Easter 2, Year C (2019)

Acts 5: 27–32; Psalm 150; Revelation 1: 4–8; John 20: 19–31

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, April 28, 2019.

 “MAKING EAGLES OUT OF TURKEYS”

(Homily text: John 20: 19-31)

Perhaps the title of this homily might cause some wonderment (and perhaps, even some head scratching).

It comes from a saying that goes like this: “It’s awfully hard to soar like an eagle if you hang around with turkeys.” That saying might be one I heard in the Army, quite possibly so.

(At this point, I ought to include a disclaimer….When this saying talks about turkeys, it isn’t talking about wild turkeys, who are blessed with keen eyesight and a high degree of intelligence, apparently. What is being described are the domesticated ones, who don’t seem to have much intelligence at all.)

As with many such sayings, there’s a kernel of truth in this saying. It informs us that, if we want to grow, improve and move upward, no matter in what way we might consider doing that, it’s going to be a whole lot better if we associate with people who will cultivate upward ideals in us, people we can learn from and be influenced by.

So, then, if this is so, what’s going on with Jesus? He chose to hang around with all sorts of disreputable people (disreputable by the standards of the culture of His day, in some ways), people like tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners, people like those original twelve disciples.

If we think about that original bunch, those twelve, we’d have to conclude that they were quite a motley crew. There was Simon the Zealot, whose values would have clashed with Matthew, the tax collector….after all, Simon wanted to kick the Romans out by force, if necessary, while Matthew was working for those same Roman, collecting taxes. That’s just one example of the differences that existed among those originally called.

Then, there is the matter of the many times that none of them seem to “get it”, not at all.  Consider, for example, Jesus’ interaction with the disciples at the Last Supper, as John narrates it for us. It is Philip who says to the Lord, “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” In response, Jesus says, “Have I been with you so long, and you do not know me. Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14: 8 – 9b)

Or, we could consider Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Only a short time later, Peter would turn around and rebuke the Lord for the Lord’s prediction that he would be going to Jerusalem, where He would suffer, die and be raised again on the third day. Recall that Jesus then said this famous response to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Matthew 16: 16–23)

Jesus must have been blessed with infinite patience, working with those He originally called, for more often than not, they tended to act like turkeys, not like eagles.

The tendency of some of the disciples to act like turkeys persisted even into the time after the resurrection. That, in a nutshell, is the problem with Thomas, doubting Thomas….Thomas demands physical proof that Jesus has risen from the dead, saying, “Unless I put my fingers in the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

Thomas’ problem reflects one of the key problems that plagued the Jews of Jesus’ day…they wanted proof, physical proof, that Jesus is who He said He is. “By what authority are you doing the things you are doing?” they ask. (Luke 20: 2). “Show us some sign that we may believe you,” they say (John 2: 18 or 6:30)

We shouldn’t be too hard on Thomas, on the Jews with whom Jesus had contact, or with those of us living today. We, and they, want to have some valid and reliable basis for believing the things that are to be believed. That’s a normal and wise value to maintain. We want to avoid believing that something is true which has no foundation.

Nor should we single Thomas out for special scrutiny or even scorn, for what Thomas demands is what each of the other disciples had already received: A resurrection appearance and encounter with the Lord.

So what’s the problem with Thomas?

For one thing, the picture we have of Thomas in the Gospels is one of a man who seems to be skeptical pretty much all the time. For another, he seems to have had the quality of a killjoy.

For another, Thomas doesn’t trust the witness of the other disciples, who tell him that they’ve seen the risen Lord.

But Jesus needs to transform Thomas from being a turkey into an eagle. And so the Lord appears to Thomas, and says, “Put your hand here…don’t be faithless (that’s what the Greek word actually means), but believing.”

I love this account, for I see an imaginary blank in the text, into which I can insert my name. You can do the same. When we do this, we can see ourselves in this event, for Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen (that’s you and me, fill in the blank ______) and yet have believed. “

How do you and I come to faith, to believing? We come through the witness of those who associated with and who saw the risen Lord, people like Thomas, who were transformed as a result of their encounter with the risen Jesus into being eagles.

