The Eve of the Nativity – Christmas Eve (2019)

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

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Tuesday, December 24, 2019 at 4:00 PM and 11:00 PM, and at Trinity, Tyrone, Pennsylvania at 7:00 PM that same day.

“LOOKING HEAVENWARD,
LOOKING EARTHWARD”

Let’s consider the matter of preaching, and especially the matter of preaching on a festival day like Christmas, an occasion where nearly all of one’s hearers will know the basics of the Gospel story.

The process of learning the craft of preaching often takes awhile to get used to and to become proficient at. Part of that formative process involves learning what the challenges are.

For example, in seminary, those who are preparing for ordained ministry, which usually involves learning to be proficient at the business of preaching, take homiletics classes. In my own experience, some of the topics we considered in our homiletics classes included discussions about an optimal length (in time) for a homily (the consensus was that about seven minutes was a good length, given the shortened attention span of many people these days, and especially if one is a part of a church whose worship includes the frequent celebration of the Holy Eucharist). We also looked at ways to organize our homiletical material, and how best to use our own natural gifts to best effect.

As to the business of preaching on a familiar holy day, the challenge is to approach a very familiar subject with a fresh perspective, perhaps in a quest to shed light on an aspect of the events that would allow us to see something differently.

To the subject of Christmas, we now turn.

Of course, to nearly all of us, the narratives of Jesus’ birth are very familiar. It’s possible that many of us could recite the Matthean or Lukan narrative from memory. (Neither Mark nor John record any of the events about Jesus’ birth.) Some of us who are of a certain age might be able to recite those narratives from the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible.

What then, might we say about the birth of Jesus, the One who is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God?

This preacher would like to suggest that Jesus’ birth causes heaven to look down upon earth, and it causes us human beings to look heavenward.

This double focus is due to the nature of this unique child. The Gospel narratives make clear that Jesus’ birth came about as a direct result of the action of God, working through the Holy Spirit. But, at the same time, there is a human element, a human role in this birth, for the Gospel narratives also make clear that it was the agency of the Virgin Mary that made it possible for this divine child to take on our humanity.

The heaven/earth connection, made possible through the coming of Jesus, the Christ, tells us much about heaven, and about earth. For the reality of God’s love, seen and known in God’s sending of His Son, makes it clear that this earth and those who live on it are extremely valuable to God. Conversely, as we come to the realization that God has come among us in the person of Jesus Christ (one of the titles given to Jesus is “Immanuel”, meaning “God with us”), prompts us to lift our eyes heavenward, to exclaim that God is, indeed, working and active in human affairs. The work begun with the coming of Jesus Christ continues in the world today, for He has assured us in Holy Scripture that he will be with us until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20).

What happens in this life and in this world matters to God. That’s one conclusion we can draw from the coming of Jesus Christ. Likewise, we can affirm that our lives have purpose and meaning.

Heaven meets earth, and earth meets heaven, in the birth of Jesus, the Christ.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

Advent 4, Year A (2019)

Isaiah 7: 10 – 16 / Psalm 80: 1–7, 16–18 / Romans 1: 1–7 / Matthew 1: 18–25

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, December 22, 2019.

 “RISK AND OFFERING”

(Homily text: Matthew 1: 18-25)

Let’s talk about risk and offering this morning.

Our appointed Gospel text lays before us Matthew’s recounting of the process by which God unfolds His plan to enter human history through the birth of Jesus, as that plan affected Mary and Joseph. (At this point, it’d be worth noting that Matthew’s Gospel account focuses in largely on Joseph’s, role, while Luke’s account focuses on Mary’s role.)

God’s plan placed a significant amount of risk before Joseph and Mary. Presumably, each one could have said “No” to God’s plan, opting out of cooperating with God to bring about this miraculous birth.

The risk involved for these two servants of God had to do – in large measure – with the character of the society in which they lived, a society that sociologists might call an “Honor and Shame” society. The term denotes the idea that members of society bring honor to themselves (and their families) by doing good things, and – conversely – they bring shame upon themselves (and others) by doing bad things. (It’s worth saying that our contemporary society has lost a good bit of its sense of honor and shame.)

So it is that Mary is pregnant without the benefit of marriage, a major transgression of the norms of the society in which she lived. Matthew points this reality out by telling us that Joseph pondered what to do about this development….he thought about divorcing Mary quietly, since, at that time, an engaged couple was considered to be married (but without the possibility of intimate relations), an interim step toward full marriage. Betrothal or engagement could be ended only by divorce. Under the provisions of the Law of Moses, the penalty for becoming pregnant without the benefit of marriage was death by stoning. Joseph apparently seeks to find a compassionate way out of the situation by divorcing Mary quietly. If he had done that, it’s quite likely that Mary would have continued to live under a permanent sort of house arrest.

No doubt Joseph and Mary continued to live with the after effects of this situation once they had returned to live in Nazareth. To the casual observations of their fellow residents in town, the circumstances of Jesus’ birth amounted to a violation of the norms of society and of the Law of Moses.

God’s call often involves risk of some sort: Risk of change, risk of taking a new and different course in life.

