Sunday, December 24, 2017

The Eve of the Nativity,Year B (2017)

Isaiah 9: 2–7; Psalm 96; Titus 2: 11–14; Luke 2: 1–20
This is the Christmas Eve homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 24, 2017, by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“WHY BE A CHRISTIAN?”
Why be a disciple of Jesus? Or – if we could ask this question another way – why be a partisan of Jesus (a phrase I heard in seminary, and one I like). Or – if we were to ask this question in a very commonly used way – why be a Christian?
Perhaps there are many reasons to be a follower of Jesus (still another way we could describe being in relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ), but – on this Christmas Eve – I think the central theme of our Christmas celebration offers us one very compelling reason to be in relationship with Jesus.
(At this juncture, it might be good to remind ourselves that the accounts we read in Holy Scripture usually convey one or more central teachings, lessons that God wants us to learn. No matter how much we might pick Scripture apart to study its various aspects, once that process of close examination is finished, we are called to step back from that process and ask ourselves, “What is it that this passage is trying to tell us?”)
The account of Jesus’ birth, as we hear it from Luke’s writing, conveys one overarching theme (it seems to me):
God cared so much for the human race that He reached out to us
in the sending of Jesus
to take on our humanity.
This means that God took the initiative. It means that you and I matter a lot to God. It means that God loves us, and loves us deeply and intensely. In I John 4: 9, 10, we read this: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (English Standard Version)
Isn’t it a wonderful and glorious thing to know how important we are to God? Knowing this truth changes everything in our lives, for now, even the smallest things in our lives become important, for all that we do and say is done in God’s sight.
Jesus Christ is the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1: 15), the One who came to show us the Father’s love, the One who opened the way to God for us.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.


Advent 4, Year B (2017)

II Samuel 7: 1–11, 16; Psalm 89: 1–4, 19–16; Romans 16: 25–27; Luke 1: 26–38
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 24, 2017, by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“COULD SHE (MARY) HAVE SAID ‘NO’?”
(Homily text:  Luke 1: 26-38)
“No, I’m not willing to do what you ask. Get someone else.”
Could the Blessed Virgin Mary have said these (or similar) words to the angel Gabriel when the angel came to visit Mary? Christians are not of the same mind as to the answer: Some say that she could, most definitely, have rejected God’s plan. Others say she couldn’t. I’ll let you wrestle with this question.
But, fortunately for you and I, Mary did say “yes”.
Oftentimes, I think the accounts in Holy Scripture tend to “flatten out” whenever we read them. Sometimes, biblical accounts lose their three dimensional quality.  That is to say, we can easily lose sight of the fact that the persons mentioned in the Bible were real people, people with concerns, fears, expectations and hopes just like we have. The essential building blocks of humanity haven’t changed over all the years from Mary’s time till our own. The humanity we share with Mary and with all those who are named in the Bible is one and the same.
With this in mind, let’s turn again to this very familiar encounter, one that Luke alone among the Gospel writers imparts to us. For if we regard Mary not as the very highly exalted figure that she deserves to be, but as a young woman, perhaps so young that she was in her early teens (remember that, in the society of that day, it was not uncommon for people to be married in their early teens….after all, the life expectancy was also quite short by contemporary standards), then perhaps we can put ourselves into Mary’s shoes for a brief moment. If we are able to do this, we can catch a glimpse of the astonishing nature of her encounter with the angel Gabriel. We can also catch a glimpse of the personal risk to Mary’s life that was involved in her saying “Yes” to God.
To see the extraordinary nature of Mary’s encounter with Gabriel, let’s transfer the essentials of this encounter to the post office building downtown, and the time frame is December, 2017.
Imagine that we have gone to the post office to buy stamps. After standing in line to get our stamps, a man who’s been standing in the lobby calls out to us as we are about to leave and asks if he might chat with us for a moment. In response, we make our way to the far side of the lobby, where the man identifies himself as God’s messenger, Gabriel. Speaking in quiet tones, he lays out a plan which, he says, will affect the entire world, adding that we are essential to God’s plan. Our cooperation is vital to the plan’s success.
As we ponder what this mysterious figure has to say, a number of responses arise: For one thing, we realize that, if we say “yes” to the plan, the trajectory of our own life will change for ever….whatever plans we might have had for our future will have to be re-assessed and refigured. For another, we see that acceptance of the plan will involve considerable risk to our own welfare….even telling others about what we’ve been told will risk the possibility of provoking reactions of disbelief or even scorn. Some might even think we’ve become delusional. As others in the community find out about our story, they may ostracize us. We might risk losing friends, and our own family members might turn away from us.
This little exercise might enable us to see the realities that attended Gabriel’s message. Though we do not know exactly when and where Gabriel had his conversation with Mary (and Luke doesn’t tell us), it’s possible that the encounter may have taken place in a very common, ordinary setting, perhaps something like when Mary came to the town well to draw water. Nor do we know what in what form Gabriel appeared to Mary. Could he have appeared as an ordinary human being? Quite possibly, he did.
But the extraordinary nature of what Mary had to relate to her family and friends is something we can relate to, for when Mary told others what had happened, it’s possible that they may have thought she was either seeing things, or that she was even a little out-of-her-mind. What Mary had to say was extraordinary in every way. She related a story that involved God’s personal intervention in human history. God’s great, big and wonderful plan was going to unfold through her.
Beyond that, Mary’s “yes” involved a good deal of personal risk to her own safety, for to be pregnant in that culture and in that time without the benefit of marriage was to risk being ostracized, or worse. (Matthew explores this aspect of Jesus’ conception as he relates Joseph’s reaction to Mary’s pregnancy.)
Our regard for Mary’s “yes” to God’s invitation is magnified when we consider that her acceptance of God’s plan involved an entirely new course for her own life, a course which involved great personal risk.
Mary’s “yes” opens the way for God’s plan to save the world to take place. With Mary’s cooperation, God can come and take on our humanity completely and fully. Mary’s “yes” establishes her in the catalog of the saints as the perfect model of submission to God’s will. Mary’s obedience is the model for us to emulate and follow.
Do I believe that Mary could have said “no”? Yes, I believe she had that freedom. But because she said “yes”, she is forever to be called “blessed”.
AMEN. 