I know of no more reliable proof of the resurrection than the miraculous transformation of those original disciples who would soon become apostles, those whom the Lord sent out carrying the Good News (Gospel) that God had conquered death by raising Jesus to new life on Easter Sunday morning.

Indeed, Thomas was transformed. Tradition tells us that he went as far as the subcontinent of India, carrying the Good News of Jesus. Even today, there is a church in India that bears his name and remembers his work, the Mar Thoma Church.

You and I can become eagles, if we come to faith in God’s power to create new life, to create a new, enduring and intimate love relationship with the Father through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Then, we, too, can go out and share the Good News of what God can do to change things. We just might become eagles in the process.

AMEN.

           

The Feast of the Resurrection: Easter Sunday, Year C (2019)

Acts 10: 34–43; Psalm 118: 1–2, 14–24; I Corinthians 15: 19–26; John 20: 1–18

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, April 21, 2019.

“CONSIDER THE ROCK”

(Homily text: John 20: 1–18)

Last Saturday, my wife and I took a bicycle ride on the rail-trail west of town. It was our first outing of the year, and the first time we’ve had the chance to ride together. As often happens, she stopped at one point on the ride and picked up a rock to bring back to our garden, putting the rock on the rack on the back of her bike.(I teased her a little, saying she should pick a rock that wasn’t so heavy that it’d collapse her back wheel.) By now, there’s a sizable collection of such rocks, picked up on earlier rides, that line the flower bed behind the house.

My wife’s father was a geologist, and some of her dad’s knowledge of and interest in rocks has rubbed off on his daughter. My wife can tell you a good bit about rocks. For example, she might say, “Well, that’s a sedimentary rock, or, that’s an igneous rock.”

Imagine, then, in your mind a rock, about big enough to hold with one hand, although two hands would probably be better. I am thinking of the rock that she brought home last Saturday: It is gray in color, and it’s obviously a sedimentary rock. (So says me, who knows next-to-nothing about rocks.)

There’s a lot we can observe and learn from examining this rock. For example, the first question we might ask would be, “how old is it?” The answer to that might vary quite a bit, but the general answer would be, “it’s very old.” We might even say it’s billions of years old. Then, we can observe the strata in the rock, and we might think about the forces that shaped it, perhaps as the ingredients of it were submerged under water, forming the various layers that later solidified into rock. Then, we might think about the fact that this rock is now hundreds of feet above sea level, and as we ride along the rail-trail, we see that some of the sedimentary rocks are tipped, now sitting at an angle. So we might wonder about the forces that lifted it up out of water, and then later on, forced it upward so that it sits at a significant angle to the ground.

The next step in our consideration of the history of this rock would have to do with its origins. “Just what – or who – created it in the first place?”, we might ask. Since, at some point, this rock had to have come into being out of nothing, the answer we Christians would supply to the question of what – or who – made it, is that God made it. The Nicene and the Apostles’ Creeds both affirm our belief that God is the maker, the creator, of all things, or as the Nicene Creed put it, God is the creator of all that is, “seen and unseen”.

In our belief and conviction that God is the maker of all things, we affirm that one of the powers that God has is the ability to create things out of nothing.

God’s creative power applies not only to solid objects, like rocks, but also to living creatures, great and small. The marvelous nature of the created order, and especially with regard to the intricate ways in which God’s creation is intertwined and related to its various parts, testifies to God’s wisdom and power.

God’s power is the power to give life, to bring into being out of nothing, new life.

If God can create life in the first place, God can re-create it, too.

This last statement brings us to the Easter event, the raising of Jesus from the dead on Easter Sunday morning.

If we affirm that God has the power to grant life, then God can also bring life back into something that was dead. In this case, God re-creates life in Jesus.

