Pentecost 16, Year C (2019)

Proper 21 :: Amos 6: 1a, 4–7 / Psalm 146 / I Timothy 6: 6–19 / Luke 16: 19–31

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, September 29, 2019.

 “IS IT OK TO BE RICH?”

(Homily texts: Psalm 146 & Luke 16: 19–31)

Is it OK to be rich?

The question naturally comes to mind whenever we hear Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Our Gospel text, appointed for today, puts before stark choices: The rich man, portrayed as living in luxury, feasting on sumptuous foods every day, and who wore fine linen and was clothed in purple (only the very rich and royalty wore clothing of such a color). But outside the rich man’s gate lay a very poor, sick and troubled man, named Lazarus. Lazarus was covered in sores. Lazarus’ sores were so bad that the dogs came and licked them.

By the reckoning of many Jews in the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the rich man was rich simply because he was doing all the “right things”, things which gained God’s favor. By contrast, the common belief of that day was that Lazarus was sick and poor because God was either judging him for some grievous sin, or – perhaps – it could be that God had abandoned him completely. Moreover, because of Lazarus’ physical condition, he was ritually unclean. His “dirtiness” was so bad that he came into contact with dogs, who were regarded as being unclean animals in the culture of that time. Lazarus’ filth was so bad that he would have been barred from coming into the temple in Jerusalem to worship. If we back up in Luke’s account just one chapter, we find Jesus describing a person’s uncleanness in similar terms in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the prodigal had sunk to such a low place in life that he was living with pigs (another unclean animal by the standards of the day).

But as Jesus spins out the parable, a startling role reversal takes place:  Both men die, but – contrary to the common attitudes of the day – the rich man is carried away to hell, while Lazarus finds himself at Abraham’s side (or Abraham’s Bosom, as it is translated in some older translations, a common expression for heaven in those days).

(It’s worth noting, at this point, the reversals of roles is a common theme in Luke’s Gospel account. Consider, for example the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Song (known as the Magnificat). In it, Mary says, “He (God) has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.” (Luke 1: 52 – 53). Here, in today’s parable, we see this theme carried out.

Why does Jesus portray the rich man as being deserving of hell[1]? By all the standards of the Lord’s time, the rich man was doing everything right. He was obviously blessed by God for the simple reason that he was living faithfully before God, at least according to the common wisdom of the day. Was there something that the rich man missed, somehow?

Yes, indeed, the rich man missed something very important, something that the Law of Moses, the prophets, the Psalms and the Proverbs, the whole body of divine wisdom that shaped the lives of God’s faithful people in that time 2,000 years ago makes a deliberate point of: The rich man forgot that the powerless of the world are God’s focus, too. The Psalm appointed for this morning makes the point: “The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked be brings to ruin.” (Psalm 146: 7b – 9) (English Standard Version) The rich man, if he had been living faithfully, would have remembered that it was his responsibility to care for the powerless of this world. If he had remembered one important provision in the Law of Moses, there might have been some possibility for him to do right by Lazarus: That provision is found in Leviticus 19: 9 - 10, which reads, “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” (English Standard Version – ESV)

Looking at our Lord’s description of the rich man, we might easily come to the conclusion that the rich man must have had a very proper spiritual life. Certainly, the rich man would have been welcome in the temple. Certainly, he must have been very devout in living as a faithful member of God’s people in that day and time.

But, it seems, he’d forgotten that, though the spiritual is important, so is the physical life, a life which demonstrates God’s generous nature by mandating that God’s people are to act generously to care for the needs of others.

(The early Church would wrestle with a similar problem, as the heresy known as Gnosticism arose. Gnosticism maintained that only the spiritual was real, the physical wasn’t. Therefore, Gnostics ignored the physical. It is a distorted pattern of belief and behavior that can still be found in some quarters of Christianity today.)

Our Lord puts before us another important point:  We are to make wise choices now, in this life. I think that is the Lord’s intent in describing the separation between the rich man and Lazarus that came into being after each man had died.

The decisions we make in this life – since we are immersed in a life which is both spiritual and physical – matter.

To follow the Lord in sincerity, in truth, and in holiness of life, holding in tension the importance of maintaining our spiritual health, all the while realizing that what we do, our actions, matter, is our calling and our quest.

In our parish of St. John’s, it’s one reason that we receive a dedicated offering each and every Sunday, offerings which are devoted to caring for others. In addition, we receive a number of special offerings as needs arise throughout the year. In so doing, we are called to be generous givers. (II Corinthians 9: 7) (ESV)

St. James, writing in his general letter, summarizes what we’ve been considering quite well:  “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2: 14 – 17) (ESV)

AMEN.

