Eve of the Nativity, Year C

"PROVE IT!"
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Christmas Eve, December 24, 2009.
Isaiah 9: 2 – 4, 6 – 7; Psalm 96: 1 – 4, 11 – 12; Titus 2: 11 – 14; Luke 2: 1 – 20

Perhaps by now, you’re sick and tired of Christmas. It’s just possible that you’ve had enough of Christmas decorations that have been in the stores since Labor Day. Maybe you’ve heard enough jazzed-up versions of Christmas carols (don’t they just make you long for the simple, original versions?), and it could be that you’ve seen enough showings of movies like “White Christmas” and “The Grinch who stole Christmas” on the AMC channel to last for the next year. With Ebenezer Scrooge, you might simply want to say, “Christmas? Bah, Humbug!”

But, having waded through all of these past months’ attempts to overdo the whole Christmas “thing”, you now find yourself here in this church tonight. And what brings you here – hopefully – is the real reason for this Holy Day, the birth of Jesus Christ.

Now all of us here know the basics of the Christmas story. We could recite it in the Luke version we heard tonight, perhaps verbatim (albeit many of us would be able to do so in the language if the Authorized – King James – Version!). We know the facts of what happened 2,000 years ago.

Both of these realities make the preacher’s task on Christmas a very difficult one. For one thing, the preacher’s congregation has most likely “had it up to here” with Christmas, for Christmas has been all around us for the past three or four months (it wasn’t like that when I was young: We actually had Thanksgiving, and then came Christmas!). For another, the texts from Christmas to Christmas don’t change much, and the congregants are very familiar with them. It might be easy for us to say, “Yeah, I know all that,” about the events in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.

So tonight, let’s consider two important questions that have to do with the theological importance of this wonderful day, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. These two questions ought to be foremost in our minds as we read any passage of Holy Scripture. These two questions are:

• What is God doing?
  
  
• What do God’s actions tell us about who He is?

As I said a minute ago, these two questions consider the theological meaning of the passage, and it is always the theological implications that are the ultimate goal of any writer of Scripture. The writer wants us see what God is doing, and to draw conclusions about just who God is, by observing (along with the writer) those actions.

So, the title of this sermon is simply “Prove it!” Prove to us who you are, God, in the sending of your Son, Jesus Christ.

“Prove it!” Maybe those words rolled off your tongue, or came flying out of your mouth when you were a child. Oftentimes, in my own childhood, I could recall saying or hearing those words when I was locked in argument with someone. “Prove it!” I would say. Maybe you did, too.

But life beyond childhood is full of requests for proof, and it is in the proving of what we need to know that we can order our lives.

Two examples will suffice to illustrate my point: We go to apply for a mortgage, and the bank wants us to prove that we have sufficient income to pay back the loan. We have to prove the facts of our situation, and in so doing, we are telling the bank something about ourselves (like our income level and sources, and our trustworthiness, credit-wise). Or, when someone comes and tells us something, we want proof before taking actions that are in response to the report we’ve just heard (priests get into this sort of situation quite often, for someone will tell us something, for while they are being truthful in accordance with the facts as they understand them, it’s often very important to seek proof of the situation from other sources, as well).

So, we go through life offering proof, and seeking proof.

The same is true with regard to our life with God: We seek proof of God’s nature, and God’s actions.

And so, we come to the Christmas story, and we ask our two questions:

What is God doing? At its root, the Christmas story has everything to do God’s breaking into the world, in a new and powerful way. That’s the “bottom line” of Christmas, and of Christ’s birth. Now, it’s odd: God did not come in the person of Jesus Christ by arriving in a fiery chariot, nor with the blast of a trumpet, nor with a royal procession into the capitol.

No, the Lord’s arrival comes quietly, silently (as the carol says), in a backwater town (Bethlehem) of a backwater province (Palestine) of the Roman Empire, born to a very young (probably) mother from an even more backwater town (Nazareth), which was located in that other-side-of-the-tracks area called Galilee.. No hospital birth here, for Jesus was born in an animals’ shelter. There wasn’t even room in the inn for them there.

None of this describes an auspicious beginning. Quite the contrary.

But, break in God did! God’s love and care for this world is seen in this breaking in.

God cares enough to send the very best: Himself!

Here, we come to the answer to the first question: Jesus’ birth, by which He who is both God and Man, demonstrates God’s love and care for the world He had made.

Now, we turn to the second question:

What do God’s actions (in Jesus Christ) tell us about who He is? The circumstances of Jesus’ birth tell us a lot about God’s nature.

For one thing, God often comes into our world quietly, silently, and unobserved.

For another, we see heavenly power and the rights that belong to God being set aside.

Let me say that last point again, a little differently: God stoops down from His position as God and takes on our humanity. God comes down to us. We don’t have to try to reach up to get to Him (we couldn’t, anyway, but that’s another story).

God seeks us out. God takes the initiative. God is the actor in this play. God is the originator of this divine drama.

“OK,” you might be saying, “I get the point.”

“But – if all these things we read about in our Christmas gospel are true, and if you are right, preacher, about what God is doing, and what God is like, then where is the proof that these things matter to us today? Where is that proof?” you might be saying.

I offer – in response – the following…..

Jesus’ arrival, His teachings, His miracles, His life, death, burial and resurrection, all served to change lives. His original 12 disciples’ lives were completely changed, forever. We see this most clearly in St. Peter’s life, as we see it before the resurrection and afterward….Peter went from being a bumbling idiot who couldn’t keep his foot out of his mouth before Christ’s rising from the tomb to an eloquent, powerful preacher. No more doubting, no more verbal gaffes, just the power of a man who now had God’s reality stamped all over his heart, mind and soul. All of that was gone once Peter had seen the risen Christ.

For proof of these things, I cannot offer scientific proof. But I can offer human proof. Peter is human proof.

I offer the proof the witness of the disciples-become-apostles. Their eyewitness to the things of Jesus went out into the world with power, and it began to change lives, many lives.

Their witness, the witness of the apostles, continues to change lives today. I think of many in our own congregation here whose lives have been changed, have been healed, either spiritually or physically, or both, as a result of Jesus Christ’s presence in people’s hearts. I see people whose life experiences were leading them to separation from God, and even death, but whose lives were completely turned around. I think of a friend who has stage four cancer, whose oncologist said, earlier this year, “your healing can only be the result of God’s intervention.”

“Prove it!” we say. If we ask that of God in a prayerful and sincere way, He will prove it to us. Sometimes, the proof that God offers comes silently, quietly, and slowly, in much the same way that our Lord Jesus Christ came to us this night in Bethlehem.

So, pray for this proof. Wait for it. Expect it. God – the God who loves the world and the people in it – will offer the proof we need in order to believe.

May it ever be so among God’s people, as we watch, and wait, for God’s proof of who He is in our lives today.

AMEN.

4 Advent, Year C

"TEAM BUILDING"
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, December 20, 2009
Micah 5: 2 – 4, Psalm 80: 1 – 7; Hebrews 10: 5 – 10; Luke 1: 39 – 56

Remember playing a pick-up game of ball with your friends when you were young? It may be that the group was just the neighborhood kids, young and older, siblings, small and great, just anyone who was “around”.

Many times, the group would get together, and someone who suggest playing a game. Then, two people were chosen from the group to be captains of the two teams, and they would stand apart from everyone else, while the choosing up of the two sides would be done by the two captains.

Now, usually, I was near the end of those chosen. And, as things went along, it was sometimes a little embarrassing to be one of the last ones chosen. For, you see, I was B Team material. Or, we might better say I was Z Team material. The truth is that I wasn’t very good at any game involving the handling of a ball. Baseball, softball, stickball, football, I was never very good at any of them, and the other kids knew it. So, usually I was one of the last ones chosen. Sometimes, I was the very last one chosen.

When we human beings build a team, we want all the A Team players. We want the brightest, the best, the most inspired, the most willing, the most energetic.

In the course of life, we’ve figured out that we come out on top a whole lot better with a team made up of people like that, in most cases.

But God doesn’t work that way at all. He seems to be very content to have B Team material. He even likes – and uses – Z Team material, the lowest and least capable of them all.

Our Gospel text for today is a case-in-point, for, at its root, the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin, Elizabeth, is a scene in which team building is taking place. In this scene, we see the introductions being made, so that the future team of John the Baptist and Jesus can meet again in the waters of the Jordan River, so that the way can be prepared for God’s game plan to save the world in the person and work of Jesus Christ. In this scene are B Team – or maybe Z Team - players, meeting for the first time. In this scene meet the lowest and least capable players of all.

To understand what sort of material God has chosen to work with, we need to back up in the story just a bit, to an earlier part of Luke, chapter one.

It is Luke alone who traces the birth of John the Baptist, and then who traces Jesus’ birth putting parallel aspects of the two birth narratives side-by-side.

In each account, beginning with verse five of chapter one and the birth narrative of John the Baptist, and then skipping ahead to chapter one, verse 26 where Luke traces the birth narrative of Jesus, Luke is recording the story of the birth of two persons whose lives and presence among us would never have happened if human means alone were responsible for their arrival.

This demands an explanation: Zechariah and Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s father and mother, were well along in years, Luke tells us. Put bluntly, they were old. So, it seems that they were beyond the time when a child could be conceived. Furthermore, they’d never been able to have children, and as a result, Elizabeth was called “barren” (one of the worst conditions anyone in biblical times could experience, for barrenness often was thought of as an indication of God’s disfavor). Turning to Mary, we see that she, too, is incapable of bearing a child. We know this from her response to the angel Gabriel, when she says, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” Mary would have been incapable of conceiving a child.

But, there’s another tie between the two mothers-to-be, and it is the announcement that each will have a child, the announcement being made by the angel Gabriel.

