Lent 2, Year B (2021)

Genesis 17: 1 – 7, 15 – 16 / Psalm 22: 22 – 30 / Romans 4: 13 – 25 / Mark 8: 31 – 38

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker for Sunday, February 21, 2021.

“TAKE UP OUR WHAT?”

(Homily text:  Mark 8: 31 - 38)

“Take up our what?

“Take up our cross,” our Lord says to us this morning, at the outset of the holy season of Lent, adding, “and follow me”.

My former Bishop tells the story of a time when he was in a store, and he wandered over to the jewelry counter, where he was looking at crosses. The young member of the sales staff comes up and says, “May I help you, sir?” The Bishop replied, “I was looking at these crosses,” to which the young lady says, “Oh, okay, do you want one with the little man on it, or a plain one?”

The interchange my former Bishop had at that jewelry counter that day can tell us a lot about the overall religious consciousness of our society: Many in our society today have little or no knowledge of the Good Friday and Easter story. (My, don’t we have a lot of work to do to tell that story to those who don’t know it?) I also think it can tell us a lot about how we view the symbol of the cross, for we often make good-looking jewelry in the shape of various crosses. We adorn those pieces of art with jewels or precious stones, occasionally. Crosses are often made of gold or silver. They look nice.

But the disciples who heard the Lord speak the words, “If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross, and follow me,” the cross was anything but a beautiful piece of art, made of precious metals and adorned with expensive stones.

We don’t know for sure, but I think we can be pretty sure that Jesus’ disciples knew full well what a cross was. They knew what an ugly thing it was, in part because it represented Roman oppression and the fact that those who wound up on a cross were members of a defeated, conquered people. It’s possible that those disciples, walking the roadways of the land, might have come upon a cross (or crosses) at a crossroads. Maybe those crosses were just the uprights lacking the cross beam, standing silent witness to anyone who would dare to confront Roman rule, standing witness as if to say, “Try bucking Roman authority, and you’ll wind up here.” Maybe, even, they’d seen a cross with a dead victim still hanging on it.

Perhaps, as they walked the land, and if they’d come upon such a scene, they might have tried to avert their eyes. But they couldn’t ignore the message and the horror that came with that message.

And perhaps, if they’d been fortunate enough not to have ever seen such a sight, they might have heard about it from someone they knew who had.

For the people living in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the cross, and the image and the reality the cross conveyed, were very real. Isn’t it possible to imagine that there must’ve been a shudder that went through the crowd when the Lord spoke those words about taking up one’s own cross to follow Him? Perhaps so.

We’re at a turning point in Mark’s Gospel account with the passage before us today.

Notice that Jesus said plainly what was going to happen to Him once He reached Jerusalem (verse 32). The Lord’s prediction that He will suffer, will be mocked, will be scourged, and will die, is the first of three such predictions we find in Mark’s account.[1]

Up until now, the Lord had been very clear about keeping His identity and His mission a secret.[2] Oftentimes when He had done a healing, or had done some other work, He would tell those who’d been involved not to say anything to anyone about it. But now, the secret is disclosed, the mantle which had been wrapped around the Lord’s work has been pulled off, making His purpose plain for all to see.

“Take up your cross, and follow me,” the Lord says, because He’s just told us that that’s what He’s going to do in Jerusalem.

Let’s return to the raw meaning and symbolism of the cross. Yes, I mean that ugly picture we painted a bit ago.

What did the cross involve? What did dying on a cross involve?

Here is my own short list:

·         The loss of everything, one’s dignity, one’s possessions, and perhaps one’s family and friends (who’d deserted the victim). Crucifixion meant being utterly cut off from everything.

·         A long, slow, lingering and painful death, as the victim struggled against the forces of gravity to breathe (I had a seminary professor who described crucifixion as “drowning without the water”.)

·         Time between the time the victim was nailed to the cross until they’d taken their last breath (or until they lost consciousness) to think about why they’d wound up where they had.

For us, as believing Christians, the cross has come to mean so much more than the raw, ugly, reality that it was to those first century people who’d encountered the Lord in Judea and in Galilee.

