Epiphany 4, Year A (2017)

Micah 6: 1–8 , Psalm 15; I Corinthians 1: 18–31; Matthew 5: 1–12

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, which was given at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, January 29th, 2017.

“KINGDOM VALUES”

(Homily texts: I Corinthians 1: 18–31 & Matthew 5: 1–12)

Let’s ask ourselves two questions as we look at Jesus’ Beatitudes this morning:

• Am I a prophet?  (OK, I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not in the same class of prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel or Daniel.)
• Am I chosen by God to announce the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, and to make it a reality? (Jesus did that, but, for sure, I’m not in a league like His.)

Allow me to suggest that everyone who has been baptized is both a prophet (one who speaks God’s truth) and a herald (announcer) of the coming Kingdom. In this homily, I will attempt to connect Baptism to the Beatitudes.

Our Gospel text which is appointed for this morning brings with it challenges both for the preacher and for the reader/hearer of Jesus’ teaching. We hear and read the very familiar Beatitudes, which form the opening of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It’s possible that many of us could recite many – if not most – of Jesus’ sayings from memory. But our familiarity with Jesus’ sayings might cause us to miss the point of what He is trying to tell us…we might think that Jesus is simply giving us some good guidelines to be “good people”. But Jesus’ teaching has everything to do with the Kingdom of Heaven, which breaks into the world, changing it forever, and which will come in all its fullness someday.

Jesus’ statements look beyond the conventional wisdom of life, beyond the way “things are”, to the way things “are already to some extent” and which “will be”. Jesus’ statements are, therefore, counter-cultural and other-worldly. They look ahead to the coming of God’s kingdom.

To see how differently Jesus’ view of the Kingdom of Heaven looks from the way conventional wisdom encourages us to think, we might try rewriting some of the Beatitudes to see the ways in which the conventional wisdom encourages us to look at things.

If the conventional wisdom of the world was to draw up its own set of Beatitudes, the result might look something like this: (I offer a sampling of my own creation, which is shown in italics.)

1. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Yes, the merciful will inherit the earth, six feet of earth.
2. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. They will be filled with disappointment and will be disappointed at the schemes and successes of those who do evil.
3. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will find themselves in the middle of intractable disputes and fighting, receiving scorn and abuse from both extremes.

Perhaps this is enough of a sampling to demonstrate how different the conventional ways of looking at things are from Jesus’ vision. Depressing, isn’t it? Devoid of hope and given to a resignation that says nothing will ever change, isn’t it?

If we look closely at the structure of the Beatitudes, we see a present tense and a future tense:  The present tense is found in the first and the eighth Beatitudes. The first one says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is (present tense) the Kingdom of Heaven.” Similarly, the eighth one reads, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is (present tense) the Kingdom of Heaven.” But the other seven sayings are all future tense:  “Blessed are those who ____, for they will (future tense) _____.” So the Lord is telling us that the Kingdom is already ours to possess and enjoy. But the Kingdom is in the process of coming, and it is our job to announce its coming by the ways in which we demonstrate Kingdom values in our daily lives. Jesus describes those who live by godly values in the here-and-now, living according to the future in which God’s will and God’s Kingdom will be done. We are reminded of the wording of the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

God’s final will breaks into the world, and we are the prophets who are to announce the Kingdom’s approach by our allegiance to God, by the things we say and the things we do. To do these things is to bring the light of God into the darkness of the world, a light that conquers the darkness. (See John 1: 5.)

All of this is counter-cultural stuff. It is the stuff of which St. Paul speaks when he tells the early Christians in Corinth that “…the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Then Paul adds (a little later) “God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” (I Corinthians 1: 25, 27b)

This is risky stuff, as well. To dare to be different, to dare to march to a different drummer and a different beat, God’s drumbeat, invites puzzled looks from those who do not see the future reality of God’s plans for humankind. To live according to Kingdom values is to declare that the way things are now in the world will someday cease to be, for God will usher in a new and glorious way when the Kingdom comes in all its fullness.

We can be reminded of God’s claim on our lives, made at baptism. The early Church acted out this reality in the ways it conducted the rite of Baptism: Those to be baptized came to the edge of the water and faced west. Then they renounced Satan and all his works. After that, they turned and faced to the east, and proclaimed that they had accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior.[1] The next step involved being immersed three times in the water, each time in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Only then did they leave the water by a different way than they came in, and they were clothed in a white gown, signifying their new and holy identity in Christ. All who have passed through the waters of baptism have turned their backs on the ways of the world, proclaiming that Jesus has ushered in a new way of being, a new Kingdom of Heaven that shall have no end. For each one of the baptized, that new Kingdom has already become a reality.

