Pentecost 19, Year B (2018)

Proper 21 :: Numbers 11: 4–6, 10–16, 24–29; Psalm 124; James 5: 13–20; Mark 9: 38–50

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, September 30, 2018.

 “THE (HOLY) SPIRIT BLOWS WHERE IT WILLS”

(Homily texts: Numbers 11: 4–6, 10–16, 24–29 & Mark 9: 38-50)

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (English Standard Version) These words, found in John 3: 8, were spoken by the Lord as part of His conversation with the Pharisee Nicodemus.

The Lord’s words could easily be spoken in connection with today’s Old Testament reading from Numbers, chapter eleven, and from our Gospel text, taken from the end of Mark, chapter nine.

For in each case, God’s people are struggling with the idea that some outside persons – persons who were not of their inner circle - were showing signs of God’s inspiration and power. It is the idea that these very human people, people who were following the Lord and who counted themselves as members of God’s inner circle, couldn’t control the work of God that connects these two readings together.

Let’s explore each one in depth just a little.

In the Numbers passage, Moses is dealing with a rebellious people. The element within Israel that was causing all the trouble is identified by the word “rabble”. So it seems clear that not everyone in the camp of the Israelites was grumbling about their menu, which consisted of manna, supplied by God. As a result of this tumult, Moses finds himself between the people and God. God tells Moses to appoint seventy elders to assist in governing the people. (In the verses that are omitted from today’s lectionary, God tells Moses that He is going to meet the needs of the people in their desire for meat, telling Moses that He is going to supply them with quail, so much quail, in fact, that God says it will be coming out of their noses.) So Moses gathers the seventy at the tent of meeting, which is located at the edge of the camp. God’s presence and God’s spirit descends on each one of the seventy who had gathered, and they begin to react to God’s power and inspiration as some of the Spirit of God that had already been granted to Moses descends on them. They begin to prophesy. (It is interesting to note that this manifestation of God’s power was only temporary.) But two others who were called to the meeting with God weren’t present….Eldad and Medad were elsewhere. But they, too exhibit the same signs as the seventy had.

At this point, Joshua tells Moses to forbid these two from prophesying. Somehow, Joshua feels that, because they weren’t at the meeting, they shouldn’t be doing what the others did.

Hold onto that thought for a bit, and we’ll come back to it.

Now, let’s turn our attention to our Gospel text.

Here, we find Jesus being confronted by John, who says, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” (English Standard Version)

Two aspects of what John said are worth our notice:  For one thing, John admits (or seems to) that the person was carrying out a successful ministry in Jesus’ name. For another, John says that the person wasn’t following us. (Italics mine)….notice that John doesn’t say that the person wasn’t following you (the Lord).

Can we put God in a box?

Can we count ourselves as members of God’s inner circle, and then take it upon ourselves to decide whoever else is in that inner circle or not?

Obviously, the answer to both of these questions is a resounding “No”.

Then what is the criterion by which someone may be recognized as a genuine disciple of the Lord?

I think the answer is found in both our Old Testament and Gospel texts this morning: In each case, those who weren’t part of the recognized inner circle were showing signs of God’s inspiration and power.

Ultimately, that’s the true test of faithful Christian living.

Are there limits to what falls within faithful Christian living? Most assuredly so, as the history of the Church will attest: The early Church had to deal with more than one challenge to acceptable belief….my own short list would include the challenges posed by Marcion in the 2nd century, by Gnosticism in the 1st through early 4th centuries, by Arianism in the 4th and 5th centuries, and by Pelagius in the 4th and 5th centuries. Rightfully, each of these is called “heresy”. As the Church wrestled with each of these challenges, the full understanding of what God had done in the sending of Jesus Christ was hammered out.

There is no shortage of challenges to acceptable belief before the Church today, either. For example, consider the challenges of the New Age movement, or of those outside the Church who believe that they can pick-and-choose what to believe. (Some of those within the Church hold the same attitudes.) These challenges are not dissimilar from the challenges of the very early Church. We can learn a lot from the early Church’s actions in maintaining correct belief in the face of the challenges they faced.

In the final analysis, it is the outward and unmistakable fruit of God’s indwelling Spirit that confirms the faithfulness of a person’s inner disposition toward God.

We would do well to look for that fruit before determining whether or not we are encountering a faithful follower of the Lord.

AMEN.

       

       

Pentecost 18, Year B (2018)

Proper 20 :: Jeremiah 11: 18–20; Psalm 1; James 3: 13 – 4: 3, 7–8a; 9: 30–37

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, September 23, 2018.