Over time, the theological and spiritual significance of the cross has overtaken the ugly, original reality. Now, the cross represents self-denial for us, the willingness to risk losing everything for the sake of gaining new life in Christ. The cross represents the deepest of all loves, that love that our Savior has for us, we who are often unloving and unworthy of that divine love. After all, we need to remember the Lord’s words, spoken in connection with this, His first prediction of His coming suffering and death. Recall that He said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel’s, will save it.”

The cross means being willing to face up to the reality that we are to undergo a long, slow and often painful process of dying to those things that do not bring credit to the Lord. (What a perfect Lenten message!) Lent gives us plenty of time to think about that process, and to be able, with God’s help, to stay the course, in order that new life might appear on Easter Sunday morning

There is a wonderful Collect in our Prayer Book which captures what we’ve been saying quite well. It’s a Collect for Fridays in the Office of Morning Prayer. It reads like this:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.     

         

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[1]   The other two may be found at 9:30-31 and at 10:33–34.

[2]   Biblical scholars often refer to this seemingly deliberate pattern in Mark’s account as the “Messianic Secret”. Mark 8:31 marks the change in the text.

Lent 1, Year B (2021)

Genesis 9: 8 – 17 / Psalm 25: 1 – 9 / I Peter 3: 18 – 22 / Mark 1: 9 – 15

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker for Sunday, February 21, 2021

“THE PROCESS: PREPARATION, TESTING & NEW LIFE”

(Homily texts:  Genesis 9: 8 – 17, I Peter 3: 18 – 22, and Mark 1: 9 - 15)

The living of life often involves recognizable, repeated patterns. These patterns can be quite helpful in enabling us to negotiate the challenges that will inevitably come into one’s life, and they enable us to make sense of events as they take place in our own life and in the lives of others.

One such recognizable, repeated pattern that comes to mind as we consider the Old Testament and Gospel readings appointed for this, the First Sunday in Lent, is one of preparation, testing and then, new life. Hold onto that idea for a moment while we consider other examples of the process of preparation, testing and new life.

Our educational system is built on such a model: Students prepare to enter school, they are exposed to a regimen of education and testing, and once that process is through, they graduate and enter into a new phase of life. The same can be said most any system of training….we see evidence of it in the military as recruits prepare for their transformation from civilian life into the life of the military. Once their time of education and training is complete, they then begin a new life, serving in whatever branch of the armed forces they are in. Those in preparation for ordination (and I am mindful that we currently have two such members of our St. John’s community in such a time of preparation) undergo the same pattern.

Now, let’s turn our attention to our Genesis reading, which recounts God’s covenant, made with Noah, that He would never again destroy the whole earth by flood, and our Markan reading, which recounts Jesus’ baptism and then His time of temptation in the wilderness, a time of forty days’ length (upon which the season of Lent is patterned). And, since the three appointed readings for this day are so well chosen, let’s spend a bit of time with the First Letter of Peter.

We begin with Noah. To see where our text today has come from, we need to back up into the book of Genesis a bit. There (beginning with chapter six), we read that Noah was told by God that a great flood was coming, and that he and his sons needed to begin building an ark so that they could survive the flood waters. At that point, Noah had a choice to make: He could have ignored God’s warning and done nothing to prepare. Instead, he began building. We don’t know how long it took him to construct the ark, but given the dimensions found in Genesis, the building process couldn’t have been a short one.  (Perhaps it’s possible that people came by to watch Noah and his sons at work, wondering what they were doing and why. We don’t know that for sure, and Genesis doesn’t tell us.) But Noah built the ark, and in time, the time of testing came as the rains fell, the waters under the deep were loosed, and the earth was flooded. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, eight persons in all, survive the flood, beginning a new life. The visible sign of that new life, which now carries a new guarantee that God will never again destroy the whole earth by flooding, is the rainbow, the sign of God’s covenant with Noah and with all of us. So, to sum up, Noah prepared by building the ark, he endured the testing of the flood, and he began a new life after the waters had abated.

Now, we turn to our Lord’s baptism and the account of His forty days in the wilderness as we have it in Mark. (If part of this text sounds familiar, it should, for we heard Mark 1: 4 – 11 on the First Sunday of Epiphany back in January, the Sunday on which we remember and celebrate our Lord’s baptism.)