So, now, the team building has begun, and God has announced His choices.

These team members are unlikely players. They are B Team material, perhaps even Z Team material.

They are the more prominent and the absolutely lowest of players….Zechariah was a priest who served in the Temple in Jerusalem, so his family had prominence, and in the human scheme of things, would be qualified for a high place on God’s team. But their inability to have a child would make them B Team material.

By contrast, Mary is far lower in some ways. For one thing, though she is (probably) very young (some scholars think she might have been in her early teens at the time Jesus was born), she is from the “other side of the tracks”, Nazareth, a very small town in the region of Galilee, to the north of the city of Jerusalem. Recall with me the disciple Nathaniel’s reaction when Philip told him that they had “found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph,” Nathaniel’s response simply was “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth in particular, and Galileans in general, were apparently not highly thought of in ancient times. It must have been a backwater sort of a place.

So, here we have the old and the very young, the somewhat prominent and the nobody, the socially acceptable Judeans (Zechariah and Elizabeth) and the unacceptable Galileans. B Team material, maybe less.

But God has a consistent way of choosing the B Team players to do His work.

We see His choices in the people named today.

We see His choices in people like Simon Peter, the blue collar, uneducated fisherman, the man possessed of major faults, like the ability to consistently put his foot in his mouth. So, too, with most of the other disciples who would become the first apostles: most were common folk, most were not products of the best rabbinical schools that Judaism could offer. Most were simple, everyday people who worked with their hands to make a living.

Yet God chose them over the priests, the princes, and the prominent to do His work.

God chooses us to do his work today, calling each of us into His service. At the time of our calling, perhaps most of us were B Team material, spiritually. But God shapes and forms us into A Team players. All we have to do is to do what Mary did, and say, “Let it be to me according to God’s word.”

The contribution that Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary made to God’s game plan is over. Their work has become the stuff of God’s record book, the Bible. They are remembered for their willingness to allow God to shape and use them for His work, His game plan to save the world.

Now, it is our turn. We become players on God’s team through baptism. Then, the training begins, as we are shaped into the members of the team that God needs. And as we carry out God’s plan, our performance is recorded in God’s record book, the Book of Life. Our task as team players is the same as the one that Elizabeth and Mary undertook: to bring the Lord into the world, and to make Him known.

AMEN.

3 Advent, Year C

"LIVING A BALANCED LIFE IN CHRIST"
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, December 13, 2009
3 Advent, Year C -- III Zephaniah 3: 14 – 20; Psalm 85: 7 – 13; Philippians 4: 4 – 9; Luke 3: 7 – 18

Remember learning how to ride a bicycle?

If your experience was anything like mine, it was a harrowing and puzzling experience. I recall my learning process quite well: it consisted of some one who was older and more experienced at riding than I was (a friend), who put me up on the seat, told me what to do, and gave me a shove.

Off I went, the friend running alongside me. He’d say, “steer”. Then he’d say, “pedal!” Then he’d say (when I forgot to do one thing or the other) “pedal and steer.” Occasionally, he’d have to prop me up when I began to fall one way or the other.

Did you have an experience like that?

Well, of course, most all of us eventually got the idea of what we had to do in order to be able to stay upright, steer enough to stay on course, and pedal enough so that we could keep moving and so that the front wheel would assist us in keeping our balance.

But at the beginning, it was hard to remember to do everything we had to do (steer, pedal and stay upright) in order to be a successful bike rider. It was hard to master all of those necessary tasks, and to balance all three so that we could be on our way.

The walk with God is a whole lot like learning to ride a bike….it is a balancing act, one that involves a close and intimate relationship with God which nourishes us. It involves learning about the truth of God as we hear it in Holy Scripture, and it involves reaching beyond ourselves in God’s name and for the benefit of others.

But our walk with God differs from the task of learning to ride a bike in that the balancing aspect of it – the mastery of all of the tasks needed – never ends. Eventually, we get the “hang” of riding a bike, and we never forget how to do it (or so the old adage goes). But the Christian walk with God never ceases to call us into deep reflection about our success or failure with respect to keeping all aspects of our spiritual life in play at all times.

John the Baptist’s preaching called his original audience – as it calls us today – into a life of spiritual balance. John emphasizes three aspects of our relationship with God, all of which must be present in our relationship with God. They are:

• Prophetic teaching which acknowledges the truth of God
  
  
• Living a life of repentance
  
  
• Social outreach to others

A key aspect of Luke’s understanding of the Gospel is outward movement. We see it in today’s passage, in John the Baptist’s preaching, for John addresses first of all the inward disposition of the heart toward God, moving then into concrete actions which take us outside of ourselves.

We also see this outward movement in the identities of the three groups who come forward to ask John about their own actions. The identities of the three groups foreshadow the movement of the Good News outward from Jerusalem into the wider world.

So, let’s trace this outward movement. We will mention the larger movement only briefly (because it’s important to be aware of), and we will tie it to the three groups who come forward to ask John what they ought to be doing in order to be doing the will of God.

We begin with the larger picture of the outward movement of the Good News (the Gospel) of God:

The Acts of the Apostles: In Acts 1: 8b, we hear Jesus’ instructions to His disciples, who are about to become Apostles, when He says, “and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Luke understands that the center, the locus, of God’s redeeming acts is Jerusalem. But from there – the city where Jesus suffered, died and rose again, the city where the Holy Spirit descended upon the believers at the beginning of the Church’s work, the Good News goes forth into the surrounding countryside around Jerusalem, which is Judea, then northward into Samaria, and from there into the world itself. Outward movement is discernable in the geographic movement of the spread of the Good News.

Those who question John the Baptist: Three groups of people come forward to ask what they each should be doing. Present among the three groups is the same outward movement we see in Acts 1: 8b. Follow with me the three groups:

1. The multitudes: Presumably, those in the multitudes who come forward are Jews, for John the Baptist addresses them at the beginning of our passage today, telling them that they should not lay claim to a special status because of their descendency from Abraham. So this initial group is most likely composed of Jews who live in the Jewish homeland.
   
   
2. The tax collectors: In many cases, tax collectors were Jews who collaborated with the Roman occupiers of the Holy Land. So, in this group we begin to see the outward movement from the Jewish world into the pagan world, through the connection of these tax collectors to Rome and its army and to its governmental system.
   
   
3. The soldiers: If the soldiers are mercenaries (as they might well have been), then it’s possible that they were Gentiles. If so, then the outward movement we’ve been tracing is reaching out into the pagan, Gentile world in its fullness.

These three groups (if I am correct in my hunch about the identities of the three groups) foreshadow the future reach of the Good News once the Holy Spirit has come, moving from the Jewish homeland into the wider world.

Now, let’s turn to the inward aspect of this outward movement. And to trace this motion, we return to the text before us today.

The first thing to notice is John’s call to outward movement. It comes in the form of a call to “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Bearing fruit has everything to do with producing something which comes – in the plant world - from a relationship of the plant to the soil, to the water and nutrients in the soil, to the sunlight, and so forth. From this relationship springs discernable, outward fruit. Applying this principle to the spiritual life, we can see that being grounded in God, in an intimate relationship which is unmarred by the presence of sin and which allows the spiritual “nutrients” that flow from God alone, creates the conditions necessary for the discernable, outward fruits that God desires.

Now, notice that John the Baptist addresses the inner disposition of the heart. He begins by brushing aside any claim to be in a special category of people that God might favor, admonishing his hearers that they should not claim to be “children of Abraham”, for God could raise up children out of the very stones themselves, John says. So, by reminding his listeners of this reality about God’s nature, John preaches the truth of God (the essential meaning of the word “prophecy”) which says that God will, first of all, destroy all the defenses we might want to erect around ourselves.

(Next, John reminds his listeners that every tree which does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.)

John’s prophetic preaching must have been very effective. The questions begin to come, and they seem to have an air of urgency about them.

All of the answers John supplies have to do with outward, visible fruit, fruit which springs from a right relationship with God as the starting point for being able to produce anything at all.

All of the answers John supplies carry a person outward, beyond themselves, into the world in direct, discernable actions which are the mark of a fruitful life: give someone else your coat (John’s words, put into modern terms) if you have two coats, be honest in your dealings with others (the root application of the admonishment to the tax collectors) and don’t exploit others (the “bottom line” of the instruction to the soldiers).

It’s worth noting at this juncture that each of these actions fit well into Luke’s understanding of the Good News. For Luke is deeply concerned with living the everyday life of God in the world. Luke’s concerns are deeply practical ones. He seems to be wrestling with a question which may well have been on the Church’s mind at the time he wrote, which might be characterized this way: “What does God want us to be doing, as God’s people if we are going to be in the world for a considerable length of time?”

Indeed, what does God want us to be doing today, as God’s people in the world and in this place? How might we bear “good fruit” for the kingdom of God?

And this concern brings us back to the question of balance.

Remember that we began with the idea of learning to ride a bicycle. At first, remembering to do all the things a person has to do to be able to ride is difficult. It’s hard to balance everything that one has to in order to make the machine go forward.

Recall also that we said that, eventually, most people get the concept of balancing the various tasks so that riding a bike becomes second nature. But, we also said earlier on, that the spiritual life we live with God isn’t like that. This walk with God requires constant attention to the balancing of all the aspects of living the Christian life.

And it is to this question we turn, as we look into the wider Christian world. There, we can see some churches that focus their attention and their energies on the proclamation of God’s truth (prophecy). Others tend to hold in high esteem a person’s private life with God, while others tend to put lots of time and attention into practical, social outreach projects.

Relatively few are the churches who manage to balance all three of these aspects of the Christian life. Indeed, the church I grew up in during my youthful years probably did an excellent job at teaching, preaching, and prophecy. But it did a poor job in the areas of social outreach. Inward, personal values were highly esteemed in the church of my childhood, but meeting the needs of people around us who were in need in some way almost didn’t reach the radar screen of our consciousness.