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Advent 3, Year B (2017)

Isaiah 61: 1–4, 8–11; Psalm 126; I Thessalonians 5: 16–24; John 1: 6–8, 19–28
This is the homily offered by Fr. Gene Tucker at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 17, 2017.
“STIR UP SUNDAY”
(Homily text:  John 1: 6–8, 18-29)
Welcome, on this Third Sunday of Advent, to “Stir Up Sunday”. No, not “stirrup” Sunday, as in the device that the rider of a horse puts his/her foot into, but – as our Collect for this day states so well, “Stir up thy power, O God, and with great might come among us.”
Our Gospel text for this morning places before us John’s account of John the Baptist’s ministry, as he prepared the way of the Lord, making straight in the desert a highway for our God.
(Recall with me that we heard Mark’s account of the Baptist’s ministry in our appointed Gospel text last Sunday.)
Here we are confronted with the nature of John’s ministry, for he was “stirring things up” out there in the desert, baptizing people for the forgiveness of their sins. And, most likely for the purpose of checking him out, a delegation of priests and Levites are sent to ascertain the nature of what John is doing. But their questions, posed to him: “Who are you? What do you say about yourself?” have to do with the authority for what John is doing. After all, these emissaries who had been sent by the Pharisees were all into authority, or – more specifically – their own authority as the spiritual leaders of the people. (At this point in the development of John’s and Jesus’ ministries, the priests, Levites and Pharisees seem to be merely curious about these goings-on. In due course, their curiosity will turn to rejection and opposition.)
In what way, then, was John “stirring things up” out there in the desert as he heard people (orally and out loud) confess their sins? How did John’s work differ from the established ways of doing things that the Law of Moses – as it was practiced in those days – prescribed?
The overall picture that the Gospels provide us might provide a clue.
Apparently, God’s people in that day and time were focused on the outward expression of their relationship to God. To some extent, it seems fair to characterize their religious observances as a process of “going through the motions”. But the hearts of many – and particularly of the religious leaders of that time – were far from God. (We see this, in the case of the religious leaders, quite clearly as they will eventually plot to kill Jesus.)
Part of this outward religious practice involved the taking of a ritual bath prior to going to worship in the Temple. Called the mikvah in Hebrew, it involved a washing of the body. But John’s washing was anything but an outward “going through the motions.” We can easily imagine hearing John ask those who had entered the waters of the Jordan River just what it was that they had done. We can imagine him saying, “Be specific.” And perhaps we can also imagine John asking those who were making their confessions to speak up so God (and everyone else) could hear what they said. In this aural confession, we see sacramental living at its best: The confessions that reached John’s ears, the ears of those gathered around, and God, involved the union of the inner disposition of the heart with the outward actions  
Here we see the difference between John’s washing and the ritual washings that took place prior to entering the Temple. There was no “going through the motions” as John demanded an outward accounting for the wrongdoings that brought people out into the desert.
But John was stirring things up in other ways, as well.
As John is asked, “Are you the Messiah?” “I am not” was John’s answer. “Are you Elijah?” “I am not” John said. “Are you the prophet?” “I am not” was the answer yet again.
It’s worthy of our notice to see what John says about himself: He points away from himself and toward Jesus (though he does not name Jesus at this point). He says, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’”
In essence, what John is saying is that he is a nobody. He is simply God’s messenger, pointing away from himself personally and toward God and toward God’s purposes.
In this way, John stands in sharp contrast to the ways of the priests, the Levites and the Pharisees, who seemed to glory in their own importance and place in the religious scheme of things that were in place in those days.
How about you and I? What and who are we?
We are – like John the Baptist – called to point toward God and toward God’s purposes, made known in Jesus Christ. We are called to stir things up by calling people to the living of an integrated life, one in which the inner disposition of the heart is matched by the outward living of life.
In every age and in every place and in every time, God’s call to the living of a truly integrated life stands as God’s desire and God’s command. To this desire and this command, you and I are called by virtue of our Baptisms.
AMEN.
           