Jesus’ ministry didn’t begin without preparation and testing. It began with His baptism, by which He signified that we, too, are to do as He did and undergo our own baptisms. Recall that baptism signifies that we have died to our old life, we have been buried with Christ in a death like His, and we rise to new life in a resurrection like His. (See St. Paul’s explanation in Romans 6: 3 – 9 for this understanding.)

But then, He goes out into the wilderness, where He is tempted by Satan¹ for forty days. He neither eats nor drinks during this time. He is alone to face the temptations² that come to each and every one of us, for He, like we, are all subjected to the same forces which would seek to sever our relationship to God and to one another.

The time of temptation is over. Jesus emerges, ready to begin His ministry. Mark tells us that He says, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1: 15) His time of preparation and testing is done. New life now begins.

As we begin this holy season of Lent, we might ask ourselves, “How has my time of preparation, of testing, and of new life unfolded?” That process unfolded at some point in the past for all who have passed through the waters of baptism. The writer of First Peter likens that passage to the passage of Noah and the others in the ark. The explanation and the connection is a wonderful one: First Peter tells us that the waters of baptism aren’t for the cleansing of the body, but for a safe passage through the water, a passage much like Noah’s. A new life in Christ begins as we emerge from the baptismal waters.

But baptism isn’t the end of the journey. We will face the same process again and again in life; We will have to make the choice: Do I prepare for the time of testing? Will I withstand that difficult and challenging time with God’s help? If so, then I can have the hope of a new chapter in life on the far side.

Lent calls us to just such a choice. It calls us to get ready for the time of testing. It calls us to recall that that time may not be at all easy. It may be a time of vulnerability, of admitting to God our innermost thoughts and desires, desires that threaten to wreak havoc on our own relationship with God and with others. Lent says to us, “Don’t ignore this. Don’t set it aside. Face it, with God’s help.”

For a new chapter in life awaits, a closer and more intense relationship with God, a renewed relationship with others. What a wonderful promise!        

AMEN.

         

         

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[1] The word “Satan” comes from the Hebrew, where it means “adversary” or “enemy”.

[2] Mark omits the specific temptations that Jesus faced. Matthew and Luke both provide details.

The Last Sunday after the Epiphany (Quinquagesima Sunday), Year B (2021)

II Kings 2: 1–12 / Psalm 50: 1–6 / II Corinthians 4: 3–6 / Mark 9: 2–9

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker, for Sunday, February 14, 2021.

“THE CHOICE: TO GO FORWARD, OR TO LINGER?”

(Homily text: Mark 9: 2-9)

In each year, as the Epiphany season comes to a close, we get to hear the account of Jesus’ Transfiguration,¹ as it is recorded in each of the three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke (in that order). This year, we are in Year B of our three-year cycle, so we are treated to Mark’s account of this event.

There’s much that can be said about this event’s lingering impact on the three disciples who witnessed, it, Peter, James and John, and then, in succession, on each one of the original disciples as they came to know about it. It’s also worth saying, I think, that this event also impacts us as contemporary disciples of Jesus.

As I read the account, I’m struck by Peter’s idea to construct three booths (some translations call them “dwellings”, while other translations call them “tents”) for Jesus, Moses and Elijah. (I don’t believe that the appearance of Moses and Elijah’s participation in this event is an accident: They were there for specific reasons. But that is, for my purposes here, a topic for another occasion.

Instead, let’s consider the possible implications of Peter’s idea.

We can begin by asking the question, “Is Peter’s desire to build three tents or dwellings a wish to prolong this wonderful event, or to memorialize it in some way?” We might guess that surely Peter knows that that, at some point, Jesus’ appearance, which displays the glory He shares with the Father, will come to an end.

Perhaps we can’t know the exact reason for Peter’s suggestion, other than the testimony of the Gospel writers, who tell us that he was afraid, and that his suggestion came from that fear.

But I do think we can come to some sort of a reasonable conclusion that his suggestion did imply creating some testimonial to the event, or perhaps his intention was that the construction of three dwellings would allow some way for the three who appeared in this miraculous way to remain, at least for awhile.

