5 Lent, Year B

Jeremiah 31: 31 - 34;  Psalm 51: 1 - 13; Hebrews 5: 5 - 10; John 12: 20 - 33

A homily by:   Fr. Gene Tucker

Given at:         Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday,  March 25, 2012

“OFFERS”

(Homily text:  John 12: 20 - 33)

Ever think about the number of offers that are made to us every day?

All the advertising we see or read is, in essence, an offer of some sort….an offer to buy something, try a new product, hire someone to provide a service for us, and so forth.

With each offer that comes our way, we have to make a choice:  we can accept the offer (hire the company, buy the product, etc.), or we can say, “No, thanks.”

Part of our acceptance or rejection of the offer has to do with the worth or value of the product or service being offered.  For example, this morning, I have three envelopes with me which were received in the mail recently.  One is for a lawn service, and was addressed to the former owners of our house (or to the “current resident”).  So immediately, I know that – for one thing – the lawn service company hasn’t updated its records, so perhaps this is a “mass mailing”, and therefore, less valuable.  For another, the envelope didn’t carry first class postage, another clue that it might not be a very valuable offer.  But on the other hand, the return address shows that this offer came from a very reliable and reputable company.  So if I were to analyze the worth or value of this offer, I’d have to take all of those factors into consideration.  After I’d done that, then I’d have to decide if the offer is something that I need, or, put another way, I’d have to ask, “Is this service something that is valuable to me?”

Though we may not be aware of it, we go through this process many times each day, when we are in the store, when we are sifting through the day’s mail, when we drive down the road and see signs and billboards.

Today’s gospel reading presents us with an offer:  Jesus offers us Himself.

He says, “Unless a grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12: 24)

Of course, reading on a little farther, we see that He is referring to His own death, which will take place shortly.  Describing that death, He says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.”  The gospel writer makes it clear that Jesus is referring to the manner of His death (see verses 32 – 33)

Jesus’ offer is the offering of Himself upon the cross.  His own self-offering makes possible “much fruit”, which, in John’s gospel account often represents the life of the body of believers who will come to have new and eternal life as a result of His sacrifice.

Jesus uses a common agricultural metaphor here, and it reminds us of some of His other teachings which use such commonly known examples from daily life in ancient times.  We could think of the Parable of the Mustard Seed, to cite but one example (see Mark 4: 30 – 32).  There, Jesus compares the growth of the body of people who will come to believe in Him to a single, small mustard seed, which, when planted, brings forth a large shrub.

We are asked to evaluate Jesus’ offer.

The usual questions arise, just as they do with any offer that might come our way:

• Is this offer something valuable?
• Is the source of the offering reliable?
• Is this offer something that I need?

“Is Jesus’ offer valuable?”  The answer is, “Yes, it is.”  For if Jesus’ assurance that the one who “loses his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” is true then the gift of eternal life is the most valuable thing we can take possession of.  Jesus adds to the value of His offer, however, by assuring us that, “where He is, we shall be also.”

Moreover, Jesus tells us that His death is a victory over the “ruler of this world”, that is, the evil one and all the powers associated with the evil one.

So, Jesus’ offer is quite valuable, offering us eternal life, union with Him and with the Father, and a chance to be on the winning side of the battle between God and the forces of evil.

 “Is Jesus a reliable source?” The old saying maintains that “Talk is cheap.”  Anyone can make claims, even outrageous ones.  But to assess the reliability of the claims that Jesus makes here, we would have to have some proof that what He says is backed up by some action(s) that would assure us that He is who He says He is, that He is “one with the Father”, that He has the power over death and evil.

Where is that proof?  Actually, Jesus provides a hint of it in his illustration of the seed which falls to the ground…He says that, when the seed falls into the earth, it dies, but it gives birth to new life in the form of the plant which will arise and bear much fruit.  The proof is the resurrection, which will take place on Easter Sunday morning.

It is the fact of Jesus’ resurrection which assures us of Jesus’ identity, His power, and His ability to conquer death.  All of the miracles that He did, which were signs of His divine power, now make sense in this, His ultimate miracle and sign, the resurrection.

Finally, then, we must ask, “Do we need this?”

Absolutely, we do….we need the new and eternal life that Jesus offers.  For it is sure that we cannot save ourselves, we cannot lift ourselves up from the bonds of sin which separate us from God’s holiness and break down the barrier of sin which prevents us from being with God the Father.  We need to claim the power of Jesus’ resurrection as our guarantee of new life with Him and with the Father.