           


           


Sunday, December 10, 2017

Advent 2, Year B (2017)

Isaiah 40: 1–11; Psalm 85: 1–2, 8–13; II Peter 3: 8–15a; Mark 1: 1–8
This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s; Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 10, 2017.
“PREPARING THE WAY”
(Homily texts:  Isaiah 40: 1–11 &  Mark 1: 1–8)
In each year of our three-year cycle of readings, our Gospel reading places before us the account of John the Baptist’s ministry.
The theme of this Sunday’s readings is “Preparing the way.” Preparing the way of the Lord, making straight in the desert a highway for our God, as our Isaiah reading proclaims. (Can’t you hear the wonderful music of Handel’s “Messiah” running through your mind as you read Isaiah’s words?)
This theme, one of the preparing of the way of the Lord, is one in which the Lord prepares a way for His people to come home, and of God’s servants (in this case the figure of John the Baptist) preparing a way for the coming of Jesus Christ, who is the One who opened the way to God.
Let’s explore these ideas just a bit.
We should begin with Isaiah’s words….
This portion of the Book of Isaiah was written, most biblical scholars believe, by someone who may have been a member of a school of prophets, or by someone who was writing with the themes of Isaiah in mind, during the time of the return of God’s people from exile in Babylon. (To refresh our memories, God’s people – many of them anyway – had been deported to Babylon when Jerusalem was conquered in the year 586 BC. Then, when the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians, it was the Persian king Cyrus who allowed the exiles to return home to the Holy Land.) So this portion of the Book of Isaiah carries the title “Second Isaiah”, and it encompasses chapters 40 through 54 of the book.[1]
Isaiah chapter 40 tells us that God is going to prepare a way for His people to return home. God will “make straight in the desert a highway” for His people. That highway will be created as the rough places are made plain, and the crooked places are made straight.
And so it came to be. In the year 538 BC, the first of the exiles left Babylon and made their way to the Promised Land, where they would rebuild Jerusalem and would restore the Temple.
Now we must fast-forward 500 and more years, to the time of the ministry of John the Baptist.
It is this powerful figure that we encounter, ministering in the wilderness, calling God’s people to repent of their sins, and to be washed clean of those sins by entering the waters of the Jordan River. Mark, along with Matthew and Luke, tell us that the Baptist’s ministry is one of preparation, for John – they all tell us – was preparing the way of the Lord.
Moreover, the description of the Baptist’s clothing and his diet are reminiscent of the ministry of the ancient prophet Elijah. (See II Kings 1: 8) In Elijah’s ministry, we encounter a prophet who prepared the way of the Lord by denouncing the false worship of the pagan god Ba’al. In the Baptist’s ministry, we encounter a figure who labors in the same fashion as those Old Testament prophets, calling God’s people to a true and faithful worship of God which involves not only the outward actions of worship that the Law of Moses prescribed, but to an inner purity of heart which integrated the outward actions of worship with the intent and condition of the heart.
Perhaps it’s not too much of a stretch of our imaginations to say that you and I are called to engage in a ministry like John the Baptist’s.
That is, we are called to prepare the way of the Lord by pointing beyond ourselves to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is, after all, what we are all about in this season of Advent: We are getting ready for the coming of Jesus.
And, in a nutshell, that’s what God is doing in sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to take on our humanity, for God is opening a way, a highway, for us to follow to find our way back to God. That is the Christmas message in its most basic form. (We will have more to say about this in our Christmas homily.)
As part of our preparation for the coming of the Lord, perhaps we might reflect a bit on the ways in which we are pointing beyond ourselves to the ways in which the Lord comes into people’s lives. We might do that as we look back over our shoulders at the pathways of life that we have walked thus far, to see the wonderful work that God has done in our lives. For there, I suspect, we will find evidence of God’s doings, and we can share those great and good deeds with others, so they will be able to see similar workings of God in their own lives.
May we point the way to God by sharing the ways in which God has opened the way for us to find the pathway to a full and lasting relationship with Him.
AMEN.



[1]   Biblical scholars differ in their convictions about the authorship of the remainder of the Book of Isaiah. Some maintain that the entire remainder of the book should be known as Second Isaiah, while others say that chapters 55 through the end of the book was written by a third individual, and so should be known as Third Isaiah.

