The Eve of the Nativity (Christmas Eve), Year A (2016)

Isaiah 9: 2–7; Psalm 96; Titus 2: 11–14; Luke 2: 1–20

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Saturday, December 24, 2016.

“JOY, GLADNESS OR HAPPINESS?”

(Homily text:  Luke 2: 1–20)

With Christians around the world this Christmas season, we will sing this familiar carol this evening:

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come.”

Our Gospel text for this evening also contains the word joy: “In that region, there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah….” (Luke 2: 8 – 11)

If we do a word search of the Bible, we will find entries for three words which seem to be related:  happy (happiness), gladness and joy. Using a good concordance to see how the original Hebrew and Greek words are translated into English, we find that there are about twice as many entries for joy as there are for happiness and gladness.

And if we consult a good dictionary, we will find that the definitions for happiness, gladness and joy each seem to use the other two words to define the third word, at least in part.  (I can’t resist saying that though such a practice might shed some light on the meaning of each word, there might be limitations when the words are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the meaning of the others.)

Checking the definitions of these three words, there seems to be a progression in meaning for the three. My own personal assessment goes something like this:

Happiness:  Seems to be connected to a specific event. For example, if a child we know gets good grades on a report card, that is cause for happiness. The specific report card is the reason to be happy.

Gladness:  Seems to be a longer-range sense of overall happiness, contentment and satisfaction. For example, if this same child brings home more than one good report card, the adults in that child’s life would tend to have a sense of  gladness about the child’s continuing success in school.

Joy:  Seems to be an enduring reality, a long-range reality. Joy eems to be a quality of life. Indeed, one of the Bible dictionaries in my library defines joy in just such a way, where the Scriptures are concerned. Using the example of the child with the good grades and the good report card as an illustration, if the child continues to do well in school, year after year, and continues to grow into being a wonderful person, then that is cause for joy, great joy.

Returning to the idea of joy as it is related to the Lord’s birth, or – in the words of the angel – “good news of great joy”, cause for joy seems to be related directly to God’s continuing presence with His people.

Here we come to the essence of the Christmas message: That God cared enough to send His very self, His only-begotten Son, Jesus, to take upon Himself our humanity. That God chose to come among us in circumstances that were filled with the darkness of oppression by the Roman occupation of the Holy Land, and by the hardships and trials that filled people’s lives 2,000 years ago – we must remember that life in the time that the Lord came along us was a time with very little reason to hope for a better time in the future – God’s gift of Jesus gave God’s people hope for the future, the assurance that God had not abandoned those He had chosen to be His own.

And so the light of God came into the darkness of the world. It came when the Lord was born in the manger in Bethlehem. That light continues to come into the world in the darkness of the age and time in which we live, for – as we read in John’s gospel account: “The light (of Jesus Christ) shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1: 5)

For those who have seen the light of God, made known in Jesus Christ, that abiding and enduring light creates a new and enduring quality to life, a quality which is marked by joy. For joy is a far deeper reality than happiness. Joy is able to outlast and overcome the ups and downs of everyday living. Joy allows us to endure with God, knowing ourselves to be united to God through Jesus Christ, a relationship that will outlast this earthly life, and will endure into eternity.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

Advent 4, Year A (2016)

Isaiah 7: 10–16; Psalm 80: 1–7, 16–18; Romans 1: 1–7; Matthew 1: 18–25

This is homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 18, 2016.

“DOING GREAT AND BIG THINGS IN A SMALL AND INSIGNIFICANT WAY”

(Homily text:  Matthew 1: 18–25)

     “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!

     So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.

     No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,

     Where meek hearts will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.”

Though the Christmas season isn’t quite upon us yet (it’s still Advent until the Eve of the Nativity – Christmas Eve), those very familiar words, verse three from the carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem”,[1] form a wonderful entry into our gospel text this morning.

Perhaps nearly every one of us could recite the passage we hear from Matthew 1: 18–25 this morning. Some of us could recite the words verbatim (some even in the traditional language of the Authorized - King James - Version!), while many of us could get the basic facts and the flow of the story right.

Despite the reality that Matthew’s text is so familiar, nonetheless, it’s possible that the human drama - and God’s place in that drama - might get lost….I tend to believe that, oftentimes, passages from the Bible tend to “flatten out”. That is to say, the fact that the people who are named in various biblical passages were very real, very human persons, persons who share - with us - the same concerns, passions, challenges and decisions we are faced with in our life’s journey might escape our notice.