How do we know this is so? I think the proof lies in two places:  For one thing, we’ve just affirmed that God has the power to create life, and to re-create life. For another, and with respect to Jesus’ resurrection, we have proof in the enormous change that came over Jesus’ disciples, once they had encountered the risen Lord….these original disciples, the first twelve (minus Judas), plus those who had been with Jesus during His earthly ministry (people like Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Justus and Matthias, to name a few), and then plus Paul, go out into the world proclaiming that they had encountered Jesus, come to life again. They tell the world that the risen Lord showed them His hands and His feet, that He said that they could touch Him to be sure that He wasn’t a spirit, that He ate in front of them. (See Luke 24: 36 – 43.)

Then, after that, they went out into the world, carrying the message that God has the power over all things, even death, and that this power had been proven through the resurrection of Jesus, to whom all power had been given. The message they carried led – in many cases – to martyrdom for the messengers. But so sure were they that God’s power had been seen in Jesus’ resurrection, that God had given this power to Jesus, so that they would have new life in God’s eternal presence. The prospect of an ugly and painful death was no deterrent to their belief in the Lord’s resurrection.

We said a moment ago that God has the power to create – and to re-create – life.

God can rekindle that life in us, if our relationship with God has grown cold. God can create new life in relationships with others that have lost their liveliness. God can bring healing where no hope is present. These are the blessings that God’s desire for us, and our response in faith to that desire, bring.

Easter blessings, everyone.

AMEN.

Good Friday, Year C (2019)

Isaiah 52: 13 – 53: 12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10: 1–25;  John 18: 1 – 19: 37

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker to be offered on Friday, April 19, 2019.

“A DAY OF IRONIES AND CONTRASTS”

(Homily text:  John 18: 1 – 19: 37)

Good Friday is a day which is full of irony, a day which is full of contrasts.

Consider the following:

Innocence and guilt: Jesus, the sinless one, the one who had done “nothing wrong”, according to the centurion who oversaw His death, stands in contrast to the “holy ones” among the leadership of God’s people, who plotted to commit murder.

Justice and injustice: Related to the matter of innocence and guilt is the matter of justice and injustice. Roman law prevailed, preserving the outward appearance of justice. But convicting an innocent man is an injustice, as is the conduct of Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin, which violated some requirements of the Law of Moses.

Who’s clean and who’s unclean?: The chief priests refuse to go into Pilate’s presence, in order that they might not be defiled, and therefore, not be able to observe the Passover, seem – from all outward appearance – to be clean, at least ritually clean. But Jesus, who dies a cursed death, by hanging on a tree, would seem to be the unclean one. Seen from a different perspective, however, the reality of who’s clean and who’s unclean is reversed.

The “son of the father”: Barabbas is released by Pilate in Jesus’ stead. Barabbas means “son of the father” in Aramaic. Jesus, by contrast, is the “Son of the Father”.

Condemnation and forgiveness: Those who clamored for Jesus’ death condemn Him, as did the chief priests who stood nearby the cross. But Jesus forgives those who are driving the nails into His hands.

Power and helplessness: The power of the Sanhedrin and the Roman governor, Pilate, convict Jesus and send Him to Calvary. But the end of the story (on Easter Sunday morning) reveals who has the real power.

AMEN.

       

       

Maundy Thursday, Year C (2019)

Exodus 12: 1–14a; Psalm 78: 14–20, 23–25; I Corinthians 11: 23–32; John 13: 1-15

This is the homily that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Thursday, April 18, 2019.

 “IT’S NOT ABOUT US, BUT IT IS”

Tonight, we come to a recollection of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, and to Jesus’ command that we should do as He has done, that is, that we should serve one another as He serves us. The name of this day is Maundy Thursday, the name coming from the Latin word, mandatum, meaning “command”. (This word comes into English as “mandate”.)