Sunday, November 26, 2017

The Last Sunday after Pentecost, Year A. (2017)

Proper 29 :: Ezekiel 34: 11–16, 20–24; Psalm 100; Ephesians 1: 15–23; 25: 31–46
This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker that was given St. John’s, Huntingdon, on Sunday, November 26, 2017.
“OUR DAILY WALK WITH GOD, LIVED IN THE SIGHT OF ETERNITY”
(Homily text:  Matthew 25: 31–46)
We wrap up the current Church Year this Sunday, ending the year (as we always do) with the theme of “Christ the King”. Our old Church Year ends where the new one will begin in the season of Advent, with our eyes firmly fixed on the here-and-the-now, but also on the “great, big picture” of God’s eternal purposes.
Today’s Gospel focuses in on the here-and-the-now, as Jesus tells us about some very concrete, everyday steps that Jesus’ followers are to follow as they live out their calling as disciples of Jesus.
Before we look in depth at Jesus’ teaching, let’s remind ourselves of the outlook of God’s people in Jesus’ day. To do so, we will begin with a Hebrew lesson.
The Hebrew word in mind here is halacha. The word comes from the Hebrew verb “to walk”, which is halach.
To the ancient Jews, their relationship with God involved a daily walk, a halacha.
The word itself indicates a methodical, everyday way of living. It isn’t a sprint, nor is it a race which focuses only on the finish line. It is way of completing the course of life which values and infuses every step along the way with importance and care.
That seems to be Jesus’ focus, as well.
The specific actions Jesus outlines each involve helping someone who is in some sort of distress:  Someone in prison, someone who lacks proper clothing, someone who is hungry, someone who is sick. Especially in the society in which Jesus moved and worked, these things were (unfortunately) fairly commonplace predicaments that people found themselves in.
Now, as we reflect on the broad sweep of Christian history, it becomes apparent that Christians have had a difficult time keeping the everyday, commonplace ways of living out the Christian life in balance with the “great, big and final picture” of God’s purposes for the world and for those who live in the world.
At times in Christian history, the focus of Jesus’ followers has been squarely on God’s “great, big plan”. Surely, that was the case in the Thessalonian church, where Paul has to warn its members against sitting around, looking up into the heavens, waiting for the trumpet call which would announce Jesus’ return to sound. Paul specifically warns these early Christians not to be sitting around, doing nothing, waiting for the end to come.
But, the reverse is true, also. At times in Christian history, Jesus’ disciples have gotten caught up in “doing good things”, seemingly with the goal of making the Church into some sort of a social service agency.
Today’s Gospel text calls us to keep both aspects of God’s plan in view: We are to be about doing concrete, observable actions that give witness to the faith that is living within. St. James will pick up on Jesus’ theme in his letter, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says they have faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save them? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2: 14 – 17)
Jesus’ teaching reminds us that the everyday, often inconsequential things we do in Christ’s name are being done in God’s view and with God’s knowledge. (It is worth saying, at this point, that in Matthew’s Gospel account, God’s final judgment is never far from view….it permeates Matthew’s entire account.)
Knowing that the little things we do are important to God, and are done in God’s sight and with God’s noticing casts an entirely different light on our everyday lives. Suddenly, everything takes on a different scale of value, suddenly nothing is unimportant or of little value.
Christians are called to live lives that have one foot squarely planted in the here-and-the-now, and with the other foot securely planted in the kingdom of heaven which is to come.
May we be counted worthy to bear Christ’s name to the world around us, knowing that everything we do – whether of great or of little importance – is precious in God’s sight.
AMEN.



Sunday, November 19, 2017

Pentecost 24, Year A (2017)