So, if we can adopt a fresh perspective concerning the events surrounding Jesus’ coming, let’s approach the circumstances that Joseph and Mary were faced with as Jesus’ arrival drew near, always keeping in mind God’s great plan and purpose, and Mary and Joseph’s role in that purpose and plan. Matthew’s intent is to relate to us the ways in which God broke into human history. In so doing, He was doing great, big things, but, in some respects, in a small and insignificant way.

We should begin with the small, the insignificant, and the commonplace of the people and the places of God’s choosing as He sent His Son to be “Emmanuel”, that is, “God with us”.

Let’s begin by noticing the things that we know about Joseph, Mary, the place of their residence, and the place of Jesus’ birth. (In so doing, we’ll rely on the things we know about Joseph as they are recorded in various places in the gospel accounts.)

Joseph was what we might call today a “blue collar” laborer, either a stone mason or a carpenter. (The Greek word used to describe his profession can be translated either way.)

Though we don’t know for certain, it’s possible that Mary was from the lower economic and social class, and was – quite likely – very young, as well (some think she was in her early teen years at the time of the Angel Gabriel’s visitation).

That Joseph (and Mary) were not persons of extraordinary means can be seen from the offering that was made in the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus was presented there….they made an offering of two turtle doves or two pigeons, which the Law of Moses prescribed as an acceptable offering for those who could not afford an offering of a larger animal. (See Luke 2: 22–24.)

Nazareth was the place from which Joseph and Mary made their way to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born. But, apparently, neither Nazareth nor Bethlehem amounted to much in the estimation of many of God’s people in that day and time. In John 1: 46, the question is asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” It’s possible that Bethlehem didn’t rank much higher in the list of towns in Judah, either.

And yet, God chose these two persons to be the avenue by which He entered the human drama, ordinary people living in ordinary places.

Notice what Matthew tells us:  Joseph is told in a dream that the child who shall be born is to “save his people from their sins”, prefacing this statement by telling Joseph that the child is no ordinary child, for the child has been conceived by the agency of the Holy Spirit. As part of God’s great plan, the child will be called “Emmanuel” (meaning “God with us”), which is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 7: 14.

As a result of God’s intervention, human history is forever changed, and we – along with all believers down through time – benefit from God’s grace and goodness.

The pattern we see in God’s activity with Joseph and Mary provides us with a clue about the ways in which God often works to bring about great, big and eternal results in the lives of human beings….many times, God works quietly, slowly and imperceptibly to bring good to those who love Him.

As we look at our own expectations about God’s ways, how often do we expect or ask God to do something “really big”? Do we expect God to wave His hand to bring about the things we want or need? Perhaps that is – in truth – our expectation.

But quite often, God doesn’t work that way. God often works with common, ordinary human beings, human beings who are willing to be faithful to God’s leading. As much as we might want God to do something big, wonderful and dramatic, in truth, much of the time, God chooses to do dramatic things in very quiet, often unnoticed, ways.  And God makes us part of the plan He has to do His will in the world.

AMEN.

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[1]  The author of the words to “O Little Town of Bethlehem” was Phillips Brooks, (1835 – 1893), who was the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts.

Advent 3, Year A (2016)

Isaiah 35: 1–10; Psalm 146: 4–9; James 5: 7–10; Matthew 11: 2–11

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s, Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 11, 2016.

“SACRAMENTAL MINISTRY, SACRAMENTAL LIVING”

(Homily text:  Matthew 11: 2–11)

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” John the Baptist asks in our gospel text appointed for this day.

(If we recall last week’s gospel text, John’s question might seem unusual. Last week, John exclaimed that “One who is more powerful than I is coming. I am not worthy to carry his sandals.” John’s question, posed near the end of his life, seems designed to be absolutely sure about Jesus’ identity.)

In answer to John’s question, normally, we might expect Jesus to answer by saying, “Yes, I am the Messiah, the Christ, the promised one of God.” But, instead, Jesus gives a very oblique answer, one that puts the decision-making task on the one who asked the question: “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” Jesus then gives a summary of the things He has been doing since His ministry began to unfold back in chapter five of Matthew’s gospel account: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

The evidence Jesus gives for His identity lies not only in the things He has been saying, but in the things He is doing.

If we look at Jesus’ work, we can say that His ministry is marked by:

• Outward actions

-which are-

• Evidence of an unseen reality.

