Easter 4, Year B (2021)

Good Shepherd Sunday[1]

Acts 4:5 – 12 / Psalm 23 / I John 3:16 – 24 / John 10:11 – 18

This is the homily provided for St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA, by Fr. Gene Tucker for Sunday, April 25, 2021.

 

“THE GOOD SHEPHERD AND THOSE OTHER KINDS OF SHEPHERDS”
(Homily text: John 10:11 - 18)

“I am the good shepherd,” we hear the Lord say in today’s appointed Gospel text.[2]

If the Lord is the good shepherd, the question might naturally arise: “Are there other kinds of shepherds (bad ones)?”

The answer would be, unequivocally, “Yes, there are and were in Israel’s history.”

We would do well to unpack that statement a little, in order to have the faith to follow our Lord Jesus Christ, He who is the good shepherd.

The problem of bad shepherds who were leading God’s people wasn’t a new problem in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. In fact, the evidence of the existence of bad shepherds stretches back into Israel’s history some 500 – 600 years. The prophet Jeremiah ministered before the time of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 586 BC, while the prophet Ezekiel ministered during the time of the exile of God’s people in Babylon a few years later.

In Jeremiah 23:1 (and following), we read this: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord.” In much the same way, Ezekiel writes: “The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, and say to them, even to the shepherds. Thus says the Lord God ‘Ah, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the word, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep’”.

In the time of our Lord’s sojourn among us, there seemed to be no shortage of bad shepherds. The Gospel accounts paint a dismal picture of the leadership style of the chief priests, the Pharisees and the scribes, those who savored their own prominent place in the scheme of things, those who valued their long robes, their broad phylacteries,[3] and the greetings they received in the marketplaces.

The attitudes and the behaviors of the chief priests, the Pharisees and the scribes seems like a faithful echo of the complaints that Jeremiah and Ezekiel heaped up against the bad shepherds of their time. One is reminded of the old adage which maintains, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

In contrast, our Lord portrays Himself as the good shepherd, the one who genuinely cares for those whose welfare is entrusted to Him. His care extends even to the possibility that the shepherd will have to sacrifice his own life in order the guarantee the welfare of his flock. Of course, that’s the Good Friday story in a nutshell.

During the time of His earthly ministry, our Lord showed His genuine care for and love of people: He hung around with the outcasts, the untouchables of the society of that day (the tax collectors, the prostitutes and such), declaring that a doctor doesn’t care for those who are well, but for those who are sick. He healed those who were afflicted in body, mind or spirit. And in the end, He was willing to do battle with the bad shepherds, those who were, in reality, the wolves whose purpose was to destroy the flock, as He went to the cross on Good Friday.

The record of the Lord’s good deeds and genuine care in the time of His dwelling among us nearly 2,000 years ago might amount to a wonderful, historical tale, except for the reality of the resurrection. By His rising to new life again, and by His promise that he would be among us (wherever two or three are gathered in His name: Matthew 18:20), and by His promise to abide with us forever, until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20, we are assured of our Lord’s continuing care for and love of those who have been gathered into His flock.

What a cause for deep and abiding joy, to know we are forever within God’s care, in God’s love.

AMEN.

         

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[1]   The Fourth Sunday of Easter in each year of our three year cycle of lectionary readings is always Good Shepherd Sunday.

[2]   This statement is one of many “I am” statements we read in John’s Gospel account.

[3]   Phylacteries were the frontlets, small boxes in which were written verses of Scripture that were worn on the forehead. Another word for phylacteries is frontlets. The description of these bad shepherds is found in Matthew 23:5.

Easter 3, Year B (2021)

Acts 3: 12 – 19 / Psalm 4 / I John 3: 1 – 7 / Luke 24: 36b – 48

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, April 18, 2021.

 “TEARING US DOWN TO BUILD US OVER AGAIN”

(Homily text: Luke 24: 36b – 48)

During my time as a member of the Army Chorus in Washington, D. C., we would often close an after-dinner program with this song, which is entitled “Dogface Soldier”. Part of its lyrics go like this:

          I wouldn’t give a bean to be a fancy-pants Marine,

          I’d rather be a Dogface Soldier like I am.

          I wouldn’t trade my old ODs for all the Navy’s dungarees,

          ‘Cause I’m the walkin’ pride of Uncle Sam (I am!)

