Pentecost 14, Year B (2021)

Proper 17 ::  Deuteronomy 4:1 – 2, 6 – 9 / Psalm 15 / Mark 7:1 – 8, 14 – 15, 21 – 23

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, August 29, 2021.

 

“A PERSON OF ‘LOW JUDGMENT’?”

(Homily texts:  Deuteronomy 4:1 -2, 6 – 9 & Mark 7:1 – 8, 14 – 15, 21 – 23)

Let’s ask ourselves this question: “Do we know anyone who’s a person of ‘low judgment’?”

Low judgment…..Hypocrite, in other words, for that’s what the literal meaning is of the Greek words which come to us as “hypocrite”.

Our Old Testament reading from the book of Deuteronomy, as well as our Gospel reading from Mark, chapter seven, encourage us to be persons who have “high judgment”.  A person who has “high judgment” is one who has thoroughly integrated their beliefs with their practices in everyday life.

Consider, for example, how Moses, speaking in the verses we hear this morning from Deuteronomy, challenges those original hearers of these words, and us, to not only hear and know God’s will and God’s commands, but to observe that will and those commands.

Then, as we turn to today’s Gospel text (having returned, now, to Mark’s account after a sojourn in John’s account), we hear Jesus excoriate the Pharisees for their concentration on the outward actions of the things that people do, but at the expense of a proper orientation of the heart, of the inner and most central part of a person’s being. They ask, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” In response, Jesus uses that “low judgment” word: Hypocrite. Quoting from Isaiah 29:13, He says, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

In the verses that are omitted from this morning’s reading (verses 9 – 13), the Lord exposes the practices of these Pharisees, citing their practice of “Corban”, a practice whereby a person could devote the family’s assets to the Temple in Jerusalem. As a result, a person’s parents, in their old age, would be deprived of a means of support. Thus, the Lord says, the intent of the Law of Moses to care for father and mother is supplanted by a later, and less important, practice.

Being a person of “high judgment” is critical to our witness to God. There’s little that gets my ire up more than to hear of those who claim to be disciples of Jesus, Christians, who behave badly. The old saying that describes such behavior goes something like this: “What you are doing speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

Being a person of “high judgment” involves the ability to take a good, close look at ourselves, at our attitudes and the way in which we conduct ourselves, day in and day out. It involves trying to look at ourselves as God might see us, and as others might see us. To be sure, we can’t see ourselves completely and totally, so we will need the help of other believers to hold us to account for what we say and what we do.

Come then, Holy Spirit, come with your enlightening and purifying fire, purge out of us any residue of “low judgment”, that we may reflect the full image of Christ.

AMEN.

Pentecost 13, Year B (2021)

Proper 16 ::  Joshua 24:1 – 2a, 14 – 18 / Psalm 34:15 – 22 / Ephesians 6:10 – 20 / John 6:56 – 69

This is the homily prepared for St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker, for Sunday, August 22, 2021.

“CHALLENGE AND CHOICE: A NECESSARY PART OF FAITH”

(Homily texts:  Joshua 24:1 – 2a, 14 – 18; Ephesians 6:10 – 20 & John 6:51 - 58)

“Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal….”[1] Those words, which form part of Eucharistic Prayer C in our current Prayer Book, might pretty well sum up what seems like a common thread which binds our Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel readings, appointed for today, together.

That common theme forces us to realize that the business of walking the walk of faith with God is a journey that will, at times, bring us face-to-face with hard choices and arduous work, if we are to be faithful to the relationship we claim with the Lord.

For example, Joshua, speaking to God’s people some 1,400 years or so before our Lord’s coming, says, “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Joshua’s challenge is as pertinent today as it was then. For we are called, perhaps on a daily basis, to choose to put God first in our lives, relegating all the many other concerns we might be dealing with, to a secondary place, a place that is shaped by our allegiance to God.

Then, St. Paul warns us of the danger and the challenges which will lie in the path of any faithful believer. In essence, what Paul says in our Ephesians reading this morning, is to be aware that what lies in the path of faith is nothing less than spiritual combat. “Be prepared,” he seems to be saying, equipped to survive the battles which will lie ahead, and equipped with the weapons that will carry that battle to the forces that are arrayed against the purposes of God.