Like Joseph (and Mary), it’s possible for us to say “No” to God’s call. It’s possible to tell God that we don’t want to take the risks involved in God’s plan.

But it’s also possible that we can make our lives an offering to God, being willing to take whatever risks come along with saying “Yes”, just as both Mary and Joseph did.

Perhaps the risk for us involves little more than living by God’s standards, instead of living by the world’s standards. Just doing that alone these days will involve risk. But maybe the risk will be far greater than that: Maybe God will ask us to do something completely new and different, something that means we will have to set aside whatever plans we might have had for ourselves.

In a very real sense, God’s call to us, made originally in baptism, is made again and again, day in and day out, each and every day. Seen this way, God visits us daily (as our Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent reminds us), asking us to offer ourselves to God’s will and service, indicating our willingness to take whatever risks come along with making that offering.

AMEN.

Advent 3, Year A (2019)

Isaiah 35: 1–10 / Psalm 146: 1–9 / James 5: 7–10 / Matthew 11: 2–11

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, December 15, 2019.

 “THE ONE, ESSENTIAL AND MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION”

(Homily text: Matthew 11: 2–11)

In this morning’s appointed Gospel text, John the Baptist asks the one, essential and most important question that he – and we – can ask: “Are you the one, or should we be looking for another?”

Of course, we know from Matthew’s text that John asks this question of Jesus.

At first glance, John’s question might seem a bit odd, maybe even unusual. After all, earlier in Matthew’s Gospel account, we learn that Jesus had come to be baptized by John. But John objects, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matthew 3:14). However, Jesus insists, and is baptized by John. John seems to sense that there is something quite unique about Jesus, quite powerful, perhaps. A bit earlier, John had said that there was one coming after him, whose sandals he was unworthy to untie. (Matthew 3:11)

It’s possible that John’s understanding of Jesus’ nature and Jesus’ identity is incomplete. After all, in sending Jesus to come among us, God was doing something radically new, something that hadn’t happened before in human experience and history. John wasn’t alone in his questioning….Jesus’ own disciples often failed to understand and grasp just what God was doing, at least before the events of Good Friday, Easter morning, the Lord’s Ascension and Pentecost took place.

Now, as we look again at John’s question, it’s possible that we can see three things at work:

·         John’s pondering and wondering

·         His question to the Lord

·         The Lord’s response

We’ve looked at the first two parts of this sequence. Now, let’s turn our attention to Jesus’ response.

As is quite often the case, Jesus doesn’t offer a straightforward answer. Instead, He points to the things that are being done through Him: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor receive good news.

On the surface, this list is a summary of what Jesus has been doing, and it reflects Matthew’s record of those deeds.

But on a deeper level, most of Jesus’ list has to do with God’s power to create and to re-create. Put another way, God’s power is – in its most fundamental understanding – the power to make things, and to make them new again. It is that power of God that is at work in Jesus.

We would do well to return to the sequence of things as John’s mind seeks an answer to the question, “Are you the one?” For, I think, the sequence in John’s mind is the sequence that you and I face in our quest to understand God, to come to know God, and to come into an intimate, enduring and powerful relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

First of all, we share – or ought to share – with John an inquiring mind and spirit. No relationship with God can really begin unless we have that thirst after God. And, while we’re pondering this truth, we ought to admit that – absent the Holy Spirit’s presence – we are unable even to begin the quest.

But, as we begin to walk the road of understanding, we must also admit that we don’t know all there is to know about God and God’s nature and ways. We know some things, to be sure, but we cannot, this side of heaven, know it all. The question then becomes: Can we learn and know enough? Yes, would be the answer.

Secondly, John asks the question: “Are you the one we’ve been waiting for, or do we seek another?” That question, we, too, must ask. We can recast the question like this: “Enlighten us about who you are, and about your ways and your will.” After all, we are in a slightly different position that John was, for we have the witness of Jesus’ ministry, His death, His resurrection, His ascension. We have all of these things. Moreover, we have the thrust of Christian history to inform us, as we examine the lives of the Apostles and the saints down through the ages who have demonstrated God’s power in their lives.

Then, finally, we must become comfortable with God’s answer. Oftentimes, the answers that God provides in response to our questions isn’t straightforward. Perhaps that’s because God wants us to do our part to seek His truth, I don’t know. But, instead, what God will offer us is proof of His workings in our lives in and in the lives of others. The proof, then, is there, but we will have to look for it.

Welcome, then, to the questioning, the Lord’s response, and to our search for the truth of the Lord’s answer.

AMEN.

Advent 2, Year A (2019)

Isaiah 11: 1–10 / Psalm 72: 1–7, 18–19 / Romans 15: 4–13 / Matthew 3: 1–12  

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday December 8, 2019.

“GOD’S PLAN, OUR WORK”

(Homily texts:  Isaiah 11: 1–10 & Matthew 3: 1–12)

On this Second Sunday of Advent, the designers of our lectionary readings’ cycle have placed before us a passage from the prophet Isaiah, a passage which describes a future time of peace, along with John the Baptist’s ministry of baptism for the repentance of sins.