If the definition of a Sacrament is:

• An outward and visible sign

-of an-

• Inward and spiritual grace,

Then Jesus’ ministry fits the definition of a Sacrament. Jesus’ identity, as we said a moment ago, is confirmed by the things that He is doing, things which can be accomplished only by the power of God.

That power is the power to create, and to recreate.

At this point, it would be good for us to pause for a moment and do some theological reflection.

We begin that reflection by backing up to the Book of Genesis, and specifically to the account of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. (The account is found in Genesis 3: 1–19.)

When the intimate, face-to-face relationship that Adam and Eve had with God in the Garden of Eden was destroyed by their disobedience in eating of the fruit of the tree that God had placed off-limits, the result was that the condition of all humankind changed for the worse: Not only were human beings estranged from God, but from the time of their expulsion forward, Adam and Eve and their offspring (all of us) became subject to death. We became susceptible to disease, and we became separated not only from God, but from one another.

Jesus’ coming begins to unravel these destructive results: He heals the sick, He conquers death, He removes the stigma of sin that surrounded those who were ill in the culture of 2,000 years ago, welcoming them back into fellowship with God and with others.

In short, the power at work in Jesus is the power of God to create life anew, and to heal the divisions that resulted from the wrongdoing that took place in the Garden.

Jesus’ ministry is marked by the acts which He did, and not just by the things He said. Sacramental ministry, in other words.

The power at work in Jesus has the ability to create. The power at work in Jesus has the power to recreate. The power at work in Jesus has the power to break down the walls that separate us from God and from one another.

Jesus invites us into a relationship, one in which we are able to receive His wonderful power, the power to create all things anew. God’s power, at work in us through the power of Jesus, aided by the Holy Spirit, assists us in imitating Jesus’ example of good works and good words. Ours is a life of discipleship, by which we are inheritors of God’s power made known in Jesus.

So our life in Jesus Christ will be marked by the things we say, things which will tend to create new life and new hope where there may be little life and little hope. Our life in Christ will be marked by the things we do to heal divisions, to bind up the wounds of those who suffer, to be the means by which Jesus Christ’s continuing power to heal is given to those who suffer.

Ours is a sacramental ministry, a ministry of outward deeds and words, which point to the inner reality that we are followers of Jesus Christ, the one we have been waiting for in this holy season of Advent.

AMEN.

Advent 2, Year A (2016)

Isaiah 11: 1–10; Psalm 72: 1–7, 18–19; Romans 15: 4–13; Matthew 3: 1–12

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, delivered at St. John's Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 4, 2016.

“OF PROPHETS, PROPHECY AND THE WILDERNESS”

(Homily text: Matthew 3: 1–12)

Each year, the Second Sunday of Advent places before us the ministry of St. John the Baptist. This Sunday sometimes carries the informal title of “John the Baptist Sunday.”

Our focus this morning, then, is on this very interesting and colorful person who carried out hi.s ministry in the wilderness of Judea, announcing a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We would do well to consider the matter of prophets, of their ministries and their words, and the role that the wilderness plays in their warnings to God’s people, then and now.

First of all, we might look at John the Baptist (or – as he is sometimes known – John the Baptizer)[1].

John’s ministry unfolds in the manner of the prophets of the Old Testament period. In fact, the gospels portray John as the last in the line of the Old Testament witnesses before the coming of Jesus. Both the Old Testament prophets and their successor, John, point beyond themselves to God’s will….notice John’s forward-looking statement: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me….”

As if to strengthen the connection between John the Baptist and another Old Testament prophet, notice how John’s manner of dress is described: Matthew tells us that he was clothed with a leather belt and with camel’s hair. If we turn back to II Kings 1: 8, we notice that the prophet Elijah was clothed in much the same way. The connection between Elijah and John the Baptist is more than coincidental: Matthew’s point in drawing the connection is to tell us that John’s ministry is pointing beyond himself to the one who is coming, that is, Jesus. Matthew also draws on a common understanding that, before the Promised One of God would come, Elijah would return. So the importance for our understanding is to see that John the Baptist is the fulfillment of the prophecy found in Malachi 4: 5–6, which tells us that Elijah’s return will mark the great day of the Lord.

And what of John’s message?

Essentially, John’s message is one of speaking God’s truth. Since the popular understanding of the word “prophecy” has taken on the meaning of predicting the future, we need to recover and recapture this essential meaning of the word. (Unfortunately, the ministries and preaching of many televangelists, which focus on future events, lends support to the misconception that prophecy has to do with future events. Future events can be a part of prophecy, but the scope of the word’s meaning is far greater.)