And we could cite other examples where just the reverse is true.

Luke’s understanding, as we hear his record of John the Baptist’s teaching, would be that we must bear good fruit for the kingdom. But we can only do so from a life of repentance which allows a firm rooting in God’s soil. Furthermore, if we are to bear good fruit, then we must remain solidly rooted in the Lord in order for good fruit to appear. For the bearing of fruit is not optional. Every tree which does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire, John reminds us.

Fruit which is fit for the kingdom will be outward, observable, good fruit which bears testimony to our relationship with God in the innermost parts of our being. Good fruit is the outward-and-visible-sign-of-an-inward-and-spiritual-grace , the grace of God, present within us. Put another way, this would be “sacramental living”.

Today’s text calls us into reflection, and into a comprehensive life in God which has as its core an intimate and deep relationship with God, which acknowledges the truth of God, and which bears good fruit for the kingdom.

May it ever be so with us.

AMEN.

2 Advent, Year C

“GOD’S INTERSTATES”
A sermon by F. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, December 6, 2009
Baruch 5: 1 – 9, Psalm 126, Philippians 1: 1 – 11, Luke 3: 1 – 6

My wife says that I have a “sixth sense”. She says that I can find something related to railroads whenever there’s something around to be noticed.

For example, if we’re driving down the road and a truck passes, going the other way, I might say, “Oh look, there’s a good looking load of rail going the other way.” (She groans in response.) Or, I might say, “Look, there’s a track machine on that truck over there.” (Again, she acknowledges my passion for trains and railroads.)

But one of the aspects of this love of mine that amazes her the most is my ability to find old railroad rights-of-way in the woods, you know, those places were the track used to be, which are noticeable because they are pretty level compared to the surrounding landscape. She maintains that I can find them anywhere, under almost any circumstances. When I do, she simply says, “You’re amazing!”

But to me, finding these old rights-of-way is an easy task, for the folks that created them years ago (in many cases, the hard way: with shovels and picks and horses pulling drag pans) managed to lower the high places in the landscape, and they managed to fill in the low ones. In the process, they created a highway made of iron or steel that was as level as was practically possible.

Let me repeat those words again, the ones I used to describe the creative process by which this highway-of-steel was created: I said that they “managed to lower the high places, and to fill in the low ones.”

Notice that this is the language we hear from John the Baptist, as he stands on the banks of the Jordan River, proclaiming the words from the prophet Isaiah, “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places shall be made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” The image I’ve used to begin this sermon and the biblical language are quite similar.

(Notice further the similarities in the language that we hear from Baruch this morning, “For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.”)

The need for a spiritual highway was evident many times in Israel’s ancient history. Surely, Baruch longs for such a highway, so that Israel might return to the Promised Land, to a rebuilt Jerusalem, out of captivity in Babylon.

The sense was at that time that, because of Israel’s sins, the people of God were separated from God’s presence, from the land which was promised to Abraham and his offspring forever, and from the Temple which was the seat of God’s presence.

Similarly, Isaiah’s words, recorded in chapter 40, verses 3 – 5, struck a deep resonance in the hearts and minds of God’s people as they longed to return from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem, and to re-establish their relationship with God.

Sin was the cause of Israel’s deportation to Babylon. Jeremiah makes this connection clear, and Baruch, Jeremiah’s secretary, draws the same conclusion.

And so, Baruch longs for the time when God’s people will travel, unobstructed and unhindered, on the highway that is created by the leveling of the hills and the filling of the valleys, on their way back into a holy and intimate relationship with God.

Now, fast forward to the time of John the Baptist, who was a cousin of Jesus (see Luke 1: 5 – 80 for the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus), and who preached and baptized in the region of the Jordan roughly in the years 26 – 27 AD.

By this time, God’s people were safely in their own homeland. The Temple was being rebuilt in Jerusalem, and the seat of God’s presence that the Temple signified was rising gloriously on the eastern side of the Holy City.

So why does John use the language of Isaiah to call people into repentance for their sins? (Recall with me that John’s baptism was a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” )

The reason is that the sinfulness of the people had created a barrier which prevented them from intimate relationship with God. Oh yes, we might say, they went to the Temple regularly to worship, but the people’s actions and their inclinations proved that they were a people who “honors me (God) with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”

The issue seems to be one of outward, formal observance of a relationship with God, but an inward disposition that betrays any relationship with God.

Sin creates a barrier between us and God.

Sin creates a barrier that we cannot remove ourselves. We need God’s help to level out the high places of pride that make it impossible to share in an intimate life with God.

But if the high places of pride and stubbornness, the hard and rocky summits of our own self-worth and arrogance block our ability to return to the Lord, so do the low places.

The low places are places of despair, of self-loathing. The low places provide a home for depression and a sense that no one could descend into the depths of our unworthiness, to lift us out of our unacceptability before God and others.

Both the high peaks and the canyons share one thing in common: they exhibit the human trait that says “This is all about me.” For, you see, if we stick the high mountains of our heads and our hearts into the skies and proclaim, “I have no need of forgiveness, nor of God,” then no highway can be built in such a landscape. But neither can a way be created if the low spots won’t allow it.

At its roots, the high places of pride and arrogance and the low places of self-doubt and despair become the center of attention, for they block any progress.

When the railroad rights-of-way were being created, such obstacles were overcome by hard work, determination, and the unwillingness to allow these obstacles to stand in the way of progress.

Not so, in most cases, with the spiritual landscape of our hearts and minds…For, you see, God’s Holy Spirit is, oftentimes, a gentle spirit which respects our ability to allow God to work in our lives, or not. Simply put: we can reject God, shutting Him out of our lives, even to the point of doing so entirely.

But if we do allow God to enter our lives, and to begin to carve away at the high places, and to fill in the depths of the low ones, then God can create a highway in our hearts.

We must allow Him to do that work, the work that we cannot do ourselves.

Such a work is known by the word “grace”. It is God’s grace, God’s generosity, that does the work, but only if we let him.

But why, you may ask, should we allow God to do this creative work in our lives? Why allow the building of a highway in our hearts?

Two answers emerge:

1. God wants to be in close and intimate relationship with us. To enter into such a relationship, the barriers between God and us must be removed. (Here, we return to the imagery of the return to the Promised Land from exile in Babylon that we noted earlier.) Only then can the productive business of spiritual commerce between God and us commence.
   
   
2. God wants us to show what the highway-building process can be like, and to show what great things come about when we allow God to undertake such a construction project in our own lives, so that others will be encouraged to allow God to begin such a work in their lives, too.

So, our text today calls us into reflection, which is a very apt undertaking for the season of Advent.

Reflect with me on this text, as it calls us into repentance before God….

1. Do I have high places of pride and arrogance in my life, which might be characterized by my attitudes, which block God’s constructive work in my life?
   
   
2. Are there low places of despair, of worthlessness, which God could lift up?
   
   
3. Is there lasting evidence, like an old railroad right-of-way, lasting evidence of God’s working in my life, evidence that others can see and emulate in their own lives?

May the Holy Spirit enable us to allow God’s creative processes to be active in our hearts, minds and lives, that we may be a highway of God’s grace, for our own spiritual welfare, and that others might also become highways of God’s grace.

AMEN.

Advent I - Year C

“REDEMPTION: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE”
(Sermon texts: Zechariah 14: 4 – 9 & Luke 21: 25 – 31)
A sermon by The Very Rev. Gene Tucker, given at: Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, November 29, 2009.

“I have been saved, I am being saved, I shall be saved.”

Those words are ascribed to St. Augustine of Hippo, the great fifth century bishop and theologian.

They speak of God’s redemption of His people, in times past, in the present time, and in future time.

This theme, of God’s redemption in all times, is also present in the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent, which reads,

“Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

You’ll notice that I’ve highlighted some of the phrases, to show the past – present – future of God’s saving acts. Let’s look at those timeframes. They are:

Past: The visitation of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago (“Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us”);

Present: The time we are living in now (“now in the time of this mortal life”);

Future: When Christ returns again (“That in the last day, when he shall come again.”).

Now, notice God’s saving actions, referred to in the Collect (sometime obliquely):

Past: Jesus Christ’s coming among us was – in part – for the purpose of declaring God’s salvation to us.

Present: Protection through the provision of armor for protection,

Future: We rise with Christ to the life immortal.

The Collects of the Prayer Book are especially beautiful, and, they are especially rich in their theological reflections. (I often use them as the basis for meditation, for they are filled with scriptural allusions and quotations. I commend them to you for the same purpose.)

This Collect sums up the great Advent themes:

1. Christ’s first coming as a baby in Bethlehem, and His living among us as one of us,
   
   
2. Christ’s second coming, at which time God’s purposes will be fulfilled, and Christ will reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

So Advent focuses on the past and the future, mindful that we are living in an in-between time between the two.

Advent also recalls that this in-between time is one of strife, conflict, sudden danger, battle and hardship.

Our Collect for today captures this theme quite well. Notice the words it uses: “cast away the works of darkness”, “put on us the armor of light”, “this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us”.

Notice the battle between darkness and light. (It’s no coincidence that the daylight is fading quickly, now that we are approaching the winter solstice, that time when the daylight is the shortest. This cycle of nature is a reminder to us of the spiritual darkness of the time in which we live.)

Notice the appeal for protection: “Put on us the armor of light.” Armor is for protection in battle.

Now that we’ve mentioned the word “battle”, we need to turn to our Gospel reading for today.

