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.

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[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

Pentecost 20, Year A (2017)

Proper 24 :: Exodus 32: 12–23; Psalm 99; I Thessalonians 1: 1–10; Matthew 22: 15–22

This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker that was given at St. John’s, Church, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 22, 2017.

“IMAGO DEI (IMAGE OF GOD)”

(Homily text:  Matthew 22: 15–22)

“Render unto Caesar.”

This part of our Gospel text (in an older translation) for today has come to be a frequent part of our everyday conversation. Of course, what we hear when this phrase is repeated is the first part of Jesus’ statement (“Render unto Caesar”), and not the second part (“Render unto God”).

So, in this homily this morning, let’s consider both parts of Jesus remarkable answer to the Pharisees, who’d come to Jesus, certain that they had Him backed into a corner from which there would be no escape.

But before we do so, let’s examine the scene which is before us this morning.

In recent weeks, we’ve been hearing one account after another of the encounters that took place between Jesus and His enemies. Each week, it’s another dispute, another argument, another challenge that arises as Jesus’ enemies line up against Him. Those groups are composed of the Sadducees and the chief priests (the priestly caste), the scribes (the legal scholars of the age), and the Pharisees (a lay group dedicated to keeping the Law of Moses).

In this morning’s scenario, the Pharisees have made an alliance with the Herodians, a group which was aligned with the line of puppet kings that the Romans had installed. Normally, these two groups would not have been in league with one another, but – in this instance – the governing rule seems to be “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

Each of these encounters takes place during Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’ earthly life.

And so, the Pharisees, along with the Herodians, come to Jesus, asking Him a question that they are certain will land Him in trouble with the Romans:  Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Romans? The Pharisees are certain that this question is a “gotcha”, for if Jesus says it isn’t lawful to pay taxes to the Romans, then the Pharisees could go to the governor,  Pontius Pilate, and accuse Jesus of insurrection against Roman rule. But, if He said that it is lawful to pay taxes, then His standing with the people might be diminished, for many of the Jews chafed at the idea of paying taxes to the Romans (many of those taxes supported the Roman army’s occupation of the Holy Land).

Jesus correctly labels His accusers as “hypocrites”.  For one thing, these Pharisees aren’t the least bit interested in the matter of paying taxes. Their intent is to catch Jesus in an untenable position, placing His answer between the authority of Roman rule and His popularity with the people. For another, these Pharisees hated paying taxes to the Romans, along with Jews all across the land.

Jesus’ answer is masterful.

“Show me to coin (used) for the tax,”, He says.

Then, He says, “Whose likeness[1] is this?” They answer, “Caesar’s.”

Of course, we know the rest of Jesus’ response: “Then give (render) to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

The Pharisees aren’t really interested in living in the real, everyday world (represented, in this case, by the need to pay taxes), but they aren’t really interested in the things of God, either. Rather, what they are interested in is their own, privileged position in society, and in the strictest observance of the least little details of the Law of Moses. Their intent in making sure that no one does anything unlawful on the Sabbath day isn’t to honor God, but to ensure that Jewish identity is maintained in the face of Roman rule.

So Jesus’ retort to the Pharisees points in two directions:  Toward the requirements of living in the real, everyday world (as is represented in this case by the matter of fulfilling one’s obligations to the civil authorities[2]), but also toward seeing the face of God.

This last point brings us to the requirement that Christians have to be the link that brings the image of God into the real, everyday world. That’s what we are about this morning as we have gathered for worship. We gather to hear God’s word read and preached, we gather to receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion (in order that we may be strengthened and encouraged to live out our relationship with God through Christ in the world), and then we are sent out into the world, bearing the image of God to all who will come into our life’s pathway.

This morning, young Lincoln John Devore is being baptized. When he enters the waters of baptism, we will acknowledge that he is a child of God. His parents and Godparents will make solemn promises before God that they will bring him up to come to know the Lord personally. As time goes along, all of us – his parents, Godparents and this congregation – will work to be sure that he discovers what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, to be a bearer of God’s image in the world.