At first glance, these two passages don’t seem to have much in common with one another. But if we look a little deeper, perhaps we can see a connection.

Let’s explore these two texts a bit.

Isaiah is writing in the eighth century before our Lord’s advent among us. His is a troubled time, a time when many of God’s people will be threatened with war and with conquest. In the midst of all this gloomy news, Isaiah describes a time when God’s rule will extend to all creation. His language is wonderful: It is a time when the lion will lie down with the lamb, he says, a time when a child will play over the hole of a poisonous snake.

Now, let’s turn our attention to Matthew’s description of John the Baptist’s work.

John the Baptist’s ministry also unfolds during a very troubled time: God’s people are living under the yoke of oppressive Roman occupation. The leadership of God’s people were self-serving and not-at-all concerned with the welfare of the people they were leading. We could say in all truth that the leadership of the people was manifestly corrupt. Moreover, worship of God in this time seemed to be formal, but without an impact on the day-to-day lives of ordinary people. Put another way, Temple worship adhered to the precept of the Law of Moses, but it lacked an impact beyond the walls of the Temple complex.

John the Baptist calls those who had come out to the wilderness to repentance. His call was to confess their shortcomings and wrongdoings, and to wash them away in the waters of the Jordan River. As part of their confession, they are told to set aside any claim of worthiness of their own. John’s words are blunt: “Do not presume to say that you are children of Abraham.”

The way to bring God’s vision of peace and perfection begins with an admission that God’s people – those in John the Baptist’s day and us, today - have nothing of value to bring of our own. Admitting that shortcoming is the beginning of being able to be God’s agents for change. “Don’t think that you have any platform on which to stand,” we could say in summary.

How do we move toward God’s vision of peace and perfection, given the fact that – on our own merits, we have nothing to offer?

After all, we are God’s hands to do, God’s heart to love, God’s mind to think and imagine in this world. But for all the capabilities we might have as we use our hands, our hearts and our minds, without God’s inspiration and undergirding, anything we might try to do will fail.

It is as if God has laid out the road to perfection, has placed us at the beginning of the route, and then accompanies us as we make our way along. As God walks with us, He stands behind us to urge us on, even as He stands in front of us, pointing the way.

As we compare Isaiah’s vision to the reality of the world in which we live today, we might be tempted to give up on the journey before we’ve taken even one step. The world we share with others is marked by violence, discord and poverty. An inordinate focus on the self seems to be the modern religion of our time. In the midst of all these changes, the Christian faith seems to have been pushed aside. The Church has lost much of its influence and place in society.

And yet, Christians the world over still believe in that future vision of Isaiah, that time when God’s rule will be ushered in in all its fullness and perfection. The Church will have a place in making these changes a reality, for we are assured in Holy Scripture that the “gates of hell will not prevail” over it.

You and I, therefore, have work to do.

We are called to proclaim the Good News (Gospel) of Jesus Christ by what we say, what we do, and how we conduct our lives. We are called to say that coming to a lively and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ makes all the difference in life. For, in Christ, everything in life takes on a different meaning. True meaning of life can only be found in Christ.

We affirm that God’s rule will come in God’s good time. We do this each Sunday as we recite the Nicene Creed. Success in bringing about God’s vision of perfection is assured. That doesn’t mean that we can be complacent about the journey.

Realizing that we have no basis before God upon which to stake any claim is the beginning of the journey. Only then can God fit us out for His service.

We stand therefore, with those who stood before John the Baptist at the Jordan River, and John’s voice admonishes us just as it did those who stood before him: “Do not presume to say that you are Abraham’s children.” For God will work with us, if we are willing to admit our helplessness. If we aren’t willing to come to terms with our sinful condition, then God will work around us somehow, using others to accomplish His will.

AMEN.

Advent 1, Year A (2019)

Isaiah 2: 1–5 / Psalm 122 / Romans 13: 11–14 / Matthew 24: 36–44

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, December 1, 2019.

 “IS ANYTHING MISSING? HAVE I FORGOTTEN SOMETHING?”

(Homily text:  Matthew 24: 36–44)

A ritual for new recruits in the military services is the inspection. The ritual is especially challenging for new members of the military, due to the fact that they’re still getting used to doing things the way the military does them, instead of relying on patterns they may have been used to in civilian life.

The inspection is usually conducted by the drill instructor (often called, in the Army anyway, the drill sergeant). I suspect that much of the ritual and the expectations surrounding the inspection process haven’t changed all that much since my own induction into the Army many years ago.

The inspection causes one to pay attention – close attention – to detail. For example, the new recruit will want to be sure that everything that is supposed to be on display and available for inspection is not only present, but is in serviceable condition. Not only must the items that are required meet those two criteria, but the recruit’s locker itself is also the subject of inspection. Here, it is often the white glove inspection that reveals hidden (and forgotten) nooks and crannies of the locker.

So, most recruits probably ask themselves two key questions as they are preparing for an inspection: “Is anything missing? Have I forgotten something?”