If you are thinking that the overall tone of today’s passage sounds a lot like the one from a couple of weeks ago (Mark 13), then you would be correct in your assessment, for today’s passage comes from the same teaching of our Lord Jesus as was heard a short while ago from Mark. Recall with me that we entitled that passage the “Little Apocalypse” . Today’s passage is from Luke’s recordation of that same teaching, but the part we hear today is a little later on.

Still, Jesus’ words, as recorded by Luke, are filled with trouble, sudden danger, and terror. The words seem to burn in our hands, almost, as we read this text. We want to turn away from its images. We want to avoid its timeless truth.

(It’s worth noting here that our Old Testament passage, Zechariah 14: 4 – 9, contains many of the same images.)

Such images are the raw material of apocalyptic literature. Recall with me, when we considered the parallel passage in Mark, that we said at that time that apocalyptic literature contains both concrete references and images, and deliberately vague ones. Surely that is the case with the Zechariah passage, which identifies the location of the events it describes as being Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives. It is also the case with the Lukan passage before us today, if we back up to the beginning of it, at verse five. For in the earlier part of the passage, we can see that Jesus is referring to the Temple in Jerusalem (verses five and six), to its being surrounded by the armies of the Gentiles (verses 23b and 24), to a time of great trouble and distress.

“I have been saved, I am being saved, I shall be saved.”

Augustine’s words assure us, in the face of Jesus’ troubling pronouncements, of the surety of God’s victory over chaos, trouble, terror, and sudden death.

“Put on us the armor of light”, the Collect for today says.

“Amen”, we say. “Protect us”, we say. “Claim us as your own people when all is said and done,” we pray.

How can all these things be, these prayers of ours for protection and for recognition as one of God’s own people?

How can we know God’s salvation, God’s redemption, is near?

How can we “look up and raise our heads” as Jesus says, knowing that our redemption is near?

What evidence do we have of God’s ability to do all these things?

For the answers, we turn first to the past.

We turn to Jesus’ earthly visitation. Recall with me the dangers, toils and snares through which our Lord Jesus Christ travelled: Consider first the dangers of His birth: Mary’s difficult journey (some 50 – 60 miles) on the back of a donkey, nine months pregnant. Surely the possibility of miscarrying was great, given those circumstances. Then consider the circumstances of His birth in a place where animals were kept: no sanitary hospital setting here, but one of dirt, filth, and lots of germs. Again, the possibility of dangers to His health and to His life were immense. And again, consider the threat to His life from King Herod’s massacre of the baby boys in Bethlehem. Jesus could easily have been one of the victims of this crime. Then, consider His flight into Egypt, a long and arduous journey while He was still a very young boy.

All of these things could have done away with His life in short order.

But He survived.

His presence among us could have been snuffed out on the cross. After all, no one got off a Roman cross alive. Death was certain. And Jesus’ death was a public one, observable by all, confirmable by all.

But He conquered death and rose again on the third day. His resurrection appearances guaranteed God’s victory over the final enemy, which is death.

And so St. Paul can exclaim, “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 38)

A little earlier on, Paul says that “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8: 37)

So, in Christ’s victory over all the powers of earth, of death, we have been assured that we are on the winning side, on God’s side.

“All well and good,” you might say. You might add, “But what about my life, here and now. What assurance do I have that God’s victory is present in my life?”

An excellent question, this one is, for we are not eyewitnesses to the things that Jesus did, to His teachings, to His defeat of the threats that came His way. We are not eyewitnesses except through the witness of Holy Scripture.

But it is the witness of those who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life, to His victories, that make us eyewitnesses through the written word.

Still, there is proof, if we look for it, of God’s presence and God’s victory in our own lives, if we are able to look for it.

I think of my own life history, and I can see that God has been present, even in the darkest of times. I can see God’s leading in the events of my own life. I can see God’s armor, protecting me.

Has life been easy for me? No, not entirely. There have been very dark and lonely times, times of danger and times of stress.

Every life has some of those times.

But God has been there, protecting, guiding, assisting, pushing, prodding, pulling, chiding.

I can say, along with the words to the great hymn “Amazing Grace”, these words,

“Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come.
‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

You see, I can safely say “I have been saved, I am being saved,” and that knowledge give me the ability to say, “I shall be saved,” no matter what comes along, for nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord. Nothing!

So, how about you?

Advent calls us to reflect on God’s saving acts, as they are seen in Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection.

Advent calls us to reflect on God’s saving acts in our own lives today.

And these two reflections provide the assurance that “we shall be saved” in the last and final day, when Christ shall come again in majesty and great power.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!

AMEN.

Last Sunday after Pentecost, Year B

“KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS”
A sermon by The Very Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, November 22, 2009.
Proper 29 -- Daniel 7:9–14; Psalm 93; Revelation 1:1–8; John 18:33–37

“So, you are a king?” Pilate asked Jesus during His trial.

Ever thought about our attitudes toward kings? We Americans have a love/hate relationship with kings and queens, don’t we.

If we consider those attitudes, we’d have to admit that we Americans are wary of kings, queens, and monarchs. After all, didn’t we fight a war way back in the 1700s to rid ourselves of one by the name of George?

And wasn’t it another George (Washington) who declined to be named king after this country had won its independence from Great Britain?

Don’t we have a certain resistance to having to deal with a foreign monarch? It was Teddy Roosevelt who said something like, “I’d just as soon bite a king as meet another one.” (I paraphrase.)

Similarly, we often question the motives and actions when an American president greets a king or queen, taking great pains to study their body language and gestures.

Yet, as much as we might resist the idea of having a king or a queen, we are still fascinated by them. Look at the amount of attention the Queen Elizabeth II continues to receive in news coverage in this country, as support for this assertion.

So today is known as Christ the King Sunday. It is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. The first Sunday of Advent is a week away.

Today, we consider the matter of kingship. Today, we consider how Jesus might be King of Kings, and Lord of Lords (a phrase which shows up in Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”, and which is taken from Revelation 19:16).

We begin, then, with some consideration of what it means to be a king.

Two questions serve to guide our consideration:

1. Where does a king (or a queen) get his power from?
   
   
2. Where does a king yield this power?

Allied to these two questions is the matter of duration: How long does a king yield the power that he possesses.

All of these matters can shed light on the idea of Jesus Christ being King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.

So, we begin with the first question, the matter of power and its origin:

A king derives his power not from below, but from above. Allow me to explain: a king becomes a king by virtue of the station and the office of his father, who was also a king. A king is generally not chosen by the people in a popular vote.

A kingdom is not a democracy!

At one time, kings even claimed to rule by the authority of God, a concept which is known as the divine right of kings.

In a real sense, a king is someone who is above all others, unlike our president, who is one of the people, but who is elected to from among them and by them to hold the high office that he does.

The second question deals with the area and the people in which the monarch’s power is yielded. It has everything to do with the arena in which a king’s power is exercised. Without territory and people to be king over, a king has little real standing.

So we see that the two go together: king and kingdom (meaning land and people).

How might these two questions illuminate our understanding of who Jesus Christ is?

Applying the first concept – the concept of the origin of kingly power - to Jesus Christ, that of the origin of His station and His power, we see that Jesus is Lord because of His relationship to God the Father. In John 10: 30, we hear Jesus’ words, “I and the Father are one.”

“For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak,” Jesus said (John 12: 49).

So the Lord Jesus Christ’s kingship comes from above. It does not come because we grant Him this position of honor (though we can grant Him a kingly position in our lives….read on).

Now, we turn to the second part of kingship, that of the kingdom over which the king reigns.

We noted a minute ago that a kingdom can be land or territory, but also people.

Where is Jesus’ kingdom?

This is a question that Pontius Pilate was deeply interested in, and it is the question we began this sermon with, as Pilate asks, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate’s inquiry is based in political realities and power. His concern is for the primacy of Roman order and authority, and his question to Jesus seeks to ferret out any challenge to Roman power and authority.

Indeed, if we recall the sequence of events as Jesus’ trial progressed, eventually the crowd cries out, “We have no king but Caesar!”

But, in answer to Pilate’s question, Jesus replies, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18: 36)

If Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, then where is it?

Where is the territory of Jesus’ kingship? Where are His people?

Jesus’ kingdom is a kingdom of the heart. For it is there that Jesus seeks to be enthroned.

And everyone who allows the Lord to take up His place of royal position and power in their hearts becomes a subject of the Lord and a citizen of His kingdom.

At this point, we return to the matter of sovereignty. We said earlier that a king (or queen) occupies a higher place than his/her subjects.

We Americans balk at that idea, don’t we? We want to be sovereign, we don’t want a king, a queen, or any other person to have power over us.

So why would we allow Jesus Christ to become king of our lives? To do so would be to put ourselves under His authority and rule, to become a subject of the king. We would lose our power in the process.

Does the Lord offer us any compelling reason to allow our hearts to become the throne room of the Lord?

The answer lies in the mystery of the cross….Recall with me that Pilate hung a sign over Jesus’ head, which read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.

In a real sense, we see Jesus’ kingship most clearly in the cross. Jesus’ kingship is of the servant/leader variety. For the Lord Jesus Christ comes, not to be served, but to serve (see Luke 22: 27), and to give His life as a ransom for many (see Matthew 20: 28).

So, the Lord’s kingship derives from His heavenly Father. It is His birthright. But the Lord’s kingship also derives from His own self-giving love, most clearly seen on the cross, by which He demonstrates His love for us, freeing us from our sins by His blood, and making us into a kingdom, to be priests to God for ever (the concepts contained in Revelation 1: 5b).

So the Lord’s right to be king comes from above, from His heavenly Father, but it also comes from His own self-giving love, most clearly seen in the cross. Jesus Christ has paid the price for our redeeming, and therefore rightfully claims to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

One final point can be made, and it has to do with the duration of the Lord Jesus Christ’s kingship. Earthly kings rule (generally) until they die in office. But the Lord Jesus Christ lives eternally. It is for this reason that He will be King of Kings and Lord of Lords for ever and for evermore, for He is the Alpha (the beginning) and the Omega (the ending).