 So, how about it?

Perhaps we ought to do some introspection as Holy Week approaches.  Could we assess Jesus’ offer and our response to it, asking the three questions we began with earlier on?

• Have I assessed the real value of Jesus’ offer of eternal life?
• Do I believe that His promises are reliable?
• Do I need that new and never-ending life that He offers to everyone who comes to Him in faith?

May the Holy Spirit assist us, as we assess our response to Jesus’ offering, the offering of Himself in love for us.  May that same Holy Spirit strengthen us to make a full and complete acceptance of Jesus’ offer, perhaps for the very first time.

AMEN.

4 Lent, Year B

On this day, Fr. David Peters preached at Trinity, Mt. Vernon.

Lent 3, Year B

Exodus 20: 1 - 17; Psalm 19; I Corinthians 1: 18 - 25; John 2: 13 - 22

A homily by:   Fr. Gene Tucker

Given at:         Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday, March 11, 2012

 “THE BATTLE OF ALL TIME” 

            Imagine if Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple were described as a boxing match: 

            Can’t you hear the announcer welcome everyone with a description something like this?

            Announcer:  “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the “Battle of all Time”.  Today’s match brings together two of most mismatched contestants it’s been our pleasure to present to you in a very long time.  In this corner, representing the heavyweight class, is the Temple Team of Jerusalem.  Imposing, authoritarian, the Temple Team’s long reign and championship status make them a formidable opponent.  In the opposite corner, our challenger is an unknown, Jesus of Nazareth.  In all truth, folks, we’d have to describe him as foolish to even enter the ring with the Temple Team.  So will this be a ‘slam dunk’ for the Temple team, or will it be the ‘Upset of all Time’?”

            Well, this may constitute a unique way to look at the battle which was joined on that day when Jesus made a whip out of cords and drove out the moneychangers and their animals from the Temple complex. 

            But a battle it was, and is.

            The battle’s goal is none other than to establish a new spiritual order.  But more on that in a moment. 

            Before we consider the causes that have brought these two combatants into the arena of the Temple courtyard, we ought to consider a few details about the cleansing incident.  Noteworthy are the following:

            1.  All four gospel accounts record this incident.  Matthew, Mark and Luke all place it during the time of the Passover season, but place it during the last week of Jesus’ earthly life.  John places it at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, right after the miracle at the wedding in Cana, where He changed water into wine. 

            2.  Given the differences in placement within the gospel accounts, is it possible that there were two cleansings of the Temple?  Most scholars don’t think so.  But it is possible that Jesus did drive out the moneychangers and their animals early in His ministry (as John relates), only to escape the Temple guards (after all, He’d escaped from crowds and from His adversaries on other occasions), and then to have come near the end of His life, doing it all over again.  If there were two such instances, perhaps the priests in the Temple had remembered the first incident, and decided that they’d had enough of this troublemaker from Galilee when the second incident took place.  We won’t know the answer to this question this side of heaven.  But, I think, it’s worth keeping in mind as we wonder why there are varying placements within the timing of Jesus’ ministry for this incident.

            3.  Some questions arise with regard to John’s placement of this account:

                        a.  Was John deliberately ignoring the chronological framework of Jesus’ earthly ministry by recording this incident at the beginning of His ministry?  It certainly is a plausible conclusion, since none of the gospel writers have as their goal the writing of a chronological history of Jesus’ life.  All of them are much more interested in making theological points as they pen out the written accounts they have left for us.[1]

 
                        b.  If the author of the Fourth Gospel is making a theological point, then what might that point be?  Why is the account of the cleansing of the Temple placed at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and not near the end?

             Now, let’s pick up this last point and work with it a little….Is John making a theological point?

            Personally, I think he is.  I am not alone in my conviction, for some biblical commentators think so, too.

            Let’s explore this just a little…..

             John’s gospel account is full of oppositions….It is often Jesus vs. the Jews.  In fact, in John’s account, the phrase “the Jews” most often refers not to the Jewish people of Jesus’ day, but to the ruling elite:  the High Priests, the priestly caste, the Temple complex and all that it stood for, and the Pharisees.

            So, here we have a battle engaged…the arena is the Temple complex itself.  The “Temple Team” is on their own home turf, and Jesus is the little-known challenger from Galilee (which was the “other side of the tracks” in Jesus’ day).

            The home team, the Temple Team, is engaging in a brisk business….

 
            1.  They have the corner on ritual sacrifice, for they offer  the only place where animal sacrifices may take place, the Temple.