At that first Lord’s Supper, Jesus knelt down to wash his disciples’ feet. (This event is reported to us only by the writer of the Fourth Gospel….neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke, tell us about it.) Washing someone’s feet was – in the culture of the day – a necessary act because of the dustiness of the roads and byways of the day, and because of the fact that people wore sandals. It was work that was reserved for servants and slaves. (The Greek word doulos can mean either “servant” or “slave”.) Washing someone’s feet meant that they had put themselves in the servant or slave category. No wonder Peter objected to having his feet washed by the Lord.

Foot washing isn’t an act we do anymore. Not much, anyway. We do it as a ceremonial act on Maundy Thursday, and in some Christian traditions, it is often done and is quite important. The Church of the Brethren is one such Christian church where this is so.

What, then, are we to make of the significance of Jesus’ action?

Perhaps the message and the command is this:  Jesus might be telling us to remember that “it’s not about us, but it is.”

Let’s explore that message and command a little.

It’s not about us, that we reap all the benefits of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, but not to pass along those blessings to others.

It’s not about us, that we can have a comfortable religion that doesn’t challenge us to amend our ways and to be transformed into the image of Christ, little by little.

It’s not about us, that we can be Sunday-only Christians, and not Sunday-to-Saturday Christians.

It’s not about us, that we can behave in un-Christlike ways, failing to match our deeds to our words.

It’s not about us, that we can simply “go through the motions” of being a disciple of Jesus.

But it is about us, it’s all about us, in some important ways:

It is about us, for we are Jesus’ hands to do and Jesus’ heart to love.

It is about us, for we are called, by virtue of our baptisms, to die to self in order to rise to new life in Christ. (We Christians, are, after all, a resurrection people….we believe that there is always the possibility, for everyone, of a new, more meaningful and fuller life, and a more intimate relationship with God.)

It is about us, for God’s call to service is a call that our Lord Himself demonstrated. Jesus, in effect, says to us, “do as I say, and do as I do.”

It is about us, for we are called to a mature life in Christ, reading Holy Scripture, maintaining an active prayer life, receiving God’s grace by regular participation in the Sacraments of the Church, going out into the world bearing Christ’s name and Christ’s image.

It is about us: This Collect for Mission, which is appointed for use during Morning Prayer, and which is found on page 58 of the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, says it well:

“Lord Jesus Christ, who didst stretch out thine arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of thy saving embrace: So clothe us in thy Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know thee to the knowledge and love of thee; for the honor of thy name. Amen.”

The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday, Year C (2019)

Luke 19: 29–40; Isaiah 45: 21–25; Psalm 22: 1–11; Philippians 2: 5–11; Luke 22: 39 – 23: 56

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, April 14, 2019.

 “A BATTLE, WAGED ON THREE LEVELS”

(Homily text: Luke 22: 39 – 23: 56)

Let’s look at the very familiar events of the week which lies before us, Holy Week, from the perspective of the struggle, the battle that is waged between Jesus and the ruling powers of the days of His earthly ministry, the battle against unjust structures in society, and the battle between God and the powers of evil.

Before we examine these three different levels of struggle, we would do well to refresh our memories about the conditions that pertained to God’s people, living under the corrupt and self-serving leadership of their own leaders, and the brutal occupation of the Holy Land by the Romans.

It may be difficult for us Americans, who live in a free and democratic country whose founding principles, enshrined in the Constitution, guarantee us certain rights that are articulated in the Bill of Rights, to imagine living in the conditions that Jesus encountered during His earthly ministry. But in order to understand more fully just what life was like back then, we must set aside the mantle of goodness that comes with living in a country where we take certain rights and freedoms for granted. We must try to insert ourselves into the conditions that were in place back then….it would be helpful for us to grasp those conditions if we would select a country that, today, is ruled by a corrupt and self-serving dictator or ruling class. That’s probably a good example, if we want to understand what was going on back then.

Let’s step back in time, then, to that time, nearly 2,000 years ago now.