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

24 Pentecost, Year B

“GOOD NEWS, OR BAD NEWS?”
A sermon by The Very Rev. Gene Tucker; given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 15, 2009.
Proper 28 -- Daniel 12:1–4a,5–13; Psalm 16:5–11; Hebrews 10:31–39; Mark 13:14–23

The lectionary texts before us today, do they contain good news, or bad news?

All of them, our Old Testament reading from Daniel, our epistle reading from Hebrews, and our gospel reading, all of them have disturbing language in them, language which portrays strife, hardship, personal loss, struggle, warfare, and death.

From such imagery we want to turn away. But the beauty of the lectionary is that it forces us to turn our heads back toward God, who is the ultimate author of the Holy Scriptures, and particularly toward the “difficult sayings” that are before us today in His holy Word.

For the lectionary “holds our feet to the fire”, if you will. It forces us to deal with the “tough stuff” of living the life of faith.

Without this regimen, we might want to focus only on those passages that bring us comfort. But God calls us to a mature faith, to a realistic faith that recognizes that difficult times will come our way as individual human beings who are believers, and as the people of God collectively.

And the regimen of the lectionary also forces the preacher to tackle the challenges that texts such as those before us today present.

Before we consider the question we posed at the beginning of this sermon, let’s remind ourselves about the sort of literature we have before us in the Daniel passage, and in the Mark passage…..These two passages qualify as “apocalyptic” literature.

The word “apocalyptic” comes to us from the Greek (as you might expect), where it means, literally, an “unveiling” or a “revelation”. In the Old Testament, the latter part of the Book of Daniel is apocalyptic writing, while in the New Testament the Book of Revelation (which is often known by the title “The Great Apocalypse”) qualifies (hence the name of the book). But there are other apocalyptic passages in other parts of the Bible, as well, and the passage from Mark, chapter 13, is often named the “Little Apocalypse” by biblical scholars, for it has all the hallmarks of the literary genre.

So, we return to the question with which we began: “Do these texts contain good news, or bad news?”

At first glance, the answer would seem to be: bad news.

Consider the language Our Lord uses, which we hear today in our gospel text: “For in those days there will be suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of creation that God created until now, no, and never will be.”

“Suffering.” No one wants to suffer. In fact, our human instinct for self-preservation prompts us to turn away from anything that causes pain or discomfort. Failure to do so can threaten our welfare, even our lives.

The prophet Daniel portrays a time of deep trouble and anguish, saying, “There shall be a time of anguish, such as has never occurred since nations first came into existence….” (Notice the similarities of language between the Daniel and the Mark passages.)

Notice the theme of deprivation and suffering in Hebrews, chapter 10: “But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.”

All three of our readings today pick up the theme of suffering. There’s no getting away from it.

And, so, the question then arises: “When will these things take place?”

The answer has to be: “Always.”

For, you see, deep pain, suffering and anguish were realities in Daniel’s day. They were present in the days of Our Lord’s earthly life (recall the realities of the cross, for example). They were present late in the first century when the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews was addressing unknown Christians in their time of suffering and loss.

Suffering, loss, deep anguish…these things have marked the journey of the people of God down through the years. A brief look at Church History will reveal the truth of my comment.

Life in God involves suffering, loss, and sometimes, even deep anguish. At no time does the Church (whose true identity is as the people of God, and not an institution or a building) enjoy a time of peace and tranquility, even if the challenges the Church faces are challenges of lethargy and complacency, for even in such times, there is loss and suffering, because the forces of evil are able to flourish when God’s people are “asleep at the switch”. (Do you sense that there’s a spiritual battle going on between God and God’s people and the forces of evil? If so, you are correct in your understanding.)

So, it’s no wonder that apocalyptic writing often appears at times of deep stress and anguish.

So, would apocalyptic writing be God’s message of hope?

The answer seems to be “yes”.

Good news, indeed!

Notice the texts again, as we turn first to Daniel: “But at that time, your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.” (Notice that the image of the Book of Life, a concept which is found in the Book of Revelation, also appears here.)

God will deliver His people!

That is the message, the good news.

Similarly, Jesus picks up this same theme, saying, “And if the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he has cut short those days.” (Again, notice the similarities to the language we read today from Daniel.)

The central message of texts like Daniel and Mark, chapter 13, seems to be summarized in this passage, from Hebrews 12: 12, which says, “Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.” Why? Because, despite all immediate and outward appearances, God is still in control, and God will have the last and the final word.

Put another way, we could paraphrase this idea by saying, “No matter how bad or how hopeless things look now, we have only to see the ‘big picture’ to realize that God will prevail, and that, in the end, all will be well.”

One final thought….We need to address the question of “When will these things be?”

Jesus offers wise counsel on just this point. Though He seems to indicate a specific time of suffering, saying, “When you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then those in Judea must flee to the mountains….” (Again, notice the similarity of language to our passage from Daniel this morning.)

Here is a specific image, the “desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be,” and a specific location, “Judea”.

Tackling the first issue, what could the “desolating sacrilege” be? Perhaps some answers could be supplied, including these: The erection of a pagan statue by the Seleucid monarch, Antiochus IV, in 167 BC, is one possibility, another would be the plan of the Roman Emporer Caligula to erect a statue of himself in the Temple in 40 AD (he died before his plan could be carried out), or perhaps the destruction of the Temple by the Roman army in 70 AD, (during the Jewish – Roman War).

Citing the specific location, Judea, some have posited these answers to the identity of the “desolating sacrilege”.

We should note that apocalyptic writing almost always combines specific terms and imagery with deliberately vague ones.

So, the message with respect to apocalyptic writing must be, “tread carefully, and be willing to allow God to be God….don’t limit God’s power and God’s timing by a strict understanding of the timetable for His action.”

Indeed, Jesus warns us, more than once, in chapter 13, about such specificity….We hear one of the warnings in our text today…Jesus says, “..If anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘Look! There he is,’ do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and omens….”

As Jesus continues, the purpose of these false personages is to lead God’s people – the elect – astray.

A brief glance down the corridors of Church History will confirm this reality. Many have come, false prophets they turned out to be, claiming to know the day and the hour of God’s acting. A few examples will suffice to prove the point: During World War I, many claimed that the battles being fought in Europe were actually the Battle of Armaggedon (see Revelation 16: 16). During the 1840s, a wave of Second Coming false prophets arose, claiming to know the day and the hour of Jesus’ return. In response, many followers of these false prophets sold everything they had and went to the hilltops to await the Lord. And in our own day, one only has to recall the sad spectacles of David Koresh or Jim Jones to realize that there are no shortages of false prophets in our own time.

But Jesus says, later on in Mark, chapter 13 (verse 32), “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

What are we to do, then, in the meantime? Jesus’ next words provide the answer: “Take heed! Watch!”

And, we are to live confidently in the assurance that God is in control, that God will have the final and the authoritative word over all the forces of evil, and that God saves His people, just as He has done from the beginning of time.

St. Paul expresses this hope quite succinctly in Romans 8: 35, where he says, “What shall separate us from the love of God?” Answering his own question, he then says (verse 38), “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, now powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

AMEN!!!!!

23 Pentecost, Year B

“SWEET SMELLING INCENSE –OR- SMELLY ROTTENNESS?”
A sermon by The Very Rev. Gene Tucker; given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, November 8, 2009
Proper 27 -- I Kings 17:8–16; Psalm 146:4–9; Hebrews 9:24–28; Mark 12:38–44

Two odors rise from today’s gospel text: one is the sweet smell of incense, rising as a prayer to God. The other is the smelly rottenness of lives gone sour.

Of course, it wouldn’t be hard at all to figure out which is which, would it?

The sweet smell of incense rises from the life of the unnamed poor widow who puts her two small copper coins into the basin used to collect offerings for the Temple in Jerusalem.

The stinky, smelly odor of rottenness rises from the actions and the lifestyles of the scribes, who are castigated in today’s reading with the highest form of condemnation. Theirs is an empty, self-serving show. Theirs is the example of outward piety and religiosity, which serves only to mask the inner deceit that fills their hearts. Like a piece of rotten fruit that looks OK on the outside, but is spoiled on the inside, the scribes “put on a good show” with their long robes and their insistence on having the best and most honored seats at banquets.

(Our gospel text today is linked together by the word “widow”, so we will consider the actions of the scribes, who “devour widows’ houses” and the widow who puts all her wealth into the treasury.)

In order to understand a little better what Jesus has in mind as He comments on these two groups of people (I think the Temple must have been an excellent place to “people watch”!), let’s recall what we know about the society Jesus came into 2,000 years ago.

We begin with the scribes….these were educated men who not only knew the provisions of the Law of Moses through-and-through, but who were able to read and write (which was a rare ability in the ancient world). As learned men, they were, therefore, the interpreters of the provisions of the Law in many cases. They probably owed their lofty positions to their ability to read and write, and so were dependent upon the priestly caste at the Temple in Jerusalem for their positions and their economic well-being. So, we could safely say that they were “hangers-on” in a real sense. They’d climbed the corporate ladder of success that was in existence in those days, and so were happy to have all the perks of their success, including distinctive clothing, titles of respect, and places of honor at social gatherings.

In addition, the scribes probably acted as legal agents in some cases. In particular, notice that Jesus condemns their practice of “seizing widows’ houses”. What Jesus is referring to is a practice in which the scribes would act as a legal agent for a widow (who would have had little-to-no legal standing in the ancient world), but who would make off with the property, instead of protecting the interests of the widow. This practice would be similar to an attorney today who siphons off assets from an estate he or she had been hired to manage.