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[1]   Jesus’ portrayal of hell appropriates a common image in the culture of the day. In some places in the Gospel accounts, hell is called Hades (the term that appears in the Greek in Luke 16:23). But Jesus’ description of hell has elements of another word, Gehenna, which is derived from the Valley of Hinnom. In Jesus’ day the Hinnom Valley was the place of the town dump for Jerusalem, a place where undesired things were put away, a place with fires that burned continually.

Pentecost 15, Year C (2019)

Proper 20 :: Amos 8: 4–7 / Psalm 113 / I Timothy 2: 1–7./ Luke 16: 1–13

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

“INTEGRITY”

(Homily text: Luke 16: 1–13)

Integrity has been defined as “Doing something the same way, whether someone else is looking or not.”

Integrity is at the heart of Jesus’ parable, heard in our Gospel text this morning, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward.

Luke alone passes along this parable to us. Neither Matthew nor Mark do so, so we have no other sources to turn to in order to unravel some of the complexities which are present in this parable.

Turning to the text itself, the basic problem is apparent and is easily understood:  A manager of an estate is accused of cheating his employer. The employer demands an audit of the estate’s books. Faced with this emergency, the manager comes up with a plan of action, which goes like this:

·         I will reduce the amounts that the employer is owed.

·         In so doing, I will obligate my employer’s debtors to me as a matter of honor.

·         In that way, I’ll be provided for once I am no longer employed.

So the manager (sometimes called the “steward”) reduces the amounts owed to his employer. Here, the complexities arise. Was the practice of reducing the debt a way of:

·         Avoiding the Law of Moses’ prohibition against charging interest? Apparently, a common practice in Jesus’ time was to write an invoice, adding charges to the actual amount owed, in order to realize some gain. If so, then the manager is defrauding his employer out of something, but that something is a something that the employer wasn’t entitled to, anyway.

·         Allowing the manager to continue to cheat his employer by taking for himself a cut of the amount owed?

·         Realizing for himself his customary fee for handling the accounts?

We don’t know what the exact situation is, from what the Lord tells us in the parable. And, ultimately, it doesn’t affect the meaning of the parable. The point of the parable is that the “children of light” (a phrase which is sometimes more commonly associated with John’s Gospel account…this phrase appears in Luke’s writing only in this passage), that is to say, followers of Jesus, are to be honest in their dealings and actions.

Which brings us back to the matter of integrity.

The dishonest manager tries to secure his future by obligating his employer’s debtors, telling them, in effect, “Hey, I did you a favor, and now you owe me.” But the stark truth is that such a plan will, eventually, fail. For one thing, those debtors may renege on the deal. For another, their own funds and resources may run out, leaving the dishonest manager out in the cold. What the manager tries to do lacks integrity, which seems to be the very thing that got him into trouble in the first place.

Integrity was an extremely important issue for the early followers of Jesus. Again and again, St. Paul admonishes those believers in the churches he had founded, telling them in various places in his letters that they were not to live as they had lived before they came to faith in Christ. They were, he said, to live uprightly, to be faithful to the Lord, to be honest in their dealings with others, to welcome the stranger and to care for the poor and the needy.

The matter of integrity is just as important for the followers of Jesus today as it was back in the first century when the infant Church was spreading throughout the known world. We are to live uprightly, to be honest and forthright in all our dealings with others, to welcome the stranger and to care for the poor and the needy.

The point to be gained is that if we don’t live by those standards, then we’re quite likely to live as the world around us lives. And if that’s the case, then there’s little evidence that the relationship we claim we have with the Lord actually makes a difference in our lives. So, if we Christians behave just like the outside world does, then the question naturally arises, “Why bother?”

If we live just like unbelievers do, the watching world around us might be tempted to say that we Christians are just hypocrites, people who are possessed with “low judgment” (which is the basic meaning of the word, coming from the Greek). Such people, the watching world might be tempted to say, lack integrity, because Christians who live the way the outside world does lack integrity. What Christians like that say and profess isn’t “integrated” with what they do.

AMEN.

          

Pentecost 14, Year C (2019)

Proper 17 :: Jeremiah 4: 11–12, 22–28 / Psalm 51: 1–11 / I Timothy 1: 12–17 / Luke 15: 1–10

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

“G. I. PARTY”

(Homily text: Luke 15: 1–10)

One ritual which most anyone who’s ever served in the Army will remember is the “G.I.[1] Party”. The “G.I. Party” can take many forms: For example, it can involve scrubbing down the shower in the barracks, even to the point of getting down on hands and knees to scrub the floor; or using old toothbrushes to clean the edges of the tiles. Or, it can involve cleaning out one’s locker to the point of making sure that the corners inside (yes, at the bottom of the locker, but also at the top inside) and the top outside are completely clean, so that when the Sergeant comes to inspect, those white gloves will come away clean when the corners and the tops are wiped. In a ”G.I. Party”, nothing gets overlooked.