AMEN.

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[1]   Elements of this rite survive in our baptismal liturgy. We can see the connection to the early Church in the promises made at baptism. See the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, pages 302 – 303. 

Epiphany 3, Year A (2017)

Isaiah 9: 1–4; Psalm 27: 1, 5–13; I Corinthians 1: 10–18; Matthew 4: 12–23

This is a reflection by Fr. Gene Tucker, offered at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, January 22, 2017.

“RECEIVING GOD’S CALL”

(Homily text:  Matthew 4: 12-23)

The Collect (prayer) of the Day which is appointed for this, the Third Sunday After the Epiphany, and our Gospel text, which relates Jesus’ call to four of His disciples, Simon Peter, his brother Andrew, and the two brothers, James and John, fit quite well together. Here is the Collect:

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.[1]

Since we have the theme of call before us, let’s explore some of the ways in which Jesus Christ calls us, and the implications of God the Father’s call, coming through Him.

We might begin by noticing the nature of the call of these four disciples, coming as Jesus walked along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, for there must have been something very compelling about that call. (Indeed, I can’t resist saying that – to be in the Lord’s presence during his earthly ministry – must have been to experience a very dynamic and loving person. I suspect that the growing popularity He experienced was, in part, due to his persona, but was also due to the outpouring of divine love and hope that He offered.) Matthew seems to indicate that these four disciples simply got up, left their fishing, their nets and their families to follow Jesus. Their response, Matthew tells us in verses 20 and 22, was “immediate”. (We will see the same sort of thing again as we read about Matthew’s own call, for, in Matthew 9: 9, we get the sense that Matthew simply got up and walked away from his tax collecting in order to follow the Lord.)

So, the first point we might discern about God’s call is that it is a call that comes from outside our own experience. Connected to this reality is the fact that God’s call comes from One who is mightier than we are. As we ponder the mystery of God’s nature, one thing we can be sure of is that His nature is one of generosity and love. After all, Jesus came to demonstrate by His manner of living and His manner of giving the true nature of God’s love.

God’s call to us comes, then, from the One who is the author of life itself, the One whose truest nature is one of love.

By responding to God’s love, we are simply returning to God what has come from God in the first place. To acknowledge God’s love and generous nature is to be aware of God’s greatness, God’s holiness, God’s gift of life and God’s continuing presence in our lives. This last point leads us to conclude that God’s call to us doesn’t come just once, but again and again as our lives unfold. To be aware of God’s call, coming again and again, is to listen intently whenever God’s call comes, and to be prepared, as Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John did, to follow God’s call immediately.

As we look at our sacramental life, we can see that each of the seven Sacraments involves some sort of a call. Let’s explore these specific ways in which God acts in our lives from the perspective of the call involved.

God’s great and first call often comes in baptism. To respond to God’s call to enter the waters of baptism is to acknowledge, that, as we pass through these waters, we are saying to God that we know Him to be the way of salvation and eternal life, given to us through the work of Jesus Christ our Lord. So we pass, as did God’s people in ancient times when they walked through the waters of the Red Sea out of bondage into a new and glorious future in the Promised Land, into the Promised Land of an ongoing and permanent relationship with Him.

In the Holy Eucharist (also known as the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, the Mass), we respond to God’s call of love, made known to us in the Lord’s self-offering of Himself on the cross on Good Friday. In a very real sense, the Eucharist is a bloodless sacrifice, a remembrance of the Lord’s passion and death. As we come to the holy table of Communion, we acknowledge that we cannot save ourselves, and we respond to God’s call to put our faith in the One who saved us by His precious death and by His glorious resurrection, for nowhere else can we see God’s enormous power made known in God’s victory over death and sin, than in Jesus’ death and in His rising again on Easter Sunday morning.

We confirm our faith in the Lord as we make our own mature declaration of faith in the rite of Confirmation. In this rite, we are declaring that we’ve examined many of the possibilities that life offers, and have come to affirm the promises that were made at our baptisms exceed all other realities, responding to God’s call made then, with our own response which has been shaped and molded by our coming to know God and to know Him more fully.

