Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Sunday of the Passion (Palm Sunday), Year C

"AWESOME, PREMEDIATED LOVE"
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 28, 2010.
Luke 19:29-40; Isaiah 45:21-25; Psalm 22:1-11; Philppians 2:5-11; Luke 22:39-23:49

Awesome, premeditated love.

That would be a very fine and apt description of the events of this Holy Week, events that most people (even nonbelievers) know very well.

So, rather than look at the details of the Lord’s Triumphal Entry on this Palm Sunday, or on the institution of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday, or the Lord’s Passion and death on Good Friday, or His victory over death on Easter Sunday morning, let’s look at this entire week from the perspective of divine love.

We do so from this unique perspective: The God who is all-knowing (omniscient), is also a God who is all-present from the perspective of time.

Or, as a friend of mine put it very well: The God who is everywhere is the God who is everywhen.

To understand this point a bit better, it’s important to remember that god dwells within time as we know it, but also outside of time as we know it.

Put another way, God – the creator of all that is – is also the creator of time, earthly time, or chronos (a Greek word) time.

But God, who knows all things, also therefore knows the ending of all things, the beginning of all things, and everything in between. God knows in advance the events that will transpire throughout the full sweep of history.

Sometimes, this timeless-time-of-God is described by another Greek word, kairos time.

Now, let’s return to the events of this Holy Week, and see them from God’s perspective, insofar as time and intent are concerned.

The first conclusion we might draw from God’s all-knowing nature is that He knew, from the very beginning of all time and eternity, what would happen in Jerusalem in advance of the great feast of the Passover that year.

God knew from the very beginning that the Jesus who came along side us as the babe in Bethlehem would also come to suffer and die at the hands of an angry mob and their wicked leaders, who bullied the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, into the execution of Jesus of Nazareth.

But God came among us, anyway.

God shows Himself to be a God who doesn’t shirk the “tough stuff.”

God shows Himself to be a God who is in the consistent habit of saving people.

Down through history, God intervened, time and again, to save the people He loved. He did it with the Ark in Noah’s day. He did it by sweeping aside the waters of the Red Sea so that the Israelites could pass through in Moses’ time. He did it again and again by sending the prophets to bring people back to God’s ways and God’s wisdom. Those prophets included Samuel, Elijah, Joel, Amos, and Hosea. They included Ezekiel and Daniel. And in the fullness of time, the line ended with John the Baptist.

And now, with the suffering and death of Jesus, God saves His people again, and for all time.

Fully immersing Himself in our human life and experience, God assumes our humanity in order to save humanity.

No depth is too low for Him to enter and to sanctify. At least that’s what I make of the line from our reading from Philippians, heard today. Hear it again, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.”

You see, death on a cross is the lowest point of earthly existence, for in such a death, one loses their pride, their dignity, their friends, their possessions, and eventually, even their life.

But it was to endure such a death that God sent His son. To endure such a death that God knew – fully well and in advance – would be the culmination of Jesus’ mission.

God doesn’t shirk the tough stuff.

He loves us enough to face death squarely, knowing in advance the nature of that death.

And He does so, out of awesome, premeditated love for you and me.

Thanks be to God.

AMEN.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

5 Lent, Year C

“WHOSE VINEYARD IS IT, ANYWAY?”
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois by Mr. Barney Bruce, Lay Worship Leader; Sunday, March 21, 2010
Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Romans 3:8-14; Luke 20:9-19

So, whose vineyard is it, anyway?

That’s the question before us this morning.

Jesus’ parable about the vineyard looks backward, and it looks forward. It looks backward as it applies to the long history of Israel’s treatment of the prophets in Old Testament times, and it looks forward to the treatment He will receive during Holy Week.

We would do well to take a careful look at this parable, for it looks backward and forward into our lives, as well.

As we often do, however, we should begin with a look at the setting for our gospel text today.

Jesus has now entered the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and has begun to teach in the Temple. As he does so, a series of debates take place between the Lord and the leaders of Judaism. Today’s encounter is but one of many face-to-face encounters that take place between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday.

Each encounter builds the hostility and heightens the drama. The drama will reach its climax on Good Friday.

Now, we turn to the parable itself.

Jesus begins by using an image which would have been well known to his listeners, the crowd which had been growing as He continued to teach in the Temple precincts. It is am image that Jesus’ opponents would have recognized immediately, as well.

It is the image of the vineyard. He begins by using the exact phrase that we read in Isaiah 5:2, “A man planted a vineyard.”