These two questions might also prepare us for this season of Advent, as we get ready for the Lord’s first coming in human form as a baby, born in Bethlehem, and as we get ready for that eventual coming of the Lord again in power and great glory. Or – as the Nicene Creed puts it – “He (the Lord Jesus Christ) shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead…”[1] Our Gospel text from Matthew reminds us that no one knows exactly when the Lord will come again.  The Creed simply affirms the truth that this event will take place someday, in God’s good time and according to God’s plan.

These two questions could assist us mightily in this holy season, as we ask ourselves, “Is anything missing (in my walk with God)? Have I forgotten (or neglected) anything?”

It might be easy, given the focus of the Advent season, to concentrate on the Lord’s first coming and the Lord’s eventual coming a second time. But the truth is that the Lord comes to us daily. Each and every day constitutes a visitation of the Lord, that One who knows the innermost secrets of our hearts, that One who searches out the nooks and the crannies of our minds, inspecting with the white gloves of holiness the ways in which we may have neglected to clean up those things in our lives that fail to reflect the Lord’s high standards of holiness.

Just as the pace of preparation for the drill sergeant’s inspection causes the new recruits to engage in frenetic activity to prepare for the time when the drill sergeant’s searching eye will disclose both successes and shortcomings, so, too, must we engage in a heightened pace of preparation to receive the Lord into our hearts, in order that we might provide a worthy home for Him to dwell therein.

A word of caution might be in order at this juncture: Just as the new recruit’s belongings must meet a standard by which they are judged to be serviceable, not new, so, too, must the condition of our hearts and minds meet a standard by which they are serviceable, able to do the Lord’s work and will in the world. For the truth is that no one of us meets a standard of perfection. That won’t happen for us in this earthly life. But we mustn’t be content to simply live in a “serviceable” condition. We must allow the Lord to point toward perfection, for that is the goal of our walk with Him. By allowing the Lord to point out the ways in which we’re “OK” for now, we create the pathway by which He can show us a yet more perfect way.

Our prayer might be this: “Come, Holy Spirit, and show us the ways by which we yet have need to prepare our hearts and minds to receive the Lord. Amen.”

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[1]   The wording provided here comes from the traditional language version of the Creed, one that we will be using throughout the season of Advent. It may be found in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, at page 327.

Last Pentecost (Christ the King), Year C (2019)

Proper 29 :: Jeremiah 23: 1–6 / Psalm 46 /Colossians 1: 11-20 / Luke 23: 33–43

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday November 24, 2019.

 “OF KINGS AND OF THE KING OF KINGS, CHRIST OUR LORD”

We’ve come now to the end of the current liturgical year. Since the adoption of the “new” Prayer Book some forty-odd years ago, this last Sunday after Pentecost has come to be known as “Christ the King Sunday”. We Episcopalians share the same focus of this Sunday with other Christians on this last Sunday of the current year.

The focus of this Sunday allows us to wrap up all that we’ve been considering throughout the previous year, things that have to do with the coming of the Christ, Jesus our Lord. We’ve prepared for His coming among us at Christmastime with the season of Advent. We’ve celebrated the light of His appearing and the spread among the Gentiles of His light in the season of Epiphany, and then we’ve garnered together our strength for the arduous journey of preparation through the season of Lent, getting ready for the Lord’s rising to new life on Easter Sunday morning. Finally, we’ve applied all that we’ve experienced and considered in these preceding seasons during the season after Easter, called Pentecost. Pentecost is a time when we grow the faith (hence, the liturgical color for the season after Pentecost is green).

Since we’ve characterized this day as “Christ the King Sunday”, we ought to consider, at least briefly, what calling someone a king (or queen) might mean. After all, we Americans are proud of our thoroughly democratic nature as a country. We have no appetite for having a king (or queen), even if we are quite interested and fascinated with the British royal family. Though many of us follow the doings of the Brits, we wouldn’t want to have anything to do with having a royal class or family of our own. It’s said that there was a move, early in our country’s history, to try to make George Washington a king. But he said “No” to that idea, very wisely so.

Having a king (or a queen) entails an entirely different way of being a people, a nation. We’d be wise to consider the differences with what we’re used to in this country. Then, we might be able to apply some of these observations to the matter of what it means for us to be citizens of a different country, a group of people called Christians.

We might begin our consideration of the differences with the matter of a king’s (or queen’s) power. After all, a king (or queen) isn’t the head of a democracy, at least not in ancient times. Kings and queens aren’t elected. They inherit their position and status. In ancient times, there was an idea that a king (or queen) ruled with an autocratic hand, being – as it was believed back then – that they ruled because God wanted them to be king or queen. This concept of royalty goes by the name “Divine Right of Kings”.

In more recent times, the idea that a king or queen rules because God wants it that way has faded away. Now, in most places, what has replaced this idea is something that is called a “Constitutional Democracy”. That is to say, some countries still have kings and queens, but those royal people are figureheads, for the most part, a person who symbolizes the entire country. In some cases, the formal name of the nation reflects the fact that it has a king or queen. One couldn’t have the United Kingdom without a king or a queen. So, for example, in the United Kingdom of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, one uses the Royal Mail. The British Navy is known as the Royal Navy. These are just two examples. But the actual running of the country in Constitutional Democracies is left to an elected group, called by various names: For example, the Parliament in the United Kingdom.