Proper 28 :: Zephaniah 1: 7, 12–18; Psalm 123; I Thessalonians 5: 1–11; Matthew 25: 14–30
This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 19, 2017.
“BEING A CITIZEN OF THE KINGDOM: RISKY BUSINESS”
(Homily text:  Matthew 25: 14–30)
This morning, we hear the last of Jesus’ parables that the Gospel writer Matthew provides to us. The Parable of the Talents is a teaching about the taking of risks.
The parable before us this morning is the middle of three teachings that Jesus provides which all have to do with the nature of the kingdom of heaven. Last week’s parable, the Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Maidens, dealt with the need for those in the kingdom to be ready for the Lord’s coming at any moment. Next week’s teaching will put before us some concrete ways in which the citizens of the kingdom can bring the kingdom into being. This week’s parable is all about taking risks for the kingdom.
Before we look at the parable in some detail, it’s worth noting that this parable is responsible for the use of the word “talent” in the sense of being something a person is either naturally gifted at doing, or is skilled at doing. Originally, the word “talent” was a unit of monetary measure, a considerable measure of money (one estimate is that a talent was worth about fifteen years’ salary of a common laborer). The word “talent” appears in both the Old Testament, and in the New, as well, so it is a word with a very long history.
In this morning’s parable, Jesus tells us about three servants[1] who are entrusted with some of the master’s wealth. One person is entrusted with five talents, another with two, and one is given only one talent. The servants with five talents and with two go out and double the master’s money. An important point in Jesus’ teaching is the fact that each servant is given the amounts they received, “each according to their abilities”.[2] But the one who is given only one acts out of fear and buries the one talent in the ground.
(I can’t resist making a point about the interpretation of parables: Usually, a parable has one main idea or point. There are, quite often, ancillary aspects to parables, and it may be tempting to try to ascertain just what the meanings or importance of these secondary parts of a parable are. But I think it’s important to keep our focus on the central meaning of the teaching. For example, in today’s parable, we might ask questions about the ways in which the first two servants are able to double their master’s money…did they do it by unethical or underhanded means, for example. And, as well, we might ask just what was the basis upon which the master decided to give differing amount of money to each servant. But those questions, though they are intriguing and though they may stir some interest, are beside the main point that Jesus is trying to get across.)
This is as a good a place as any to uncover a cultural aspect to the parable which clarifies its meaning: In Jesus’ day, the best way to safeguard something of value was to go out and find a place to bury it. In a time when there were no safes, no safety deposit boxes, and no banks as we know them, that was the commonly accepted way of being sure that something that was important or worth something could be kept safe from loss.
So Jesus’ point is that the first two servants were willing to take risks, while the third servant was risk-averse and did the commonly accepted thing. Jesus’ point seems to be that, in order to bring the kingdom of heaven into being, its citizens will need to be willing to take risks.
Whenever we read a passage of Holy Scripture, it’s a good idea to ask ourselves about its meaning and applicability for its first hearers or readers. For Matthew’s church, whose members, many biblical scholars believe, were living in what is modern day Syria sometime late in the first century, their situation as disciples of Jesus was somewhat precarious: They were under increasing persecution not only from the Jews in their area, but also from the Roman authorities. They didn’t follow the pagan customs of the society in which they lived, so their behavior and attitudes made them distinct from that society. Life for these early Christians was risky.
Being a disciple of Jesus, in the first century and in the twenty first century, is a risky business.
Today’s parable encourages us to ask, “Just what are the risks involved in being a disciple of Jesus Christ?”
Perhaps we could draw up a list of some of them. By way of suggestion, here are a few ideas:
  • ·       Entering the waters of Holy Baptism involves a dying to self, a saying of “goodbye” to the ways of the world, and a turning to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. In so doing, we are saying – in essence – “Lord, I am unable to live the way you want us to live, but – with your help – I can live according to your righteous and holy ways”. That’s risky stuff.
  • ·       In Baptism, we surrender ourselves to God. Letting go and letting God is risky business. But the truth is, unless we are willing to take this essential step, something critical and absolutely essential in our walk with God is missing. Allowing God to lead us may seem like risky stuff, but, in truth, it is the only way to the fulness of life.
  • ·       It’s risky to live by the values of the kingdom of heaven, and not by the contemporary culture’s values.
  • ·       To make Jesus Christ the central and most important part of our lives is risky stuff. To do this is to allow ourselves to be fashioned into a people whose lifestyles and manner of living are distinctive, just as these things made the first century Christians distinctive in the culture and society they lived in.
  • ·       To live out our baptismal vows to value each and every individual person is risky stuff. Living this out involves working to overcome the polarities and outright dislike and disdain for others who are different in some way that is so common in our society today. Doing so just might put us in the risky spot of being agents of reconciliation, seeking to build bridges by those who oppose one another.

Perhaps this short list can serve as a starting point for our own, individual reflection on the risks involved in being a Christian in the day, the time and the culture we live in today.
That would be my prayer, at least.
AMEN.




[1]   The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible uses the word “slaves”, although the Greek word may mean either “slaves” or “servants”.
[2]   Jesus’ linkage of the amounts given to each servant’s ability is the basis for the contemporary meaning of the word “talent”.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Pentecost 23, Year A (2017)