By using this phrase from Isaiah, word-for-word, Jesus has linked the parable to its application. For the image from Isaiah was traditionally applied to the nation of Israel.

There could be no mistaking Jesus’ intended target, none at all.

Indeed, if we look at the end of our passage today, we see that the Pharisees understood that Jesus had told this parable against them. They got the message, loud and clear!

What Jesus then sets out to do is to trace the long history of Israel and the prophets. Mistreated, scorned, abused, many of the prophets in Old Testament times were treated just this way.

In essence, Jesus is telling His audience, “You know, your history isn’t one to be proud of. In fact, it’s a pretty poor record of rejecting God’s messengers.”

But then, He goes on to say that this generation will do just as its ancestors did: they, too, will treat God’s messenger poorly. In fact, they will not only abuse the messenger, but they will kill him.

Just whose vineyard is it, anyway?

Jesus is trying to remind His audience (and us) just who the owner of the vineyard is. God is the owner. That’s the central point.

All of us who work in the vineyard are merely tenants, who’ve been hired to take care of God’s vineyard.

We said at the beginning of this sermon that today’s parable looks backward, and it looks forward. It traces Israel’s long history of the treatment of God’s messengers, the prophets, and it traces the history which will shortly be written, the treatment that Jesus will receive during Holy Week.

This parable also traces a sad and long history of behavior which says, “We own the vineyard!”

Whose vineyard is it, anyway, and just who is in charge?

Sadly, Jesus traces the history of God’s people. He reminds them that many of their ancestors behaved as though they were in charge, as though they owned the vineyard and its produce.

The question may be running through your mind: “What’s this got to do with us?”

Just this: We can fall into the same pattern of behavior that the people in Old Testament times did.

So, today’s parable can serve as a warning. “Don’t do what they did back then.”

Well then, if it’s true that this parable looks backward and looks forward, and if it applies not only to Jesus’ original hearers, but to us, then how can we avoid the mistakes that were made in the past? How can we avoid the pitfalls that we face, which are much like the pitfalls of ancient times?

Perhaps a clue might lie in Jesus’ parable, where He says, “A man planted a vineyard, and went away into another country for a long while….”

The allusion Jesus uses is of an absentee owner. We might characterize the attitude of the tenants this way: “The man has gone away, and no longer cares about the vineyard, or about us. Therefore, we can take charge.”

Oftentimes, we get into spiritual trouble when we think God isn’t listening, or looking. “We can do our own thing,” we are tempted to think.

The next temptation to come round in such circumstances is to rely on our own resources. After all, weren’t the tenants hired because they had good, useable skills which would keep the vineyard going?

And, weren’t the tenants hired because the owner thought that they were capable and trustworthy employees?

In such situations, these good qualities can work against us. After all, God has entrusted the care of the vineyard – in this case, the world around us – into our care. And haven’t we been charged with this ministry and mission precisely because God trusts us to be good stewards? And hasn’t God given us talents and abilities to carry out this important work?

Absolutely. We are capable, we are trustworthy, aren’t we?

So then, all of this becomes a matter of perspective, it seems to me.

And our perspective can be brought into line with God’s perspective by remembering that all that we do in this place, for God’s glory and the good of the people He loves, is because God owns the vineyard – the world – and we have been taken into His confidence and into His trust, to work in the vineyard as His trusted servants.

In the end, it’s all about God, and not about us.

AMEN.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

4 Lent, Year C

“A LESSON IN THE LAW AND IN GRACE”
A sermon by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 14, 2010
Joshua 4:19–24, 5:9–12; Psalm 34; II Corinthians 5:17–21; Luke 15:11–32

(In its delivered form, this sermon was given using a foot long ruler as a prop to exemplify God’s standards of holiness, and our response to those standards.)

We have before us today the very familiar parable, which is usually known as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son”.

But, if we look closely at the text, we notice that it could also be called the “Parable of the Faithful and Loving Father”, or perhaps the “Parable of the Proud, Older Son”.

In truth, all three characters are present in this parable, which is narrated to us only by Luke (following a string of gospel texts in recent weeks in which we hear accounts of Jesus’ ministry and teaching which are Luke’s alone to tell us).

Since this is such a familiar parable, let’s look at it from a different perspective, that of law and grace.

Jesus is telling us a truth about God (exemplified by the father in our parable), and about God’s dealings with us (seen through the actions and attitudes of the two sons).