Kings and queens are one with the people they lead. So, to continue our consideration of how things work in the United Kingdom, we can say with assurance that Queen Elizabeth II and the entire royal family are citizens of the U.K. But, even though they are citizens, they are different from what are known as “commoners”. Royalty makes them different.

We might get the idea that being a king or a queen or a member of the royal family comes with good things only, and never with any bad things. But that wouldn’t be the case; for a king or queen often has to make difficult decisions for the welfare of the people they represent and lead. And, they might have to make sacrifices for the same reason. Consider, for example, that Queen Elizabeth II worked driving a truck during World War II.

What might these observations tell us about the way in which we ought to consider our Lord Jesus Christ as king, or – as we read in the Book of Revelation – King of kings and Lord of lords?

We might begin by affirming the truth of God’s appointment of the Lord to lead us. We didn’t choose Him to lead us, He chose us to be His followers. So, our faith in the Lord isn’t a democracy, something we can choose to fashion in accordance with our own desires. Instead, we must rely on the revelation of God’s will in the person of our Lord, as that reality is reflected in the pages of sacred Scripture.

Our Lord gives us an identity, for we bear the name Christian, signifying that we are “partisans of Christ” (a wonderful phrase I heard when I was in seminary).

Our Lord is one of us, born of a human mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary; but He is unlike us at the same time, being conceived by the Holy Spirit. This is a truth we affirm each Sunday as we recite the Nicene Creed.

Our Lord willingly makes the sacrifices that are necessary for our welfare. That’s the basic meaning of the events of Good Friday. Our Lord comes and empties Himself in service to us, then rises to new life again, claiming the victory over death that will be ours when our own earthly journey is done.

Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ, for the abundant gifts you shower upon us, you who are King of kings and Lord of lords.

AMEN.

Pentecost 23, Year C (2019)

Proper 28 :: Malachi 4: 1–2a / Psalm 98 / II Thessalonians 3: 6–13 / Luke 21: 5–19

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, November 17, 2019.

 “THE OLD IS PASSING AWAY. THE NEW IS COMING”

(Homily text: Luke 21: 5-19)

Jesus and His disciples are walking through the precincts of the Temple in Jerusalem, and some of those who were also there marvel at the beauty and the grandeur of the place.[1] In response, the Lord predicts that the time will come when “one stone won’t be left on top of another.”

Jesus’ prediction seems to cause alarm among his disciples, for they ask, “When will these things take place, and what will be the sign…?”

By the time that Luke was writing down his Gospel account, (perhaps late in the first century) Jesus’ prediction had come to pass, for the Temple (and the city of Jerusalem) were destroyed in the year 70 AD, at the conclusion of the Jewish-Roman War (66 – 70 AD).

Returning to the Lord’s comments, we read His prediction that the loss of the Temple will be accompanied by war and tumult. Luke’s record of His comments tracks well with those that Matthew and Mark also recorded. Matthew’s account may be found at 24: 1–31, while Mark’s is found at 13: 1–27. These three passages often carry a superscription, applied by biblical scholars, entitled the “Little Apocalypse”.

With the destruction of the Temple, an old way of worshiping God also passed into history, for the Temple was the only place, where, under the provisions of the Law of Moses, that sacrifices could take place. (The local synagogues, scattered around the Roman Empire and also in the Holy Land, were places were Scripture was read and discussions were conducted. They were not places where sacrifices could take place.) Following the destruction of the Temple, much of the priestly caste that existed under the Law also vanished. In place of the loss of the Temple, Judaism continued without its sacrifices.  But it continued the traditions of the synagogue, being led by rabbis.

Now, let’s do some theological work around the Temple’s role as the place of sacrifice. We’ve just noticed what happened within Judaism with the loss of the Temple. For Christians, however, the loss of the Temple signified something else entirely: It marked the end of the sacrificial system that existed under the Law of Moses. For now, the sacrifice of Christ on the cross was the new, enduring and perfect sacrifice. (The Letter to the Hebrews contains an extensive explanation of Christ’s sacrifice, explaining that He was not only the sacrifice, but He was also the priest at whose hands the sacrifice was completed.) Gone were the sacrifices under the Law that had to be repeated again and again, for they were imperfect and lacked the ability to completely wipe the slate of our sin clean. Jesus had perfected those sacrifices, once and for all.

Moreover, now all who had come to faith in Christ had open and complete access to God through his perfect life and sacrifice, for the Temple’s curtain which blocked access to God, whose presence resided in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, had been torn in two on Good Friday.

Continuing our theological inquiry, we also see that, now, those who come to faith in God and who worship Him “in spirit and in truth”, as Jesus said to the woman at the well in Samaria (see John 4: 23), would be able to worship God anywhere, not just on the holy mountain in Jerusalem (Mount Zion).