For all of us who have entered the waters of baptism are called to see the image, the face, of God, and then to turn around and bear that image, that face, of God to the world around us.

In so doing, we will give to God the honor due His name, and we will give to the world the fruits of that encounter.

May the Holy Spirit enable and strengthen us to see God clearly, and to reflect that vision to the world.

AMEN.

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[1]   The word used here in the Greek is the same word that has come down to us in English as “icon”. It means “image”.

[2]   St. Paul will pick up this theme, writing in Romans 13: 7 that Christians are to pay taxes to whom taxes are due, and to pay revenue to whom revenue is due, and to pay honor to whom honor is due.

Pentecost 18, Year A (2017)

Proper 22 :: Exodus 20: 1–4, 7–9, 12–20; Psalm 19; Philippians 3: 4b–14; 21: 33–46

This is the homily that was given at St. John’s Church, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, October 8, 2017 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

“ORIGINAL INNOCENCE”

(Homily texts:  Exodus 20: 1–4, 7–9, 12–20 & Matthew 21: 33–46)

This past week, we observed the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (on Wednesday, October 4th), that great and wonderful saint from the 12th and 13th centuries, who, even today, shines brightly as an example of the values that God calls His people to live by.

Not too many years ago, a wonderful movie was made about Francis, entitled “Brother Sun, Sister Moon”. It reflects – as movies, novels and other works tend to do – the culture of the time and place in which it was created (the movie was made in the 1970s).

A line in the dialogue stands out from the movie: It was delivered by the Pope as Francis stands before him, seeking the Church’s permission to have the Franciscan Order established. The line goes this way: “Sometimes we think so much about Original Sin that we forget to think about Original Innocence.” (This may be – at best – a paraphrase of the line. I think it captures the sense of the dialogue, however.)

Original Innocence.

I’ve reflected quite a bit on that term since I heard it on Francis’ feast this past week.

And, as I’ve reflected on it, and on our Old Testament reading from Exodus and on our Gospel reading from Matthew, I’ve come to the conclusion that we live in constant tension between Original Sin and Original Innocence.

Allow me to explain.

The concept of Original Innocence lies at the heart of the account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. (If you need to refresh your memory about the conditions that they lived in there, please reread Genesis, chapter two.) There, Adam and Eve had a close, face-to-face relationship with God and a place to live where there was plenty to eat, where there were no threats to their welfare and where no threats to that food supply existed (no thorns and weeds to choke out the plants which provided food).

But, they blew it, stepping beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior that God had established, taking and eating of the fruit from the forbidden tree. (See Genesis, chapter three.) From there on, their lives are stained by the legacy of their disobedience, something we call Original Sin. Original Sin maintains that – within each and every human being – there lies the capacity to do “bad stuff”, sin, in other words. (If you doubt the reality of this concept, just observe a group of young children at play…it won’t be long before one child tries to take away a toy that another one is holding….such a move might even lead to hitting and other harmful actions.)

And, of course, it’s worth noting that – for the remainder of the Book of Genesis - there is a discernable downward trend in the human condition (though Genesis ends on an upward note with the account of Joseph’s life).

We human beings can remember something of our past Original Innocence. It is for this reason that we recoil in horror at the wrong-ness of the mass shooting this past week in Las Vegas. Nearly every one of us believes that murdering 58 people by firing into a crowd of concert-goers is morally wrong. Every one, of course, except those who cannot distinguish between right and wrong, and those who espouse violence as a means to achieve a political end, people we call terrorists.

Our awareness of our Original Innocence, however compromised and clouded it might be at times, is enshrined in the Ten Commandments, whose text forms our Old Testament reading for this morning.

If we look at the Ten Commandments carefully, we see that the first grouping of them has to do with our relationship to God, and the remaining ones have to do with the ways in which we relate to one another. The Ten Commandments seek to restore the conditions that were present in the Garden of Eden, making it possible for us to relate to God by righteous and holy living. In the process, we are also able to relate to one another in peace and harmony, as Adam and Eve were able to do before the serpent deceived Eve and prompted her to separate from her husband and eat of the forbidden tree.