So, we begin with this foot long ruler, which I am using as an illustration of the holiness and constancy of God, seen through the figure of the father in the parable.

We see an image of the father as being loving, as being generous, as being unshakable in his essential character and behavior.

Such an image as Jesus creates in the parable points toward the holiness, lovingkindness and faithfulness of God.

(Remember that a parable always points beyond its immediate images toward a spiritual or theological truth. Indeed, the very word “parable” comes from the Greek, where it means to “place something alongside”. So, in a parable, we have a common image, which is placed alongside a spiritual or theological truth, in order to illuminate the latter.)

Take this ruler as an example: The father’s characteristics are like this ruler, unchangeable in its dimension, constant in any circumstance. And so it is that Jesus paints a picture for us of the unchangeable nature of God the Father, whose love and generosity are as dependable as the measurement of this ruler.

But, it is the two sons who are the changeable ones in the narrative.

We begin with the more familiar, the prodigal son:

Here, we see that the younger son seems, at first, not to have any disregard for his father’s values. He simply wants to head off, and “do his own thing”. Only after the son has gone off to the foreign land, and has managed to squander his father’s legacy, do we see that the younger son has nearly no regard for his father’s values, love, or generosity. In the words of the older son, we learn that the younger son has squandered that legacy in cavorting with harlots. The father’s “rule of life” obviously has meant little to this younger son.

On the other hand, the older son holds the father’s values in high esteem. We hear him say to his father, “Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command…” (It’s worth noting that the older son not only claims to have met the standards, the full measure of them, but he claims to have met them for a very, very long time!)

Put another way, the older son is saying, “I’ve measured up, in every respect! I’ve earned my place and my rights!” The older son seems to be “tooting his own horn” (to use a phrase I used to hear my mother say oftentimes). “This is my effort, mine alone,” he seems to be saying.

Beyond the immediate focus of Jesus’ teaching lies a deeper meaning, a meaning which has everything to do with a new way of coming into relationship with God.

This new way of relating to God has everything to do with God’s standards of holiness, God’s standards of love, God’s standards of mercy. This new way of relating to God will be ushered in by Jesus Himself.

Seen against this backdrop, Jesus’ teaching has a lot to do with the immediate situation He encountered within the Judaism of His day.

An explanation is in order: The Judaism of Jesus’ day seemed to be squarely focused on meeting the holy standards of God. Of course, those standards were articulated in the Law of Moses (also know as the Torah). “Meet these standards, measure up in every respect, and you will be favored by God.” That seems to fairly summarize the attitude of many who lived in the Holy Land 2,000 years ago. The interactions that Jesus had with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Scribes and the Chief Priests seems to bear this impression out….Oftentimes, they claimed to be righteous in God’s sight because of something they themselves had done. “It’s our effort, ours alone,” they seem to say.

It bears repeating: “Something they had done.”

Sounds a whole lot like the older son in today’s parable, doesn’t it?

It seems as though Jesus is saying there’s going to be a new way to relate to God. In fact, like we said a moment ago, it will be a new way that He will bring into being.

This new way of relating to us human beings has two aspects: justification and sanctification. Before we proceed, however, we ought to define these two terms:

Justification: When we realize that we don’t measure up to God’s standards of holiness, and when we admit it, then God can receive us into an intimate, personal relationship with Him. God is able to do so by seeing to it that Jesus’ holiness makes up the distance between our diminished status and God’s standards. Put a slightly different way, when God looks at us, in essence He sees Jesus’ full measure of righteousness, which covers our lack of righteousness.

Sanctification: Once we enter into this relationship to God the Father through Jesus, His Son, then God can begin to work on us, to enable us to begin to grow into the full measure of God’s holiness, as seen in His Son. This is the process of becoming more and more the image of God, as we bear the image of Christ more fully, if we might modify our metaphor slightly.

So, let’s turn to the younger son, and see this new relationship which is about to come into being.

Here, we hear Jesus say that the younger son “came to himself.” And when he does, he begins to rehearse a speech which he intends to deliver to his father when he sees him. It begins, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you….” Put another way, and referring again to our prop, the ruler, in essence the younger son is saying, “I don’t measure up.”

Moreover, the younger son is also saying, “I’ve messed up so badly that I can’t measure up to your standards, not any more.” That must be why the younger son intends to ask to be taken back into the household, not as a son, but as a hired servant.

If that is the reality with this younger son, that he cannot, any longer, measure up to the father’s standards by virtue of the squandering of his father’s inheritance, then what makes it possible for the younger son to measure up?