In today’s Gospel, we read that the scribes and the Pharisees are grumbling because Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them.

In the society of that day, one didn’t associate – much less eat with – undesirable people, people who were unclean, people who lived in the corners of society.

Using the image of a “G.I. Party”, we can contrast the attitudes of the scribes and the Pharisees with our Lord’s approach by noticing that the scribes and the Pharisees would rather ignore the unclean ones who lived at the edges of society, those who couldn’t ever be scrubbed clean, no matter how much elbow grease went into the process. Out of sight, out of mind, was their attitude. By contrast, Jesus ignores no one and, in fact, deliberately gets into the corners of society to seek out those who were usually deemed to be un-cleanable. He is engaging in a spiritual “G.I. Party”. No aspect of a person’s life or past history made them unapproachable. Nothing they’d ever done – or were currently doing – prevented Him from redeeming them, cleaning them up, so that they might find favor with God.

In Jesus’ actions, we find a basic, but profound, truth: No one of us can do the cleaning that is necessary in order for us to find favor with God ourselves. Here, we come to the blunt reality that we, who are born with the stain of Original Sin, are helpless when it comes to the business of spiritual cleansing. Surely, the fifth century Bishop and theologian St. Augustine of Hippo would agree with this assessment. For Augustine, in his ministry, had to confront the heresy known as Pelagianism. Pelagianism maintained that we human beings don’t need God’s help in order to be redeemed. We can do it on our own merits, that way of thinking believed. The spirit of Pelagianism is alive and well today. We encounter it whenever we meet up with the idea that a person finds favor with God by being a “good” person. We encounter it whenever we might tend to believe that the “good stuff” we do will earn us a favored place with God.

Just as the notorious sinners in the day of our Lord’s earthly ministry were unable to help themselves out of their predicament, so too are we totally unable to help ourselves in a quest to find favor with God. We need help. We need someone to come and apply some “G. I.” elbow grease so that, through the efforts of our Lord Jesus, we can be made clean and whole and acceptable to God. There is no other way to pass God’s inspection.

AMEN.

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[1]   G. I. comes from “government issue”, and the term can refer to people (soldiers, members of the Army, specifically), or it can be used as a verb, as in our homily today, where it means to thoroughly clean something.

Pentecost 13, Year C (2019)

Proper 18 :: Deuteronomy 30: 15–20 / Psalm 1 / Philemon 1–21 / Luke 14: 25–33

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, September 8, 2019.

“WARNING ORDER”

(Homily text: Luke 14: 25-33)

In the military, there’s something that is known as a “Warning Order”. A Warning Order tells a unit and its members to get ready to do something. It usually gives some basic information about what the unit and its members will be called upon to do. (A Warning Order is followed by an Operations Order, which spells out in detail exactly what the mission will involve and how it will unfold.)

This week, and continuing on into today and into this coming week, many military units (Reserve units like the National Guard and Army Reserve, and active duty units like the Marine Corps and Navy, to cite some examples) and their members have, undoubtedly, received Warning Orders, telling them to prepare to assist in rescue and recovery efforts to assist those who’ve been affect by Hurricane Dorian.

Today’s Gospel text is part of Jesus’ Warning Order, having to do with the nature of entering the Kingdom of God. Today’s Gospel text must surely be one of our Lord’s “Hard Sayings”. It’s hard to know if the Lord was engaging in hyperbole (a rhetorical device which uses exaggerated speech so as to elicit a response) or not. However, what the Lord said about leaving everything in order to follow the Lord was the reality for many of the first Christians.

Today’s Warning Order tells us to look ahead, and to see the changes that will come as a result of our decision to follow the Lord.

Changes there most certainly will be as we become mature followers of Jesus Christ. So our Lord tells us to look ahead, to prepare to accept the changes in our lives, to be prepared to make sacrifices in order to fully follow the Lord. “Count the cost,” is one way of characterizing what Jesus is saying.

Some of the changes the Lord is warning us of can be major ones. They can involve a change in profession, or a change in living arrangements or in the place where we are living. Those who relocate in order to attend seminary make such changes in order to follow the Lord. So do missionaries who go to new and different places in order to live out the Gospel.

But other changes aren’t so major. As part of our Baptisms, we are called to say “goodbye” to our old way of life, to set aside each and everything that fails to honor God. We are called to embrace our Lord Jesus Christ’s way of living, adopting the love He had and has for each and every human being. We are called to seek out righteousness and to work for justice. We are called to speak out against evil in any and every form in which it presents itself. These are just some of the changes that entering into the waters of Baptism involve. Changes like this call us to get out of our “comfort zones”.