The old has passed away, and the new has come. Now, all people everywhere, not just those who were descendants of Abraham, could come into relationship with God. Now, they could enter into a holy relationship with God by virtue of Christ’s perfect sacrifice, which wiped away the stain of sin in them forever. Gone was the awful distinction of who was ritually clean and who was ritually unclean.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

       

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[1]   At the time of this incident, construction on the Temple was not yet complete. Its construction was begun by King Herod the Great in the year 19/20 BC. Its construction took about 64 years. But apparently, by the time Jesus and His disciples were walking through it, it was completed enough to impress its visitors.

Pentecost 22, Year C (2019)

Proper 27 :: Job 19: 23–27a / Psalm 98 / II Thessalonians 2: 1–5, 13–17 / Luke 20: 27–38

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on November 10, 2019.

“IS THIS ALL THERE IS?”

(Homily texts:  Job 19: 23–27a, II Thessalonians 2: 1–5, 13–17 & Luke 20: 27-38)

“Is this all there is?” “Is the world we live in and the things we can see all there is?”

All three of our appointed readings emphatically answer these questions: “No, the life we live now, and the things we experience now, aren’t all there is!”

We must be getting close to the season of Advent, that time of preparation in the Church Year when we spend four weeks getting ready for the Lord’s first coming, an event we celebrate at Christmastime. The Advent season has a two-fold focus: Getting ready for the Lord’s first coming, but remembering that, in the fullness of time, and in God’s good time and in accordance with God’s design, the Lord will come again. This last point is a truth we affirm nearly every Sunday, as the liturgy urges to remember this truth in the Memorial Acclamation, which says, “We remember his death, we proclaim his resurrection, we await his coming in glory.”[1]

How can we know that the question, “this is all there is,” demands an answer that points beyond this present life and this present reality? Three possibilities offer themselves:

·         The witness of the Apostles to the Lord’s resurrection,

·         The witness of Holy Scripture,

·         God’s ability to create, and to re-create.

We should begin with the witness of the Apostles, those original twelve Disciples (OK, minus Judas Iscariot;  but then plus Matthias, who took his place; and then plus Paul…a “baker’s dozen” Apostles). All of them witnessed the Lord’s rising to new life again on Easter Sunday morning. The proof of the reality of the resurrection as an actual, physical, real event lies not in our ability to look into the empty tomb ourselves, but to see the amazing transformation of these original eleven (minus Judas) Disciples’ lives. Prior to the resurrection, and especially after the giving of the power of the Holy Spirit at the Feast of Pentecost, this original group was a bunch of bumblers, uncertain in their role in the things that God was doing, and possessed of an incredible ability to miss seeing what God was about. All that changed on Easter Sunday morning. After the raising of our Lord, the power of God, made known in Jesus’ new and resurrected life, became the overriding Reality (with a capital “R”) in these followers of Jesus’ lives. Not even the specter of a martyr’s death could intervene to overcome their knowledge that Jesus, had, in fact, been raised to new life on that Sunday morning.

Next, we might turn to the pages of Holy Scripture. Here, in our reading from Job, we read the familiar words, “I know that my Redeemer lives…” (Can’t you hear the magnificent soprano aria from Handel’s “Messiah” in those words?)  St. Paul picks up the theme in his second letter to the Thessalonians, “As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him….” Paul wants us to lift our eyes heavenward, to see that God’s got a plan, a wonderful plan, for the future. (Apparently, the early church in Thessalonica was deeply concerned about the unfolding of the events of the Lord’s return, for Paul has to address these concerns in both of the letters he wrote to that group of Christian believers.)

Our Gospel text, appointed for this morning, narrates the interchange between Jesus and a group of Sadducees. (The Sadducees were a group of priests, serving in the Temple in Jerusalem. They constituted the highest of the three orders of priests which were established under the Law of Moses.) Their question to the Lord is disingenuous, however: Luke takes pains to insert an editorial remark prior to the recounting of the interchange between the Sadducees and the Lord, telling us that the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. (Neither did they accept the authority of the writings of the prophets, by the way…they accepted only the five books of Moses as being authoritative.) No doubt Jesus knew of their beliefs at the outset of their outlandish tale of the woman who is widowed seven times. But, in the final analysis, Jesus affirms the reality that there is a resurrection from the dead. He, Himself, will experience the resurrection, and will offer us, by extension, the blessings and the benefits of life evermore.

The third place we might look for evidence that there is a Reality (again, with a capital “R”) beyond this present world and this present reality lies in the reality which is before us: The created order. The point to be made here is that, if God is the creator of all that is (a truth we affirm each Sunday as we recite the Nicene Creed), then God also has the power to not only create, but to re-create. God’s handiwork, seen in the things that are, point to the reality of the God who stands outside of time and the present circumstance, but who is active within this present time and circumstance. In other words, God has the power to make all things new, as we read in the Book of Revelation, chapter twenty one, verse five.

Our life in Christ has everything to do with training our eyes to see beyond this present time, age and circumstance. Each Sunday, our worship honors the God who created all that is, those things that we can see and those things we can’t. Each Sunday, we come to be reminded that there’s more to our lives than what we have to be concerned with each and every day, the reality that God is present in the here and now, but also in the hereafter.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

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[1]   Book of Common Prayer, 1979; Eucharistic Prayer B, page 368

All Saints’ Sunday, Year C (2019)

Daniel 7: 1–3, 15–18 / Psalm 149 / Ephesians 1: 11–23 / Luke 6: 20–31

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday November 3, 2019.

“WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH…”

(Homily text: Luke 6: 20-31)

Perhaps most of us could finish this saying: “When the going gets tough….”

The second phrase completes the first: “The tough get going.”

I’m not sure where that phrase came from, but it is a good way for us - on this All Saints’ Sunday - to enter into thinking about the saints of God. We could amend the saying this way: “When the going gets tough, the saints get going.”

It isn’t easy being a saint. For one thing, it means swimming against the tide of the everyday world’s values and ways of living. For another, it means holding always in view the reality of God and God’s will for the saints and for the world….keeping God in our hearts and in our thinking means that living like a saint involves “marching to a different drummer.”

Jesus captures the reality of the difficulty of being a saint in His collection of sayings which is called the Beatitudes. In this lectionary cycle, Year C, we hear the version offered to us by Luke.[1] (In Year A, we hear the more familiar offering of Matthew, from chapter five of his Gospel account.)

Luke’s version of the Beatitudes begins as Matthew’s does, or at least part of the saying that Jesus offered does….The first four sayings begin with the word “Blessed,” which is where the name “Beatitudes” comes from, from the Latin.

Luke tells us that Jesus offered four blessings: To those who are poor, to those are hungry, to those who weep, and to those who are hated.

But then Luke tells us that Jesus also pronounced four woes: To those who are rich in this world, to those who are full, to those who laugh now, and to those who are well spoken of.

Notice that the four woes reverse the four blessings. Whenever we read Luke’s Gospel account, we should look for signs of a reversal of roles, for Luke loves to pass along to us the Lord’s teachings which turn the normal order of things on its head. Here is an excellent example of that theme.

“When the going gets tough, the saints get going….”

It’s easy to live by the world’s expectations. The four woes that Jesus pronounced address values that the world embraces: to be rich or well off, to have enough to eat, to laugh and be merry, and to be liked (or loved) by others. In order to have these things, sometimes it’s necessary for those who crave them to set their convictions of what God would want them to do aside in order to blend into the world’s ways….Put another way, people who crave what the world offers have to be willing, oftentimes, to “Go along to get along.” Sometimes, godly values get pushed aside in the process.

As we look down through time, in many instances the great figures of the faith that we call “Saints” were those who “bucked” the system in some way or another. Take St. Francis of Assisi as a good example: At a time when the Church was in love with wealth and with worldly power, Francis embraced extreme poverty and took a vow to serve the Lord by serving the poor. The contrast between the values that the Church was living in in the early 13^th century couldn’t be further apart from the ways of God that Francis held to. Francis is remembered fondly today because of his totally counterculture sense of the values that God had made known. Francis challenged the status quo of things in his day and time. He lived out the principal that, “when the going got tough, St. Francis got going.”

May it be so with us, by the help of the Holy Spirit.

AMEN.

       

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[1]   Scholars have pondered why Luke’s version of the Beatitudes differs from Matthew’s. Perhaps one reason for the difference might lie in the possibility that Jesus offered this teaching on more than one occasion. Just about every preacher who’s been at the business of preaching and teaching for any length of time will find him/herself repeating some material, but in a slightly different format and with slightly different content. It would be easy to imagine that our Lord did the same thing, depending on His audience and on the circumstances at hand.

Pentecost 20, Year C (2019)

Proper 25 :: Jeremiah 14: 7–10, 19–22 / Psalm 84: 1–6 / II Timothy 4: 6–8, 16–18 / Luke 18: 9–14

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker for Sunday, October 27, 2019.

 “A FAULTY PLATFORM”

(Homily text: Luke 18: 9–14)

Our Gospel text for this morning places before us the very familiar Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Tax Collector was translated as Publican, in older translations). Today’s parable, like the one heard last week (the Parable of the Unjust Judge), is one of many parables that Luke alone among the Gospel writers passes along to us.

And, as was the case with last week’s parable, Luke inserts an editorial remark prior to relating the parable, outlining exactly what the meaning and the application of the parable is meant to be. His preamble to today’s parable says, “He (Jesus) also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.”

So, in the parable, the Pharisees stands, by himself, and prays, thanking God that he is not like others are, and especially not like that (hated) tax collector who’s standing nearby. The Pharisee then recounts all of his righteous deeds, keeping – as the Pharisees were keen to do – each and every minute detail of the law handed down by Moses.

A way to picture what’s going on here is to imagine that the Pharisee is standing on a platform, a fairly high one, high enough so that everyone around him could see him plainly. But the problem is that the Pharisee, while using the good planks of the Law of Moses, forget to put those planks together in a sound design, so that the platform would be sturdy and stable. Consequently, the Pharisee is standing on something that lacks a sure ability to support him safely….he has used good material (the Law), but for the purposes of promoting himself.

By contrast, the tax collector stands afar off, and won’t even lift his eye toward heaven. “Have mercy on me, O God, a sinner.” The tax collector has no platform at all to stand on, only the bare ground, and we might imagine that it is only by God’s great mercy that the ground doesn’t open around him and swallow him up, taking him away from God’s sight forever.