Proper 27 :: Amos 5: 18–24; Psalm 70; I Thessalonians 4: 13–18; Matthew 25: 1–13
This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 12, 2017.
“HOW DOES THE KINGDOM COME?”
(Homily texts:  Amos 5: 18-24 & Matthew 25: 1–13)
Whenever I read or hear this morning’s passage from Amos, this question almost always arises in my mind: “Wouldn’t it be great if Amos could have been just a little more clear in his meaning?” Of course, the question arises with a considerable touch of humor, for the truth is that Amos is bluntly, abundantly clear in his warning to the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, sometime in the eighth century before Jesus’ coming.
As I read Amos’ warning, and hear Jesus’ teaching about the way in which the kingdom of heaven comes, I think we can make a case for connecting the two passages. The connection, it seems to me, has to do with the warnings that are present in Amos’ pronouncement, and – in Jesus’ case – to the warnings that have preceded today’s parable. In Amos’ case, it is God’s coming judgment on the people of the Northern Kingdom. I the case of Jesus’ parable, the coming of the kingdom calls for all of God’s people to be alert and ready whenever the kingdom comes. In each case, there is a warning against complacency.
Let’s unpack each passage a little to aid in our quest to connect these two passages.
We begin with Amos.
Amos was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamore trees, as the beginning of the book which bears his name tells us. He was from an area not far from the town of Bethlehem, which is located in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. But God sent him north to warn the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel that their wicked ways were sure to bring about God’s judgment.
So Amos already has one strike against him, for he is – in essence – a foreigner, a resident of another country, Judah.
But Amos utters God’s warnings, anyway.  “Why do you desire the day of the Lord,” he asks, adding that the “day of the Lord is a day of darkness, not light.” Amos goes after the empty sort of religion that puts great emphasis on fine, liturgical practice, but which is coupled to everyday practices of deceit. While the rich in the Northern Kingdom lie on beds of ivory and drink wine, the poor are cheated by the rich with the false weights that were being used in business. No wonder that the king’s priest tells Amos to go back where he came from, and to prophesy there. In the days in which Amos labored, there was great complacency among the inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom. From all outward appearance, things were going well, for the rich, at least. The kingdom seemed to be economically secure, politically stable and militarily secure. But all that would change when the Assyrians swept in from the north and the east and conquered the Northern Kingdom, scattering many of its inhabitants into exile.
Just as Amos’ pronouncement is coupled to words of warning, so, too, is Jesus’ parable coupled to warnings. In the chapters just preceding our reading of the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, Jesus utters warnings against the leaders of God’s people 2,000 years ago. They – like the rich of Amos’ day – were complacent, sure of their favored place in the society of the Jewish people. They cared not for the poor among them, and were quick to parcel out God’s people according to those who were clean by the reckoning of the Law of Moses, and those who were unclean. And, so at the beginning of chapter 23 (beginning with verse 13) of Matthew’s gospel account, we read Jesus’ seven warnings to the scribes and the Pharisees.  This phrase begins most all of them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”
In each case, in the situation Amos faced, and in the situation that Jesus faced, those who benefitted from the structures of society felt secure in their position in the scheme of things then pertaining. No doubt the rich and the powerful of the Northern Kingdom felt that God’s kingdom was to be found in their very midst. Meanwhile, the scribes and the Pharisees looked to bring about God’s kingdom by their scrupulous observance of the requirements of the Law of Moses. When the kingdom came, they were sure, it would be brought in with great pomp and fanfare, as the promised Messiah would re-establish the kingdom that they had heard about in the days of King David.
All of this brings us to the question: How does the kingdom come?
Does the kingdom of God come with great and observable events? Or, does the kingdom come in everyday words and actions?
The answer seems to be that the kingdom comes in both ways.
Certainly, Jesus’ eventual return in glory, which is a theme of our Advent observance, is an example of the dramatic inbreaking of the kingdom into human affairs. We affirm this eventual reality whenever we recite the Nicene or Apostles’ Creeds, which affirm the truth that Jesus will return in great glory someday, in some way.
But the kingdom also comes quietly, silently, prompting us to be vigilant (as our parable this morning admonishes us) and to look for its coming. It is found whenever justice rolls down, as Amos said. It comes whenever we, acting in God’s love, care for the least of those around us.
The powerful of Jesus’ day missed the coming of the kingdom because they were looking for some great, big event to herald the coming of a future Messiah. But the Messiah came according to God’s plan, not according to theirs. And so the Messiah was born in a stable, and the Messiah was from the “other side of the tracks”, from Galilee, and the Messiah wound up on a cross outside the walls of the Holy City. But then, that same Messiah rose from the dead, quietly, silently, but with His flesh and His life intact.
And so, the kingdom comes by the action of this risen Messiah, and the kingdom is revealed to those to whom God chooses to reveal it. And oftentimes, God chooses to reveal His kingdom to the least and the lost, but not to those who are full of their own pride and place in the world.

AMEN.

Sunday, November 05, 2017

All Saints' Sunday, Year A (2017)

