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.

Pentecost 18, Year C (2019)

Proper 23 :: II Kings 5: 1–3, 7–15c / Psalm 111 / II Timothy 2: 8–15 / Luke 17: 11–19

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker, on Sunday, October 13, 2019.

 “WHAT DOES GOD DO, AND WHAT DO WE DO?”

(Homily texts: II Kings 5: 1–3, 7–15c & Luke 17: 11-19)

This morning’s appointed readings for the Old Testament and the Gospel are very well matched, for both recount the healings of people who were affected by leprosy.[1] We hear the account of the healing of the Syrian general, Naaman, on our reading from Second Kings, and we hear of the healing of ten lepers by our Lord in our reading from Luke.

In both instances, it’s clear that God’s healing is at work. In the case of Naaman, that divine healing came through the agency of the prophet Elisha. In the case of the ten who were diseased, it was our Lord’s doing that affected the healing.

But another aspect of both events links them together:  There was a test involved in the healing. Notice the instructions to Naaman: He was told to bathe in the Jordan River seven times. He protests, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.” Then Naaman goes on to say that the rivers in his native land must surely be better than the waters of the Jordan. In the case of the ten men, they are told by Jesus to go and present themselves to the priest (a requirement of the Law of Moses). As they go, they are healed. Notice that they aren’t healed as they leave to go to the priest, the healing takes place once they’ve left.

The question naturally arises: What does God do, and what do we have to do in response?

The accounts before us today offer two aspects of how God operates. For one thing, it is God who ultimately holds the power to heal. That power to heal is related to God’s power to create (in the first place) and to re-create (in subsequent places). For another, oftentimes God puts a test in our path as we seek to have our prayers answered, whether those prayers are for healing, or for another other need.

We would do well to remember both of these points.

It is easy to forget that all good things come from God, including the power to heal, and other things that are necessary for our life and salvation. All of these things ultimately come from God.

For another, it’s all-too-tempting to want God to simply “do something” without our having to do anything at all. The attitude that Naaman displayed is a constant and abiding temptation…we want God to fix us and our problems without our having to do anything except to sit around and watch God in action.

When we respond to God’s initiatives by acting somehow, we demonstrate our faith in God’s ability to guide us, to enable us, to fix whatever’s wrong with us, to heal us. That’s what happened when Naaman stepped into the waters of the Jordan and when the ten men went off to see the priest. Only then did God act.

So it seems clear that God has a part to play, and we oftentimes have a role to play, as well. God wants us to do something in order that we might be co-creators with God, working to improve the lives and the conditions of human beings that God created, and whom God continues to love.

AMEN.

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[1]   It’s worth noting that when the Bible mentions leprosy, it is referring to a number of different conditions of the skin, not just leprosy as we know it today, which is more properly known as “Hanson’s Disease”.