The Eve of the Nativity, Year C (2018)

Isaiah 9: 2–7; Psalm 96; Titus 2: 11-14; Luke 2: 1–20

This is the homily given at St. John’s in Huntingdon, PA and at Trinity in Tyrone, PA by Fr. Gene Tucker on Monday, December 24, 2018.

"KNOWING GOD’S NATURE BY OBSERVING GOD’S ACTS (PART II)”

(Homily texts:  Micah 5: 2–5a & Luke 1: 39-55)

(This is Part II of a two part homily series, the first part of which was offered yesterday, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.)

Since this is the sequel to yesterday’s homily, perhaps we ought to remind ourselves of the main points that were made in that first homily:

Knowing God’s nature is possible through the things that God does:  We said yesterday that God is a God who reveals Himself. What we know about God is entirely due to God’s own actions. His nature can be seen in the things that He does. (We remarked yesterday that the same is true for us human beings.)

God often works with the lowest, the powerless and the least:  We noted yesterday that God chose to work through the Blessed Virgin Mary to bring about His plan of salvation, by which we are saved through the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Mary, we said yesterday, was, most likely, a young teenager from a backwater place called Nazareth. She was, most likely, also from a poor set of circumstances. And yet, it is through Mary that God chose to work to make His plans known. God often works in this this way….the Old Testament records many similar deeds as God chose those we would least expect to be God’s agents. To cite but one example, God sometimes chooses the younger son, not the oldest, to do His work.

Now, tonight, let’s look at the very familiar Christmas Gospel., from Luke, chapter two. It’s one that many of us could, perhaps, recite from memory. (Some of us who are of “riper” years might even be able to recite it in the traditional language of the King James Version.)

That very familiar text tells us something about how God works.

As we look at the sequence of events that unfolds in Luke’s Gospel account, we see two themes emerge:

1. God is doing a great and wonderful thing:  Luke tells us that the shepherds who are keeping their sheep in the fields are told by an appearance of angels that a savior has been born to them, one who is Christ, the Lord.
   
   
   OK, I can’t resist saying this, but when is the last time any of us saw angels in the skies, telling us that God has come to save us?  Perhaps our familiarity with this text might make us a little unresponsive to the awesomeness of God’s act in sending Jesus Christ to take up our humanity. (I continue to believe that those biblical texts with which we are quite familiar often tend to “flatten out” in our hearing and understanding of them. That is to say, they may tend to lose their dramatic nature.)
   
   
2. God is doing this great and wonderful thing quietly:  There’s the other part of the nature of God’s acting. Notice how few people knew that that baby boy who had been born in a manger in Bethlehem was the long-awaited Messiah, the Christ. Very few knew. The midwives who attended Mary, the owner of the stable or the manger (or wherever the birth took place), the shepherds, and perhaps a few townspeople knew. But few others knew.

In time, of course, others would know, including the Wise Men (Magi) who had come to pay homage to this new-born king. (That is Matthew’s focus of attention, by the way). And, because of the Wise Men’s visit to King Herod, he also knew. But in time, more and more people would come to know: Those who witnessed the miracles that Jesus did; those who were healed, or who witnessed those healings; those who found in this Jesus a leader who deeply cared for and loved them, in contrast to the corrupt leadership of the Temple priests, the Scribes and the Pharisees. And, in the fullness of time, the entire world would come to know, largely through the witness of those first Disciples-become-Apostles.

But this great, big, awesome and wonderful thing that God was up to began quietly, almost unnoticed.

What is the implication for us, if God often works to do great things quietly?

Perhaps simply this:  I think we often want God to do something dramatically and decisively. We often want God to put up a billboard along the road, to do something that’s unmistakable and powerful, or to send some message in the sky. (Make no mistake, God is capable of doing just that, and – as our Advent theme tells us – someday, God will act dramatically and decisively to let the entire world know that Christ has come as judge.)

But more often than not, God works quietly, often slowly. But God is working powerfully, nonetheless. What that means for us is that we need to keep looking to see the signs and markers of God’s moving in our lives and in the lives of others around us.

For God is working His purposes out. What we need to do is to take notice.

AMEN.