          On all the poster I read, it says, “The Army Builds Men”,

          So they’re tearing me down to build me over again…..

          “Tearing me down to build me over again….”

That’s what comes to mind when I think about today’s Gospel text, which places before one of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to His disciples. Luke, along with all the other Gospel writers, takes great care to tell us that Jesus rose from the dead with His body completely intact. He wasn’t a ghost or a disembodied spirit as He rose from the tomb.

You see, Jesus was torn down (or apart) as He hung on that cross on Good Friday. But in His rising to life again, He was rebuilt, rebuilt by God.

Whenever we read a passage from Holy Scripture, a good question we might ask ourselves is this one: “What is God up to in the event that we’re reading about?” Another question we could also ask about the events we read about in the Bible is this one: “What does this text tell us about God’s power, God’s nature, God’s love, God’s righteousness, God’s ability to claim us as His very own, special possession, both now in this life and into eternity?”

Asking ourselves what God might have been up to in raising Jesus from the dead leads us to this conclusion: God has the power to create, and the power to recreate. That’s what God did in raising our Lord from the tomb. God took what had been torn, and he rebuilt it. Put another way, God has the power over life, the power to create it, and the power to recreate it.

If God has that power to take what has been torn down, in order to rebuild it, for that’s what the basic message is in the Easter accounts, then what God did for Jesus, God can also do for us.

What does this mean, exactly?

Well, perhaps this: God has the power to restore whatever is lost in our lives by virtue of our own waywardness, or the waywardness of others with whom we interact. That means that God can mend broken hearts and downcast spirits. God can intervene to rebuild broken relationships between people and between people and God.

The resurrection event tells us that no one is ever stuck wherever they find themselves. No one is barred from a fuller life, a better life, a more meaningful life with others and with God.

We Christian believers are a resurrection people, it’s been said. That means that we believe that things can be better, if we allow God’s Holy Spirit to enlighten us, to embolden us, to empower us to be the Lord’s hands to do and the Lord’s hearts to love.

AMEN.

         

Easter 2, Year B (2021)

Acts 4:32 – 35 / Psalm 133 / I John 1:1 – 2:2 / John 20:19 – 31

This is the homily by Fr. Gene Tucker provided for St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA for Sunday, April 11, 2021.

“HOW DO WE ARRIVE AT THE PLACE WHERE THOMAS ARRIVED?”

(Homily text: John 20:19 – 31)

The planners of the three-year cycle of readings which are appointed to be read in church on Sundays have done an excellent job of appointing the account of Thomas’ encounter with the risen Christ to be read on the first Sunday after Easter Sunday (the Second Sunday of Easter), for it was on this day that our Lord appeared to Thomas.

If we were to summarize the point of this text, we could easily say, “The Lord gave Thomas what Thomas needed in order to believe that the resurrection is real.” The Lord offers to Thomas exactly what Thomas had demanded: To be able to place his finger in the nail marks in the Lord’s hands, and to put his hand into the spear wound in the Lord’s side. Jesus offers this to Thomas, and then says, “Do not disbelieve, but believe.”[1]

As is often the case in Holy Scripture, and particularly in John’s account, there’s a forward-looking aspect to this event, and it is to be found in the Lord’s words, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (I don’t know about you, but I believe that statement applies to every believer since those words were spoken….it’s as if there’s an imaginary blank in that statement for each one of us to insert our names.)

As we look at Thomas’ reaction to the Lord’s appearance, we read that Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!” Thomas had come to believe. Thomas’ believing took him, tradition tells us, as far as the subcontinent of India, where he proclaimed the Good News (Gospel) of Jesus. Still today, there is a church in India which bears his name, the Mar Thoma Church.

How do we come to the same place as Thomas did, to the place where we, too, can say, “My Lord and my God”? After all, we haven’t seen the Lord in person, as Thomas did, but the Lord says we are blessed if we come to faith, as Thomas did, without being able to physically see the risen Lord.

Perhaps the proof we need, the basis we need (after all, faith and believing needs some sort of a foundation upon which to rest) is of the same sort of thing that our Lord’s resurrection is: Some evidence that an event is beyond our normal human experience. That’s essentially what the Lord’s resurrection is: A reality which lies beyond our human experience.