John’s message is an urgent one:  “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

And then, what of the location of John’s ministry? It is in the wilderness.

The wilderness figures prominently in the Bible. Consider the forty years that God’s people spent in the wilderness as they made their way out of Egypt to the Promised Land…it was in the wilderness that God gave His people the Law. It was in the wilderness that God gave them water to drink, and manna and quail to eat. It was in the wilderness where God purified His people and made them ready to cross the Jordan River into the land that God had promised to give them.

Later on, it was the prophet Elijah who spent time in the wilderness. As Elijah asked God to show Himself to Elijah, it was at Mount Horeb, in the wilderness that God gave Elijah a glimpse of His nature[2]….And in the final analysis, God’s true nature wasn’t to be experienced in the dramatic signs of a strong wind, or an earthquake, or a fire. God’s true nature was experienced most fully in the sound of total silence.[3]

The wilderness is an interesting place, biblically.

The wilderness is the place where the troublemakers hang out. Both Elijah and John the Baptist were the troublemakers of their day, for they challenged the powers-that-were, each in their own time. Each spoke God’s truth to those powers.

The wildness is a desolate place. There are few distractions to take our focus away from God.

The wilderness is a place where our dependence upon God becomes very important, for the wilderness – absent God’s care – can be a place of death, a place of no return.

Prophets, prophecy and the wilderness are essential parts of every Christian’s life.

We need to hear God’s truth, spoken by the prophets of old and the prophets of our day. (In fact, I can’t resist saying that preaching ought to have a strong element of the prophetic voice, if it is to be faithful to God.)

We need wilderness experiences, whether those times in desolation are found in getaway retreats, or in quiet times spent alone with God and with the prophetic voice of the Bible, or if we find ourselves in a spiritual wilderness where little seems to be happening in our walk with God.

This last point prompts me to offer the thought that mature Christian living quite often involves times in the wilderness, of the sort where we feel we aren’t being fed, we aren’t being nurtured. Whenever someone tells me that they are in a spiritual wilderness, part of me rejoices in the fact that they are aware of their spiritual condition. For such an awareness is the beginning of a closer walk with God. Much good can come from the depths of our neediness whenever we find ourselves in the wilderness places of life.

Ancient Israel’s time in the wilderness came to an end when they entered the Promised Land. God’s ancient people were changed as a result of their wanderings, and they remembered God’s faithfulness (and their own unfaithfulness) that took place during that time. John the Baptist’s prophetic voice wasn’t meant to remain in the wilderness, either…..notice what he tells the leaders of God’s people in his day: “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”  John’s instruction to the Sadducees and the Pharisees was that they should return to their leadership roles in society, to do good and to set aside their corrupt and self-serving ways.

Today’s theme might prompt us to ask when was the last time we have encountered a prophet, and the prophetic voice. When and where did we experience God’s truth, and what was our reaction to that message? Do we find ourselves in a spiritual wilderness? If we are in such a place, are we aware of where we find ourselves, and are we concerned to be in such a place? Can we see the dangers that are present in the wilderness, if we stay in the wilderness too long? Can we see the blessings of being able to experience God more fully and more closely during our time in the wilderness?

If we ask God to reveal Himself to us, even in the wilderness, God will do so. Perhaps God will demonstrate His power in some discernible way, the modern equivalent of the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. Or perhaps God will reveal Himself most fully in the sound of total, thin silence. If we are willing to seek Him, He will reveal Himself and His truth to us.

AMEN.

       

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[1]   Sometimes this second title is applied so as to minimize any connection with John’s ministry and those Christians who are known as “Baptists”. There is no formal connection between John the Baptist and Baptists as we know them. But both share a desire to be a faithful witness to God.

[2]  See I Kings 19: 9–12.

[3]  The Hebrew is a bit difficult to translate. Sometimes, the meaning is conveyed in a “thin silence”, or in a “low whisper”.

Advent 1, Year A (2016)

Advent I :: Isaiah 2: 1–5; Psalm 122; Romans 13: 11–14; Matthew 24: 36-44

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, delivered at St. John's in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 27, 2016.

“WHAT TIME IS IT?”

(Homily texts: Romans 13: 11-14 & Matthew 24: 36-44)

The season of Advent, which begins today, urges us to ask ourselves this question:  “What time is it?”

