Sunday, July 24, 2016

Pentecost 10, Year C (2016)

Proper 12 :: Genesis 18: 20–32; Psalm 85; Colossians 2: 9–16; Luke 11: 1–13

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 24, 2016.
“PRAYER:  HOW MANY TIMES IS ENOUGH?”
(Homily text:  Genesis 18: 20–32 & Luke 11: 1-13)
How many times is enough to ask God for something?
Is once enough? Is more than once enough? Is it good to keep on praying until we get an answer?[1]
Both our Old Testament reading from Genesis and our Gospel text from Luke deal with prayer, and – in particular – the necessity of continued prayer. One might even say that Jesus gives us permission to be a bit of a pest in asking God to give us those things we need.
Let’s look a little closer at this.
Abraham is conversing with God about the future of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. (I will admit I love this text, perhaps because I can picture myself looking on and listening in to the back-and-forth between God and Abraham.) He begins by asking God if the cities will be destroyed if fifty righteous people are found in them. Then, perhaps thinking through just how wicked those two cities are, he adjusts his request downward, saying to God, “Well, what if forty five righteous are found?”
You know the progression from there….Abraham adjusts his request again, down to forty, then thirty, then twenty, and finally, to ten righteous persons.
If we count the separate petitions, there are six in all. Six connected-but-separate requests.
Now, let’s turn our attention to today’s Gospel text.
Our text begins with Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer (in contemporary language). Luke’s version differs from the more-usually-known version from Matthew. It is possible that the Lord gave a different version of His model prayer on different occasions. Perhaps that would account for the differences between Luke’s and Matthew’s versions. I don’t know, but I’ll venture to say that is a plausible explanation for the differences between Luke and Matthew.
But then, the Lord launches into a teaching about prayer. In the teaching, the man standing outside the house asking for bread is initially rebuffed. The householder says from within the house, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bead; I cannot get up and give you anything.”
But notice that the man asking is persistent…Jesus says that, not because the man is the householder’s friend, but because of his persistence, his request for bread is granted.
So Jesus seems to be telling us (in so many words), “Keep at it, keep on asking until you receive an answer.” (That’s my assessment of what the Lord is saying, just to be clear.)
So, returning the question we began with: Just how many times is appropriate for us to ask God for something?
One answer would be:  Once. The reason for this answer is that God already knows our needs. God also knows our necessities (not our desires, those two are different), and God also knows our ignorance in making our requests, as a wonderful prayer in the Prayer Book says.[2] So there is a biblical basis for saying that uttering our prayers for something just once is sufficient.
But Abraham’s experience suggests that more petitions than one are acceptable. Jesus’ teaching, heard this morning, also seems to suggest that repeated requests are acceptable to God:  “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.”
Some attitudes about prayer are in order here:
  •      Prayer that comes with the expectation that one prayer will take care of our needs:  Sometimes, people pray, expecting that God will swoop in and solve all the problems of humankind. This attitude is akin to the idea that – if only God would act – all the challenges of life would be solved instantly.[3]
  •             Prayer that expects God to do all the heavy lifting:  Closely related to the point just made is the idea that we human beings don’t have a role in continuing to lift our prayers to God, or to do anything else, for that matter. But the persistence of Abraham and the persistence of the man standing outside the door of the house asking for bread make clear that prayer arises out of our relationship with God …. notice that Abraham bases his request on his close and intense relationship with God. Likewise, Jesus makes clear that the man asking for bread makes his request because of his relationship with his neighbor. Prayer is work. Prayer is often sustained effort, effort that changes us as we faithfully live in the expectation that God always answers prayer. Prayer causes us to reflect on our requests, seeking to see if our wants and needs are in accord with God’s will or not. Prayer causes us to look around and see just what actions God wants us to do, ourselves, as part of the answer to our prayers.
  •    Praying for what we want, not what we need: A wonderful priest once said to me, “I pray that God will give you what you need, not what you want …. there’s a difference.” These very wise words might cause us to reflect on just what it is we are asking God for, and to dig into the reasons which lie behind our request.

When we pray, we are assured that we will always have an answer from God. God’s answer will fall into one of three categories:
  •     Yes
  •        No
  •       Not now

In all of these answers, there lies the truth that what God desires for us is better than what we desire ourselves, for God’s perspective of things is far greater and wiser than ours is.
Finally, a balanced prayer life is marked by an ongoing conversation with God:  We make our prayers to God, but also take time to listen for God to speak to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. Often, God’s voice is heard in stillness and in silence. Thanksgiving also plays an important part in a balanced prayer life, as we reflect back on God’s goodness and graciousness in times past, and remember with thanks the ways in which His will was better for us than our own wishes were.
So, “Pray without ceasing,” as St. Paul exhorts us to do in I Thessalonians 5: 17. Pray until God’s will is known and God’s answer has been received.
AMEN.