In short, we can conclude that life was short in those days, and it was brutal and uncertain. Many lived only into their thirties or maybe their forties, very short lifetimes by contemporary standards. God’s people, the Jews, were led by the Temple priests, the Pharisees and the Scribes, some of whom made up the ruling council, known as the Sanhedrin. Beyond this level of governance, there were the occupying Romans, who had entered the Holy Land a few decades before Jesus’ birth. The Romans appointed puppet kings (the Herodian family was set up in this role) and Governors (Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judea from the years 26–36 AD). Taxation under Roman rule was very high (one estimate I read some years ago put the figure at about 2/3 of people’s income), and the Roman army was ready to deal with any challenges to Roman rule, often employing brutal means to suppress any uprising.

This then, is probably a fairly accurate picture of life when Jesus walked the earth.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and the subsequent events of Holy Week and Easter, constitute a battle, waged on three different levels. In some ways, what unfolded during Holy Week wasn’t all that much out-of-the-ordinary, but some of it was extraordinary, cosmic in its spiritual and eternal implications. We examine, then, this struggle from three different aspects:

The human level:  When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey on Palm Sunday, He was joining a large crowd of people who were coming into the Holy City for the great festival of Passover. It’s not beyond possibility that others also came into the city, hailed by their own local townspeople as some sort of a heroic figure. Nor is it unusual that some who had come to the city came in order to challenge the powers that existed back then, for there were many such challenges. The Gospels and the early chapters of the Book of Acts chronicle some of these uprisings for us. One such account also records Pilate’s brutality in dealing with these conquered people, the Jews. (See Luke 13: 1.) It was probably common knowledge that the Sanhedrin and the Roman Governor could manage to work together to put down any challenges to their rule, if the circumstances dictated. In short, that’s the story of Jesus’ arrest, suffering and death. The Sanhedrin’s members and the Roman Governors had little regard for one another, barring any challenges to their place in the scheme of things, but when threats arose, they became allies who worked together efficiently and swiftly.

Predicting what would happen in such cases would be an easy task:  Challengers would be dealt with harshly. Perhaps challengers would be subjected to scourging, bad enough in and of itself, because many victims didn’t survive the experience. And if they did, they were probably permanently disfigured and unable to work afterward. But in more severe cases, crucifixion was the solution. Nailing people to crosses was the Roman way of applying state-sponsored terrorism. The sign which was hung over the victim’s head announced to all who saw it the reason for the slow and agonizing death that awaited the helpless person who had the misfortune to find himself there. In short, the message was, “Do this, and we have a place for you.”

Jesus, being fully human, must have recoiled in horror at the possibility that He would experience such harsh treatment. No wonder that He asked the Father to allow the cup (of suffering) to pass from Him when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night in which He was betrayed.

The battle against unjust structures in society:  This is the next level of struggle, one that others within the Jewish community also shared, including the Zealots, who advocated overthrowing Roman rule by using force, if necessary. (The Jewish-Roman War, which lasted from 66–70 AD, was an attempt to drive the Romans out of the Holy Land.)

But the Romans weren’t the only ones who valued their place in the way of things. The Temple priests were corrupt, using their monopoly over the affairs of the Temple to enrich themselves. This point requires some explanation:  Since Roman coinage bore the image of the emperor, it couldn’t be used in the inner precincts of the Temple (because to have an image violated one of the precepts of the Ten Commandments), So in the outer areas of the Temple, money changers set up their businesses to convert Roman coinage into Temple currency. Guess who controlled the rate of exchange, and who enriched themselves in the process: The priests, that’s who. Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple makes sense, given this background, for He said that they had turned God’s house into a “den of thieves”.

Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin also marks a struggle against the corrupt and self-serving ruling class. Notice that the Chief Priests and the elders are unwilling to go talk to Pilate in person, because to do so would have made them ritually unclean and unable to observe the Passover (since Jews were to have no dealings with Gentiles). Yet they openly talk of committing murder, but they make sure that the Romans will be to blame for the act.