Revelation 7: 9–17; Psalm 34: 1-10, 22; I John 3: 1–3; Matthew 5: 1–12
This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, November 5, 2017.
“SAINTS: THOSE WHO BRING HEAVEN TO EARTH”
(Homily texts:  Revelation 7: 9–17 & Matthew 5: 1-12)
This past week, I attended a wonderful lecture on the reformer, Martin Luther, which was given at Juniata College.
As part of the lecture, Luther was presented as an “Agent of Change” (the title for this presentation, which was one of a series of similarly entitled offerings on the campus).
Though the lecturer told us, more than once, that he wasn’t a theologian, it is impossible to talk about Luther’s work without delving - at least a little bit - into theology.
I was struck by how much Luther pondered the matter of predestination. Predestination is that theological concept that understands that God, in God’s infinite wisdom and freedom, deliberately chooses those who will be in communion with Him. (I think this is a fairly-stated definition.)
Luther’s understanding of the concept of predestination is often neglected today. Instead, we more often think of Luther’s important work in reminding us that our salvation is dependent on God’s grace alone (Luther’s phrase, given in Latin, was “sola gratia”).
The lecturer this past week correctly described the sometimes heated exchanges between Luther and the theologian, Erasmus. These two men couldn’t have been more different in some respects:  Luther was convinced that human nature is so tainted by sin that we human beings are totally incapable of affecting our own salvation. Erasmus, on the other hand, elevates human nature to a higher place.
As I listened to the lecture, I began to think about the divine and human roles in the interaction between God and people. Down through history, Christians have wrestled with this question. St. Paul addresses it head-on in his letter to the Romans. If I may summarize Paul’s argument, we might say that Paul maintains that though God has revealed His righteous nature, we human beings have failed to meet God’s righteous standards. As a consequence, God must act to bring about our salvation, sending Jesus Christ to open the way to God.
St. Augustine, that wonderful fifth century bishop and brilliant theologian, follows in St. Paul’s footsteps. In his tenure, Augustine was dealing with a movement called Pelagianism. Pelagianism maintained that we human beings have all the tools we need to bring about our own salvation. God has shown us the way, the Pelagians said, and we human beings, by being created in the image and likeness of God, are equipped to do God’s will and to bring about our own righteous standing before God. (Again, I think this is a fair summary of Augustine’s position.)
So it’s clear that Luther is siding with St. Paul and with Augustine in his view of the human state.
Concerning the idea of predestination, today we associate the reformer John Calvin with this concept. But Luther adhered to it, as well.
All of this brings us to a central question:  Just what and how much does God do, and what and how much do human beings do in interacting with one another?
As we said a moment ago, Christians have tended to fall on one side or the other in this debate. Some Christians, even today, emphasize God’s omnipotence, God’s omniscience, and God’s prerogatives in dealing with humankind. Still others, however, put great weight on human beings’ abilities to effect change in the world, often even to the extent (at least it seems to me), in some cases, of excluding God’s empowerment to do the work at hand.
What can be said about God’s role and our role in our relating, one to another, and in the work that is set before us to do?
Perhaps this truth is quite evident: God possesses the power, insight and wisdom to guide His people. And we human beings are graced (as we said a moment ago) with having been created in the image and likeness of God. This second fact makes it clear that we are given tools to do the work set before us. It is also abundantly clear that we human beings were not created to be automatons or robots.
So, we can safely conclude that God has a role to play, and human beings also have a role to play.
Speaking personally, I believe that God is the initiator, the prime mover, the inspirer, and the One who empowers us to do all that He has in mind for us to do. So we humans draw our power, insight, wisdom and abilities from God. We cannot draw these things from within ourselves (here we come back to St. Paul’s, Augustine’s and Luther’s basic position). Not only do we draw these things from God at the outset of whatever it is that God has in mind for us to accomplish, but we are in need of continually going back to God for course corrections, fresh instructions, and so forth.
On this All Saints’ Sunday, we hold in our thoughts and present to God our prayers of thanksgiving for the saints of God who have gone before us, and for the saints of God who are present among us today. In one sense, the saints hold in mind that wonderful image that we read in this morning’s reading from the Book of Revelation, where the saints are gathered around God’s heavenly throne. Saints are those who hold this image ever before themselves, and who hold this same image before the world. They live by the standards that Jesus gave us in the Beatitudes, which we hear in our Gospel reading for this day. 
All of this is by way of saying that a saint is a person who has cultivated a close and personal relationship with God, having been inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit in the first place. A saint is one who then turns around and exhibits those qualities to those around about. As St. James says in his wonderful letter, “….faith by itself, without works, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’” (James 2: 17, 18)
James’ description of the relationship between believing and doing is just about as good a definition as I can think of of what a saint is.
Put another way, doing God’s will, and believing and relying on God’s leading, is a wonderful definition of sacramental living, for with the saints, their inner and spiritual reality is confirmed by their outward and visible actions, bringing heaven down to earth, that God’s Name may be glorified and that God’s work may be done.

AMEN.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Pentecost 21, Year A (2017)

Proper 25 :: Leviticus 19: 1–2, 15–18; Psalm 90: 1–6, 13–17; Thessalonians 2: 1–8; 22: 34–46