We then, could look for events that go beyond our ability to explain. Things like lives that are turned around when everything that we human beings could do to bring about a change of direction in a life has failed. Something like substance abuse, for example. (My own father is such an example….his life was completely turned around after everything that normal human abilities had failed to do….this was God’s doing, God’s alone.) Perhaps evidence of God’s hand at work might involve a miraculous healing, something that medical science was unable to accomplish…I’ve known of such miraculous healings in my own experience. That’s evidence of God at work.

These are but two examples. But there are others. Could we open our eyes to see God’s hand at work in the world about us, bringing about a new reality that our normal human experiences tell us are impossible things to hope and pray for? Perhaps that’s exactly what God would have us do. When we see God at work, could we then exclaim with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”?

AMEN.

         

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[1]   This translation, from the English Standard Version, is an excellent rendering of the Greek word apistos, which means “disbelieving”, or, literally, “faithless”. For some reason or another, the common way of referring to Thomas has come to be “Doubting Thomas”.

The Sunday of the Resurrection (Easter Sunday), Year B (2021)

Acts 10:34 – 43 / Psalm 118:1 – 2, 14 – 24 / I Corinthians 15:1 – 11 / Mark 16:1 – 8

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker, on Sunday, April 4, 2021.

“A SWIRL, AS EMOTIONS MEET REALITY”

(Homily text: Mark 16:1 – 8)

It’s a commendable thing to try to place ourselves in the situation that the early followers of Jesus found themselves in. After all, we live on the near side of the resurrection. We know how the story turns out, we know how things end.

But those early disciples didn’t know. They lived on the far side of the resurrection. They didn’t know how it was all going to turn out. They didn’t know the end of the story, at least not right away.

That’s the situation that the women who came to the tomb early on Easter morning found themselves in. They had come, prepared to anoint the dead Jesus’ body with spices. As far as they could understand, Jesus was dead. His life was over. Their love for him extended into their shared experiences with Him in the past. They would go forward without His physical presence among them.

Or so they thought.

When they get to the tomb, they are astonished to find that the stone which had covered the opening to the tomb had been rolled back. What might their first thoughts have been? Perhaps they wondered who had done this, and where had Jesus’ body been taken, if someone had come and had opened up the door?

Instead, they enter the tomb to see what they could learn, only to find a young man sitting inside. They are alarmed, Mark tells us. But the young man says to them, “Don’t be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

Let’s stop right there for a moment.

First of all, let’s notice that they are willing to take the chance to find out what they could. Was Jesus’ body still inside? That’s the first thing they probably wanted to know. So to find out, they go inside. (I can imagine that just being willing to go inside must’ve been a courageous thing to do. Tombs aren’t places that most of us are willing to go into.) They are alarmed to find a young man sitting inside (I think I would have been, too.) But then, the young man gives them some specific information, information that they couldn’t have expected: He tells them that they are looking for Jesus. (Notice that the women don’t ask him where Jesus’ body is.) Then, he identifies Jesus with the events of Good Friday, connecting Jesus to His death by crucifixion. Next, he tells them that Jesus isn’t in the tomb any longer, but not because someone had come to take His body away. No, Jesus has risen from the dead.

A swirl of emotion meeting reality, a new reality, must haven overtaken these two women. I know if I’d been there, I would have been swept up in a swirl as emotion attempted to cope with the former reality and this new reality.

It’s worth remembering that the persons we meet in the pages of the Bible are made of the same stuff that you and I are. (That’s one reason that the Bible remains authoritative in all matters of faith and of life…the situations, the problems, the dilemmas and the choices those people we meet in the Bible had to face can inform us about the situations, the problems, the dilemmas and the choices you and I will have to make.)

The three women knew a reality, a given reality: Jesus was dead. No one ever got off a Roman cross alive. And Jesus’ death had been a public affair. There were plenty of witnesses to it. He had been buried in a grave whose location they knew. For these three, life would never be the same again. The Savior, that One they had pinned their hopes on to open the way to a new, better and more promising future, was gone.

But a new reality came crashing into their notions of what is real: It is the reality that this One they had trusted to bring into reality a new, better and more promising future had done just exactly that. But this Jesus had done all these things in a way they hadn’t quite expected. No one ever got off a Roman cross alive. But one person who died on one came back to life, declaring victory over all things that would destroy our lives and which would separate us from God forever.