 “HOW TO BECOME A NOBODY”

(Homily text:  Mark 9: 30-37)

This morning’s Gospel reading sets before us a stark truth. It is a lesson in “How to become a nobody”. For that is the lesson Jesus is trying to get His disciples to understand as they made their way back to Capernaum.

Our Lord is pointing toward the mysterious process by which a person enters the kingdom of God. The process can be expressed in a number of different ways, but, in its most basic form, it is this:

Each one of us must empty ourselves in order to enter the kingdom.

The Lord expresses this truth in a number of different ways. For example, He said:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Mark 8:34b) [1]

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10: 39b)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12: 24: Jesus is speaking of His own death.)

But the Lord isn’t asking us to do anything that He, Himself, hasn’t already done. The Lord set aside every right and position He possessed from before the foundation of the world in order to become fully human. Compared to the glory He possessed in heaven before being born of the Virgin Mary, He became a “nobody” when He took up our human condition. This truth is expressed in St. Paul’s words, found in his letter to the Philippians: 

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking up the form of a servant.” (Philippians 2: 5–7a) (Italics mine)

With this background in mind, let’s return to our text from Mark.

A wonderful scene unfolds before the disciples as Jesus takes a child into His arms, saying, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me.” (Verse 37)

This incident has been captured in a familiar painting.

Beyond the tenderness of the action, a deeper truth is to be found, and the lesson Jesus is conveying has to do with the culture of the society in that day and time: Children were nobodies back then.

Such a regard for children might seem odd to us today. In that culture, children were a person’s future. In that sense, their attitudes match ours pretty much. But a child was a nobody until that child reached the age in which they could become a full inheritor of God’s covenant. That happened at about the age of thirteen or so, in a rite known as Bar Mitzvah.

Jesus sets before His disciples an object lesson:  If you want to become my disciple, if you want to be a part of God’s kingdom, then you will have to become a nobody. You’ll have to empty yourself completely.

The stark disconnect between the disciples’ conversation along the road, in which they argued among themselves as to who was destined to be the greatest, and Jesus teaching about the nature of discipleship, couldn’t be greater.

In Baptism, we undergo the process of becoming a “nobody”. We enter the waters of Baptism, dying to our selves in the process by imitating the Lord’s death. (See Romans 6: 3 – 9 for St. Paul’s wonderful explanation of this process.)

But then, we are raised to a new life, and we are counted as God’s children. We become a “somebody”, a somebody special and unique in God’s sight, as we emerge from the waters of Baptism.

The process of self-emptying, of becoming a “nobody”, is repeated all throughout our walk with the Lord. It is a necessary part of the reason for confessing our sins, acknowledging that we are unworthy, though the things we have done that fall short of God’s holiness, and through the things that we have failed to do, that we are completely helpless to help ourselves out of our spiritual predicament. The process of self-emptying comes whenever we say the words, “Not my will, but yours, be done”, as the Lord said in the Garden of Gethsemane before He suffered and died for us. The process of self-emptying happens whenever we follow God’s call to do something, something that is for His benefit and for the benefit of others, even though God’s call may entail sacrifice and hardship for us.

Becoming a “nobody” is, strangely and oddly enough, the way – the only way – to become a “somebody” in God’s sight.

AMEN.

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[1]   We heard this text in last Sunday’s Gospel.

Pentecost 17, Year B (2018)

Proper 19 :: Isaiah 50: 4–9; Psalm 19; James 3: 1–12; Mark 8: 27–38  

“OF ANOINTING AND BEING ANOINTED”

(Homily text:  Mark 8: 27–38)

Let’s talk about anointing and about being anointed. [1]         

(We might do well to remind ourselves what anointing is, and what it signifies: Anointing is a ceremonial action by which a person receives holy oil and (often) the laying on of hands in prayer.) [2]

As we do, we might approach the subject by setting before ourselves these questions:

Who receives an anointing?

For what purpose is a person anointed?

Have we been anointed (and for what purpose)?

The focus of today’s homily arises out of our Gospel text for this morning, in connection with Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question, when the Lord asked His disciples, “Who do you say I am?” (Mark 8: 29) Peter’s answer is memorable: “You are the Messiah”.

What Peter meant by his answer is this: “You are the Anointed One”. “Messiah” means “anointed”, coming from the Hebrew word for “anoint”. “Christ” has the same meaning, coming from the Greek.

To understand (perhaps) what Peter meant by his answer, we ought to go back into the Old Testament to understand more about the business of anointing people.