The tax collector has only one thing to offer, himself. Furthermore, he acknowledges that even the gift of himself is a shabby one, for he says that he is a sinner.

Now in the parable, the Lord reverses our normal expectation by declaring that it is the tax collector that goes away justified. Our expectation is that it would be the Pharisee, the one who’s burdened himself with enormous efforts to do everything the “right” way, who would find favor in God’s sight. (At this point, it’s worth noting that reversals of roles, and a turnabout of the normal expectation of things, is a favorite theme in Luke’s writing.)

If we’re honest with ourselves, we must admit that the gift we bring to God, the only gift we can bring, is ourselves. And when we bring that gift of ourselves, our hearts, minds, souls and bodies, we bring a gift that is stained with sin, one that is tattered and worn and nearly useless because the inherent goodness in all of those things has been distorted by our wayward and disobedient ways. But in God’s sight, the gift of ourselves is the very gift He cherishes the most. We can’t earn God’s favor, like the Pharisee tried to do, for our efforts are misguided and misshapen by sin’s cloudiness. The only thing we can do is to bring ourselves, and when we do, admit our unworthiness.

But that’s where God wants to begin with us. It’s a “zero-sum” deal. Only when we admit we have nothing of value to offer, then it is that God can say to us, “You are valuable to me, extraordinarily valuable.” So it is that God doesn’t leave us where He finds us, for God’s plan for us is to reshape and remold us into the full image of Christ. But that remolding and reshaping can only happen when the raw material of our hearts is softened by the awareness of our own unworthiness before God.

How, then, is our platform constructed? We have two choices, the ones that the Lord outlines in the parable we hear this morning: Have we, like the Pharisee, been putting the planks of our accomplishments and our good deeds together, but in a way that won’t support us when we step atop what we’ve made? To be sure, we lack the ability to design a platform that will hold up to God’s scrutiny. It’s far better, then, to follow the second option, the one taken by the tax collector, to step off that platform and to stand on bare ground, helpless and hopeless before God, for that’s exactly the place where He will find us.

AMEN.

Pentecost 19, Year C (2019)

Proper 24 :: Genesis 32: 22–31 / Psalm 121 / II Timothy 3: 14 – 4: 5 / Luke 18: 1-8

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, October 20, 2019.

 “THE MYSTERY OF PRAYER”

(Homily text:  Luke 18: 1–8)

Today’s parable, most commonly known as the “Parable of the Unjust Judge”, places before us the matter of prayer. As is the case with many of the parables that Luke passes along to us, this one is Lukan material alone.

Jesus’ parable sets before us a scene in which a widow woman pesters an unjust judge to give her legal satisfaction for her complaint. Again and again, Jesus tells us, the woman comes before the judge, demanding justice. Finally, she triumphs, simply because she has managed to wear the judge down.

Jesus’ teaching is a classic case of a rhetorical device known as “lesser-to-greater”. Jesus makes the point that, if an unjust judge can be persuaded to grant a request, God, who is the very definition of being just, and who is compassionate and righteous, will grant the petitions of those who pray to Him without the need to continually ask for those things that are needed. A collect in the Prayer Book states this reality well, saying that “God is more willing to hear than we are to pray.”

What about prayer?

We can summarize the business – and the work – of prayer in one word:  Mystery. For the purposes of this discussion, mystery is defined as something we know works, we just don’t know exactly how.

We know that prayer is necessary – oftentimes lots of it – for anything to unfold according to God’s will.

But just how does it work?

The truth is, we don’t know, exactly. We just know that it does. When people pray, things change.

Which brings us to the next point about prayer: If God is all-knowing, then God knows the intent of our hearts and those things that are necessary for our life and our salvation before we ask Him for them. So why should we pray, then? Perhaps the reason is that when we pray, and especially when we pray about something again and again and over a period of time, we are the ones who change. We change by realizing that our reliance is, ultimately, on God, not on ourselves. For another thing, we learn something about perseverance, about the need to live by faith and to not give up. And for yet another, we can come to realize something deeper or new about God’s will in the matter which fills the content of our prayers

Prayer always results in an answer, always. God will provide us with one of three answer:  Yes, No, or Not now. When the answer is “No”, time will often disclose that God’s way is much better than our way. At least that’s been my life’s experience.

Today’s parable presents us with a case of a person making petitions. A balanced prayer involves making petitions, but it also involves in offering thanksgivings for God’s blessings and for growth into the full stature of Christ. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to begin our prayers with the offering of thanksgivings. Our human relationships mirror this reality…offering thanks is a key skill that each of us needs in order to function in this life (along with being able to say “Please”, “Thank you” and “I’m sorry”). So it is with God: We should offer our thanksgivings often. Reflecting on those blessings that have come our way, whether or not those blessings have come directly from God, or from somewhere else.

Welcome, then, to the business of prayer, a mystery whose workings we don’t completely understand, even as we affirm that prayer works. Prayer changes things, and makes possible the coming of the kingdom of God in our midst.

AMEN.