The rite of Reconciliation[2] (Confession) allows us the opportunity to acknowledge that there will be times when we fall short of God’s holy and righteous standards. What we are talking about here is the reality of sin. Indeed, it is guaranteed that – in this earthly life – there will be times when we are guilty of missing the mark (one of the definitions of sin). So the rite of Reconciliation offers us a specific chance, in cases of especially serious wrongdoing, to confess such transgressions to a priest or bishop, and to hear God’s declaration of forgiveness for our genuine repentance. 

In Matrimony, we step outside of ourselves to acknowledge that we are connected to others through marriage. And, by extension, we are connected to God as we take up our part in bringing into being the next generation of human beings. So matrimony is, in a very real sense, a call to acknowledge that we are not alone in life. We are connected to others in marriage and in participating in God’s plan for humanity.

Ordination is, perhaps, the most explicitly examined area in which a call is involved. For persons who present themselves for ordination, one of the key concerns among those who will discern the nature of a person’s call (whether that discernment takes place at the parish level, at the diocesan level, or with the Bishop) is to ask, “Just what is this call? Is it a genuine call from God to serve God and to serve the people whom God loves, or is it a call that arises from some other, perhaps personal, agenda?” As important as it is to determine the nature of call with regard to ordination, it is equally important to be aware of God’s call in other areas of life.

The rite of anointing with holy oils, known as Unction[3], is a rite which is administered for healing (spiritual, mental and physical), and for anointing at the time of death (which is God’s ultimate healing as He draws our spirits back to Him).

Finally, each of these seven channels of God’s grace, known as the Sacraments, are specific ways in which our awareness of God’s call is raised to a more sensitive level. Acknowledging God’s call, whether it is our sacramental life, or in our daily walk with God, is to ally ourselves with God’s greatness, power and love.

AMEN.

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[1]   I have highlighted the phrase “to answer readily the call” to show the connection to our theme for this reflection.

[2]   Our liturgical life offers us the opportunity to make our confession to God in the weekly inclusion of the General Confession in our worship. The Rite of Reconciliation offers a specific and private opportunity to confess especially troubling and disruptive sin. In the Anglican/Episcopal tradition, no one is compelled to make such a confession. The phrase which is often used in this connection is: “All may, some should, none must”.

[3]   Anointing with holy oil for healing is known as Unction. Anointing with another type of holy oil at the time of death is often known as Extreme Unction.

Epiphany 2, Year A (2017)

Isaiah 49: 1–7; Psalm 40: 1–12;I Corinthians 1: 1–9 John 1: 29–42

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s Church, in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, January 15, 2017.

‘BEHOLD, THE LAMB OF GOD”

(Homily text:  John 1: 29 – 42)

An introductory note seems appropriate as we make our way through this Epiphany season: This season focuses on the ways in which the Lord is made known to the world (and particularly, to the Gentiles). Last week, for example, we set our attention on Jesus’ baptism, which is always the theme for the First Sunday After the Epiphany. This week, we continue that theme. Sunday after Sunday as the season unfolds, a different theme will be featured.

John the Baptist figures prominently throughout the Advent season. He continues to be featured in the readings that are before us in this Epiphany season, as well. Last week, we read and heard Matthew’s account of Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River.

This week, we hear John’s (the Gospel writer) account of this same event, though – as is sometimes the case with the Fourth Gospel – the specific events are not narrated for us. It is left to us to see connections to Matthew’s account (and the accounts of the other Synoptic Gospels: Mark and Luke) to see that it is the Lord’s baptism that John is telling us about. Two of these connections deserve mention:  John’s statement that Jesus is the “one who comes after me, who ranks before me” and the Spirit’s descent in the form of a dove.

As is typical of the various Gospel accounts, John also tells us something else we do not read elsewhere about the Lord’s baptism. John the Baptist declares:

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

For Christians who maintain liturgical worship patterns, John’s statement will be quite familiar, for it has entered our liturgical life in this form (in Latin):

“Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi.

-or, in English-

“Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world.”

Let’s try to set aside our familiarity with this phrase, in order that we might see at least a little of the impact of John’s statement. It’s quite possible that those standing by did not see the significance of what John said. But perhaps some of them may have made a connection to other ways in which lambs that their inheritance in Judaism would have brought to mind: The first connection would have to do with the sacrificial lambs who were offered in Temple sacrifices in Jerusalem (as sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins), and the second connection would have had to do with the Passover lamb.