There, we discover that priests and kings were anointed. [3] When they were anointed, the ceremonial act of anointing signified that they were set apart for a specific ministry or task, and that God’s favor rested on them as they carried out those duties. (The same meaning is attached to the anointing of objects.)

Oil was also used in healing. Isaiah 1:6 suggests such a use.

When God the Father sent His Son to take up our humanity, God’s chosen people regarded the Messiah in a number of ways. It would be prudent for us to look at some of the expectations that were attached to the title “Messiah”:

Military commander:  Some of the Jews at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry expected that the Messiah would return and would remove the occupying Roman government and army, restoring God’s people to the place they had been nearly a thousand years before when David was king. The party most associated with this view of the Messiah was called the Zealots.

King:  Some expectations which were attached to the term “Messiah” had to do with that person being descended from King David’s lineage. We find such evidence in the Psalms of Solomon, which comes to us from the body of Jewish writing known as the Pseudepigrapha, and which may have been written at about the time of the Lord’s ministry.

Healer:  The evidence seems to be less abundant for another aspect of the understanding of what the Messiah would do, and that has to do with healing. In general, the Messiah, when he came, would restore and fix everything that was wrong with God’s people in that day and time. Perhaps it’s possible that the longing and expectation that was attached to King David stemmed from these memories of David’s accomplishments.

Jesus as the Messiah fulfills all of these expectations. For example, In John 6:15, we find that the people who had been fed by Jesus begin a movement to proclaim Him as king. Perhaps because Jesus had fed that large crowd of at least five thousand people, many thought that He would be capable of fixing everything that was wrong with life in those days. The Letter to the Hebrews picks up the theme of Jesus’ kingship and His priestly ministry, declaring that He is “a king forever after the order of Melchizedek”. [4] (Hebrews 5:6)

The early Christians understood Jesus’ Messiahship as being all of these things:  king, priest and healer.

At this point, we can return to the questions which we set before ourselves at the beginning of this homily.

Who receives an anointing?  Anyone who is set apart for a specific purpose or ministry can be anointed. At ordination, for example, a priest’s hands are often anointed. (Altars, as we have seen, are often anointed when they are consecrated.) Monarchs are often anointed at the time of their coronation.

For what purpose is a person anointed?  We would do well to speak of the purposes for which anointing is done by referring back to the meaning of the Sacraments: A Sacrament is an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.” Anointing gives a person a unique measure of God’s grace and power to do whatever it is God has in mind for that person. Anointing with the Oil of Chrism is a rite in which healing is the reason for the anointing.

Have we been anointed (and for what purpose)?  For many of us, the most significant anointing we have received is that which is done at the time of baptism. In that action, the following words are spoken as the Oil of Chrism is applied to the forehead: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Anointing at the time of baptism is the outward and visible sign that God has claimed us, in Christ, as His own forever. In baptism, we turn away from our old life, and we turn to God in Christ in order to rise to a new life in God. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to know God’s will and to do God’s will.

Of course, there are many other occasions when we might be anointed, such as at the time of illness or at the time of death (this last action is often called “Extreme Unction”). Or, we might be anointed in order to be commissioned to do something unique or special.

The various threads we have been exploring all come together in the Book of Revelation, where we read that Christ has made us “kings and priests to God”. [5]

In all of these actions, we are called to act as agents of God’s power to heal, to restore, and to fix what is wrong in the world.

May we be anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit to be Jesus’ disciples in the world today, healing and restoring what is estranged from God, and what divides people from one another. 

AMEN.          

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[1]   The technical term for anointing is Unction.

[2]   Objects may also be anointed. An example would be when a newly installed or constructed altar which is to be used for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist is consecrated. The Bible mentions the anointing of objects.

[3]   The practice of anointing a newly crowned monarch continues to this day. Queen Elizabeth II was anointed when she became queen in 1953.

[4]   Melchizedek is mentioned in Genesis 14, and in Psalm 110:4. He was king of the city of Salem, but was also a priest. This idea is expanded upon in chapter seven of the Letter to the Hebrews.

[5]   Revelation 1:6 and 5:10, in the Authorized Version -or- King James Version.

Pentecost 16, Year B (2018)

Proper 18 :: Isaiah 35: 4–7a; Psalm 146; James 2: 1–17; Mark 7: 24–37

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, September 9, 2018.

 “IS IT OK TO BARGAIN (OR ARGUE) WITH GOD?”