If we’re correct in these assumptions, then the question arises: “Do Peter and the other two witnesses to this event linger on the mountaintop?” Two other possibilities also come to mind, I think: “Do the three look back on this event to such an extent that they are unable to be Jesus’ effective disciples as the events of Jesus’ earthly ministry and His journey to Jerusalem unfolds?”. Or, one other possibility must be considered: “This event equips and arms these three to such an extent that, in time, they come to grasp the fulness of Jesus’ identity and God’s great, big plan for humankind in sending Jesus to take up our humanity alongside us.”

This last point is, in my humble estimation, the most reasonable conclusion.

If we look at the context of this event, we can see evidence that Jesus is equipping these three disciples (and, by extension, the others as well) for the journey and the work which lay ahead. The context of the Transfiguration provides the clue to this conclusion. For that context, we must step back into chapter eight of Mark’s account.

There, we read that Jesus has asked His disciples about His identity. Recall with me their responses, in which they say that some say that he is John the Baptist, while others say He is Elijah, or one of the prophets. Then, He asks them point-blank: “But who do you say that I am?” Peter responds, saying, “You are the Christ.” The Lord must have concluded that the disciples were ready for the next lesson having to do with His true identity and purpose for being among them, for He begins to tell them (for the first of three times, by the way) that He will be going to Jerusalem, where He will suffer and will be killed. Peter responds to this news by rebuking the Lord. Jesus responds to Peter by saying, “Get behind me, Satan.” and then turns to the crowd and tells them, “If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

After having seen Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah, appearing in glorious majesty, the four come down the mountain, where Jesus’ ministry of healing and teaching continues. But the Lord tells the three disciples that they are not to talk about what they have seen until after He is raised from the dead. Mark tells us that they don’t get it, wondering what being raised from the dead might mean.

It’s clear that the disciples, not just the three who witnessed the Lord’s glorious Transfiguration, but all of them, are in the Lord’s school, students who sometimes fail the quizzes and the major tests. Then, at times, they get the answers right. We shouldn’t be too hard on this original band of followers. After all, God is up to something wonderful, some new in so many respects.

Their course of instruction is measured in small lessons, some of them painfully learned.

But learn they did, all of them. After the resurrection what God was up to in the sending of Jesus begins to make sense, a sense of the sense that all other realities are of a secondary nature. This, Jesus’ resurrection, and the lesson that God’s power extends even to the power of death, indelibly impresses on these disciples’ hearts and minds the great, powerful and eternal drama that had unfolded in the Christ event on that holy mountain.

Imagine being Peter, James and John, telling the other disciples about the events that took place on that mountaintop after Jesus had risen from the dead, and had appeared to them all. Perhaps they said something like, “We haven’t been able to tell you all about this until now, but we saw the Lord, in all His glorious majesty, appearing to us along with Moses and Elijah. It was there that we had our first real glimpse of who the Lord really is.” It must’ve been quite a conversation.

We began this homily posing to ourselves three possibilities for Peter’s suggestion that three dwellings be built for the Lord, for Moses and for Elijah. We said back then that one possibility was for the three witnesses to the Transfiguration to want to stay there in the past of this event. Another possibility, we suggested, was for them to try to live in the past of this event to such an extent that they are unable to be effective followers of Jesus. And the third possibility we suggested was that this event equipped and armed them for the work which lay ahead.

The choice these three faced, and their choice to allow the Transfiguration to better equip them for ministry, is the choice we, too, must make. After all, we could choose to dwell on some wonderful spiritual experience we’ve had in the past. We might want to memorialize that transforming event in some way, and to some degree or another, that’s probably a good thing to want to do. But the truth of the matter is that we must allow those encounters we have with God to transform us, to equip us for the things that God has in mind for each one of us to do, those things that lie in the future.

AMEN.         

[1]   The Transfiguration also has its own separate feast day, August 6^th.

         

         

Epiphany 5, Year B (2021)

Sexagesima Sunday :: Isaiah 40: 21–31 / Psalm 147: 1–12, 21c / I Corinthians 9: 16–23 / Mark 1: 29–39

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA by Fr. Gene Tucker for Sunday, February 7, 2021.

“A RAY OF LIGHT WHEN THERE IS LITTLE HOPE”

(Homily texts:  Isaiah 40: 21–31 & Mark 1: 29–39)

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel, and hopefully it’s not another train.” Perhaps those of you who know me wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to hear this coming from a railroad man like me.