Traditionally, Advent supplies us with three answers to this question:

1. We look back to the time of Jesus’ birth, remembering God’s great gift of love as seen in His coming.
2. We look forward to the time when the Lord will come back again, this time in power and great glory.
3. We look at the time of our lives in this day and age, seeking God’s wisdom to know how to live faithfully in the wake of the Lord’s first coming, and in expectation of the Lord’s coming again.

These three times deserve a closer look.

“What time is it?” The Lord’s coming in His birth in Bethlehem changed world history forever. The course of human history would have been radically different, it seems to me, without Jesus Christ’s example of a perfect life, His wonderful teachings, and the demonstration of God’s power over every evil and every enemy, even our final enemy, which is death. Jesus’ disciples went out into the world, equipped with this message, and the world was changed forever in direct relation to their testimony.

“What time is it?”  We await the Lord’s return in the fullness of time. That is to say, in God’s good time. But no one, the Lord reminds us in today’s Gospel reading, knows the time nor the hour of His return. But what we await is God’s undeniable demonstration of power over every other power in the world. That is the essential bottom line of the meaning of Jesus Christ’s eventual return, for this is the time when “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Philippians 2: 11)

“What time is it?”  In between the Lord’s first coming and His second coming, we find ourselves living in the wake of the importance of His first coming, knowing that the things we do in our day and in our time and in our lives is being done under the gaze of God the Father, who will ask us to give an account of our faithfulness as we seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

So, “What time is it?” really? It is time to wake up, as St. Paul reminds us in our epistle reading from Romans. It is time to see God’s great, big picture, God’s great, big plan in the sending of Jesus Christ into the world, and in Jesus Christ’s coming again. It is time to see that God has folded us into that great, big picture, giving us a purpose and a high calling to be Jesus’ disciples in the world we live in.

May we be faithful followers, until the time that He comes again.

AMEN.

The Last Sunday after Pentecost (Christ the King Sunday) Year C (2016)

Proper 29 :: Jeremiah 23: 1–6; Psalm 46; Colossians 1: 11–20; Luke 23: 33–43

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, delivered at St. John's Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 20, 2016.

“WHAT SORT OF A KING, WHAT SORT OF A KINGDOM?”

(Homily texts: Colossians 1: 11–20 & Luke 23: 33–43)

This Sunday, we come to the end of the current Church Year. The theme for this Sunday is “Christ the King”, as we honor Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords, as the collect for this day affirms.

With such a theme as this, one might expect to read and hear Scripture texts which extol Jesus Christ as the risen Lord, texts that tell us about the Lord’s appearances after Easter. Or, we might expect to hear about Jesus’ ascension into heaven (see Luke 24: 50–52 and Acts 1: 6–11). Or, we might expect that the appointed gospel reading for this morning would include Jesus’ statements before Pontius Pilate, when He told Pilate that “My kingdom is not of this world, (see John 18: 36), or Jesus’ statement that Pilate “would have no power over me (Him) unless it had been given from above” (see John 19: 11).

Our epistle reading for this morning, taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, does give us a glimpse of Jesus Christ as the “very image of the living God”, the one in whom “all things exist and have their being”.[1]

But Jesus as King and Jesus as king over a kingdom that we have before us is a curious one: It is the image of the crucified king. And, since we’ve been spending our time in Luke’s gospel account throughout much of this third year of our three-year cycle of readings, it is the description that Luke alone provides us of the conversation that took place between Jesus and the two thieves who were crucified with Him.

This conversation deserves a closer look than we might be led to give it on first glance. (Frankly, I think that many events in our Lord’s life, as we read them in Holy Scripture, tend to “flatten out”: We often fail to see the human realities which are part of the events in Scripture.)

So let’s begin our examination of this conversation between these three men as they hang on crosses, their life’s vitality slowly slipping away, by looking at those human realities. The first thing we ought to notice is that the king (and the kingdom) doesn’t seem to have much of a future. The “king” (Jesus) hangs as the helpless victim of Roman justice. His crown is made of thorns, and his throne is a cross. His title is fixed above His head, and it reads “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews”.[2]

The cruel reality is that this “king” has only a short time to live. Moreover, the onlookers on that first Good Friday mocked His powerlessness by telling Him to “save himself”. This taunt is picked up by the unrepentant thief: “Save yourself and us.”

But, as much as it looks as though there is no future at all for this “king” and this “kingdom”, the conversation between Jesus and the repentant thief shows us that there is, indeed, a future for both: Jesus tells the thief that “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus’ statement points beyond the immediate circumstances of the awful reality of crucifixion to a grand and blessed future, a future which begins “today”.

