville Press, 1991).
[5] Sacra Pagina, p. 312
[6] Verse 27
[7] The requirement for Levirite marriage (the name comes from the Latin word for “brother-in-law”) are laid down in Deuteronomy 25:5.
[8] I Corinthians 15: 19
[9] I Corinthians 15: 20
[10] Paul’s argument may be found further along in I Corinthians 15, verses 36 and following.
[11] See I Thessalonians 4: 13 – 18 and II Thessalonians 3: 6 – 13. Apparently, many in the church there were idle, waiting for the Lord’s immanent return.
[12] Book of Common Prayer, 1979, p, 324
[13] Ephesians 5: 2

Sunday, November 04, 2007

23 Pentecost, Year C

“CLIMBED ANY TREES LATELY?”
Proper 26: Isaiah 1: 10 – 20, Psalm 32, II Thessalonians 1: 1 – 12, Luke 19: 1 – 10
Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 4th, 2007


Climbed any trees lately?

It’s risky business, climbing trees…..a person could fall.

A person could lose their dignity, climbing trees….After all, when was the last time you saw a grown person climbing a tree (unless their line of work demanded it?)

Not much has changed since Biblical times: for a grown person to climb a tree was risky from the standpoint of their honor, and we should remember that the very traditional society that existed 2,000 years ago was all about honor-and-shame.

So the chief tax collector Zacchaeus took a risk, climbing that sycamore tree that day in Jericho, for grown men didn’t do such things.

Neither did grown men of that age run anywhere, not unless their life depended on it.

Wait a minute? Did Zacchaeus’ life depend on running to see Jesus?

Yes, it did, spiritually….

For Zacchaeus was dead, spiritually….the victim of his own career choice (tax collecting), the victim of the attitudes of the Jewish society of his day, Zacchaeus was stuck, stuck in being an outsider, for devout Jews of Jesus’ day did not associate with tax collectors, those Jews who collaborated with the occupying Romans in extorting tax monies out of Jews for the purpose of perpetuating the Roman occupation.

No, tax collectors were lumped with the sinners…How often have we heard that phrase in Luke’s Gospel account, “Tax collectors and sinners”? The two terms are almost synonymous.

Zacchaeus was the last outsider that Jesus would encounter on His trip from Galilee to Jerusalem….And as He met lepers, the blind, the lame on His journey, all along the way, Jesus’ purpose has been twofold:

  • To fold the outsiders into the Kingdom of God

  • To upset the status quo
Meeting Jesus means change!

It met change for Zacchaeus, and the change that came into Zacchaeus’ life also meant change for the society in which he lived.

Let’s look at the status quo that confronted Zacchaeus, Jesus’ challenge to that status quo, and those unchangeable things that Jesus challenges in our own lives and times.

The status quo is “the way things are”, and it is this seemingly unchangeable reality that Jesus comes to challenge.

We begin with the status quo of Zacchaeus’ day, and we have already alluded to it in the remarks made above:

  • Devout Jews did not associate with “tax collectors and sinners”. These were the outcasts of society, unable (unless they repented) of being folded into the worshipping community (and even then, the Bible seems to describe a hard-hearted attitude which might well have prevented their inclusion even after repentence). Notice how the onlookers say, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”[1]

  • Perhaps Zacchaeus’ neighbors simply accepted the fact that Zacchaeus was rich, and that Zacchaeus would always be rich, extorting tax monies out of them.

  • Maybe Zacchaeus himself thought that he could never be included in the community of the faithful, or into the society of his city. Perhaps he accepted his lot: rich, but an outcast, as an unchangeable reality.

  • But Jesus challenges the status quo, and He does so in today’s account, as He has done consistently as He makes His way toward Jerusalem. Challenging the status quo involves taking risks (after all, that’s what led to His crucifixion – for He challenged the religious status quo of 2,000 years ago). But, as we look at the text, we can see that both Jesus and Zacchaeus took risks, as follows:

  • Zacchaeus runs and climbs the tree: We’ve mentioned this a short time ago….Grown men simply didn’t do either one, not unless their lives depended on it!

  • Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus by name (I think that’s significant), and tells Zacchaeus that He will be staying with him that day (remember, devout Jews do not associate with “tax collectors and sinners”).
Being in Jesus’ presence is an awesome thing! I suspect that’s why Zacchaeus made the amendment of life that he did. Notice that Jesus says nothing to Zacchaeus about his career choices, nor of any instances in which Zacchaeus may have cheated anyone in the course of his duties. Jesus says nothing.