Now, we turn to the widow….The world and the society into which Jesus came was a “man’s world”. It was more of a man’s world in Jewish society than it was in the Greco-Roman world. Women had little social or legal standing. They were dependent upon a man’s ability to do things to earn a living, and to enter into legal contracts (notice the connection to the actions of the scribes, noted above). If a husband died, usually it was the obligation of a brother of the husband to marry the man’s widow (see the provisions of Deuteronomy 25: 5 – 10, which outline the procedure…this practice is known as “Levirite Marriage”, a title which comes from the Latin, where levir means “husband’s brother”). The intent of this practice was to raise up children for the brother. But it also had the ancillary effect of providing for the widow’s economic welfare, along with any children who were born to the marriage.

The text before us today does not tell us about the widow’s situation. We might assume that she has no husband because her husband had no brothers, but we cannot be sure about that. What we can be sure of is that she is not at all well-off, for she puts into the basin all the money she has.

The account before has everything to do with trust.

Or, we might characterize our consideration of the word “trust” by asking this question: Who or what did the scribes trust in? Who or what did the widow trust in?

The answers seem obvious, don’t they?

The scribes seem to be self-made men who trust in their benefactors and their success at climbing the social and economic ladder of Jesus’ day. They are gathering to themselves everything that their success in this endeavor will allow, including the stealing of other people’s wealth and well-being. They are entirely focused in on themselves. They trust in their ability to manipulate the system to their benefit. And, what’s worse, they do so under the outward appearance of religiosity!

They stink! Their actions and their attitudes strike our noses like the rotten smell of fruit gone bad.

By contrast, the widow trusts in God, for she has thrown her entire future in with Him. Once the two coins hit the bottom of the coffer, she is entirely dependent upon the Lord to provide, in much the same way that the widow of Zarephath was about eight centuries earlier (see our reading from I Kings for today). In that case, God’s test of that widow’s trust came in the form of Elijah’s request for the remaining flour she and her son had to live on. The test comes from knowing that, once the remaining resource is gone, trust in God’s ability to provide will be the hope she has to go forward with.

Now, life is like an odor, rising to God. Indeed, Scripture often likens the prayers of the saints to incense (that’s one reason we use incense in our worship, though we don’t often do so here at Trinity). The Bible uses the image of the sweet smell of incense rising to the nostrils of the Lord. Isn’t it a beautiful image?

Life can be a prayer, rising like incense to the Lord.

The way we live can rise like incense to God. Or, it can rise like the obnoxious odor of smelly rottenness, too.

Most likely, we know all-too-well what the smelly rottenness might entail. The scribes in our gospel text today provide a very clear model for us to avoid. Let’s be clear: the model the scribes provide for us has everything to do with an empty, outward religious show, a show that is disconnected from everyday, real life.

But what might the sweet smell of a life lived with complete and utter trust in God look like?

Such a life might entail regular worship which seeks to integrate our daily life with our worship life on Sunday mornings (in marked contrast to the lifestyle of the scribes!).

It might involve a complete change of heart about our attitudes toward our earthly possessions and wealth, including a willingness to “give it all up” for the sake of God’s call (recall with me the example of St. Francis of Assisi, who was born into a wealthy merchant family, but who turned his back on all that status and wealth to follow God’s call).

It might prompt us to re-evaluate how we relate to others, and particularly to their economic and social situations. Being specific, do we do all we can to improve the lives of the widows of today, the poor and the downcast, those who are without hope?

How do we live out a life of prayer that rises like sweet incense to God?

This question comes to us, and asks us to examine our lives closely in light of God’s holy word. AMEN.

All Saints' Sunday, Year B

“HALOES: MARKS OF HOLINESS”
All Saints’ Sunday -- Ecclesiasticus 44:1–10,13–14; Psalm 149; Revelation 7:2–4,9–17; Matthew 5:1–12
A sermon by The Very Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, November 1, 2009

Look around the church this morning ….How many haloes do you see?

Now I won’t ask you for an actual, audible answer, for we might be tempted to say, “Well, a halo is a mark of holiness, of sainthood (remember all those stained glass windows and works of art showing the Lord, the Apostles, and the major saints – the ones with a big “S” – with golden haloes around their heads?), so I would certainly say that so-and-so in the congregation has a halo, for they are especially holy people.”

By that criteria, some people in the church this morning might exhibit some marks of holiness, of sainthood, that are easily recognized. By the same token, others might not, for their holiness may not be so easily seen. And, it might be embarrassing for us to identify some as being especially holy, and not others.

In truth, all of us who are baptized bear the mark of sainthood….For we have been “Sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism,” and we are “Marked as Christ’s own forever.” (Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 308)

But what sort of a halo do we bear in this life? All of us, by virtue of coming into a personal relationship with Christ, the outward sign of which is baptism, are called to allow God to place a halo above our heads.

In answer to this question, we might back up for a moment to the image we mentioned a minute ago, that of the stained glass image of the Lord, the Apostles, and the major saints (again, those with a big “S” in front of their names). There, the haloes are made of gold, and as we all know, gold never tarnishes. (That’s one reason gold is so highly prized.) For the Lord Jesus Christ is the only one in this earthly life whose halo was made of gold. (The Apostles and other major saints now sport golden haloes in our artwork because their earthly courses are complete, and their holiness is now complete, as well.)

But these human disciples of the Lord sported halos that shone brightly at times, but were dull and dim at others. Consider the case of Saint Peter (notice, saint with a capital “S”): here is a saint whose halo shown brightly one moment, but was almost unnoticeable the next. At one moment, Peter’s atmosphere of holiness (which is one dictionary definition of a halo) was plain to see. One such moment was on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter delivered a powerful and moving sermon, a sermon so persuasive that thousands of his listeners were saved, and were added to the church’s membership. Wow! (See Acts 2: 14 – 36 for the text of Peter’s sermon, which stirs the heart, even today.) But, this is the same Peter who denied the Lord three times.

Aren’t we just like those early Disciples-become-Apostles? Isn’t our faith walk with the Lord just like theirs? Don’t we allow our holiness to shine at certain times in our lives with all the glimmer of gold, only to reveal at other times that, in fact, our haloes are actually made of brass, a metal that requires constant attention and polishing for it to resemble gold in some way?

That was surely the case with Peter. And, it is the case with us, too.

We’ve had a halo placed above our heads at the time of our baptism. “You are marked as Christ’s own forever,” we say. That means – when we make our solemn promises to God in the Baptismal Covenant (see the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, pages 304 – 5), we are promising to follow Christ, and to make the marks of holiness that were the marks of His life, present and discernable in our lives.

Consider the questions from the Baptismal Covenant:

Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers?

Answer: I will, with God’s help.

Will you persevere in resisting evil, and whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?

Answer: I will, with God’s help.

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?

Answer: I will, with God’s help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?

Answer: I will, with God’s help.

Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

Answer: I will, with God’s help.

All of these questions have one basic premise behind them: We are God’s holy people (read: saints), by virtue of our baptisms, and our new relationship with God that baptism signifies. Based on this premise, the questions cited above all ask us to:

1. Seek God’s help in living a holy, saintly life,
   
   
2. With God’s help, to maintain the brightness of our witness to others.

So, we recognize in the questions above that there’s a possibility that we will be just like Peter: We will allow our haloes to become tarnished, even to the point of dullness that almost makes the halo we bear invisible.

Life will do that to us….For the pressures of life can act like fingerprints on brass, each small little encounter with the business of being a human being adding its corrosive effects to the glow of God that otherwise would be plain to see.

The Baptismal Covenant commits us to seeking God’s help whenever the brightness of new life in Christ that is ours is tarnished. We need to ask God for some polish, so that our witness to Christ, our holiness, can resemble the golden haloes we will someday wear in heaven. We cannot polish our own tarnished natures, we need God’s polishing agents, which are Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit’s guidance, the faith community (that is, the Church), combined with an unwavering willingness to allow God to supply us with more polish, as we gather the stains that contact with the world will inevitably bring.

Now, today is All Saints’ Sunday. And on this day, it’s our practice to make a list of people we’ve known – living and departed – who are/were saints.

But, aside from the idea that these people we’ve listed were simply “really nice people”, what is/was it about their lives that marks/marked them as saints?

Put another way, in terms of the halo made of brass we’ve been using as a metaphor, do we see their sainthood, their holiness, most clearly in the ways that the tarnishing effects of being human were overcome with the brightness of God?

Oftentimes, I think, it’s the polishing and scrubbing that we allow God to do in our lives that makes the brightness of holiness most apparent. It’s in the victory over sin, over addictions, over seemingly impossible problems that we see God at work in someone’s life in marvelous ways.

Sometimes, the scrubbing is hard and deep. Sometimes, God has to bring large amounts of polishing compound to bear, and has to work at getting rid of the dullness and the dimness over a very long period of time, sometimes even for decades.

How has God been at work in the saints we remember today? How has He been at work within us?

Those two questions are worthy of our reflection in this coming week.

AMEN.

21 Pentecost, Year B

“BRIDGES OF MERCY”
A sermon by The Very Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, October 25, 2009
Proper 25 -- Isaiah 59: 1–4,9–19; Psalm 13; Hebrews 5:12–6:1,9–12; Mark 10:46–52

“Jesus of Nazareth, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

Mercy is at the heart of today’s gospel text:

Mercy requested

Mercy denied

Mercy given

Blind Bartimaeus (notice that Mark has to translate the meaning of his name, indicating that the Aramaic prefix “bar” means “son”), the son of Timaeus, asks for mercy from the Lord.

But the crowd who is traveling with Jesus denies him mercy, saying (in effect) “Shut up!”