             2.  They control the exchange of money from Roman and Greek coinage into a special Temple currency.  This is necessary because the pagan currencies bear graven images of people like Caesar.  The Temple team controls the rate of exchange, and also the price paid for animals.  It is the perfect “religious monopoly”.

            In doing this, what the Temple team has done is to turn a good thing into a self-serving thing:  Offering animals for sale to the many pilgrims who had come a long way to be present for the Passover is a good thing, for many of these pilgrims would have found it difficult, most likely, to bring an animal along with them.  But this good thing has turned into self-serving greed.  It has ceased to be about God, and has come to be about money and power.

            Hmmm….sounds like this might be a good description of sin, turning a good thing into a perverted purpose or use. 

             (Remember this point, and we’ll come back to it shortly.)

            It is this perversion of a good thing which is supposed to be about God into a self-serving, profit-driven enterprise that (most likely) makes Jesus angry.  In some of the gospel accounts, He says that the moneychangers have turned God’s house into a “den of robbers”.

             And so, the battle is joined as Jesus takes up His weapon, the whip of cords[2] and drives out the moneychangers, their money, and their merchandise.  But the Temple Team doesn’t take this lying down…they ask, “What sign have you to show us for doing this?”

            Of course.

            The request for a sign is somewhat akin to a boxer who says to his opponent, “What right do you have to take my team on?”

             Jesus responds, but in a way that isn’t obvious at the time (it will be after His death and resurrection)….He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up.”

            Being the literalists that they are, His opponents respond by saying, “It has taken forty six years to build this Temple, and will you raise it in three days?”[3]

            Here we face an irony:  By the time the early Christians were reading John’s gospel account, the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed, and it was no more.  But the Temple of Jesus’ body had survived the crucifixion, and was alive, unbound by the limitations of time and space.

            Considering the reality of the Temple’s destruction and Jesus’ ongoing, resurrected life, who then is the heavyweight, and who is the lightweight?

            Indeed, a battle was engaged that day in the Temple precincts.

 

            The old religious order was passing away, and a new one was being instituted.

            The old order said that you had to worship on the Temple mount, pay the Temple fees, and be a part of a corrupt system.

            But the new order won’t depend on holy mountains and temples made with hands.  Jesus makes clear what the new order will look like when He spoke with the woman at the well in Samaria.  He said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain[4] nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father….But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him.”[5]

             And so, Jesus’ challenge comes to us, day by day.  His challenge is to our own religious “edifice complexes”, those structures of behavior and belief that bend our focus away from God and onto ourselves.  In the process, we tend to misuse good things, and pervert them into bad things.  As we said a moment ago, that is a classic definition of sin.

            The “Battle of all Time” continues, and the arena in which it is being played out is in our hearts and minds.

            Jesus’ words still ring in our hearts, “Take these things away.”

AMEN.

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[1]   We have historical proof that the gospel writers didn’t follow the chronological order of Jesus’ life:  Papias (an early church historian), relates that the source of Mark’s account was the recollections of St. Peter, who told him what he could remember about the Lord, “though not in order”.

[2]   By the way, John is the only one to mention the whip that Jesus made that day.

[3]   Here we might pause for a moment.  The first century historian, Josephus, tells us that King Herod the Great began construction on the Temple in the year 19 BC.  Calculating forward and taking the statement of the Jews at face value, we can surmise that this conversation took place in the year 27 AD or so.  The Temple itself was far from complete.  Its construction would go on for nearly 40 years more. 

[4]  Mt. Gerizim, which was the holy site for the ancient Samaritans.

[5]   John 4: 21, 23

Lent 2, Year B

Genesis 17: 1 – 7, 15 - 16; Psalm 22: 22 - 30; Romans 4: 18 - 25; Mark 8: 31 - 38

A homily by:   Fr. Gene Tucker

Given at:         Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Sunday,  March 4, 2012

“SELF-EMPTYING LORD”

            We begin this morning with a wonderful collect from the Book of Common Prayer:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.[1]

            One of the most beautiful prayers (among many to be found in the Prayer Book), this collect might – if we are willing to take a close look at it, prompt us to think it has oxymorons in it.  Specifically, we might notice these seemingly incongruous words being equated with Jesus’ suffering and our walking in the way of the cross with Him:

                        The way of the cross                           Our way of life  

                        Suffered pain                                      Life
                        Was crucified                                      Peace

            These words don’t go together, do they?  Not at all!  Or, at least from a human point-of-view, they don’t seem to go together.