Advent 4, Year C (2018)

For the Psalm: Canticle 3 (Magnificat); Micah 5: 2–5a; Luke 1: 39–55

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

 “KNOWING GOD’S NATURE BY OBSERVING GOD’S ACTS (PART I)”

(Homily texts:  Micah 5: 2–5a & Luke 1: 39-55)

One of the axioms of theology is the understanding that what we are able to know about God’s nature we come to know by observing the things that God does. We do this same sort of thing with each other: By watching what others do, we can glean some information about their character and personality.

This morning, we have two very familiar Scriptures before us:  Our Old Testament reading comes to us from the prophet Micah, which predicts Bethlehem’s future role in fulfilling God’s promises. Our Gospel reading is the Blessed Virgin Mary’s song, better known by its Latin title, the Magnificat..

At first reading, these two passages may not seem to be connected by any common theme. But upon closer examination, we can see this thread connecting the two:

God chooses to work through the lowly, the least and the powerless.

The minor prophet Micah may not be very familiar to us, although the passage we hear from chapter five this morning is perhaps the most familiar part of the entire book. We hear it regularly during Advent, and – at times – also at Christmas services. Micah, working and prophesying during the eighth century BC, foretells a time of God’s judgment upon God’s people for their wayward ways. (Micah is apparently writing at the same general time as Isaiah, Hosea and Amos.) The setting in Micah is the looming invasion of the Holy Land by the Assyrians, who sweep into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and conquer it in the year 722 BC. Micah tells God’s people that divine judgment awaits them.

But in the midst of Micah’s dire warnings, there is good news:  Out of Bethlehem will come one who will rule God’s people, and there will be a time of peace.

Micah describes Bethlehem as being “too little to be among the clans of Judah” (the English Standard Version), or – as it is variously translated -“little among the thousands of Judah” (the Authorized Version – also known as the King James Version), or “one of the little clans of Judah” (New Revised Standard Version).

The inescapable conclusion arising from Micah’s description of Bethlehem is that it is a pretty insignificant place.

But out of this “backwater” community will come one who will rule God’s people, one who will usher in a time of peace.

Now, let’s turn our attention to Luke’s report of Mary’s visit to her cousin, Elizabeth, and – in particular – to Mary’s Song, the Magnificat.

Both Elizabeth and Mary are pregnant. Each one of them has conceived despite the seemingly unlikely possibility that either one could be a mother:  Elizabeth had never been able to conceive a child, and now, she is of an advanced age. Nonetheless, God grants her the blessing of motherhood, and – we would do well to remember – the baby she is carrying in her womb is John the Baptist. Mary has no husband. Nevertheless, God does the impossible and acts to bring His Son into the world through Mary’s obedience.

Mary confirms the fact that she is among the lowly: The traditional language version of the Magnificat contains this phrase: “For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden.” A contemporary translation states this truth this way: “he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.” (English Standard Version)

Though we don’t know for sure, many scholars believe that Mary was a young teenager at the time of Gabriel’s visit. In the culture of the Holy Land in those days, marriage often took place during the teen years. One reason for this is the fact that life was short, incredibly short, by modern standards. It wasn’t uncommon for people to die at age 40 or so. So early marriages were essential if the children were to be brought to maturity before their parents died.

In addition, Mary is from a backwater place, Nazareth. In John 1:45, Nathanael describes his regard for Nazareth when Philip told him about Jesus by saying, “can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

It’s possible to conclude that Mary is quite young. She is from “the other side of the tracks”, Nazareth. And, she is most likely a poor person, too, judging from the fact that she and Joseph offer the sacrifice that the Law of Moses provided for the poorer classes, two pigeons, when Jesus was presented in the Temple. (See Luke 2:24)

God seems to choose the least likely persons and circumstances to do His will.

The Scriptures offer us other examples of just this sort of divine action: A few examples will illustrate this truth: Jacob is the younger brother of Esau, his twin. But it is Jacob through whom God chooses to work. Joseph is the next-to-the-youngest son, not the oldest, of Jacob, but it is through Joseph that God preserves His people during their exile in Egypt. David is the youngest son of Jesse, but it is through David that God intends to work. Likewise, Solomon is the youngest son of David, and it is he who is remembered for his wisdom.

Oftentimes, we might think that God will use the prominent, the powerful and the strong to accomplish His purposes. But that would reflect the customary wisdom of the world. It wouldn’t reflect the way that God often goes about doing things.