As the Old Testament unfolds, its pages recount the history of God’s people’s relationship to God. Sometimes, that history is one of failure and of outright disobedience (see, the legacy that Adam and Eve bequeathed to us was alive and well in those ancient times!). The pages of the Old Testament bear witness to the sad and troubling experience of God’s people as they succumb to their baser instincts. But the pages of the Old Testament also bear witness to God’s mercy and grace, and to the actions of God’s people that were courageous and righteous and which declare that victory over the legacy of Original Sin is possible, through God’s help.

This long history – both the good parts and the bad parts – were given into the hands of the leadership of God’s people in Jesus’ day. Today’s Gospel text zeroes in on the chief priests and the Pharisees, whose job it should have been to remind people of the difference between Original Sin and Original Innocence. Instead of declaring to the people that “This is what holy living looks like,” by reminding the people of their history, these leaders chose to concentrate on other values:  They valued God’s judgment over God’s mercy. They valued their own welfare over the welfare of the people they were leading. They had a sense of holiness that concentrated on specific actions at the expense of understanding the reasons for the rightness or wrongness of those actions.

In other words, they blew it.

No wonder Jesus tells these chief priests and Pharisees that the kingdom of God will be taken away from them and will be given to others who will faithfully bring that kingdom into being.

The successors to the chief priests and the Pharisees today are faithful Christians, who are called to remind the world of the difference between Original Sin and Original Innocence.

We take up this task by reading and learning from the pages of Holy Scripture, for its sacred pages tell us what faithful living in relationship to God and to one another looks like. We can learn much from the failures and successes of God’s people in times past. We are called to live by the code of the Ten Commandments, for holy living in relationship to God and to one another is still to be found there. We are called to declare to the world by what we do and by what we say that there is a different way to live, the way of Original Innocence, than the ways that the world often tempts us to live.

The kingdom of God seeks to re-establish the conditions of Original Innocence, bringing people into relationship with God and with one another, seeking to establish the importance of our relationship to God and seeking to establish the value of each and every human being.

May we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, be enlightened and empowered to be faithful stewards of God’s kingdom here on earth, until God’s reign is complete over all the earth.  AMEN.

Pentecost 17, Year A (2017)

Proper 21 :: Ezekiel 18: 1–4, 25–32; Psalm 25: 1–8; Philippians 2: 1–13; Matthew 22: 23–32

This is the homily offered by Fr. Gene Tucker at St. John’s; Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 1, 2017.

 “WALKING THE WALK, TALKING THE TALK”

(Homily text: Matthew 21: 23–32)

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if some device were to be invented that would allow us to know exactly what another person was thinking, and to feel what another person was feeling? Perhaps such a device might be something like we would see in a science-fiction movie.

It’s doubtful that such a device will ever be invented, at least as far as we can tell right now. But maybe, with all of the advances that are being made in technology, one day we might be able to crawl into another person’s head and into their heart, as well.

Until that time (if it ever comes), we have to rely on indirect means of telling what a person is feeling, and what their intent is in doing the things they do. We rely on our past experience in dealing with other human beings, judging that other person’s intent and their thoughts by the things they say, by their body language and facial expressions, and by their actions.

It is on that score that the chief priests and the elders of the people of Jesus’ day fail. They failed in the intents of their hearts and in their actions, for these two things did not match one another. Put another way, these leaders of God’s people in those ancient times failed to “walk the walk”, and “talk the talk”. The chief priests and the elders were good at talking a good game, but they failed to live with integrity, matching what they said with what they did.

Jesus, in response to this disconnect in the chief priests and the elders’ behavior, climbs all over their case, spinning out the Parable of the Two Sons. The one son talks a good game, saying to his father that, yes, he will go and work in the vineyard, but he doesn’t go at all. The other son, however, initially refuses his father’s instruction, but then reconsiders and winds up going out to do the work. So Jesus tells these scribes and Pharisees, in this morning’s Gospel reading, that the “tax collectors and the prostitutes will go into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

When Jesus tells a parable, it isn’t always the case that He specifically spells out the parable’s application. But He does apply the meaning of this parable clearly and directly to the audience in front of Him, those priests and elders who had challenged His authority to teach. There’s no way these two groups could have failed to get the meaning and the direct assault on their attitudes and their regard for others.