And yet, I suspect it’s Jesus holiness that causes Zacchaeus to repent of his past behavior.

We aren’t ever told much about Zacchaeus’ motivations for wanting to see Jesus….we only know from the text that he wanted to get a better look, so he climbed the tree since he was so short. But why did Zacchaeus climb the tree? Was he simply curious? Had he heard about Jesus’ healing of the blind man on the edge of Jericho?[2]

Did he think Jesus could help end his isolation, burying the status quo of his life forever?

We simply don’t know.

But whatever the reasons for Zacchaeus’ risk-taking that day in climbing the sycamore tree[3], unexpected change breaks into his life as Jesus says, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”

How about the unchangeable things in our own lives?

Maybe we have many of those:

  • The person who will never change

  • The situation that will never get better

  • The problems that will never go away
Hear the word “never” in each of those situations? Jesus comes to challenge the “nevers” in our lives. For with Christ, no person, no situation, no problem is beyond the power of God to solve.

By way of illustration, let me show you what I mean….

You see, my father was a Zacchaeus….Plagued by situations and problems that seemed to have no solution, my father – who was a very talented and hard-working man, was an alcoholic. Alcohol was his way of coping with the situations in his life, the unmet dreams, the insecurities, the running away from God.

Then, one night in a hospital in Eugene, Oregon, God called to my father, Jess Tucker, lying on a hospital gurney, as a team of doctors and nurses struggled for over three hours to get his heart started again so that it would continue beating.

Finally, they succeeded.

But, you see, my father was in a risky situation, like Zacchaeus, for that gurney was his tree…My father would never have wound up in a shameful place like a hospital gurney if it weren’t for the fact that he had “bottomed out”….Sometimes, I wonder if Zacchaeus hadn’t “bottomed out”, and figured he hadn’t much more to lose by climbing the sycamore tree.

At any rate, that gurney was the place where God came calling to my father, saying, “I want to live with you today”.

And my father accepted the offer….Like Zacchaeus, there were no professions of faith (my father was a very private and introverted man), but, like Zacchaeus, my father’s actions proved that he had found God, and had been found by God. “Salvation had come” to my father.

For the rest of the family, we didn’t think there was any way that the awful reality of the status quo in my father’s life would ever change. However, my mother never gave up hope, and never gave up praying for him…she did so for nearly 35 years before God intervened.

For, you see, no person, no situation, and no problem is beyond God’s ability to change.

Climbed any trees lately?

AMEN.


[1] Verse 7
[2] See the passage immediately preceding today’s reading, Luke 18: 35 – 43.
[3] The commentaries point out that the sycamore tree in this account is different from the sycamores we would know in North America. It was most likely an evergreen tree with many lower branches, which would have made it ideal for Zacchaeus’ purposes.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

22 Pentecost, Year C

"DOES GOD HAVE 'CALLER I.D.'?"
Proper 25: Jeremiah 14: 1 – 10, 19 – 22; Psalm 84; II Timothy 4: 6 – 8, 16 – 18; Luke 18: 9 – 14
Given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL

Does God have “Caller ID”?

Think about the uses for that wonderful device, “Caller ID”…. many of us are so used to using it these days, we don’t give it much thought as we look at the display to see who’s on the other end.

But it’s quite useful: for example, we can tell if the person on the other end is known to us, but who has a reputation for engaging a conversation partner in long, drawn-out, one-way conversations. “Caller ID” would be particularly helpful in that particular situation if we’re on the way out the door, for example, and simply don’t have the time to get involved in a long conversation.

Or, we can tell when we see those telltale words “out-of-area” or “private number” or “restricted number” that the party on the other end will most likely simply be trying to sell us something, often even using a tape recorded message (aren’t those the worst of this sort of marketing?) to promote a product.

Does God have “Caller ID”? And, if so, what might He use it for?

I think the answer to the question, “Does God have ‘Caller ID’?” is “yes”. After all, we begin the Holy Communion service with this prayer (often called the “Collect for Purity”)[1], which says (in part), “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid….” So, we are saying in this prayer that we are worshipping a God who knows all things, a God who is omniscient.

This collect is quite consistent with the witness of Holy Scripture. For there, we read the following, “... for the Lord searches every mind, and understands every plan and thought.” (I Chronicles 28: 9) (NRSV).[2]

If only the Pharisee had remembered that portion of Scripture, “for the Lord searches every mind, and understands every plan and thought”. Perhaps that unnamed Pharisee wouldn’t have stood apart from everyone else in the Temple, praying to himself!