If God can use the least and the lowest to make His ways known, then perhaps – just perhaps – He could use even you and me to do His work.

AMEN.

       

Advent 3, Year C (2018)

For the Psalm: Canticle 9 (Ecce, Deus); Zephaniah 3: 14–20; Luke 3: 7–18

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, December 16, 2018.

“IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, THERE’LL HAVE TO BE SOME CHANGES”

(Homily text:  Luke 3: 7–18)

“Jess, if you want to live, there’ll have to be some changes.” So said the doctor early on a Sunday morning to my father, who’d spent the night in a hospital, fighting for his life. He had had a massive heart attack, and his heart had stopped, only to be restarted through the diligent efforts of the doctors, nurses and staff. They’d succeed in getting his heart to beat, only to have it stop again. Back and forth, over the space of three hours, this drama played out. Finally, they succeeded.

You see, my father’s life was firmly in the grip of two different addictions, which were slowly destroying his life (which is why he had the heart attack that precipitated the crisis in the first place). Those two addictions were also making life miserable for my mother, who’d prayed that God would intervene in some mighty way to redeem my father from his wayward ways. Her prayers worked, in God’s good time.

“If we want to live – truly live as God intends for us to live – then there’ll have to be some changes…”

John the Baptist’s message to the tax collectors, the soldiers and the onlookers who had just come for baptism, could be characterized this way:  If you want to live as God wants you to live, then there’ll have to be some changes in your life and in your behaviors.

St, Luke is the only one of the Gospel writers to pass along this interchange between John the Baptist and his audience. We find this conversion nowhere else.

Luke includes these three groups for a specific reason, I believe. He addresses three common behaviors at the time of the Baptist’s ministry, behaviors that were common in the ancient world:

Failure to care for others:  This is the first concern expressed: “Those who have two cloaks (tunics), must share with someone who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” At the time of John the Baptist’s ministry – and then with Jesus’ ministry, the common belief was that if a person was poor or was in some other sort of need or distress, then it must be true that that person is a terrible sinner who was being punished by God in some way or another.

Robbery: The second admonition goes to the tax collectors under the Roman occupation. The commonplace practice was for a tax collector to be appointed by the Romans. They were told how much to collect. But they were also allowed to take more money than the tax that was owed, keeping the excess for themselves. It’s obvious that such a system is fertile ground for abuse. Recall Jesus’ interchange with the chief tax collector Zacchaeus in Luke 19: 1 – 10. After his encounter with Jesus, Zacchaeus tells the Lord that he will repay anyone he had defrauded four times over.

Extortion: The third group addressed are soldiers. In that day and time, it was common for soldiers to use the threat of force to extort money from people. After all, there were no consequences for such behavior from the soldiers’ superiors or from the governing authorities. The victims of such scheme had no rights. But it amounts to extortion and the threat – or use – of violence to take from others.

If we want to live, truly live, then there’ll have to be some changes in our behaviors.

Of the three groups’ behaviors that are addressed in today’s Gospel text, it is the first one that will – most likely – affect us: We are most prone to fail to care for those around us who are in need. Perhaps we even consider their lot to be some sort of divine punishment, something they’ve brought upon themselves, so therefore, it’s possible to slip into an attitude where we believe that they deserve our disdain, but not our help.

Perhaps our attitudes and our behaviors would change if we were to take the time to remember how good God has been to us.

We might begin with the process of baptism itself: Baptism is God’s great gift to us, for it signifies God’s good will toward us, a good will that we cannot and do not deserve. As we accept this gift and enter into the water, we die to our old lives, and emerge to a new life in a new life just as Jesus did when He rose from the grave on Easter Sunday morning. In that event, God tells us that everything is going to be different from that day forward.

So it must be for us. We emerge from the waters of baptism, marked as Christ’s own forever. We emerge to be a new and changed people.

But God’s goodness doesn’t stop at baptism. We would do well to remember and to give thanks for God’s continuing goodness and mercy. We surely don’t deserve any of these things, but God sends them our way, nonetheless.

Just as we have been given to freely, let us also give to others freely as an expression of God’s love for us.

AMEN.