(Homily text:  Mark 7: 24–37)

Is it OK to bargain with God? Is it OK to engage in a back-and-forth with God, especially when our interaction with Him is connected to something that is very important or even critical to us?

Today’s Gospel text,[1] which recounts for us Jesus’ interaction with a Gentile woman who lived in the area of the city of Tyre, seems to suggest it is OK to engage in a vigorous interchange with the Lord.

Before we look at the exchange between Jesus and his unnamed woman, we would do well to remind ourselves of some of the unusual aspects of the setting of this encounter:

The region of Tyre:  Tyre was a city which was located on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, north of the Holy Land, in an area of what is now known as Lebanon. Mark tells us that Jesus had gone to this area in order to get away from the growing crowds He was encountering in Galilee. But, of course, He is unable to keep His presence a secret, for this Gentile woman discovers that He is in her area.

A Gentile woman:  Mark tells us that the woman is a Syrophoenician by birth. This means that she is a Gentile, and is, most likely, a Greek-speaker, for the culture in that area is predominantly Greek. Historians tell us that the region did have some Jewish presence, but that the Gentiles were hostile to the Jews living in their midst.

Male – female interaction:  In our culture today, we think nothing of interacting with a person of the opposite gender. But such interactions were frowned upon in the Jewish culture of the day. Remember with me the reaction of Jesus’ disciples when they return from getting some food in the Samaritan town as Jesus sits, talking with the Samaritan woman: They are surprised to see that He is talking with a woman. (see John 4: 27.)

The net effect of Jesus’ actions is that He is crossing boundaries:  He is in Gentile territory and He speaks with a woman who is non-Jewish. Perhaps Mark’s readers, member of the early churches in Rome in the first century, saw that the Lord was crossing boundaries with them as well, offering them a relationship with God, even though they were outsiders as far as God’s plans for His chosen people were concerned. In addition, perhaps Mark’s readers would also see in Jesus’ actions a prediction of the welcome that the early church offered to men and to women, both.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the incident itself.

At this glance, Jesus’ retort to the woman seems harsh: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Some cultural unpacking is needed here: In Jewish culture, dogs were unclean and undesirable animals. (Remember Jesus’ parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus [2] ….Jesus tells us that Lazarus longed to eat some of the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, and while he lay, covered with sores at the rich man’s gate, the dogs would come and lick his wounds….this is Jesus’ way of describing the fact that Lazarus was ritually unclean by virtue of his sores, which is attested to by the presence of unclean animals, dogs, which tend to his wounds.)

But most translations do us a disservice here…the Greek word which is usually translated as “dogs” is actually “little dogs”. It is a diminutive form of the word. We might characterize the word as “puppy dogs”. Some commentators suggest that Jesus’ comment refers to Gentile practices in which puppy dogs would have been present in a home. After all, dogs and puppy dogs would not have been considered to be an unclean and undesirable animal in that Gentile culture. If so, then Jesus’ response opens the door - however slightly - to the possibility of hope for the woman’s request.

She comes back at the Lord, using His words against Him, saying, “Yes, Lord, but even the (puppy) dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

For the purposes of the focus of this homily, let’s lay aside for the moment the matter of the fact that this incident forecasts the trajectory of the spread of the Gospel into hostile, Gentile areas, welcoming in not only Jews but also Gentiles, and welcoming not only men but women as well (as we discussed a moment ago).

Instead, let’s look at the issue of whether it is OK to bargain (or even argue) with God.

For some idea of the acceptability of such an idea, we need to look at Holy Scripture to see if there are precedents for such a posture when dealing with God.

At least two possibilities arise:

Abraham’s dickering with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah:  In Genesis 18, verses 22–33, we read about Abraham’s bargaining with God over the fate of these two cities. We can summarize the text briefly by recalling that God has determined to wipe these two cities out because of their wickedness. Abraham intercedes with God, asking if He will destroy the good people who might be living there along with the wicked.  “Suppose,” Abraham says, “there are fifty good people to be found there. Would you destroy the cities for the sake of those fifty?” (I am paraphrasing here.) God replies, saying He wouldn’t destroy them. Then, Abraham continues by asking God if he’d destroy the cities of forty five good people could be found there. Again, God says, “No”. Abraham continues, lowering the number to forth, then thirty, then twenty, and finally, down to ten. (You know the rest of the story: Not even ten righteous people can be found, and so the cities are destroyed,)

Another example is Jesus’ parable of the Unjust Judge (see Luke 18: 1–8). Again, we may summarize the parable by saying that Jesus describes an unjust judge who neither “feared God nor man”. Yet a woman comes to the judge, seeking a judgment in her favor. The judge rebuffs her request, but she is persistent, and keeps on asking until, finally, the judge gives in and grants her request. Jesus closes the parable by encouraging His disciples to be convinced that God will grant the requests of His disciples who “cry to him day and night”. Then Jesus says, “Will the Son of Man find faith on the earth?” when He comes.