And it is the Lord who bridges the gap, the gulf which has been created by Bartimaeus’ condition and the crowd’s reaction, as Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Let’s explore the three aspects of mercy which are before us today:

Mercy requested: Bartimaeus’ life situation was probably pretty dire. Notice that Mark tells us that he was a beggar. That wass probably the only way he could support himself, because he was probably unable to work. Moreover, he may have been shunned by others in the community there in Jericho, for many may have felt that he was blind because of some gross sin in his life. Such was the reality of life 2,000 years ago. So, Bartimaeus may have suffered from both poverty and social isolation.

Mercy denied: Now, we see that Mark tells us that the crowd that was traveling with Jesus “rebuked him, telling him to be silent.” Why might they have reacted to Bartimaeus in this way? We can only speculate on the reasons. But as we do so, I think we can make some pretty safe guesses. First, we pick up a theme we’ve just mentioned in the paragraph above: They may have felt that Bartimaeus was blind because he was a sinner. We saw this sort of an assumption at work a couple of weeks ago, as we considered the case of the rich man who came to Jesus, asking what he had to do to “inherit eternal life.” (See Mark 10: 17 – 31). In that case, we remarked that the expectation in Jesus’ day was that the man was rich because he was a righteous man, a man who had received God’s favor. In the case of blind Bartimaeus, just the reverse might have been true: the crowd may have felt that some gross sin was the reason for his condition. Moreover, the crowd may have assessed the situation with one glance, and may have concluded that the business they were engaged in, that of going to the great feast of Passover in Jerusalem, took priority over dealing with a man who had no means whatsoever to join in such an important mission. These people were “on a mission” to Jerusalem, traveling some 15 miles west, and 4,000 feet up (for Jericho is situated about 1,200 feet below sea level, while Jerusalem sits at 2,800 feet above sea level) to the great feast. They may have asked themselves silently, “Why bother with this guy? He obviously has no way to go to the Passover, to be a part of the wonderful thing that we’re doing.”

Mercy given: In contrast to the crowd’s reaction, Jesus bridges the gap with Bartimaeus. In so doing, He asks him to name exactly the need that prompted Bartimaeus to cry out. In his response, we catch a glimpse of Bartimaeus’ life situation, for contained in his comment, “Master, let me regain my sight,” we are led to believe that Bartimaeus was able to see at some point in his life. Now, notice Jesus’ reply, “Go your way, your faith has made you well.”

We would miss some important points about this gospel text if we didn’t mention the following:

The “way”: Jesus says, as part of His response to Bartimaeus, “Go your way.” It turns out that Bartimaeus’ “way” is the way to Jerusalem, for Mark tells us that he joined Jesus and the others who were traveling to Jerusalem, for Mark says that he “followed Him (Jesus) on the way.” You see, the point here is that Jesus’ gift of mercy and healing allowed Bartimaeus to follow Jesus, to take part in life in its fullness, on the way to the Passover!

Shedding his mantle: There is urgency in Bartimaeus’ request. Mark tells us that, at Jesus’ invitation, Bartimaeus “sprang up and came to Jesus.” In the process, he threw off his mantle. Some biblical scholars see importance in what Bartimaeus did, noting that he was willing to give up an important part of all that he owned, his mantle, (remember that it could get cold at that time in Palestine) in order to come to the Lord. Contrast Bartimaeus’ behavior with that of the rich man we mentioned a little while ago: Bartimaeus was willing to drop whatever prevented him from following the Lord, while the rich man clutched his possessions ever tighter around him at Jesus’ words of invitation to come and be a disciple. Moreover, the rich man “went away sorrowful” at Jesus’ words, while Bartimaeus “sprang up” to come to the Lord.

Now, what conclusions might we draw from today’s text?

I offer these conclusions to you, for your own reflection: As human beings we may experience an attitude of “mercy requested” and “mercy denied” at various times in our lives. Sometimes, we will experience both attitudes within ourselves with respect to our own situations. Sometimes, we will attempt to deny mercy to another who requests it from the Lord, and in the process, we will forget that we ourselves have received mercy from the Lord.

Let’s explore the first situation: Within our own attitudes about ourselves, we may know that we need God’s mercy. But there may be the expectation – also within ourselves – that we are unworthy of God’s love and mercy. We are caught, just where Satan wants us to be, between our deep need and our equally deep assessment that we are unworthy of such mercy. So, like the rich man, we turn away, as we clutch our unworthiness around us. Our sense of unworthiness often becomes our most prized possession in such cases. Have you been in this situation? I have! And, as a priest, I’ve seen persons who have been in such cases. When we are caught in such a clash between our need our our inability to receive mercy, we simply cannot accept the idea that the Lord can bridge the gap to address our need.

Now, we turn to the second situation: How often do our own expectations and our quick assessments of others’ circumstances lead us to believe that there’s no point in allowing other’s needs to come into God’s presence. We may say to ourselves, “There’s no hope for that situation, nothing that can be done – even by God – to bring healing and wholeness.” But, the point of today’s gospel text is that the seemingly impossible is entirely possible for the Lord to do. “For with God, nothing will be impossible!” (The angel Gabriel’s words to Mary, Luke 1: 37).

Thanks be to the Lord, who bridges the gap, bringing mercy, healing and wholeness.

AMEN.

20 Pentecost, Year B

"SERVANT OF ALL"
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, October 18, 2009
Proper 24 -- Isaiah 53: 4 – 12; Psalm 91: 9 – 16; Hebrews 4: 12 – 16; Mark 10: 35 – 45

Sometimes, at wee hours in the morning, I will wake up, finding one of our Cocker Spaniels, Phoebe by name, standing on me with her front paws. Now, this means that she wants something…it could be to go outside, it could be that she wants to check out some of the wildlife outside, or it simply could be that she wants a belly rub.

This is quite a sight, this Cocker Spaniel standing on my chest, her long ears drooping down around her face. Her eyes are hard to see when she does this, because the skin on her face is a little loose, and her eyes disappear. It’s an unforgettable sight.

Whenever this happens – and I’m glad to say it isn’t often – I don’t know whether to be amused or to be slightly annoyed. (After all, this dog can sleep the entire day away if she wants to, a luxury I can’t afford.)

But, once I’ve sorted through those two options for responding to her bold behavior, I usually ask her, “OK, so are you the king of the hill?” (The “hill” being me, of course!)

Today’s gospel text has a lot to do with being “king of the hill”, or – more properly – it has to do with being close to the top of the hill, right next to the king.

We hear James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, ask the Lord to grant them spots #2 and # 3 in the glorious time to come.

Hmmmm…..neither of these two guys have any ego problems at all, do they?

Obviously, their request shows that they know something wonderful is going to happen, for they use the term, “in your glory”.

We could speculate about their request, and the meaning of that word, “glory”. We might be safe in thinking that James and John expected Jesus to be the earthly ruler who would bring the ancient glory of King David to reality again. If so, then God’s chosen people would be liberated from the oppressive rule of the occupying Romans. The early prestige of the nation under David would be restored to the prominence of earlier times.

It’s probably safe to say that many in Jesus’ day expected just that sort of a Messiah. Maybe James and John did, too.

So, perhaps James and John wanted positions like “foreign minister” or “treasurer” in the time when Jesus would be in charge.

But notice the reaction of the other ten disciples…Mark tells us that they were “indignant” at this request.

Maybe they expected to be given those places of prominence – the places that James and John asked for - when Jesus entered into the glorious time that was to come, a time that these original disciples might have expected would come sometime very soon.

Such displays that smack of jockeying for position, prominence and power must have been commonplace as the disciples were being molded for their future role as apostles by the Lord. Time and again, and particularly recently in our gospel texts, we’ve been reading about this problem of leadership vs. servanthood, prominence vs. lowliness, servanthood vs. mastery of all, a problem that Jesus had to deal with on more than one occasion.

For example, recall with me the discussion that took place among the disciples about who was the greatest (see Mark 9: 33 – 37), a text we heard recently. In response to this ludicrous discussion about who was the greatest, Jesus takes a little child in His arms, and says to the twelve very nearly the same words we hear today, “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” You see, in the ancient world, a child was a “nobody”. That’s Jesus’ point: to be a part of the kingdom, one must enter as a “nobody”.

But let’s return to the text…..notice that Jesus responds with a statement, which leads to a question: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Notice that the two men chime in with their answer, “We are able.”)

In response to their ready affirmation that they are able to drink the cup that Jesus drinks, and to be baptized with the baptism He has been baptized with, Jesus then indicates that they will, indeed, do both: they will drink from the same cup, the cup of suffering (see Mark 14: 36, where Jesus uses the word “cup” to denote His coming passion), and, they will be baptized with the same baptism, the baptism of death.

By sharing the cup of the Lord, and by sharing His baptism, two things happen between the Lord and His disciples, between the master and the servant. They are:

An ongoing relationship is indicated: The future course of the relationship between the Lord and His disciples is indicated here by the future tense of the verbs. This relationship will stretch into the future beyond the time that Jesus is present in His earthly ministry. It corresponds to the time that Mark was writing, a time in which many Christians did drink the cup of suffering, and a time when many Christians were baptized into the death of the Lord by their own deaths. The ongoing relationship established by the shared cup and the shared baptism stretches forward into our own day and time.

Love is demonstrated and love is shared: The Lord’s passion and death is the supreme expression of love for the world. Our Lord demonstrates His love for us, and this love is shared. But by sharing in the cup and in the baptism, this love is returned by Jesus’ disciples, as well, and a love relationship is established between God and His people.

Dear friends, this is the way of the kingdom, the kingdom of God: The master becomes the slave, the king becomes the servant, the greatest sets aside greatness in order to be the least.

Jesus affirms the reality of the way of the kingdom by acts of love. You and I are the objects of that love. Our welfare is the goal of that love.