Advent 2, Year C (2018)

For the Psalm: Canticle Four (Benedictus Dominus Deus); Baruch 5: 1–9; Luke 3: 1–6

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

 “MATCHING OUR INSIDES TO OUR OUTSIDES”

(Homily text:  Luke 3: 1–6)

“If you want to come to this diocese, your insides must match your outsides.” That statement came from the first bishop I served under. I’ve thought a lot about it ever since he first said it some years ago now.

Matching our insides to our outsides is the essential meaning of John the Baptist’s call to repentance, a theme (and a text) we hear every Second Sunday of Advent. (I think this Sunday could easily be known as “John the Baptist Sunday” because of our consistent focus on the Baptist’s ministry in each year of our three-year cycle of lectionary readings.)

Matching our insides to our outsides has to do with living an integrated life, a life in which God’s ability to see into the deepest recesses of our hearts and minds reminds us that no aspect of our life escapes His notice. Matching our insides to our outsides has to do with wholly living and holy living. It has to do with avoiding a condition known as hypocrisy (which, as the two Greek words from which we derive this word, means to have “low judgment”.)

Let’s turn our attention, then, to John the Baptist’s warning, and before John, to the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, from whom John’s call arises (chapter forty of Isaiah, beginning at verse three). We will trace this clarion call from Isaiah’s first warnings, which took place in the eighth century, BC, and then to God’s deliverance of His people from exile in Babylon, a time in which God prepared a way in the wilderness for God’s people to return to the land that God had promised them, and then to John the Baptist’s time.

Along the way, we’ll note some similarities between each of these timeframes.

We begin with Isaiah’s original warnings.

Isaiah warns God’s people to do two major things:  1.  Abandon the worship of pagan idols, and 2. To do right by the widow, the orphan and the poor. In Isaiah’s day, the Temple that King Solomon had erected some 200 years before still existed, and it was still the center of the people’s religious life, at least by all outward appearances. But Isaiah paints the picture that, once people had left the Temple’s precincts, they dabbled in all sorts of other kinds of worship of gods that are no gods, objects of their own making (as Isaiah) says, objects of silver and gold, gods that cannot hear and cannot speak. And, of course, they cheated the poor, the widow and the orphan.

There was an outward appearance of good and proper worship, but another reality was harbored within the hearts and minds of God’s people. The people’s insides didn’t match their outsides.

Fast forward into the time of the return from exile in Babylon, an event that took place in the year 538 BC. Let’s retrace this history just a bit: The Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and Judea (known as the Southern Kingdom) in 586 BC. They carted off to Babylon many of the people (not all, mind you, but essentially the upper and ruling classes, plus others). God used this exile to purify His people and to rid them of their love affair with pagan gods and idols. It’s as if God said, “I’ve got to fix this fascination with idolatry.”  It worked.

And so, in 538 BC, King Cyrus of Persia (the Persians had conquered Babylon by this time) set the people free to return to their homeland. God’s people’s insides now matched their outsides as a result of God’s purifying act.

It is in this context that we read Isaiah’s words from chapter forty: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (I am quoting from the Authorized – King James – Version of the Bible).[1]

Now we come to John the Baptist and the time of the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

As we compare Isaiah’s time in the eighth century BC with the time of the Baptist and of Jesus, we see similarities:  People’s insides didn’t match their outsides. There was a major disconnect between their outward observance of the Law of Moses and their faithful administration of the Law’s requirements in the ceremonies that took place in the Temple in Jerusalem, but there was still a fascination with idolatry, and there was neglect of the widow, the orphan and the poor.

This last statement requires some unpacking.

The idolatry against which John the Baptist rails isn’t the sort that involves worshiping an object of silver or gold. But it does involve making the Law of Moses into an idol. And it does involve elevating the Temple to the point of making it an object of worship for its own sake. Seen in its proper light, the Law and the Temple were established by God in order to point beyond themselves to the God that created them in the first place. Idolatry involves putting anything in the place of God’s proper place This is the sort of idolatry that John speaks against.

Oppression of the powerless (the biblical language for this is often cast as a disregard for the widow, the orphan and the poor) was also taking place. A common attitude among God’s people in John the Baptist’s day was that – if a person was a widow or an orphan or poor (or sick) – that person must’ve committed some grievous sin that resulted in their condition in life. Such people were to be avoided, so the common attitudes maintained.