You and I today still live with a swirl of emotion, as our emotions meet our expectations of what is real, and what is not. Aren’t we prone to ask ourselves, “Did it really happen the way the Gospels say it did?”  And, we might add, “Rising to new life isn’t something that happens, not really.”

It’s OK to wonder. It’s OK to ask these questions, I believe. For without this wondering, this questioning, isn’t it just possible that the faith we hold isn’t really our own, simply because we haven’t had to struggle to come to that place of believing? I believe it is.

But God gave those three women what they needed to believe. God gave the original group of disciples what they needed to believe. God will give us what we need in order to believe that it really happened the way the Gospels say it did.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

         

Good Friday, Year B (2021)

Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12 / Psalm 22:1 – 11 / Hebrews 10:1 – 25 / John 19:1 – 37

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Friday, April 02, 2021.

“GOOD FRIDAY: THE AT-ONE-MENT OF GOD WITH HUMANITY”
(Homily text: John 19:1 – 37)

Each year, as Good Friday rolls around, we are led to contemplate the ugly details of our Lord’s suffering and death. As Christian believers, the events of this day are particularly meaningful to us, even though, in reality, the deaths of countless victims on Roman crosses probably wasn’t an unusual occurrence at all, given the brutality of the Roman occupation of the Holy Land and its suppression of any form of opposition or revolt against that rule.

What is the meaning, then, of Jesus’ suffering and death?

The short answer is that Jesus’ death is an atoning death. It brings about atonement with God. We would do well to unpack this word a little: It means that Jesus brings about an “at-one-ment” with God. He reunites us with God.

Christians down through the ages, as they’ve considered the meaning and the implications of our Lord’s death, have come to a number of different conclusions as they grapple with the aspects of the events of this day which make it different. In truth, the Church has never articulated exactly, what is the meaning of this day, and perhaps that’s because no one explanation could begin to address the various ways of looking at it. Personally, I think that approach is a wise one.

Let’s explore, then some of the ways that Christians have come to regard this day, and then let’s ask ourselves, at the end of our journey, which one (or more) of the explanations seem to mean the most to us as 21st century believers.

We should begin by using the words we find in Holy Scripture that describe the Lord’s suffering and death. Those two words are “redeem” and “ransom”. To redeem something is to “buy back” something. To ransom something (or someone) is to free them from an obligation, or from some sort of control which is exercised by someone (or something) else, or from some sort of lack of freedom.

Using this language, we can understand that we human beings are enslaved to sin. We are so stuck in our sinful condition that we can’t really even see our true spiritual condition clearly.  That would be St. Augustine of Hippo’s view of the human condition. Into this state of affairs, our Lord comes, He who is free of sin, He who pays the price to ransom us from our sinful condition.

So that’s one explanation of how Jesus’ death works to free us from our fallen state.

Another possibility is related to this first one, and that has to do with our inability to pay the price to free ourselves from the grip of the evil one. An easy explanation illustrates the principle:  A person is charged a crime, and is brought before the judge. The judge pronounces a sentence, which includes a fine. The person says they don’t have any money with which to pay the fine. Whereupon the judge takes off his robe, comes down alongside the accused person, and pays the fine that the accused was unable to pay. (For extra credit, this theory of the atonement is known as the “Satisfaction Theory”.)

In later times, two additional theories arose.

St. Anselm of Canterbury, who was an Archbishop of Canterbury in the 11^th century, likened Jesus’ death to the righting of a wrong done to God by sinful human beings. It’s as if the Lord of the manor had been offended by the subjects living under his rule. To right this wrong, someone had to intervene and make amends for this injustice. It’s possible to see echoes of the feudal system which was common at the time of Anselm’s life.

Yet another theory came along at about the same time. Peter Abelard looked upon the Lord’s suffering and death as the supreme expression of love. In this, to my way of thinking at least, he is basing his view on the Lord’s own statement, when he said, “Greater love no one has than to lay down their life for their friends.” (John 15:13)

Which of these ways of looking at the Lord’s passion and death speaks to us today? Which of these are personally meaningful? I suspect that, because each of them is valid, our response will tell us a good bit about our own relationship with God, made possible by our Lord’s suffering and death.

AMEN.