The Lord reaches out to us by acts of love accomplished 2,000 years ago. That same love is active and living today, and the arena in which God’s love is given and received is your life and mine.

Thanks be to God, the God who loved us in Jesus Christ, the one crucified and risen, and the same God who loves us in Jesus Christ day in and day out, today.

AMEN.

19 Pentecost, Year B

"THIS IS A TEST"
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, October 11, 2009
Proper 23 -- Amos 5:6–7,10–15; Psalm 90:1–8,12; Hebrews 3:1–6; Mark 10:17–31

“This is a test….this is only a test. This is a test of the Emergency Broadcasting Service…” Of course, this message, which is always preceded by three very annoying beeps (which are designed to get our attention), is frequently heard on our radios and TVs, especially when there’s threatening weather. We’re all familiar with this announcement.

In today’s gospel, Jesus says, essentially, to the man , “This is a test.”

But, instead of Jesus’ challenge to the man being only a test, it is an actual test, a test of the man’s loyalties.

In essence, Jesus is asking the him, “What’s most important in your life?”

The obvious answer is, as he walks away, that his possessions are the most important thing in his life, so important, in fact, that the man is unwilling to give them all up in order to be a disciple of the Lord.

Now, you and I face this sort of a test regularly. We face it not only once, but time and again. Perhaps we even face it daily as we are forced to make choices that are indications of our priorities and our values. These are choices that often indicate the place of God in our lives.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.

Returning to the text, we see that the man’s face “fell” (that’s what the Greek says, and the Revised Standard Version translates the Greek well in this case), as he heard Jesus’ instruction, “Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

What is the essence of Jesus’ test? Simply this: in the ancient world, a rich person was believed to be especially blessed by God. Their riches and their possessions were proof positive to the society of that day that they enjoyed a special relationship with God. (That is why the disciples were amazed at Jesus’ words as they say, “Then who can be saved?” At its root, the disciples’ comment affirms this common belief.)

Moreover, a rich person was highly regarded in the ancient society of the first century. They were benefactors to others who were less fortunate, giving of their resources to aid those who were less well-off, being well regarded for doing so.

So, at its root, Jesus’ instruction indicates two things:

Become a “nobody”: Jesus’ requirement that the rich man give up everything in order to become a disciple. Giving up, in this case, meant laying aside wealth, possessions, and status. Here, in this last point, we see an echo of Jesus’ earlier comments about becoming a child in order to enter the kingdom (see Mark 9: 35 – 37). Recall with me that children in the ancient world were “nobodies”, legally and socially. Here, Jesus again reiterates this important requirement, that everyone who would become a disciple must become a “nobody” in order to enter the kingdom.

Recognize the realities that ministry imposes: At this point in Jesus’ ministry, we can best describe that ministry as being itinerant and mendicant. Let’s parse these two words out in order to understand the circumstances under which Jesus ministered:

Itinerant: This is the more familiar of the two words, and Webster’s defines it as “moving from place-to-place.” That’s exactly what Jesus did as He moved from Galilee to the region of Tyre and Sidon (to the north), to the region of the Decapolis (south and east) and then on to Jerusalem (to the south). Moveover, He lays out instructions that affirm that His disciples (soon to become Apostles) will also do the same. We read these instructions in Matthew 10: 1 – 15. So, Jesus is essentially saying to the young man that, in order to become a disciple and enter the kingdom, he must divest himself of all of those things that would tie him down, and which would make it impossible to move about the countryside, spreading the Good News.

Mendicant: Here, we encounter a seldom-used word, which comes to us from the Latin (where its root means “to beg”). Jesus’ ministry depended on the support of others. We know that there was support, for Judas carried the collective purse (see John 13: 29). So, Jesus is asking this young man to throw his future welfare, spiritually and physically, upon God. No longer would the man’s status as a wealthy person be the guarantor of physical well-being.

Jesus’ demand seems to hit at the very heart of the issue that was blocking full participation in the kingdom. Often, this is exactly the case. Jesus has a way of cutting right to the heart of a matter, doesn’t He?

Here, we see it plainly.

This man was secure in his social position, his favored status with God (at least in the eyes of those among whom he lived) and his many possessions and great wealth. Perhaps he also sought security in his rigorous observance of the requirements of the Law of Moses, the Torah. “All these (the requirements of the Law) I have observed from my youth,” he says. If material possessions, wealth, and social status all conferred security, then observance of the Law might make his case all the more secure. Perhaps, for this man, rigorous adherence to the Mosaic code simply reinforced God’s favor that was thought to be manifest in the wealth this man enjoyed.

But, the man’s quest for security leads him to see if there’s anything he’s been missing. And here, we can give the man credit for asking, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” In essence, the man is asking, “Is there anything I’m missing?”

But, the old adage, “Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it,” applies here. Jesus tells the man exactly what he’s still lacking….”Go, sell what you have….”

But Jesus’ requirement in this case – that all wealth and our place of residence be given up - wasn’t universal among the earliest disciples. Nor was it universal in the early Church, for there were wealthy persons who were in both groups. Why did they not receive the same mandate from the Lord?

It’s worth looking at both situations, and at the response that wealthy persons who were among the first disciples and those who were members of the early Church made with regard to their wealth. We look at the instance of Joseph of Arimathea and persons of the noble class who were members of some of the early Churches that were founded by St. Paul:

Joseph of Arimathea: We read in Matthew 27: 57 that Joseph was a “rich man”. Apparently, he was also a highly respected member of Jewish society, for he was also a member of the ruling council, the Sanhedrin (see Mark 15: 43). But, Joseph was apparently willing to “step out of his comfort zone” to go to seek the body of Jesus. Mark tells us that Joseph “took courage” (Mark 15: 43) and went to Pilate to ask for the body of Jesus. Moreover, Joseph readily shares his wealth (in the form of a brand new tomb) to allow the burial of Jesus. Underscoring this last point, John seems to indicate that Joseph shared with Nicodemus the task of anointing Jesus for burial (see John 19: 39 – 40).

Early members of the Church from the noble class: St. Paul, writing to the Corinthian church, indicates that some members of that church were of the noble class. He does so by way of reflecting on its membership in general, saying, “For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” (I Corinthians 1: 26). But, though “not many” were these things, some were wise, powerful and of noble birth. But these persons were called to set aside their position and status to share in the community of faith, the Church. In so doing, in other Churches, noble persons sat right next to slaves, calling these slaves “brother” and “sister”. (It’s worth noting that the early Church’s destruction of class distinction would eventually prove to be a source of trouble for the early Church, as Roman ideas about class distinction were threatened by such an overt egalitarianism.) Moreover, like Joseph of Arimathea, some of these more wealthy persons aided the Church in its ministry, and used their positions, status, and wealth for the furtherance of the spread of the Gospel. A case in point would be Phoebe, who was a deacon in the Church at Cenchreae, (see Romans 16: 1 – 2), who probably took St. Paul’s letter to the Roman churches to Rome, but also seems to have aided Paul in his work financially, as well.

So, what’s the difference between the man we read about in today’s gospel text, and the wealthy and powerful who were among the earliest disciples of Jesus Christ?

The difference is: their relationship to their wealth, possessions and status.

The man Jesus meets in Mark, chapter ten, is unwilling to give up what he has for the sake of following the Lord. Joseph of Arimathea, Phoebe, and the other early followers of Jesus made available what they had in order to further the gospel’s advance. Along the way, they affirmed that they are willing to suffer loss of status in the world’s eyes in order, as well, as part of their walk with the Lord.

Essentially, what they possess doesn’t make them unable to move to meet the demands of God. They are willing to move into a new place physically, financially, and socially in order to make available to God everything that they possess. That’s the difference.

Now, we began with the notion of a “test”. And we said at the beginning of this sermon that we are faced with a test of just the sort that the man we read about today faced.

In my view, such tests don’t come once in our lifetimes, but again and again. These tests might even come daily, as we are asked, “What’s most important in your life?”

Put another way, the test asks us, “What are you willing to make available to God, in order to advance the cause of the Gospel in your life, and in the life of others?”

I would be remiss in my duty as a priest if I didn’t suggest some concrete ways that such tests confront us daily. Allow then, this brief list, which is designed to get your own process of reflection going. Here are some ways we might be tested, to see what our relationship to God is, versus our relationship to the things (wealth, possessions and status) that we possess:

- Allocation of time: Do we make it a high priority to be in church every Sunday, to attend some regular regimen of study (Sunday School, Bible Study, Informal Discussion Group, Third Tuesday Study Group), and to engage in regular Bible reading and devotions (Forward, Day-by-Day is an excellent devotional aid, e.g.)?

- Financial: Are we committed to the biblical tithe as the standard of giving for the advancement of the kingdom of God in this place? Or, is our allocation of money an afterthought? Do we figure out what we need in order to survive and thrive, then give God what’s left over? (If you are thinking that today’s gospel text would form the basis for an excellent stewardship sermon, you are right!)

- Social position and status: This one might be a little more difficult to figure out. One way we might understand the importance of our willingness to set this part of our place within the Church and society is by our willingness to become a servant of all (as we read a few Sundays ago in Mark 9:35, which says, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”) The test would come – especially for clergy in a church like ours - by the willingness that bishops, priests and deacons exhibit in their willingness to recognize that they are servants, in addition to being leaders. This test could come for any one of us in our willingness to sign clients up for the annual Christmas for the Needy food baskets in November, as many persons of the poorer and lower classes of our society enter our Parish Hall to interact with us.

“This is a test, this is really a test.” May God, by His gracious help, assist us to recognize the ways that God is asking us to give all that we have: wealth, possessions, time and status, to Him for the advancement of the Gospel in this and every age.

AMEN.