The cosmic struggle:  The Easter Sunday morning event puts a different focus on the events of Holy Week. For in raising Jesus from the dead, God declares victory over the powers of death and evil. We can look at the resurrection of our Lord as a sort-of down payment on our own victory over death.

In fact, we could see every event in the Lord’s earthly ministry as an act that pushes back the forces of evil. Every victory, whether it be in His teaching, in His healing, or in His treatment of least and the lost, marks an advance in the mission to reclaim territory from the evil one.

What does all this mean to you and me, Christians living in the twenty-first century?

Jesus said, “If anyone would follow me, let them take up their cross and follow me.” (Mark 8: 34) In order to follow the Lord, we must use Him as our example. We must be willing to face difficult choices and difficult, perhaps even threatening encounters as we go about proclaiming the Good News (Gospel) by what we do and by what we say. We must be willing to confront unjust structures in society, for they still exist. And we must recognize that Jesus’ resurrection marks a new chapter in human history and in our own lives, for we Christians are a resurrection people. We believe in new life. We believe that no one is beyond God’s ability to redeem and to reclaim for Himself.

Our lives as Christians is a recurring walk through Holy Week, facing the tough stuff of life, confronting those things that diminish people’s freedom and self-worth, claiming the new beginning that is to be found through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

AMEN.

Lent 5, Year C (2019)

Isaiah 43: 16–21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3: 4b–14; John 12: 1–8

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, April 07th, 2019.

“THE MARKS OF SERVICE AND SERVANTHOOD”

(Homily text: John 12: 1-8)

Life in Christ is a call to service, service to the Lord and service to others in the Lord’s name.

Our Lord Himself reminds us of this key aspect of His coming among us, when He said, “I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22: 27)

In John’s Gospel account, foot washing takes on a unique significance:  It is a sign of a person’s servanthood – or as the Greek’s double meaning of the root word might indicate – a person’s status as a slave.

Two incidents of foot washing bring this understanding to light: The more prominent one, and the one we might think of most often, is Jesus’ washing of His disciples’ feet during the Last Supper. John narrates this act for us in 13: 3–17.

But prior to the Last Supper, Mary takes expensive ointment and anoints Jesus’ feet with it. In so doing, she models what perfect servanthood looks like.

In order to understand this action a bit more clearly, we ought to back up one chapter in John’s account, to chapter eleven and to the account of the raising of Lazarus from the tomb, after he had been dead four days.

It was the Lord who called Mary out of the privacy of her house to join Him at the grave of her brother. There, she experiences a proof of the Lord’s power over death, as her brother rises from the tomb. Mary and her sister Martha experience a down payment on the resurrection.

So perhaps it would be reasonable to assume that Mary and her sister Martha were full of gratitude for what Jesus had done in restoring their brother to life again.

In gratitude, perhaps, Mary anoints the Lord’s feet with this expensive ointment. She acknowledges her debt of gratitude to the Lord, in effect acknowledging that, as the Lord had served her and her sister, she now offers a gift of service to the Lord for His goodness and for the gift of the restoration of her brother to her and to her sister. Perhaps she intends to tell the Lord and those gathered in the house that she is the Lord’s servant.

Jesus links this act to His coming death and burial. And in the next chapter of John’s account, He takes up a towel and proceeds to wash His disciples’ feet. In the culture of the day, washing someone’s feet was the work of a servant or a slave. (Remember that the Greek word can mean both.) And in case the meaning isn’t clear as to what He intended to tell His disciples, He says to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet, For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” (John 13: 12b–16)

Mary’s act and Jesus’ interpretation of its meaning and application point forward to the Lord’s supreme expression of servanthood:  His suffering and death.

We will walk this way with Him in Holy Week, observing the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, by which we acknowledge our service to the Lord and our service to one another, and observing with silence and with somber hues the events of Good Friday. We will recall the Lord’s words which make clear the meaning of these events, as He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15: 13)

AMEN.