The Feast of Pentecost (Whitsunday), Year B

Acts 2: 1 - 21; Psalm 104: 35 – 35, 37; Romans 8: 22 - 27; John 15: 26 – 27; 16: 4 - 15

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, May 27, 2012.

“COME HOLY GHOST”

(Homily texts: Acts 2: 1 – 21 & Romans 8: 22 - 27)

When Deacon David Peters is ordained to the Sacred Order of Priests on Sunday, June 17^th, it’s very possible that we will sing this hymn (# 503 in the 1982 Hymnal):

Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire.

Thou the anointing Spirit art, who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.

Thy blessed unction from above is comfort, life and fire of love.

Enable with perpetual light the dullness of our blinded sight.

Keep far our foes, give peace at home: where thou art guide, no ill can come.

Teach us to know the Father, Son, and thee, of both, to be but One.

That through the ages all along, this may be our endless song:

Praise to thy eternal merit, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

At important junctures in our Christian life, we call on the Holy Spirit to come, to provide the light of God, the wisdom of God, the power of God, to enable us to live the life to which we have been called by virtue of having gone through the waters of baptism. For in baptism, we were buried with Christ in a death like His, to be raised to a new life in a resurrection like His (see Romans 6: 3 – 9, where St. Paul explains the meaning of baptism).

We name the Holy Spirit often as we worship. When a homily is about to begin, the preacher will often say something like “In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.” The Gloria Patri also names the Holy Spirit as being one of the parts of the Holy Trinity….”Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit…”

But though we spend a fair amount of time considering the nature of the Father, and the nature of the Son, oftentimes it seems as though the Holy Spirit doesn’t get the same amount of consideration.

Today’s reading from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles asks us to consider the work and the importance of the Holy Spirit. So let’s take a closer look at what happened when the body of believers was gathered together that day in Jerusalem on the great feast of Pentecost. For it is there that we gain a new understanding of the Spirit’s power and work.

The first thing we might notice is that when the group[1]was gathered together, the Holy Spirit’s arrival was marked with signs of power. Three are specifically mentioned: the rush of a mighty wind, something “like tongues of fire” rested on each one present, and each one present received the ability to speak in a language they had not previously known.

These three manifestations of the Spirit’s presence are worth examining:

1. The rush of a mighty wind: In Greek, the word for spirit is pneuma. It is the same root word which gives us the word “pneumatic” or “pneumonia”in English. It means “breath” or“wind”. One way we express the Spirit’s indwelling is with the word “inspiration”, which literally means “to breathe into”.

2. Tongues of fire: John the Baptist had said that Jesus would come, and would baptize with “the Holy Spirit, and with fire” (see Luke 3: 16). Fire has the ability to refine and purify. God’s presence was signified by fire at the burning bush (see Exodus 3: 1 – 6). God’s presence at Mount Sinai was also marked with the presence of fire (see Exodus 19: 18). Fire also has the power to cause things to happen. In this case, the presence of fire enables the group to speak in languages they would not have otherwise known.

3. Speaking in other tongues: In the New Testament, there are two forms of speaking in tongues.[2] One is ecstatic spiritual speech. This form of speaking in tongues was a particular problem in the Corinthian Church, for many there were using the ability to engage in ecstatic speech as a form of spiritual arrogance. But here, in Acts, the form of speech involved is in the form of being able to communicate the good news of God to foreigners. So this form of speech has as its purpose missionary activity, spreading the good news to others.

But what does the Pentecost event have to do with you and me? What is the importance of the coming of the Holy Spirit?

One observation comes from the demonstration of the power of the Spirit, and the audience which witnessed that demonstration of power. Perhaps I should be more specific: Luke tells us in the text before us today that those who witnessed the Pentecost event where “devout Jews from every nation under heaven.” As power is poured out on the believers, the far reaches of the world witness that power. The truth of God is proclaimed to people far and wide. The missionary activity of the Church, which is charged by the Lord Jesus Christ to be His witnesses “in Jerusalem, in Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1: 8) is mapped out by the Pentecost event.