Perhaps both connections are in the Baptist’s mind and heart. However, as the Fourth Gospel unfolds, both connections seem to be connected to John’s remark.. Let’s set aside our consideration of a connection to the sacrificial lambs who were offered up in the Temple in order that we may concentrate on the connection to the Passover lamb. We must do some digging into the Bible to see the connections.

We should begin by looking at the Passover itself. We find the first Passover narrated for us in Exodus 12: 1 – 28. Reviewing what happened there, we find the following:

• God’s people are instructed to kill a lamb, and to sprinkle its blood on the lintel (top bar) and the doorposts of their homes with a branch of hyssop,
• When the angel of death passed through their camps, those who had sprinkled the blood in accordance with Moses’ instructions were spared the deaths of their firstborn. Here we come to the essential meaning of the word “Passover”, for the angel of death “passed over” the homes of those that were protected.
• This event marks the beginning of God’s deliverance of His people, for shortly thereafter, Pharoah allows the Israelites to leave Egypt. God’s people are free from the bondage of slavery.

Now, let’s move forward in John’s gospel account to Jesus’ trial and death.

In John 13: 1, John tells us that Jesus’ suffering and death take place at the time of the Feast of the Passover. John repeats this connection to the timing with the Passover observance in 18:28, and again in 19:14. John seems to suggest that Jesus’ death occurs at the very time that the Passover lambs were being sacrificed.[1]

But John has some more specific connections to the Passover event in his text:

• “Not one of his bones shall be broken.”[2] (John 19:36) The instructions given for the observance of the Passover are that none of the lamb’s bones are to be broken in the sacrificing of the lamb.
• Notice also the mention of the use of hyssop which is used to administer some sour wine to the Lord in John 19:29.

So John seems to trying to tell us that Jesus’ death is the beginning of God’s deliverance from the threat of death. If so (and I believe that is, indeed, John’s intent), then John is appropriating the meaning of the original Passover event to understand more fully what importance Jesus’ death has for Christians in all ages and places. The key difference is that the Passover event has to do with deliverance from the threat of death, but it was not for the forgiveness of sin, or for the carrying away of sin.

Writing some decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, St. Paul affirms that Jesus is the Passover Lamb. We find this statement in I Corinthians 5:7.

So we return to John’s statement about Jesus, who is – as John states – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus’ ability to do away with sin has to do with His obedience to God the Father’s will, by allowing Himself to be sacrificed at the time of the slaughter of the Passover lambs. The early Church connects Jesus’ sacrifice with the deliverance of God’s people from bondage in Egypt. For the early Christians, Jesus brings God’s New Israel, the Church, out of the bondage of sin into a new and promised relationship of true freedom in Christ.

AMEN.

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[1]   Scholars have wondered about John’s chronology, for John seems to suggest that Jesus was crucified on Thursday. His understanding, then, differs from the accounts of the Synoptic Gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark and Luke), who make it clear that Jesus was crucified on a Friday in advance of the Passover. But I think it’s important to remember that – of all the Gospel accounts – John seems to be the least concerned with the chronology of the events of Jesus’ life.

[2]   An allusion to Exodus 12:46 and to Psalm 34:20b.

Epiphany 1, Year A (2017)

Isaiah 42: 1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10: 34 – 43; Matthew 3: 13 - 17

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, January 8th, 2017 (Epiphany 1, The Baptism of Our Lord).

“TO FULFILL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS”

(Homily text:  Matthew 3: 13–17)

With Christians around the world on this Lord’s Day, we will hear and consider the event which begins Jesus’ public ministry: His baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. This event is put before us on the First Sunday After the Epiphany in each of our three cycles of readings from the Bible.

The Lord’s baptism fits well into the overall theme of the Epiphany season. In this season, we mark the ways in which Jesus is made known to the world. The Lord’s baptism is the opening scene in this divine drama. From the point of this first, public event in Jesus’ life, He will go out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan, and from there, His ministry will begin to unfold.

In this homily, let’s begin by looking at the importance of Jesus’ baptism, first in terms of what this baptism tells us about the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus, and then in terms of what this baptism meant to the very early Christians. Finally, we should examine in some detail Jesus’ statement to John about “fulfilling all righteousness”.

We begin by considering the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus.