This reality is made known by the Lord in response to the thief’s statement of faith: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

We might pause at this point to ask how the thief knew that there would be a kingdom. Luke does not tell us, but if we can take the bulk of Luke’s writing and his concerns overall, and if we could ask Luke directly just what the power was that enabled the thief to believe in the coming and future kingdom, Luke might tell us that it was the Holy Spirit who gave the thief that ability to believe. (We’ll have to wait until we see Luke in heaven to pose that question to him.)

The following observations rise out of the conversation between the Lord and the repentant thief:

1. The kingdom comes in weakness and surrender: It’s often been said that one cannot reach Easter Sunday without going through Good Friday first. Indeed, there would be no Easter resurrection without the depths and the awfulness of Good Friday. So, just as the Lord tells us that “unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12: 24) The Lord’s power over death is seen in contrast to His surrender to those powers. The contrast becomes much stronger when they are seen, side-by-side.
2. The kingdom comes by faith: How many times does the Lord tell someone who had come to Him for help that, “Your faith has made you well”? We read this response (or a version of it) time and again in the gospel accounts. Here before us is the repentant thief’s affirmation of faith: “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” The thief is granted the ability to see God’s truth lying behind the immediate and hopelessness of his impending death. Faith is the key which opens the future to us, the future which includes all believers.
3. The kingdom comes in power and in great glory: Notice that Jesus uses the word “paradise” to tell the thief what his future looks like. The kingdom comes in all of its power over sin, death and destruction. The kingdom comes in terms that St. Paul uses in his letter to the Colossians, for the king over this kingdom is the “very image of the living God,”, the one in whom “all things exist.” In reality, this is the nature of the king we worship and love, and it is the true nature of the kingdom of which we are a part. Ours is a glorious future as citizens of this kingdom, and it is a future that isn’t just years or eons away, but it is a future that we possess “today”.

Let’s close by making a few observations….

1. We come into the kingdom through surrender and in weakness: We come into citizenship in the kingdom of God through the waters of baptism. Taking St. Paul’s description of the meaning of baptism, we see in his explanation that, in baptism, we are ‘buried with Christ in a death like his, and we are raised to a new life in a resurrection like his.” (See Romans 6: 3ff.)
2. We come in faith:  In baptism, we admit just how helpless we really are. We cannot save ourselves. In this way, we are as helpless as the repentant thief was.
3. Faith is the link which ties together our weakness and our future: The repentant thief’s future came through faith. Our future also comes through faith in God’s power to redeem us, to claim us as citizens of His heavenly kingdom, and to assure us – through the power of God made known to us in Jesus’ resurrection – that God can assure us of the glorious future that is ours today and into the future.

AMEN.

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[1]  Theologians apply the term “High Christology” to texts such as Colossians to describe their concentration on Jesus Christ’s divine nature. Other New Testament texts that share this outlook at John’s gospel account, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and the Letter to the Hebrews. Texts which concentrate on Jesus Christ’s human nature carry the title “Low Christology”. Examples of Low Christology in the New Testament are the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke.

[2]  Victims of crucifixion often had signs affixed to their crosses to identify the reason(s) for their predicament. Though Luke does not tell us, it’s possible that the two thieves also had signs above their heads, telling everyone who watched what their crime was.

Pentecost 26, Year C (2016)

Proper 28 :: Malachi 4: 1–2a; Psalm 98; II Thessalonians 3: 6–13; Luke 21: 5–19

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, delivered at St. John's Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 13, 2016.

“God’s Enduring and Unchangeable Gift” (Homily text: Luke 21: 5-19)

“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another.”

Our gospel reading, appointed for this morning, outlines times of tremendous change and upheaval. But our reading ends with the assurance that, if God’s people are steadfast, they will endure during difficult times.

The tone of today’s gospel reading reminds us that we are getting to the end of the Church Year. Next Sunday, we will celebrate Christ the King Sunday, reminding ourselves that it is Jesus Christ, the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever, who will reign as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Then, in two weeks, the season of Advent begins. Advent is four Sundays long, offering us a time to prepare to receive Jesus in His birth in Bethlehem, and to prepare to His second coming in power and great glory. If the thought has occurred to you that the current Church Year ends where Advent picks up, you would be absolutely right in coming to that conclusion.