Is there light at the end of the dark tunnel we currently find ourselves in this troubled world these days? There’s no shortage of cause for worry and despair, is there? We’re in the midst of a global pandemic caused by the eruption of the coronavirus, economies the world over have been disrupted, many people have lost jobs, and businesses have failed. In addition, ours is a contentious age, an age when there’s no shortage of rancor and deep division in society, in our governing bodies, and elsewhere. And these are just a short litany of things that are affecting nearly all of us these days.

In the Church, too, there is cause for concern. The Church has lost much (if not nearly all) its former influence and place in society. Ours is a diminished voice nowadays. The Church is facing an uncertain future, one that surely must look like it will be a far different future than the past we’ve known until now.

The question must be asked: “Have God’s people been here before? Have things looked this bleak at times in the past?”

The answer is, unequivocally, “Yes”.

Our Scripture readings from Isaiah and from Mark’s Gospel account point to very troubled times, times where there seemed to be little hope for a better tomorrow.

Let’s explore this just a bit.

Our Isaiah reading comes to us from what biblical scholars call “Second Isaiah”. This title deserves some unpacking: Second Isaiah was written, many scholars believe, by an unknown author (perhaps someone who was a member of what we might can an “Isaiah School”, writing at the time of the Babylonian exile (which lasted from 586 – 538 BC). This unknown author is writing to God’s people, who are living in a foreign land against their wishes. They cannot go home to Jerusalem and Judea, the Temple in Jerusalem, along with the rest of the city, lies in ruins. There’s little to hold onto in terms of hope for a better tomorrow.

Into the midst of this despair, Second Isaiah reminds his readers and listeners that God possesses the power to reverse all this hopelessness. God can, and will, restore the fortunes of God’s people. “Lift up your drooping hands, and strengthen your weak knees,”[1] this unknown writer seems to be admonishing God’s people. “God can do this,” he maintains.

And, of course, God does. In the fullness of time, King Cyrus of Persia conquers the Babylonians in a bloodless takeover, and then Cyrus allows God’s people to return home.

Now, let’s fast-forward about six hundred years to the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry.

In Mark, chapter one, we read that Jesus is going about, healing many who were sick, and casting out demons. Our passage, appointed for this day, records these events.

We would do well to put ourselves into the shoes of those who lived in that time, for there was little to be hopeful about, and plenty to be worried and concerned about. God’s people were living under the yoke of an oppressive Roman occupation. Life was brutal and often unpredictable. Taxes (one estimate claims that about 2/3 of people’s assets went to taxes!) were high, and the tax collectors padded the amounts due, pocketing the difference for themselves. Life was short (average age at the time of death was, perhaps, about forty), disease was common. Moreover, the leadership of God’s people was distant and self-serving. The priestly caste, the scribes, and the Pharisees where more concerned for their own place in the scheme of things than they were about the welfare of their own people.

Depressing descriptions, aren’t they, of the conditions that pertained to the sixth century BC and to the first century AD.

Yet God breaks into this bleak scenario, sending our Lord Jesus Christ, equipping Him with the power to demonstrate God’s authority and power to create and to re-create. (After all, that’s the basic understanding that is to be applied, I think, to the accounts of Jesus’ healings and His other miracles.)

God has done such things in the past, and we can be assured that God will do such things in the future, at a time and in the circumstances of His own choosing.

What do we, as Christian believers, do in the meantime, and especially in a “mean time” like the times we are living in how? I think the answer is that we are to remain faithful, we do not lose hope in God’s sovereignty and power to make things better.

But there’s something else we need to do: We need to respond to God’s power. Going back to the time of the Babylonian exile, we know that God’s people, once King Cyrus had made it possible to return home, packed up and left, returning to their ruined homeland, where they rebuilt the Temple and Jerusalem. And in response to Jesus’ healings, people gathered around, believing that He could make things better, bringing new life and hope for the future.

You and I can’t sit around, waiting for God to do all the work. We have work to do ourselves. Maintaining our hope and faith in God is the starting point, and then responding to that faith and hope by doing the things God would have us to be doing to make things better.

You see, this is a partnership we’re in with God. There is hope for a better day tomorrow, with God’s help.

AMEN.

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[1]   Hebrews 12:12