Joel 2: 1–2, 12–17; Psalm 103: 8–14; II Corinthians 5:
20b – 6:10; Matthew 6: 1–6, 16–21
This is the homily prepared to be preached at St. John’s,
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Wednesday, March 6, 2019.
“A
MAINTENANCE-FREE FAITH?”
Not
long after I entered the Army, I bought an old car, a 1949 Buick Roadmaster. It
was a big, black hunk of machinery, possessing an excellent straight eight
engine (my dad admired those old engines, and used a number of them in various
things that he built) that was so well constructed and designed that – at idle
– it didn’t vibrate at all.
For
all of its wonderful characteristics (and there were many), it was a
high-maintenance vehicle by modern standards: For example, its oil required
changing (as best as I can remember) every 2,000 or 3,000 miles. Its spark
plugs required removal for cleaning every 6,000 miles, and then those plugs had
to be replaced at 12,000 miles.
Fast
forward to today, and by comparison, our cars require far fewer actions to
maintain them. Oil changes are three or four times less frequent than they were
for that old Buick. Spark plugs can now go, in some cases, 100,000 miles before
they require replacement, and so forth.
Given
this reality, and aided by the all-present reality of advertising (which
encourages us to think that the latest and greatest inventions or products are
maintenance-free and will improve our lives) with which we live today, it’d be
easy to think that cars (and most anything else, for that matter) are
maintenance-free.
But I
think today – as I reflect on it – what’s changed isn’t the net amount of
maintaining that we have to do for specific things like cars, but the
cumulative nature of what we’re maintaining. Allow me to clarify: Yes, it’s true that our cars and other things
don’t require as much maintenance as they used to, but now we’re trying to
maintain – to keep up with – so many more things, things like the virus
protection on our computers, which must be maintained in order to protect them.
Or other things, like repairs around the house that, in previous times we might
have hired someone to do, but which, nowadays, we have to tend to ourselves in
many cases. Those are just two examples. (Feel free to fill in the blanks with
your own life’s experience in this regard.)
It
seems as though we’re just as busy trying to keep up with things as we were in
those more simple times of the past. (Or perhaps it only seems like those times
were more simple than today’s reality is.) We’re just doing about the same
amount of work, spread across a number of concerns, not just a few.
All
of which brings us to the matter of faith, or – more specifically – to the
maintenance of our faith walk with God through Christ.
It’d
be easy to think that our life in God is maintenance-free, something that will
endure and will improve without effort. Of course, we know from our life’s
experience that nothing ever stays the same. Every aspect of our lives is
either growing or dying away. Change is constant. Life reminds us of that, day
in and day out.
Our
walk with God is no different.
Another
aspect of our approach to the faith has to do with the busy-ness of life.
Because we are so busy, we might be tempted to set aside the necessary
maintenance that needs to be performed on our relationship with God. It’s easy
to set aside God’s place in our lives when there are so many other demands on
our time, our attention, and our energy.
This
holy season of Lent gives us the gift of being able to consciously focus on our
relationship to God and our walk with Him. It allows us to assess how much
time, and what kind of quality of time, we are offering to God in order to stay
close to Him. It allows us to assess our priorities, which may have gotten
out-of-balance, in order to make God central to who we are.
I’d
be negligent in my duty as your priest if I didn’t offer a few suggestions to
help improve the maintenance of our walk with God. So here are some ideas: Resolve to be faithful in attendance at
church; decide to get up earlier and come to our lively Bible Study (Sunday
mornings, 9:00 a.m.), read the Bible regularly, pray the Daily Offices (Morning
Prayer, Evening Prayer) in the Prayer Book; attend our Lenten Supper Series
(begins March 14th and runs for four Thursday evenings), come to our
Friday evening Stations-of-the-Cross services (which we are co-sponsoring with
Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church), or decide to use our parish prayer list to
pray for those named on it individually and by name.
So,
in all sincerity, I wish each and every one of you a “Happy Lent”.
AMEN.