Another observation is that the Spirit’s creative power enables each one to speak in a foreign language. Recall with me that one of the Spirit’s abilities is to create. At the beginning of creation, Genesis tells us that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters (see Genesis 1: 2). The gospel accounts also tell us that the Blessed Virgin Mary became pregnant with Jesus as the result of the creative power of the Spirit. Here in Acts, the Spirit’s creative power enables people to have gifts they would not have had otherwise.

Yet another observation is that the Spirit’s power descended on each one present. If we look back into the Old Testament, we can see that the Spirit’s power was available only to select persons…many of them were the ancient prophets. But the ordinary person wasn’t thought to have the Spirit of God’s enlightening and empowering presence. All that changes with the Pentecost event: Every believer has access to the Holy Spirit’s gifts and abilities.

When we were baptized, we were anointed with holy oil, and the words “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own for ever,” were spoken over us.

At baptism, the gift of the Holy Spirit is given, and the new Christian receives the power to discern Christ’s truth and Christ’s presence as their life unfolds. (This ability to discern is one reason why baptism is necessary in order to receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist, for, as St. Paul admonishes us, each one who receives the Sacrament of the Eucharist must discern the Body and Blood of the Lord[3].)

The Spirit’s power and His enlightening presence manifests itself in different ways, depending on the individual’s own gifts, with which the Spirit works to carry out God’s plan of spreading the good news of God in Christ. St. Paul makes this differentiation quite clear as he writes in I Corinthians chapter twelve.

But the truth is that the Spirit is given to each one, and no one is left out….the tongues of fire rested upon each one present, we read in Acts.

Since the Spirit is available to each believer, it is our job to recognize that the Spirit’s power is available to us, to claim that power and to cooperate with it. St. Paul makes that clear as he writes in Romans 8: 26 – 27, saying “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intecedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

One final comment is in order about the role of the Spirit and the importance of the Spirit’s work: Many times we believers concentrate on what we know about God, about the Bible, and about the Christian faith. What we Christians know is critically important. But what we know is not enough to allow us to be effective Christians. The Spirit’s power, inspiration and purifying influence allows us to grow into the full stature of Christ, and to be effective witnesses for Him. These properties of the Holy Spirit allow us to come into a fuller understanding of what God would have us know, in order to be able to proclaim the truth of God to the world around us.

“Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire.”

AMEN.

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[1] It isn’t clear from the text if the group that Luke – the author of Acts – refers to is the original disciples, or a larger group of 120 (mentioned in chapter one, verse 15).

[2] The technical term for speaking in tongues comes to us from the Greek, and it is glossalalia.

[3] See I Corinthians 11: 29.

7 Easter, Year B

Acts 1:15–17, 21-26; Psalm 1a; I John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, May 20, 2012.

“OFFERS”

(Homily text:  John 17: 6 - 19)

 Ever think about the number of different offers we receive?  Life is full of offers, which consist of the ads we see on television, on radio, or over the internet.  The newspapers are full of offers, that is to say, ads which generate the money needed to allow the paper to exist.  The mailbox here at Trinity is full of offers of all kinds:  offers to supply us with a new Sunday School curriculum, to handle all the church’s finances, to give us reduced rates for our young people to attend Holiday World in Indiana (I must admit, that last offer sounds pretty good, now that school is ending and we are beginning to think ahead about the summer’s activities).

The Christian faith that we have begins with an offer.  Jesus states the offer this way in John 3: 16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Let’s notice a few things about this verse:

1. The one offering the gift of the Son is God.
2. The offering is made to the world.
3. We have a choice to make, whether or not to receive the offer.

As I reflect on it, the meaning of points 1 and 3, above, are easily understood.  But I think we need to pause for a moment and ask “Just what does Jesus mean by the world ‘world’?”
In the Fourth Gospel, the “world” is those who are opposed to Jesus’ ministry and message.  Most biblical scholars agree on this point, and the text of the gospel as a whole confirms that the concept of the “world” is one of opposition to Jesus.  I think this meaning of the term is clear in our gospel text for today.