Matthew alone, among the Gospel writers, passes along this Parable of the Two Sons. But, as we read Matthew, we ought to remember that one thing Matthew loved to do was to repeat some of Jesus’ teachings. (For example, Matthew gives us two teachings on marriage and divorce, and two teachings on forgiveness.) So in that same way, Matthew will also provide us with another confrontation between Jesus and the scribes and the Pharisees.

The second encounter is recorded in chapter twenty-three of Matthew’s gospel account. But this time, the showdown involves not the chief priests and the elders, but now it is the scribes and the Pharisees who are in Jesus’ focus.

Turning to this part of Matthew’s account, we read Jesus’ opening assault on the scribes and the Pharisees, as he says, “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.” (Matthew 23:1)

Going a little further into Matthew’s account, we hear Jesus’ words, still directed at the scribes and the Pharisees, as Jesus says, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries[1] broad and their fringes[2] long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the marketplaces and being called ‘rabbi’ by others….” (Matthew 23:5 – 7) (It’s worth saying that clergy can fall into these patterns of behavior, too, for in our tradition, as in some others, clergy wear distinctive clothing….it’s easy to get all wrapped up in the trappings of ministry, and to luxuriate in the positions of authority and privilege that often come along with ordained ministry….Woe to us if we succumb these temptations!)

Matthew then records seven woes that Jesus pronounced on the scribes and the Pharisees. These condemnations make for harsh reading, even today. They begin with this formula: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (A hypocrite is a person with “low judgment”, for that is the word’s meaning in Greek, from which it comes.)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” We may then characterize what Jesus says in each of these seven statements by saying, “for you talk the talk, but you don’t walk the walk.”.

The setting for these two heated exchanges between Jesus and His adversaries, the scribes and the Pharisees, is the final week of Jesus’ earthly life, and these encounters take place within the Temple’s precincts itself.

But as the movement that Jesus began spreads out into the world, the Apostles who would be sent out to carry the Good News of God in Jesus would reinforce the importance of living with integrity, instructions to anyone who would want to become a follower of Jesus, that, if they are to be disciples of Jesus, they must not only “talk the talk”, but they must also “walk the walk”.

In this way, we could characterize much of what St. Paul has to say on this topic by summarizing his instructions to these early Christians that they could not act in the same ways that they had done before they came to faith in Jesus Christ. They couldn’t spend their lives in debauchery, in drunkenness and carousing, in cheating others, and so forth.

Likewise, in James’ wonderful letter, he will state that Christians are to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” (James 1:22) Then, a little later on, James adds this admonition: “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” (James 2:18b)

Jesus’ teaching, supported by the Apostles, is as important today as it was at the beginning of the Good News of God, made known in the coming of Jesus and His teaching, for if the world around us – which is made up, largely, of unbelievers today – is to come to see the truth of that Good News, then, in many cases, these onlookers will come to faith in Jesus Christ because they can determine from the things we Christians do that the intent of our hearts and minds is in agreement with what we profess by the things we say.

This is what we can call integrity of life. Integrity is characterized by the statement which says, “One’s outsides must match their insides”, or – put a slightly different way – “one’s outward actions must be motivated by and consonant with one’s inner thoughts and feeling”

May the Holy Spirit enlighten our minds and open our hearts to see the truth of the contents of both, that whatever fails to meet Jesus’ high standard of both believing and doing may be brought into alignment with His teaching and intent. Then the world around us will be enabled to come to faith in the Good News of God, made known in the person of God’s only Son, Jesus.

AMEN.

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[1]   The phylacteries are small leather boxes containing verses of Scripture written on parchment which are worn on the forehead and on the left arm as a way to remind the wearer of the requirement to live by the Law of Moses as it is found in Deuteronomy 11:18.

[2]   The fringes refer to the four blue cords which were sewn into the corners of a man’s garment, reminding God’s people that they are to be holy (see Numbers 15:40).