[1]   I am reminded of my mother’s example in praying for my father….she prayed for him over a period of about thirty five years, and I am sure she prayed for him daily, if not more than once a day. So, doing some rough calculation, I wager that my mother prayed for my father at least 12,775 times during that period. In God’s good time, and in God’s most excellent way, her prayers were answered and my father’s life was redeemed. Thanks be to God!
[2]   This is the Collect for the Sunday closest to July 20th each year, Proper 11, which can be found in The Book of Common Prayer on page, 231.
[3]   Such an attitude often lies behind some Christians’ intense focus on the Lord Jesus’ return to earth. Such a view, while it affirms a truth of the faith, tends to lead us to think that the world’s problems would all be solved if only the Lord would return sometime soon. But the truth is that we Christians have work to do to make the world a better place until such time as the Lord does return.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Pentecost 9, Year C (2016)

Proper 11 :: Genesis 18: 1 – 10a; Psalm 15; Colossians 1: 15 – 28; Luke 10: 38 – 42
This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 17, 2016.
“IMPORTANT STUFF AND EVERYDAY STUFF”
(Homily text:  Luke 10: 38 – 42)
Today’s Gospel reading puts before us the issue of trying to keep our focus on the really important stuff of life, even as we grapple with the reality of the everyday stuff that often tends to choke off our focus on that really important stuff, the stuff of God.
In today’s Gospel, we read of a dinner party that was given at the home of Mary and Martha (and their brother, Lazarus), who lived in the village of Bethany, which is located about two miles southeast of Jerusalem. It is Luke alone who tells us about the divided attentions of the two sisters as dinner is being prepared:  Mary sits at Jesus’ feet, listening to His teaching, while Martha scurries around in the kitchen, trying to get everything ready.
In the culture of the day, Mary’s sitting at the Lord’s feet, and his willingness to affirm that she has made the wiser choice in doing so, departs from the expectations of that time and culture, for in normal circumstances, women would not have been allowed to sit at a Rabbi’s feet to hear the teaching of the day. Women’s roles in that cultural setting were quite often limited to having children, to being a good mother and spouse. Little beyond those expectations colored the aspirations of women in those days.
But the Lord departs from the accepted customs of His day in His acceptance of Mary and His affirmation of her choice to be present for His teaching. If we think about it, His behaviors often buck against the cultural expectations of the day.
So the Lord affirms that Mary’s choice to hear and consider the things of God constitute the best choice, indeed, the only choice, for the Lord says that Mary has “chosen the better part.”
If we look more closely at the Lord’s response to Martha’s plea, we see that He does not tell her to put down her utensils and join her sister at His feet. Perhaps the Lord is affirming the importance of what she is doing, even as he also affirms that Mary has made the better choice. Perhaps this point is worthy of consideration.
Today’s account presents us with the matter of trying to balance the really important stuff of life over and against the everyday stuff that often threatens to obscure our ability to see and hold in view the things of God, for the things of God are the ultimately important and lasting realities that will carry us from this current, everyday world into the life of the world to come.
What do we do with the fact that there are things we must accomplish, nearly each and every day, in order to live?  Sometimes those details tend to consume our every waking moment and nearly all our energies. Some of us make extensive lists to try to manage to get it all done.[1]
Perhaps this is a matter of perspective and focus.
Might we approach the everyday, recognizing that we are God’s people, a people who are called to infuse everyday tasks with the light of God? If we can hold this truth in view, then everyday tasks take on a vastly different hue.
We are called, as the baptized daughters and sons of God, to show by our attitudes and actions that everything we do is done in God’s sight. Therefore, no task – no matter how mundane or distasteful – escapes God’s concern and care.
So we might ask ourselves quite frequently, “How is God present in what I am doing?”
As inheritors of the wonderful Anglican tradition, we Episcopalians are Christians whose focus is a very practical one:  Even as we affirm the truth that the Lord Jesus will come again “in power and great glory” (as the Creed states), we also acknowledge that our primary concern is for the best ways to live a Christian life practically, day in and day out. Our overriding question is often framed in this way: “What does God want me to do today to live a faithful life as a disciple of Jesus?”
A Collect which is found in the Office of Morning Prayer captures this double focus quite well. Entitled a “Collect for Guidance”,[2] it reads as follows:
“Heavenly Father, in whom we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”



[1]   A wonderful book, published by Waterbrook Press in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2000, deals with this problem. Written by Joanna Weaver, it is entitled “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life”.
[2]   This collect may be found in its Rite I version in The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, at page 57, and in its Rite II version at page 100.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Pentecost 8, Year C (2016)

Proper 10 :: Amos 7: 7–17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1: 1–14; Luke 10: 25–37