So, if we return to John 3: 16, we see that God is offering the Son to those who are opposed to the offer.

Turning now to our gospel reading for today, we should be reminded that Jesus is now in prayer to the Father.  Scholars give chapter 17 of John’s gospel account a title:  Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer.

As we look at the text, we notice at the beginning of the passage that Jesus is praying for the ones who have been given to Him by the Father, out of the world.  (Notice that the two groups:  Jesus’ disciples and the world, are distinct entities, for the disciples have been taken “out of the world”.)

So Jesus’ disciples are those who have accepted God’s offer of the Son, having been drawn in the first place by the Father.  The Father’s initiative in drawing the disciples is clear.

Now that these disciples have accepted the Father’s offer, they have some things to do, which we can see in the text.  Their job is to:

1. Remain united in Christ.  Jesus prays that His followers “will be one”, showing the unity that the Son has with the Father.
2. Keep the words that Jesus has given them from the Father.
3. Go out into the world, that place which is hostile to Jesus and to His words, and offer the message of love which comes from the Father.

Ever since those early days which Jesus walked among us and taught us all that He had received from the Father, nothing has changed in this basic formula.

We continue to look to Jesus, who is the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12: 2), for maintaining a connection to Jesus is the key to being able to remain united in witness to the world.  We show our unity with the Son and with the Father by keeping the commandments we have received (see I John 5: 3, which we read last week).  Keeping these commandments is the evidence of the love that the Father has for the Son, and which the Son has given to us.

As we have received God’s offer of the Son and of the Son’s love, we are to turn around and offer this wonderful gift to the world around us.  We are to offer this gift even to those who are opposed to all that Jesus said and did.

Today, little Addie Brinson will receive this gift as she is baptized.  As she enters the waters of baptism, she is buried with Christ in a death like his (see Romans 6: 5), and then is raised to a new and resurrected life with Him.  And as she grows up, aided by her parents and by her church family to come to know and love the Lord (for these are the promises that her parents, her Godparents, and the church family make), she will take her own place in offering this gift of love that Jesus gives her today to others.

Thanks be to God for the gift of His Son, a gift that is offered to the world even when the world is opposed to the giver and the gift, out of love for that very world. Thanks be to God for the grace to accept this wonderful gift of love, that we might have life, and have life in its fullness.

AMEN.

6 Easter, Year B

Acts 10: 44 - 48; Psalm 98; I John 5: 1 - 6; John 15: 9 - 17

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, May 13, 2012

“FOLDED INTO THE VERY HEART OF GOD’S LOVE”

(Homily text:  John 15: 9 - 17)

Let’s do some theological reflection about the nature of God, about the love of God, and about God’s love for each one of us.

We can begin by thinking about God’s nature.  We understand God to be the Three-in-One, the Holy Trinity (we will celebrate the mystery and wonder of God as the One God in Three Persons on Trinity Sunday, three weeks from now).  So, we say that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

When Jesus Christ came to earth, He explained quite a lot about the nature of God the Father.  For example, in John 10: 30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one.”  Those who heard Him that day recognized immediately that He claimed to be divine, united to the Father completely.  Furthermore, Jesus says that He has been sent by the Father, and His work is to do the will of the Father, and to make known all that the Father has told Him (see John 15: 15).

With regard to the Holy Spirit, Jesus explains that He will send the Spirit, so that the Spirit can lead His disciples into all truth (See John 16: 7).

Reflecting on the nature of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, theologians remind us that these three Persons are united in a perfect relationship of love.

And we are folded into this relationship of love, right into the very heart of God’s love.  We will explore that aspect of our relationship to God in a moment.

The second thing we might notice is that God reaches beyond Himself to reach out to us.  It would be easy to imagine the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit continuing to bask in the love that each one has for the other, with no thought of anything (or anyone) outside of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity itself.  But just the opposite is true:  God the Father sends the Son to us, for our welfare.  God reaches out, beyond Himself, into our sinful and broken world.   The Nicene Creed affirms the reason for the sending of the Son as it says, “For us, and for our salvation, He (Jesus Christ) came down from heaven.”