Let’s stop there for a minute…. “Praying to himself”….If the phrase in verse 11 is translated that way,[3] that means – if we return to our concept of “Caller ID”, that God has seen not only the identity of the caller, but God has also seen the caller’s intent, and has, in effect, hung up on him….No doubt, the Pharisee is so self-consumed with selling himself and his pious deeds that he can’t even hear the dial tone coming back at him from the phone that is dead on the other end (if we may continue the illustration we began with).

But even if the translation of verse 11 should more properly be rendered “the Pharisee stood by himself” (as the NRSV does), or “the Pharisee prayed about himself” (as the NIV does in its main reading), the bottom line is that God’s ear is deaf to the Pharisee’s prayer, for our Lord concludes this Parable by making it clear that “I tell you, this man (the tax collector) went down to his home justified, rather than the other (the Pharisee).

Where did the Pharisee go wrong?

Right from the beginning, apparently: Notice that the Pharisee begins his prayer with an address to the Almighty, simply saying, “God, I thank you that….” The Pharisee addresses the deity with a form of address that many devout Jews might have found to be offensive. The Pharisee seems presumptuous in his relationship with God, especially when we look at the tax collector’s address, for the tax collector says, “Lord”, thereby acknowledging God’s power over his life.

But the Pharisee doesn’t stop there….For though he relates the facts of his religious observance (his fasting and his giving practices), he seems to do so not with his eye on God, but on the others who are also in the Temple for prayer, including the tax collector.

The Pharisee’s focus is reminiscent of Jesus’ comments to the Pharisees in Luke 16: 15, where we hear Jesus say, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.” (NRSV)

And so, in this parable, we return to some themes that Jesus has been hammering at for awhile now: 1) self-justification; and 2) self-aggrandizement, done in view of others.

But God knows the heart, as today’s parable and Jesus’ comments from two chapters earlier makes clear.

What are we to make of today’s parable? After all, we have before us two clear-cut characters, one a proud and arrogant man, and the other a humble man who is weighed down with the burden of his sins.

The Pharisee, by virtue of his own boasting, has placed himself on God’s “Do Not Call” list. God apparently wants nothing to do with his “sell job”, his one-way conversation that intrudes on God’s sovereignty and power.

By contrast, the tax collector’s role as a social outcast in the Jewish society of 2,000 years ago and his status as sinner are suddenly and dramatically reversed.[4] For God, who knows our identity even as we come to Him in prayer, also knows our intent in praying, and is always willing to hear our prayers, provided they are born of proper motivation.

That seems to be Jesus’ message.

And what about our own attitudes toward God?

As I consider that question, I begin to realize that, many times, we are combinations of the Pharisee and the tax collector….we can easily shift from tax collector to Pharisee, moving from repentant sinner to boastful sinner.

Why might that be so?

The answer might be because we each know the facts of our own lives (just as the Pharisee and the tax collector knew the facts of their own lives – one was regular in fasting and in giving, and the other was deeply aware of the fact of sin in his life), we each know our own experience as the central reality of our existence in this life. We think we are the center of our own lives, and often, the immediacy of our own life’s experiences can easily become the source of authority for all that we do, including our relating to God.

But we are called to allow God to become the center of our lives. If the Pharisee had done that, he would have seen the shallowness of his own boasting, his own looking around at others, to see that the sin of pride is just as bad in God’s eyes as the sins he enumerates in others (thieves, rogues, adulterers, tax collectors).

For in allowing God to take center stage, we then begin to see things as He sees them (which is one of the main reasons for prayer).

To allow us to see things as God sees them, we need His help to see the pernicious and sneaky side of sin, especially the sin of pride.

As the Collect for Purity continues, saying, “(Lord) Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy hole Name; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.”


[1] Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 323
[2] See also Romans 8: 27, where St. Paul expresses a similar idea.
[3] As some translations do, including the New International Version (NIV) in an alternative reading.
[4] Abrupt and shocking reversal of roles is a theme found throughout Luke’s Gospel account. Luke seems to pay a good bit of attention in his writing to Jesus’ teachings that reverse the roles of the outcast (Samaritans, prostitutes and tax collectors, e.g.), the poor, the sick, and those imprisoned (see Luke 4: 18 – 19).