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 10, 2016.
“A WILLINGNESS TO GET DIRTY” (Homily text:  Luke 10: 25 - 37)
When I was a boy, we lived near the edge of town on a graveled street. On either side of the street there was a ditch, which, when it rained, became quite muddy. Much to my mother’s distress, when the mud was particularly think and gooey, I’d go in and ask, “Mom, can I go out and take my shoes off and wade in the mud?” (I can still hear her sigh, ringing in my ears, whenever I asked that question!)
Of course, part of the deal was to get my younger sisters to also join in on the muddy celebration.
The mud felt so good on our feet, as we’d squish our toes into it and allow it to ooze around us.
For some reason, young children love to get dirty. As we grow older, however, I’ve noticed that we tend to try to avoid getting too dirty, and if we manage to do so, we usually look forward to getting cleaned up afterward.
This morning’s Gospel text, the very familiar Parable of the Good Samaritan, is all about getting dirty. Or – more properly – it is about who’s trying to stay clean and who’s willing to get dirty.
We should unpack the matter of “clean” and “unclean” a bit.
Lying close under the surface of much of the interchanges in the Gospels between the Lord and His adversaries (the priests, the Pharisees and the Scribes, usually) is the matter of ritual cleanliness, or the lack thereof. The issue of who is able to enter into God’s presence in the Temple in Jerusalem is a matter, above all, of who is “clean” and who is not.
As we turn our attention to the parable, we see this matter being played out as the Lord unfolds the story: He says that both the priest and the Levite (these are two different orders of the priesthood) pass by the wounded man as he lies there along the roadside. The reason they pass by the man, and – just to emphasize the point – the Lord says that each of them passed by “on the other side of the road”, was to ensure that there was no possibility that they would come into contact with the man’s blood. Contact with blood, according to the Law of Moses, would render them ritually unclean. As priests, neither of them could function in their line of work after such contact without an elaborate cleansing ritual.
But then, the Lord tells us that the unfortunate man is happened upon by a Samaritan.
Let’s pause here for a moment and consider the circumstances of the Samaritan.
First of all, the Samaritan is an outsider, for he is traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho along the road that drops about 4,000 feet on the journey. (Even today, one can see the cuts in the hillsides that the Romans created when the road was created. Such cuts in the hills provided the perfect place from which to attack travelers. So seeing this sight brings the reality of the Lord’s story into our own day.)
The Samaritan is in Jewish territory. We know very well what the Jews thought of Samaritans: They considered them to be unclean people, for they were the mixed race product of the resettlement of the Israelites some 700 years before. Not only that, they didn’t worship God in the proper place, and they didn’t have a reliable and accurate form of the Scriptures. So for all these reasons, according to the Jews, they were unclean, permanently unclean.
Compared to the priest and the Levite, the Samaritan has little to lose by picking the wounded man up and sitting him on his own donkey. The Samaritan – by Jewish reckoning – is unclean already. So, if we follow this line of thinking, we might come to the conclusion that a little more uncleanliness wouldn’t matter.
Now, the Lord introduces another facet of the situation:  The Samaritan brings the man to an inn, and makes an agreement with the innkeeper to care for the man until the Samaritan returns. Quite often, I think this aspect of the situation gets little consideration, for the Lord is showing us that an act of kindness often requires others to support an initial act of compassion by playing a part in restoring those who are suffering to wholeness. It would have been easy for the innkeeper to tell the Samaritan, “Hey, you’re a Samaritan, and we don’t serve people like you.” But the Samaritan’s act brings the innkeeper into the situation to be a part of the solution.
Luke’s Gospel account is a treasure trove of information and material that no other Gospel writer provides for us. And as he considered what accounts of Jesus’ ministry to include in his writing, quite consistently, Luke chooses to tell about Jesus’ teachings and actions that treat the poor, the sick and the outcast with compassion. The Parable of the Good Samaritan is but one example of Jesus’ compassion for the down-and-out.
Let’s return to the matter of who’s “clean” and who’s “unclean” for a moment.
In the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, people’s situation in life was often thought to be the product of clean or unclean living. For example, if a person was blind, the assumption often was that either that person or that person’s parents were guilty of some sin (see John’s Gospel account, chapter nine, for an example of this thinking). If a person was rich, it was assumed that they were wealthy because they were living a holy, upright life. The converse was also true in people’s thinking back then. We could apply that same sort of thinking that parceled people out according to who was “in” and who was “out, who was “clean” and who was “unclean”.
But quite consistently, Jesus breaks through the barriers of clean and unclean. He is willing to touch the unclean leper, He is willing to hang around with tax collectors and other sinners, He is willing to heal the sick. According to the thinking of the Jewish people in that day, He became unclean in the process of doing all these things.
But Jesus comes to do the work of the Kingdom of God, and oftentimes, doing that work requires getting dirty. For God’s work is to clean the unclean, to redeem those who are thought to be unredeemable.
Our call as followers of Jesus is to be willing to step outside the doors of this church and to be willing to roll up our sleeves and to be willing to dig into the dirt of the world. Only by direct and active contact with the uncleanliness of the world can the world be redeemed and cleansed, being made holy and acceptable to God in the process.
That is our call. For the dirtiness of the world cannot withstand the cleansing action of God, made known in Christ Jesus. As coworkers with Christ, we become God’s agents, working with one another as the innkeeper did with the Samaritan, working with God to bear the Good News that no one is outside of God’s power to love, to cleanse, and to redeem.

AMEN.