The Father sends the Son, carrying that divine love, and offering it to us.  Here this reality is affirmed in our gospel text for this morning….Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you….” (verse 9).  What the Lord asks of us is to abide in His love, to model the faithful love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father in the ways we keep His commandments. 

The sending of the Holy Spirit (John uses a word for the Holy Spirit which is often translated in the various versions of the Bible as the Advocate, the Paraclete, the Counselor) is part of the nature of God to reach beyond Himself toward us.  The Spirit comes from the Father and from the Son (as the Nicene Creed affirms) to u. The Son, who came from the Father, now sends the Spirit to us.

The third aspect of God’s nature that we should consider is that God is the one who takes action.  It is the Father who sends the Son.  We did not ask for the Son to come, the Father sent Him.  Now that the Son has come among us, He affirms this truth by telling us that “We did not choose Him, but He chose us….”

Theologians use various ways of describing this divine choosing:  One way of describing God’s ability to choose us is known as Prevenient Grace.  It might be good for us to unpack that term a little:

Prevenient:  Coming from a Latin root, this word literally means “something that comes before”

Grace:  God’s unearned favor towards us.

So Prevenient Grace is God’s favor towards us, which he shows to us even before we are aware of its presence and its power.

Jesus’ statement that “You did not choose me, but I chose you” shows us that God’s grace was at work before we were ever aware of it.  God’s will, God’s ability to choose, is at work.  God’s love is also at work in choosing us.

Now what does all this mean to us?  How can we understand these mysteries of God?

 Perhaps our own human relationships offer a way to find a way into the ways of God.  Here I have in mind our own mothers, whom we honor on Mother’s Day today, giving thanks for their gifts to us. 

For example, the highest ideals of being a mother involve loving us, even before we are born. 

The highest ideals of being a mother involve choosing to care for us and love us, even when we aren’t easy to be around or to love.

And, it is often through our mothers (and fathers) that we begin to understand what the world is all about.

In the same way, God chooses to love us.  We see this love of God most clearly in the sending of the Son, Jesus Christ. 

God chooses to reach out to us in the person of Jesus Christ, choosing us even when we don’t deserve God’s love, and might not be very righteous in God’s sight.

Jesus Christ is the “window” into the nature of God, for it is through the person and work of Jesus Christ that we come to understand the nature of God, and through a better understanding of God, we come to a better understanding of the world that God has made, and our place in that world.

Our task is to live in such a way that we mirror Jesus’ faithfulness to the Father, keeping the commandments He gave to us, to love God and one another.

AMEN.

           

5 Easter, Year B

Acts 8:26–40; Psalm 22:24–30; I John 4:7–21; John 15:1–8

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, May 6, 2012.

“CHANGE – INEVITABLE AND PRODUCTIVE”

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.”

Jesus’ words continue a long stream of “I am” statements which we find in John’s gospel account.  Nowhere else in the gospel writings do we find such a wonderful and distinctive collection of Jesus’ self-identifying remarks.  Recall with me that we heard in last week’s gospel reading Jesus’ statement, “I am the good shepherd.”

Now, today, we consider the relationship between Jesus Christ and the individual believer, illustrated with the familiar image of a vine and its various branches.

 (Jesus is drawing on a familiar image by using the vine and the branches….In Isaiah 5: 1 – 7 we read of the house of Israel being compared to a vine, a vine which, God hoped, would bear good grapes, but instead had produced only wild ones.  Perhaps many who heard Jesus’ words would have remembered Isaiah’s image.)

Jesus’ use of an agricultural image is common….often, He would tell parables about seeds, about different kinds of soil, about vineyards.

Though most of us are no longer farmers, Jesus’ image of the vine and the branches remains a good illustrator for us…we can easily identify with the relationship between a vine and its branches.