The answer is: the father’s mercy.

The father’s mercy makes up the difference between the younger son’s lack of stature, when measured against the standard.

So, it is the father who does the work, not the son.

This is the process of justification at work. Repentance and a recognition that we cannot measure up to God’s standards serve as the beginning point for the process of justification to go forward.

That seems to be a central point that Jesus wants us to “get”. He also wanted the Judaism of His day to get it, too.

You see, oftentimes we think we can measure up to God’s standards, if only we would try a little harder, a little longer, just like the older son in today’s parable.

We think we can do it on our own.

This is not a new problem to Christianity: In the fourth and fifth centuries, a heresy known as Pelagianism maintained the same idea…. “You see,” they seemed to say, “You can pull yourselves up by your own spiritual bootstraps.” That seems to be a fair way to characterize the main point of the Pelagians (who were named for their founder, a priest named Pelagius).

The spirit of Pelagianism is alive-and-well today, too. We may be tempted to think that, if only we would try harder, and if we’ll do certain religious acts, and if we’ll keep the “do’s and the don’ts” in mind a little more, we’ll measure up.

But, the truth is: We have the same worm eating away at our spiritual insides as did the younger son in our parable. We will, when given the chance, delude ourselves into thinking that we can do it on our own. And when we do, failure will be the result. For, you see, if left to our own devices, we can easily fool ourselves into thinking that we don’t need anyone (let alone God) to help us measure up.

Here, we see the process of sanctification at work…the younger son, having admitted his shortcomings, is now restored to a full and intimate relationship with his father. From this point onward (we can safely suppose, I think – Jesus doesn’t explicitly say so in the parable), the younger son can live up to the father’s standards, for an ongoing relationship has now been re-established.

A word of caution is in order here: The process of sanctification holds God’s standards, God’s measure, in view at all times. We might be tempted to do what the younger son seems to have done: we might be tempted to lower the measuring stick (or ignore it altogether), so that we can believe that we do, indeed, measure up in every respect to being the person God wants us to be.

But God’s standards are unchangeable. His holiness is unchangeable, His love is unchangeable.

And it is in love that God the Father sent God the Son, not only to make up the difference for our spiritual and moral shortcomings, but to enable us, by His living within us, to grow into the full measure of God the Father’s holiness. So, it is Christ’s example of holiness, and Christ’s power, residing within us, that makes growth possible.

Today, we have a parable before us which has everything to do with God’s measure of holiness, God’s mercy in making up for our shortcomings, and God’s power in assisting us to meet the full measure of His expectations for us.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

3 Lent, Year C

“BAD NEWS….GOOD NEWS….GOOD NEWS”
A sermon by the Very Rev. Gene Tucker at Trinity, Mt. Vernon, and St. John's Centralia, on Sunday, March 7th, 2010
Exodus 3: 1 – 15; Psalm 103: 1 – 11; I Corinthians 10: 1 – 13; Luke 13: 1 – 9

Bad news….Good News….Good News.

Today’s Gospel text brings us bad news, good news and more good news.

At least that’s what I make of it as I consider what it might have meant to Jesus’ first hearers, that crowd who were following Him as they made their way to Jerusalem, and to His disciples, who were among the crowd, too. The text also brings us bad news, good news, and more good news.

So, let’s consider these three, in order:

Bad News: The bad news is that we are all going to die. Sooner or later, young or old, healthy or not, we are all going to die. So, as we look at today’s text, we see that death and destruction are present everywhere. Jesus begins with an account of a massacre (apparently) that was perpetrated by Pontius Pilate. (Notice, by the way, that this is the first mention of Pilate in any of the gospel accounts, and it prefigures the massacre of Jesus, not too many days hence.)

But the account then moves on as Jesus responds by reminding His listeners about the collapse of a tower in the southern part of the city of Jerusalem, near the Pool of Siloam, somewhere south of the Temple complex.

As a side note, it is worth mentioning that no other source tells us about either event. Neither the other three gospel accounts nor outside, secular texts, say anything about either event. Luke alone recounts the two occurrences. But we know from the first century Jewish historian Josephus that Pilate was a ruthless man, a governor who resorted to violence easily and quickly. So, it’s easy to believe that Pilate had ordered the massacre of a group of Galileans, much as he had done, Josephus tells us, with a group of Samaritans.

In both accounts, swift and sudden death are what bind the two accounts together. In the first, it is violent death which is a deliberate act, a massacre. In the second, it is sudden death which occurs either as the result of a construction accident, or by the structural failure of the tower.