There is evidence in the New Testament that the very early Church struggled with what to make of John the Baptist’s importance as compared to Jesus’ importance. In the Book of Acts (19: 1 – 7), we discover that there is a group of disciples in the city if Ephesus who adhere to John’s teachings and leadership, practicing a baptism like that of John. This may be proof that, long after John’s death and after the Lord’s own death and resurrection, pockets of disciples were to be found here and there, maintaining their allegiance to John.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that the Gospels contain statements that make it clear that John was simply the one who prepared the way for the Lord. John is the lesser, Jesus is the greater. Matthew presents the relationship quite clearly by recording the conversation between John and Jesus as they stand near the waters of the Jordan, as John tells the Lord that it should be the Lord who is doing the baptisms, not the other way around. John himself charts the future course for his own disciples and those of Jesus, saying, “He (Jesus) must increase, I must decrease.” (John 3: 30)

The Lord’s baptism must have been very important to the early Church, for Jesus’ baptism is included in the Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke. (Though John does not narrate the Lord’s baptism, he does tell us that Jesus’ disciples were also baptizing once the Lord’s public ministry got underway. See John 4: 2.)

The early Church emphasized the importance of following the Lord by doing the things the Lord did. Every facet of life was to be governed by learning about and by doing the things the He did in His earthly ministry. So it is no surprise that following the Lord’s example by being baptized was an essential part of being a disciple of Jesus. In time, as the Church developed a fuller understanding of its sacramental ministry, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (Eucharist, Mass) became known as the two Domenical Sacraments (domenical deriving from the Latin word for Lord Dominus, and denoting the fact that the Lord Himself instituted both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.)

St. Paul picks up the idea of imitating the Lord in his exposition on the meaning of baptism as we find it in Romans 6: 3 – 11. There, Paul tells us that to be baptized is to experience a death like Jesus’ death, and to be raised up afterward is to be united to the Lord in a resurrection like His.

In the very early years of the Church’s existence, baptism was often done “in Jesus’ name”. (Acts 19: 5 offers proof of this practice.) In time, however, it became the custom to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, using the formula we read in Matthew 28: 20.

Now, let’s return to today’s Gospel text, and to Jesus’ statement about “fulfilling all righteousness”. I will admit that I’ve wondered what that statement means, nearly all my life.

Perhaps the meaning and the answer to the question lies in a careful examination of the nature of John’s baptism, which was somewhat like the Jewish ritual baths that the Law of Moses required at certain points in a person’s religious observance. But John’s baptism was unlike those ritual baths in some significant ways.

Here are some of the differences:

• Private vs. public observance: The Jewish ritual bath was something that a person did themselves, in private. John’s baptism is a public affair, one which involved public confession of sins (can you imagine standing in the water with John, telling God – and everyone else within hearing range – what things you’d done?).
  
• Outward purity vs. total purity (inner and outer): The Jewish ritual bath guaranteed that a person was outwardly pure, and was able to enter into the Temple in Jerusalem in order to take part in the observances which were required by the Law of Moses. By contrast, John’s baptism required a moral turnaround in life, a turnaround that united a person’s inner life with their outward actions.
  
• Personal vs. communal action: We remarked a moment ago that the Jewish ritual bath was done privately A person administered the rite to oneself. But John’s baptism required that at least two persons be present, the one administering the baptism and the one receiving it. (It’s worth saying, at this point, that all of the Church’s Sacraments require someone to administer them (the minister) and someone(s) to receive them. No sacramental act can take place with just one person present.)

Jesus’ public ministry will follow the pattern we’ve just observed above: He consistently attacked the pious attitudes of the Pharisees, the scribes, and the priestly caste for their love of outward holiness, which stood in sharp contrast to their inner depravity and wickedness. One of the Lord’s sharpest attacks can be read in Matthew 23: 2-3, where we read this: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you. But not the works they do, for they preach but do not practice.” These are the ones, the Lord, said, who love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have the best seats in the synagogues (Matthew 23: 6-7).

Jesus insists that those who come into the Kingdom of God must live a thoroughly integrated life, one in which a person’s inner self and outer self are characterized by holiness.

Another way in which the Lord requires righteousness is in the ways in which His disciples will relate to one another and to God. When He was asked what the greatest commandment was, He said that the greatest commandment was for a person to love God with all of one’s heart, mind and strength. But then He added that the second most important commandment was related to the first one: A person was to love others in the same ways that they love themselves. (Matthew 22: 37-40)

With the poet and Anglican priest John Donne (1553- 1631), we can say that “No man is an island, entire of itself.” We are connected, one to another in the divine love that Jesus came to give us, and we are united to the Lord in baptism and to the Father through the Son.

Surely these things must be an important part of fulfilling all righteousness.

AMEN.