A true test of discipleship is the presence of change. Coming to know and love the Lord involves change, some of which are big ones, and some of which are smaller ones.

“If you come to love and follow me,” the Lord says, “there will be changes.” Now that’s a true Warning Order.    

Pentecost 12, Year C (2019)

Proper 17 :: Proverbs 25: 6–7; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13: 1–8, 15–16; Luke 14: 1, 7–14

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

 “GIVING OURSELVES AN EGO-CHECK”

(Homily texts:  Proverbs 25: 6-7 & Luke 14: 1, 7-14)

The guests who had gathered at the house of a Pharisee for a banquet didn’t seem to have any problems with their egos. They jockeyed for the places of honor (which in that society meant being closest to the host), much to our Lord’s dismay.

Though Luke doesn’t tell us, it’s possible that many, if not most, of the guests were also Pharisees. If so, perhaps their conversation- as they tried to out-maneuver one another – may have gone something like this: “Brother Pharisee, I believe that I am entitled to sit in a place of greater honor than you, for I saw you walk one hundred paces farther than you should have on last week’s Sabbath.” Or this: “Brother Pharisee, I believe that you should give your place of honor to me, for at a banquet you gave last month, I noticed that your pots weren’t as thoroughly scrubbed as they should have been.”

Again, we don’t know what the conversations were like, but the two examples I’ve just offered are based on the sorts of things our Lord criticizes the Pharisees for: Doing something on the Sabbath, and being sure to thoroughly scrub pots.

The Pharisees were wrong about a number of things. One thing they are remembered for is their conceit (which is evident in their behavior at the banquet). Another thing they are remembered for is their hypocrisy. Of them (and the Scribes), our Lord said, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.” (Luke 11: 43 – 44) Of both the Scribes and the Pharisees, our Lord said, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called ‘rabbi’ by others.” (Matthew 23: 5 – 7) (Clergy beware!)

When we consider how God sees each one of us, each human being, we see that the Pharisees were wrong in their assessment of others, as well. For Holy Scripture makes it clear that God loves each and every human being. And, Holy Scripture also makes another truth known about God’s regard for us: Each one of us is incapable, absent God’s help, to come into the living of a holy life.

Now, back to the Pharisees and their mistaken views of others.

The first thing we should notice is that the Pharisees didn’t believe that God loved everyone. They certainly didn’t believe that God loved those that they had deemed to be notorious sinners, people like the tax collectors and the prostitutes. God couldn’t and didn’t love them at all, according to the Pharisees’ reckoning of the spiritual pecking order among humankind. That’s one thing the Pharisees were wrong about.

For another, they didn’t believe that those notorious sinners could ever be redeemed. They didn’t believe that such people could ever become acceptable to God.

Of course, our Lord Jesus Christ came to disprove both assumptions, for He demonstrated God’s love by His actions, associating with the lowly and the outcast, as He said in this morning’s Gospel: Invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame (people the Pharisees thought were being punished by God for some horrendous thing they’d done).

Furthermore, no one is outside of the boundaries of God’s love, and no one is beyond redemption. Our Lord came to disprove both of those assumptions as well. He came and associated with the outcasts of the society of His day, saying that the healthy aren’t the ones who need healing. The sick are the ones in need of a physician’s care.

How should we regard ourselves?

We should begin by saying that having a healthy regard for one’s self is essential for our overall well-being, our spiritual well-being included. St. Paul affirms this truth when he says, “…I say to every one of you that they should not think of themselves more highly than they ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith God has assigned.” (Romans 12: 3b)

Thinking with that “sober judgment” that Paul mentions involves those two things we articulated a moment ago. Those two truths are: 1. God loves each and every person deeply and passionately; and 2. Each one of us is in need of God’s help in order to grow into the full stature of Chris. We cannot improve ourselves, short of God’s coming to our aid before we even begin the process.

Put another way, we can say with confidence that we, each one of us, are God’s prized possession, but that we need God’s help to grow into the fullness of God’s image and design.

Engaging in such a process of trying to see ourselves as God sees us involves a serious ego-check. Such a process might be the source of tremendous comfort when we remember God’s intense love for us. And, it might involve a measure of discomfort when we realize the ways in which we have fallen short of God’s holiness, and in the ways that we continue to fall short of God’s holiness. But, even when we realistically assess our spiritual health, there is good news in it, as well, for we ought to remember that God stands ready to assist us through the power of the Holy Spirit to amend our lives.

AMEN.