Proper 15
:: Jeremiah 23: 23–29; Psalm 82; Hebrews 11: 29 – 12: 2; Luke 12: 49–56
This is a
homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John's Church; Huntingdon, Pennsylvania
on Sunday, August 14, 2016.
“OF WHEELS AND FAITH”
(Homily texts: Hebrews 11: 29 – 12: 2 & Luke 12: 49–56)
Wheels are a wonderful invention. In fact, our world would be a very
different place, were it not for the invention of the wheel.
Faith is a wonderful invention. Without faith in God, the world would
be a very different place.
Perhaps the idea may be far-fetched, but this preacher hopes to draw
some connections between wheels and faith.
To begin with, a wheel allows all sorts of things to happen: It allows us to go places, it allows us to
carry heavy loads with comparative ease, it allows us to connect with one
another in a way that wouldn’t be possible otherwise …. without wheels, we’d be
walking wherever we needed to go, or perhaps we’d be depending on an animal to
do the walking for us.
But a wheel, by itself, isn’t enough to do these things. A wheel needs
an axle around which to turn. An explanation is in order: A wheel, without an
axle, cannot steer itself, and cannot go in a straight line forward. It needs
an axle to allow it to do these things. (This point can be illustrated by
remembering a game that children used play, which used a stick to propel a hoop
or a wheel across a yard…the stick – wielded by the child, kept the hoop or
wheel going in the desired direction.)
But a wheel needs something more than an axle. If we connect two (or
more) wheels to one another by using an axle, we’ve created something useful.
But the missing ingredient which is needed to make the wheel (or wheels)
completely useful is a frame, which can connect the wheels and axles around
which they turn, to a larger vehicle. We can see this point if we look at a
two-wheeled cart (a hand truck) that might be used to ferry heavy objects
around: The cart supplies the frame which allows the carrying of the objects,
and the cart allows the direction of travel to be established as the person moving
the object directs. Applying this concept to a four-wheeled vehicle such as a
wagon or a car allows us to see the necessity for a frame, which makes the
usefulness of the wheel complete.
So these three things – all of them - are essential to make the
usefulness of the wheel complete: Wheels
need axles around which to turn in order to provide direction of movement, and
wheels and axles need a frame to provide load-carrying capabilities.
OK, so much for a brief treatise on wheels, axles and frames.
Now, let’s turn our attention to the business of having faith, and,
hopefully, to the matter of making a comparison of faith to our observations
about wheels.
To begin with, it seems as though you and I are like wheels…we can do
very useful things for God. In fact, to find our truest and most complete self,
we must discover just what work it is that God has in mind for us to do. Like
wheels, we can do very useful and helpful things, things that would not take
place without our involvement in them.
But we, by ourselves, cannot do the work God has in mind for us to do
without some direction. That is where God comes in, for we revolve around God’s
central place in our lives. In essence, that’s what the writer of the Letter to
the Hebrews is trying to say to the early Christians who received this
letter…In so many words, the writer is saying that all these heroes of faith
who are named in chapter eleven of Hebrews made God’s call the central-most
important thing in their lives, even to the point of being willing to die for
that commitment to God. God’s central place – like an axle around which a wheel
rotates, provided direction and purpose for their lives.
That same sort of commitment shines through the Lord’s comment that we
hear in our Gospel text for this morning…the Lord’s overwhelming commitment is
to the work that God had given Him to do. Hear His words again: “I have come to
cast fire upon the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a
baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is
accomplished!” Jesus’ entire ministry revolves around the Father’s purpose in
sending Him to live and die as one of us.
But the Lord’s comment has a forward-looking aspect to it: Notice that
He says that He has come to divide “a father against a son, and a son against
father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law
against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” By the
time that Luke wrote down his Gospel account (perhaps sometime late in the
first century), the early Christians were living out this reality, as members
of households and families came to faith in Christ, while others refused to believe.
So households and families were divided. As individuals came to faith, their
lives took on a new and central focus, and a new direction was established as a
result.
In the early history of the Church, individuals who had come to faith
provided the basis for being able to do the work that God had assigned to the
Church to do in the world. But along with the capacities and gifts that
individual believers brought to the Church, there was a central commitment to
God’s call and God’s command to live out the faith by the things that the
members of the Church did to show forth by their actions the reality of faith
that was in their hearts. The Church provided the framework which connected each
individual to God, connecting each individual Christian to other Christians so
that God’s work could be accomplished.
Little
has changed in these basic relationships over the years…the Church still calls
individuals into a living and vital faith in Christ, the Church still calls
individuals to make God the central reality of life around which everything
else in life revolves, and the Church provides the connections – the framework
– between individual believers which allows good things to be done in the Name
of Christ in the world beyond our doors.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