Essentially, what we see portraying in the pages of holy Scripture is a disconnect between the inner disposition of people’s hearts and their outward behavior: Hypocrisy, in a word.

We shouldn’t find it the least bit unusual, then, to see the Baptist at work out in the desert, calling people to confess their sins and to undergo the ritual cleansing of baptism. People could have gone through a ritual bath (known as the Mikvah in Hebrew) before entering the Temple’s precincts, but it’s possible that taking that sort of a bath would have associations with simply going through the motions. Instead, John the Baptist chooses a venue that is completely removed from the sorts of things that are going on in Jerusalem.[2]

Matching our insides to our outsides is the goal of an integrated and holy life, a life lived in God’s favor and in God’s sight.

Matching our insides to our outsides begins with a confession of the ways in which we fall short of God’s holiness and righteousness. It involves “coming clean” with God, to admit those things that God already knows. We have to begin in such a place, and in no other.

Only then can God prepare a highway for us to return home.

Preparation is a key Advent theme. Preparation for the coming of the One who entered our human condition in humility, entering our human condition by emptying Himself of all the power and the place that He – the Second Person of the Holy Trinity – possessed before time and in eternity. He came in order to prepare the way for us to return home to God.

In order for the journey home to begin, we must get on the road, God’s road, the one that He prepared for us by sending His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to show us the way.

Then, and only then, will our insides match our outsides.

AMEN.

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[1]   Many Bible scholars believe that chapters 40 – 55 of Isaiah are actually the work of another writer, perhaps one who was a member of something like an “Isaiah School” of writers, one who wrote at the time of the return from the exile in Babylon.

[2]   It’s worth remembering that John was the son of a Temple priest, Zechariah, which meant that John could have also served in the Temple. But he chooses not to, deciding instead to minister out in the desert.

Advent 1, Year C (2018)

Psalm 25: 1–9; Jeremiah 33: 14–16; Luke 21: 25–36

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

“CLEAN US UP, DEAR LORD!”

Nothing cleans a house like company!

Remember that familiar saying? It’s quite true, of course. When company’s coming, we dust, we get into the corners and hidden places where those dust bunnies like to congregate. We scrub, we polish, we vacuum, fearing that the glance of our company will fall on some area or another that’s been neglected. After all, who wants to put their messy side forward when company’s coming?  No one.

Well, the truth is, company’s coming…..at Christmas as we expect and we will welcome the babe born in Bethlehem, and at the end of time (in God’s good time, in God’s good way, and in God’s manner), we will stand before Him who will sit as judge….our Collect for this First Sunday of Advent affirms both of these truths, for they are the two great themes of Advent.

So, if company’s coming, we’d better be about the business of some house cleaning.

As we set ourselves to the business of getting ready for these two encounters with the Lord, perhaps this prayer might be on our lips:  “Clean us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”

(What follows is in the form of a litany.)

Lord, come and sweep away from us our tendency to let our mouth utter things that are hurtful, or which diminish others, things we wish we could take them back, swallow them and make them disappear forever.

“Clean us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”

Bring the vacuum cleaner of righteousness and suck up into it all the actions that we wish we could simply blot out of our memories.

“Clean us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”

For the things we’ve failed to do, even though we knew we had the means to do.

“Clean us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”

Take away our tendency to be hoarders, claiming for ourselves alone the blessings you, Lord, have given us, for we often fail to care for the poor, the needy and those in any kind of trouble.

“Clean us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”

Bring your dust cloth, O Lord, and take away the signs of our neglect of attendance at worship and study of God’s Holy Word.

“Clean us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”

Place in the table of our hearts the freshness of a desire to proclaim Christ’s image to the world.

“Clean us up, dear Lord, and deliver us from our messy ways!”

So that, in that final and awful day when the Lord shall sit as judge of the living and the dead, and in the days which lie in between in which our Lord comes to judge our words, our actions, and our desire to seek His face, may we stand before the throne of judgment and be able to say: “Thank you, Lord, for cleaning us up. Thank you for your mercy and graciousness. Thank you for your holiness and righteousness. Thank for being willing to do the cleaning that we, ourselves, are unable to do.”

AMEN.