Today’s gospel takes us to the temple in Jerusalem. As Jesus and his disciples walk through the temple, Jesus destroys any sense that this magnificent structure is permanent. At the time Jesus made His way through the temple, it had been under construction for about forty-five to fifty years. King Herod the Great began the rebuilding of the temple in the year 20 BC. To do so, a large, rectangular platform measuring about 1600 feet long by 900 feet wide by 90 feet high was constructed. It is this part of the temple that remains, and it is known today as the Temple Mount. You can still see this structure in Jerusalem. Some of the stones were enormously large and, therefore, very heavy (some are estimated to weigh over 500 tons!). On top of this platform, Herod planned the construction of the temple buildings themselves. It was these structures that were destroyed by the Romans.

The Lord’s prediction was fulfilled in the year 70 AD, when the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Evidence of the destruction of the temple can be seen in Jerusalem today, for an ancient street was recently excavated on the western side of the Temple Mount, showing breakage in the paving stones from the stones that were thrown down by the Roman army when the temple’s buildings were destroyed. History comes alive when one sees these things.

Jesus’ prediction must have been very unsettling for those who heard it. For the Lord not only says that the nature of the temple isn’t permanent, but the lives of Jesus’ followers as time goes along won’t be permanent, either…Jesus tells His listeners that the time will come when they will face personal danger, even from family members. By the time Luke is writing his gospel account, many early Christians had experienced these sorts of hardships.

Jesus’ message puts us face-to-face with the reality that change is all around us. Sometimes, the changes we face are dramatic and violent. Sometimes, the changes we encounter threaten us personally.

In the midst of such change, The Lord assures us that, if we remain steadfast, if we endure, we will prevail against anything that can come our way. There is the permanence we need, and for which we long.

Our relationship to God the Father through Jesus Christ, His Son, is the one thing that no one and no event, no change can take away from us.

Our wonderful country has just come through a presidential election. Without making partisan observations, I think it’s fair to conclude that this recent election was the nastiest we’ve experienced in our country’s recent history. It’s also fair to say that, no matter who had prevailed in this election process, a large percentage of our citizens have emerged from the election’s results with anger, bitterness and anxiety over our future. The reality within our society today is that we are an angry people. We are also a deeply polarized people. So deep are our divisions that, oftentimes, we cannot see or really hear what someone else who holds a different conviction than we do is saying or doing. (As a pastoral aside, during this past week I have had quite a few conversations with persons who are experiencing a deep sense of anxiety over the course of our future.)

As we said at the outset of this homily, Jesus described times of tremendous change for His hearers and His early disciples. The reality for us, as contemporary disciples of Jesus, is that change is all around us, and some changes tend to threaten us personally.

In the midst of change, is there anything we can count on to be permanent? The answer is, “Yes”, there is. As we said a moment ago, our relationship with God is the one thing that cannot be taken away from us by change, or by any other event or force.

In Baptism, an indelible mark is placed on the soul. In Baptism, we are claimed as Christ’s own for ever. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, as our baptismal liturgy affirms.

This morning, young Colin will receive the gift of a permanent relationship with God as he enters the waters of baptism.

As time goes along, it will be the responsibility of Colin’s parents, grandparents, godparents, relatives and others to teach Colin just what this permanent relationship means. The goal is for Colin to own this wonderful relationship for himself, as he comes to a mature faith in Christ.

St. Paul offers us some wonderful words of comfort. They come to us from his letter to the Romans, chapter eight, and they remind us that we cannot be separated from God’s love. Here’s what Paul has to say:

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, 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: 31–39, NRSV)

Thanks be to God for the enduring gift of His presence, through all the changes and chances of life.

AMEN.

All Saints' Sunday, Year C (2016)

All Saints’ :: Daniel 7: 1–3, 15–18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1: 11–23; Luke 6: 20–31

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 6, 2016.

“The Love Languages of God and of the Saints”

(Homily text:  Luke 6: 20–31)

For the first three years that we were posted to the southern part of Illinois, I had the pleasure of meeting each week with about five or six other clergy colleagues (not Episcopalians) for breakfast and for a time of prayer, sharing and mutual support. An essential part of our time together involved reading and discussing a book. One of our members would suggest a book, which we would all read and consider.

This pattern was an especial blessing for me, because it brought me into contact with material I might never have read otherwise.