At this point, a valid concern arises:  We serve and love a God who knows everything. We serve and love a God who is “more ready to hear than we are to pray,” as a wonderful Collect (prayer) from the Book of Common Prayer states.

So what good does it do for us to come repeatedly to the Lord, seeking an answer to our needs and requests? If God already knows what we need (not what we want; there’s a difference!), then why bother with asking again and again?

Maybe the reason for God’s apparent silence (or even rebuff) in response to our prayers isn’t so much so that God’s will can be changed, but that you and I can be changed. If, in the course of bringing things to God in prayer, we are permitted an opportunity to reflect on what it is that we are asking for, then perhaps such a reflection might change our hearts and minds so that we are asking God to grant requests that are within His holy will, and nothing else.

One final point might be made, and it is a feature of the interchange between Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman:  Jesus was (apparently) testing this woman and her faith. Oftentimes, when Jesus grants someone’s request for healing or for something else, He puts a test before that person, a test which is designed to measure the depth of their faith.

It won’t be any different with us when we bring things to God in prayer. We may be assured that God will always answer our prayers. God’s answer will take one of three forms:

        “Yes, I’ll grant your request.”

        “No, your request is outside of My will.”

        “Not now.”

So we live by faith, a faith which is tested to see whether or not our wills conform to God’s will, and whether or not we are willing to wait for God’s granting of our requests in His time, not ours. Until God answers our requests, it’s OK to come again and again, seeking God’s answer. In so doing, we are reminded not to lose sight of God’s holiness, God’s righteousness and God’s majesty.

AMEN.

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[1]   For a comparison, see Matthew’s treatment of this incident. His account can be found in Matthew 18: 21–28.

[2]   See Luke 16: 19–30.

Pentecost 15, Year B (2018)

Proper 17 :: Deuteronomy 4: 1–2, 6–9; Psalm 15; James 1: 17–27; Mark 7: 1–8, 14–15, 21–23

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, September 2, 2018.

 “FILLING THAT GOD-SIZED HOLE”

Each of us is born with a God-sized hole in our hearts.

I wish I could claim the credit for having thought that up, but I can’t. (I can’t remember who said it, or where I heard it, either.)

If anything is true about the human condition, and about our relationship to God, this saying certainly is. The basis for this truth lies in Genesis 1: 26, 27, where we read that God created humankind in His image, and after His likeness. Dig to the bottom of this truth, and we discover that – in essence – it is telling us that we can relate to God because God instilled in each and every one of us the ability to relate to Him. So – if we put it another way – we are “hard-wired” to be aware of God, and to know God (as much as any human being can know Him this side of heaven). But knowing God doesn’t come automatically. The sad truth is that we human beings are easily side-tracked into other interests and other pursuits in life. We will need the presence and the prodding of the Holy Spirit to keep us focused on our need for God to come and fill up that hole He created within us.

When we come together as we have this morning, one of the things we are about doing is filling that God-sized hole in our own hearts and minds. We come to hear Holy Scripture read, we come to hear a homily which attempts (at least) to break open the Word of God, we come to enter into this sacred and holy space so that we can use all of our senses to draw near to the holiness of God. We also come to the holy table of the Eucharist to receive the Body and the Blood of Christ, to commune (coming from the Latin, this word means “to be one with”) with the Lord. All of these things, each in their own way, benefit us, allowing God to fill that God-sized hole each of us was created to have.

But we are about something unique and wonderful this morning: We are celebrating the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. Little William Charles Cruikshank’s journey with God begins in a unique way this morning, as he is acknowledged to be the child of God that he already is. In Baptism, he begins a journey to come to know the Lord, and to know Him personally. It will be the job of his parents, his grandparents, great-grandparents, friends, other church members, all of us, to help him to open his heart to God, so that God can fill that God-sized hole more and more.

For as we have walked the way of faith with God ourselves, we have come to know that nothing else will fill that God-sized hole we were given at birth. By our words, by our actions, by our loving support for little William, we can show him the way to God, in order that his God-sized hole will be filled, too.

So, come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in us the fire of your love, for nothing else can satisfy our need and our longing for you.

AMEN.