So, though the image of the vine and its branches is familiar, let’s explore the implications that this image carries with it, and come to some conclusions which might apply to our walk with God as we make our way.

Dependence on the vine:  The first thing we might notice is that the branches are totally dependent on the vine for nutrients and for support.  Without the vine to support the branches, the branches would be unable to orient their leaves toward the sun.  The process of photosynthesis would cease, and the branch would die.  Likewise, the nutrients that come up from the root system into the vine are what provide the branches with the raw material that they need to produce fruit.

In our walk with God, we are totally dependent upon the vine (Jesus Christ) for the ability to maintain our orientation toward the light (light is a dominant theme in John’s writings), and for the raw materials (which are Jesus’ words) that will produce good fruit. 

Put another way, what we need for our spiritual life is available only through Jesus Christ.  It is available nowhere else, and we are unable – on our own – to produce what we need in order to be fruitful.  Jesus is explicit in describing the exclusive relationship that He alone provides….in John 14: 6, we hear Him say, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me.”

A close relationship:  Ever try to figure out just where a branch ends and where the vine’s stem begins?  It’s a tough thing to try to figure out.  Here the image bears considering….remember Jesus’ words as He says, “Abide in me, and I in you.”  We hear this statement a number of times in our gospel reading this morning.  The image of the vine and the branches is a close one, so close, in fact, that it would be nearly impossible to distinguish between the two.

Notice that I said “nearly impossible”.  We are to do the things the Lord commanded, and we are commanded to love as He loved.  These things will mark us as true and fruitful branches of the vine, Jesus Christ.  In this, we do not become the Master, but we are like the Master (see Mathew 10: 24), doing the things He does, loving the way He loves.

 All branches are equal:  Ever notice that a vine has so many branches that all of them seem to be pretty much the same?  Of course, now and again a branch will shoot out a little further, or a branch here and there may be in a very prominent position, catching the eye easily.  But, in their function, the branches are all the same.  They are – every one of them – dependent on the one-on-one relationship that each one has with the stem of the vine.

This understanding of the relationship between branches and the vine is central to John’s understanding of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the individual believer…each individual person is to be solidly, closely connected to Christ.  Here there is no system of higher or lower status, no system of more or less important relationship with Christ.  There is no differentiation in status at all.  Raymond Brown, in the wonderful book entitled “The Churches the Apostles left Behind” makes this point clear about John’s conception of the makeup of the Church:  It is made up of each individual believer, who is connected directly to Jesus Christ, each branch being responsible for maintaining the close connection to the Lord that fruitfulness requires.

Change will happen!:  Notice what Jesus says about the branches:  Something happens to every one of them!  Either they are cut off from the vine because they haven’t produced fruit, or they are pruned in order to bear more fruit.

Change in our walk with God means change, pure and simple.  Something will happen to us once we’ve come into an encounter with Christ.  The Lord is the one who never leaves us where He finds us.  Changing the image a little, we can say that Jesus Christ will move us from where He finds us to a new place, one way or the other.

A closing comment is in order:  Jesus’ use of the vine and the branches means that we cannot produce fruit on our own.  In the day and time in which we live, this is an important fact to remember, for many believe that they can be “good” all on their own.[1]  This attitude manifests itself in an erroneous belief that could be stated this way:  “If only I try a little harder, I can be ‘good’.”    But the truth of the matter is that “goodness” can only take place once we are connected to Jesus Christ through faith in His holiness.  For once we come into a personal, saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we then receive Jesus Christ’s holiness.  We are grafted into the vine, the source of all godliness, and only then are we able to bear good fruit.

May we, through the energizing power of Jesus Christ, be intimately and solidly connected to Jesus Christ, the true vine.  May we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, accept God’s pruning, in order that we might bear more fruit. 

AMEN.

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[1]   The idea that we can be pleasing to God through our own efforts, without the holiness that Jesus Christ alone provides, was a key tenet of the ideas of the fourth and fifth century heretic Pelagius.  The spirit of the Pelagian heresy is widespread today.