One such book was The Love Languages of God: How to Feel and Reflect Divine Love, by Gary Chapman.[1]

Chapman outlines five ways that we know and experience God’s love. Chapman says we know divine love by:

1. Words of Affirmation
   
2.  The gift of quality time
   
3.  Gifts given and received
   
4.  Acts of service
   
5. Physical touch

It seems to me that love cannot be known without some act or action that conveys the power of love, for love demands movement from the lover to the loved. This is true of the love which flows from God to human beings, or between one human being and another. Consider, for example, a situation in which a spouse continually says to their partner, “I love you,” but who does not act as though that verbal profession has any connection to reality. In such a case, there’s no expression by way of concrete and observable acts or actions that would cause the partner to believe that the spouse really does love.

The same is true of God.

Without some way to see and experience God’s love in action, we humans might be left with an empty notion that God really does love and does care for us.

We see God’s love most concretely in the sending of His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to take up our humanity to the full. God’s love, made known in Christ, is seen most clearly (it seems to me) in the Lord’s suffering and death on Good Friday and His subsequent resurrection on Easter Sunday morning. Here, in this sequence of events, we see the depths (quite literally) to which the Lord Jesus was willing to go do redeem us, and the demonstration of God’s overwhelming power to conquer the sin that binds us and which separates us from God.

The Lord’s continuing presence with us, whenever two or three are gathered together in His name (as we read in Matthew 18: 20), or when we read the pages of sacred Scripture, through which the Lord speaks to us, or whenever we receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist, is God’s continuing gift to us. Taking a look at Chapman’s list, here we experience God’s love in the words of affirmation we hear, in the quality time we spend with God, time that God also spends with us, and in the acts of service that God has done for us, and which we know from Holy Scripture and in our continuing, daily lives.

The saints of God are also avenues of God’s love.

When we consider the matter of saints and sainthood, we ought to define these terms just a bit. A common conception – but a mistaken one – is that a saint is a person who lived a long time ago, and whose work in God’s name was especially noteworthy. (I call such saints saints with a capital “S”.) It’s all well and good to honor the great saints who have been especially powerful agents of God’s love in times past. We could name, St. Peter,[2] St. Paul,[3] St. Ignatius of Antioch,[4] or St. Augustine of Hippo[5] as examples. Or perhaps St. Teresa of Avila,[6] as another example.

But saints encompass a far wider circle that the notable and remembered ones, those saints with a capital “S”. Saints are – in a most elementary and basic definition of the term – the “holy” ones of God (remember that the word “saint” comes to us from the Latin word for “holy”). So saints are those who have come to faith in the Lord, and who have passed through the waters of baptism.

So if I were to ask those of you who are present here this morning to raise your hand if you know yourself to be a saint, I would expect every one present who’s been baptized to acknowledge their sainthood. (Yes, I know we might be somewhat reluctant to “toot our own horn” where sainthood is concerned. But that reluctance aside, it’s also good to affirm that each one of us is a member of God’s family, persons who seek God’s face and who seek to be the lens through which God’s love can be seen.)

Saints are – by definition – counter-cultural creations. If we look at the traits that Jesus outlines in our gospel this morning, which presents us with Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, we see that God’s people operate by a different set of values. Consider just one admonition that the Lord puts before us this morning. He says: “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those who curse you, prayer for those who abuse you.”

I don’t know about you, but I sense within myself a strong desire to do just the opposite of what the Lord calls His saints to do to those who cause me grief. I want to do what the world encourages us to do:  Get a bigger stick when trouble comes around.  Are you like that?  Maybe so.

And yet, we who are saints are called to be different.  We are called to be the lens through which God’s light is refracted clearly into the world. Turning this image around the other way, we are called to be the lens through which the world can see God clearly.

That is our calling.  That is the call to sainthood.

Can you see saintly traits in yourself, however faint they may be from time-to-time? Can you see saintly traits in other Christians you know?  How about telling that other believer about the saintly ways you see God at work in their lives. They’ll benefit from knowing the good and godly things you see in them.

AMEN.

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[1]   This book was published by Northfield Publishing, Chicago, in 2002.

[2]   St. Peter has a primacy among the original Apostles.

[3]   St. Paul was God’s means by which the Good News was given to all people.

[4]   St. Ignatius of Antioch was Bishop of Caesarea, who wrote letters to Christians as he made his way to Rome, where he was martyred in the year 115 AD.

[5]   St. Augustine (died 431 AD) was Bishop of the north Africa city of Hippo. He is, perhaps, the foremost theologian of the western Church.

[6]   St. Teresa of Avila, a 16th century mystic, offers us a glimpse into the mysteries of God.