In each case, the people who lost their lives were probably unable to repent of their past sins. Here, I think, we have the significance of Jesus’ mentioning of them: they are sudden events which make repentance difficult, if not impossible. I believe this analysis bears up as we turn to the next part of the text….

Good News: The good news is that we aren’t going to die right away (at least not anytime soon, hopefully). That seems to be the point of the very brief parable about a tree which hasn’t been productive in past seasons. Since it’s been unproductive, the owner of the vineyard comes to the vinedresser and tells him to cut down the tree (to cause its death, if we follow the image we began with), so that the space and the nutrients can be used by trees that will bear fruit. But the vinedresser begs for more time, saying that, with time, with cultivation, and with fertilizer, perhaps the tree will bear fruit next year. “Give it one more chance,” would be a good way to characterize the point of the story.

Now to Jesus’ hearers, the use of the image of a fig tree might have conjured up images which Old Testament texts use to describe the nation of Israel.

But beyond that context, the parable’s clear meaning stands: an extension of time has been granted, granted for the purpose of producing good fruit.

Death – spiritual death for those who hear and understand the parable - has not come immediately, but it will if fruit is not forthcoming.

Good News: The other good news is that Jesus’ hearers, and the readers of Luke’s gospel account, all live between a sudden death which makes repentance difficult, if not impossible, and the time in which repentance is demanded as fruit which is worthy of the kingdom of God.

We live in that same in-between timeframe: The time when it is impossible to repent, to change course, and that time when productiveness in life is expected.

It is this time period that Luke is deeply concerned with.

Luke is focused on the here-and-now. Or, as one of my seminary professors put it, “Luke seems to be asking the question, ‘What should the Church be doing if it is going to be in the world for awhile, should the Lord’s return be delayed?’ ”

Jesus’ point can be put this way: “Wake up! Sooner or later, you all will have to give account to God. The time to wake up, to repent, is now, before it is too late.”

If this analysis is correct, then what might the importance of Jesus’ meaning be to us?

For your reflection, here are a few suggestions:

Role reversal: Inherent in the two examples we hear in today’s text is the issue of “role reversals”. As we said earlier, in the sudden, violent deaths we hear about first today there is the absence of the ability to reverse one’s life course. Death comes suddenly, it comes violently. There is no time to make amends for one’s life up to that point. Producing fruit is impossible, if we want to put it in terms that the parable which follows uses.

But, with an extension of time, the fruitless fig tree is given every opportunity (by the provision of fertilizer and care) to produce fruit. In other words, reversing the course of the tree’s life up to that point is the reason for the extension of time which is given.

Repentance: Repentance involves, at its basic level, a reversal of course. The Greek word which is often used to describe such repentance is metanoia, which literally means “to turn around, to go the other way.” Only by reversing the course of our life, can we accept the care and the feeding that God alone provides, which make the production of fruit possible.

Being able to produce good fruit: We are called into the ministry that Jesus undertook. That is the fruit we are called upon to produce. This is the essential role of being a disciple: to learn what the master has done, and then to be able to imitate the teachings and to teach others to do so, also.

So what might those essential teachings and actions involve? To understand Jesus’ essential teachings and actions from Luke’s perspective, we must turn to Luke 4: 16 – 19, in which Jesus makes His first public in the synagogue in Nazareth. There, Luke records Jesus’ reading of Isaiah’s words, which contain the following important points:
  • The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to:

  • Preach good news to the poor,

  • To proclaim release to the captives,

  • To set at liberty those who are oppressed,


  • To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

Now, look at these points. Do you see the role reversals in them?: Good news to the poor, release to the captives, liberty for those who are oppressed.

This is what Jesus set about to do. To those who were poor, He offered hope of a better life. To those who were captive by virtue of their sins, who were oppressed by the forces of evil, He offered freedom and release.

The freedom and release that the Lord offers allow fruitful living, following the Lord’s example.

All of this is done within the context of the life that is lived today. We can’t emphasize the point enough: That’s Luke’s concern, the here-and-the-now.

Luke is urging us to heed Jesus’ warning, to forsake our sins, and our spiritual barrenness.

Luke is urging us to recognize that we have time to reverse course.

Luke is urging us to accept the tender loving care and spiritual food that the Lord provides, that we might become fruit-bearing citizens of the kingdom of God.

“Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold, now is the day of salvation.” (II Corinthians 6: 2)