            Dying on a cross involves the following:

                        Pain

                        Loss of everything (friends, family, possessions, clothing, dignity, etc.)
                        Shame
                        Slow death
 
            How can these things go together?  How is the cross the way of life, the way of peace?

            The answer is in the Greek word KENOSIS.

            “Kenosis” is the word which asks us to remember that Jesus Christ emptied Himself in order to bring us salvation.

            Let’s explore the concept of “kenosis” a little:

            The first self-emptying that we see in Jesus Christ is His coming to us as one of us.  That is to say, as a human being.  Jesus Christ takes on our full humanity, and subjects Himself to everything that a human being experiences….joy, sadness, exhilaration, rejection, loss, sorrow, etc.  In doing this, Jesus Christ lays aside the glory that He had with the Father beforehand.

            St. Paul explains Jesus Christ’s self-emptying in his letter to the Philippians (2: 5 – 8), which reads, as he explains this setting-aside process:

                       Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who,

                       though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing
                       to be grasped, but emptied[2] himself, taking the form of a servant, being born
                       in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself
                       and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

            Paul’s mention of the cross in this passage leads us to the second self-emptying, which  takes place on Good Friday as He goes to the cross.  There, the loss of all things is visible for all to see.  The shame, loss and pain of crucifixion mark the Lord’s complete and total self-emptying.  The self-emptying process involves the loss of His life, as well.

            The self-emptying qualities we see in Jesus Christ lead us to make an observation about God:

                         God moves beyond Himself, reaching out to human beings.

            It would be easy for God to simply “mind His own business”, and to be concerned only with “God things”, I guess.

            After all, the world as it existed when Jesus Christ came into it (and as it exists today) is a pretty rough-and-tumble place, a place which is far from the perfection that God had in mind when He created it.  It would be easy for God to simply walk away from the world and those who live in it, and let the world go on in its own destructive ways.

            Of course, that was the view of God that the deists held.  A popular belief about God in the 18^th century, Deists believed that God had, indeed, created the world and all that is in it, but then God walked away and allowed the world to proceed on its own.  A common way of describing God’s creation of the world and His continuing role – or lack of role – in it was to say that it was as if God had made an alarm clock, then wound it up, and allowed it to tick away, all on its own, so long as the spring had tension in it.

            But the experience we have in Jesus Christ tells us that just the opposite is true:  God loves the world, and wants to offer the world His grace, mercy and peace.

            Perhaps we ought to define the word grace.  (I think we use words and terms at times without making sure we know what they actually mean.)  Grace (as it has to do with God) is defined in the dictionary this way:

            1.  God’s favor and goodwill; 2.  God’s mercy, clemency, and pardon;  3.  The freely given, unmerited favor and love of God; 4.  The influence of spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate and strengthen them; 5.  A virtue or excellence of divine origin.

            We see these qualities in Jesus Christ.

            He came, bringing with Him God’s goodwill, God’s favor.

            He came, bringing God’s mercy and pardon.

            He came, showing God’s unmerited favor and God’s love.

            And He comes, not only in ages past, but today, seeking to make us a new creation, giving us the strength to lead holy lives which are “living sacrifices”[3] to the Lord.

            So as we hear Jesus say in our gospel text for today, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

            Taking up the cross is a form of sacrifice.  As Jesus made the sacrifice of Himself on the cross, so are we to do the same, making our lives as “living sacrifices” to the Lord.  And as we make sacrifices of ourselves in God’s service, we, too, empty ourselves in service to God and to others.

            And with this observation, we close:  The self-emptying process begins at baptism.  After all, baptism is a sort of death (see Romans 6: 3 – 9), in which we enter the waters with Christ, dying to our old natures and rising to the newness of life that the Lord offers.  And as we do so, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our hearts, strengthening us, leading us, enabling us to show the love which has been given to us by the Lord to others.  In this way, we follow Christ as our model, for He Himself came, “not to be served, but to serve others, and to make His life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 28).

            As we follow the Lord, walking the way of the cross, the Lord assures us of a truth which seems like another oxymoron:  If we lose our lives (figuratively, and perhaps, literally) for Jesus Christ’s sake and the gospel’s, we will save it.

AMEN.

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[1]   Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page 56.  This is the Collect for Friday from Morning Prayer.

[2]   The Greek word here is a form of the word kenosis.

[3]   St. Paul, writing in Romans 12: 1, uses this phrase to describe the Christian life.