This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 29, 2017.
“WHICH IS THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT?”
(Homily text:  Matthew 22: 34–46)
Just which is the greatest (and most important) commandment?
Our Gospel text for this morning puts this extraordinarily important question before us, just as it was posed to the Lord by one of a group of Pharisees[1]. Another way to characterize the importance of this question is to put it in terms of “What does the Lord want us to be doing?”
When asked this way, the answers that come forth from the scribes, the Pharisees, and the chief priests are just about as different from Jesus’ answer to this question as our imaginations can comprehend. The understandings differ so much that it is impossible to reconcile them…..one set of answers (the answers of the scribes, the Pharisees and the chief priests) focuses on the details of keeping the Law, while Jesus’ answer embodies a much wider vision, seeking to understand the main principle for which the Law exists.
Judging from the record that the Gospel writers have passed along to us, Jesus’ enemies would be interested in the keeping of the smallest detail of the Law of Moses. They would be concerned about whether or not anyone did any work on the Sabbath day. They would want to know if anyone walked too far on the Sabbath day, or if they plucked grain from the fields as they walked along on that day. They would be concerned about the fastidiousness with which cooking pots and vessels were cleaned. They would want to ensure that no one had any contact whatsoever with unclean persons (like tax collectors and prostitutes).[2]
But Jesus’ answer is radically different:  Love, He says, is the greatest commandment.
Love.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,”[3] Jesus says. Then, He adds, “A second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[4]
Love uplifts the one who is loved, while the attitudes of Jesus’ enemies tend to do just the opposite. Love values the one who is loved, while attitudes of judgment and disdain devalue others and makes them slaves to mindless adherence to the details of God’s Law.
The scribes, the Pharisees and the chief priests all have their eyes firmly fixed on the fine print in the Law as they examine it as if through a magnifying glass. But Jesus’ answer provides a framework for understanding why the Law exists. Such a perspective will inform those who adhere to God’s holy ways as to the why of God’s commands, and not just to the what of those commands.
At this point, it’d be a good idea to talk about love.
Love, as it is commonly understood in our contemporary culture, is regarded as an emotion (often a sappy emotion). Love is equated with permissiveness, with an attitude of laissez-faire.[5]
But, really, love is a powerful force. Love can cause great changes in the way things are. Love has an emotional component to it, but at its most basic level, love has power.
Let’s return to Jesus’ summary of the Law, and apply the idea of love as a powerful force to the two ways in which Jesus says we are to love.
“You shall love the Lord your God….”
Loving God means loving all of who God is. We say that “God is love”,[6] but oftentimes, our concentration is fixed mainly or solely on God’s mercy and forgiveness.
But what about loving God’s holiness and God’s judgment? Do we love those aspects of God as much, or as often?
Both truths about God’s nature are equally important. God’s holiness and God’s righteousness are balanced with God’s love and God’s mercy. Without God’s mercy and God’s forgiveness, then all of us would be condemned by God’s righteousness and God’s holiness. There would be no hope for us to have any relationship with God. Turned around the other way, we can see that if God’s nature was solely one of mercy and love, then God would be some sort of a big “Sugar Daddy” who just wanted to give us “good things”. (Does this second way of regarding God sound familiar? It is. Too many people in our world today regard God just in this way.)
Loving both aspects of God encourages us to respond to God’s holy standards for living because we want to bear the image of God to the world about us. We are saying that, because we love God, we want to pattern our lives after God’s nature as much as we possibly can. We honor God in this way. This, then. is a matter of a loving response, not a response which arises out of fear of God’s judgment.
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself….”
Now, we turn to the second of Jesus’ statements.
Loving our neighbor, even as we love ourselves, bears a strong resemblance to our loving response to God. Recall that we said a moment ago that it is critical that we love both of God’s natures. The same is true as we love our neighbors: We are called to love all aspects of who our neighbors are, including the good and delightful aspects of who they are, but also the troublesome and less-than-holy aspects of who they are.
Perhaps this last statement needs some explanation.
If we love only the good and pleasing aspects of a person’s nature, then the possibility arises that we will exclude the less-than-pleasing, the less-than-holy aspects of a person from the power of our love.
Here the word power arises again. Love as a power has the ability to change things, to make those less-than-holy, less-than-pleasing aspects of a person available to God’s power to change, God working through us.
If we approach others in the spirit of love and acceptance, then we approach others with the same approach God takes toward us: God reaches out to us in the spirit of love and mercy (though God’s holiness and righteousness are not set aside), and God – by this process – draws us more and more into a faithful relationship whereby God’s image permeates more and more of who we are. We are changed by this process.
So we, too approach others, all too aware, perhaps, of the ways in which they fall short of God’s righteousness. But by leading with a loving approach, we build a relationship of trust so that those other areas of a person’s life can be touched by God’s holiness and righteousness. God’s approach to us allows to see the immense value of our lives, so that we can love ourselves. In a real sense, it is difficult to love God if we do not allow ourselves to accept God’s love for us, and it is also difficult for us to love others if we do not see the value of ourselves as seen through God’s eyes.
In this way, we act as conduits of God’s love, God’s love flowing through us, a love that we return to God in mutual admiration. And then, this active, back-and-forth love relationship bubbles over into love for others, so that God’s love might touch and change them, just as it tends to touch and change us.
AMEN.



[1]   Apparently, this question came up more than once during Jesus’ earthly ministry. Mark also records the encounter we read about today (see Mark 12: 30, 33), while Luke tells us about another encounter, which apparently took place earlier on in Jesus’ ministry (see Luke 10: 27).
[2]   All of these things were points of disagreement between the Lord and those who opposed Him.
[3]   Jesus’ answer is a paraphrase of Deuteronomy 6:5, which follows the great declaration, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Known as the Sh’ma in Hebrew.)
[4]   Jesus’ statement has found its way into our liturgy, for in our traditional language Rite (Rite One), it falls early in the service and is known by the title “The Summary of the Law”.
[5]   A term, coming from the French, which we might characterize by saying it allows each person to act without interference from others.
[6]   I John 4: 8