Then, finally, we come to the final installment of our sojourn into the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel account. There, we read that some of Jesus’ disciples say, “This is a hard saying, who can hear it?” in response to His teaching that it is necessary to eat the flesh of the Son of Man and to drink his blood. A bit later on, we read that, from that point on, some of the Lord’s disciples no longer walked with Him. They’d made their choice, not to face the hard work of coming to understand what Jesus meant by His comments, but to take the easy way out, choosing to live by their own sensibilities and likes.

Our faith walk can never be one of comfort, of assurance, or of a life of spiritual ease, alone. The statement from Eucharistic Prayer C, cited above, conveys this reality. Surely, comfort, assurance and spiritual ease are part of our faith life and walk. But there will be, if our walk is genuine and is in tune with the Lord’s purposes, one of challenge, of making hard choices, of looking at ourselves honestly, trying to see ourselves as God might see us, in order that the reforming work of the Holy Spirit can remake and remold us more fully into the full image of Christ.

AMEN.

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[1]  Book of Common Prayer, 1979 edition, page 372

Pentecost 12, Year B (2021)

Proper 15 :: Proverbs 9:1 – 6 / Psalm 111 / Ephesians 5:15 – 20 / John 6:51 - 58

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday August 15, 2021.

“THE MEANING HAPPENS BETWEEN….”

(Homily text:  John 6:51 - 58)

“The music happens between the notes. The music doesn’t happen on the notes.” So said a graduate student at the Eastman School of Music when I was an undergraduate there. That grad student had formed a small vocal ensemble of five singers, for which he served as its conductor (I was the tenor in the group).

There’s a great deal of wisdom in the statement, for it reminds us of the truth that music-making is, to a large degree, concerned with the business of making the relationships between the notes into something more than organized sound. It is, then, essentially about relationship, about the relationship between the various parts of the musical composition. It is, also, a quest to discover the composer’s intent in creating the work in the first place.

Transferring that idea into our reading and understanding of Holy Scripture, we could say that the meaning of the sacred writings doesn’t lie in the words themselves (as important as they are), but in the relationships of the words one to another, and, more importantly, in what the words themselves reveal to us about God’s nature and God’s purposes in relating to us. So then, if we were to rephrase the quote we began with, we might state it this way: “The meaning doesn’t happen on the words. The meaning happens between the words.”

To concentrate on the words alone is to run the risk of seeing the words only in their literal sense. To be sure, sometimes the literal meanings of the words is critically important to the business of seeing the text correctly. After all, as my first Bishop was fond of saying, “We are so easily fooled.” We can easily substitute our own understandings and purposes for what the text originally meant. So paying attention to the literal sense of the words in the text is a biblical interpretation tool that must be readily at hand, at all times.

That said, there are other times when the literal sense isn’t, clearly, the intent at all. In such times, I like to say that the “plain sense” of the text is much more important. A good example is Jesus’ statement that, “If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.” (Matthew 18:9)

If we were to believe that the Lord intended us to accept that statement literally, we’d be seeing a whole lot of one-eyed Christians, for the blunt truth is that we all, every one of us, commits sin.

The statement makes much more sense if we accept and understand it in its “plain sense”. The plain sense of our Lord’s comment is that we shouldn’t allow anything to stand in the way of our walk with God. At least that’s how I understand it.

This discussion now brings us to today’s Gospel text, where we read Jesus’ statement that goes like this: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” (John 6:53)

Taken literally, our Lord’s statement is repugnant and offensive. No wonder that John tells us that, in response, some of Jesus’s hearers say, “This is a hard saying, who can hear it?” (John 6:60). John goes on to tell us that, in response to this statement, some of Jesus’ disciples no longer went about with Him. (See John 6:66.)

It the Lord didn’t intend for those original hearers and us to understand His statement literally, then what might the “plain sense” of His statement be?

Perhaps just this:  By eating the Lord’s flesh and by drinking His blood, we become one with Him. We incorporate into our very inner and most intimate beings the Lord Himself.

Wow!

What a wonderful thought!  What a cosmic understanding, to know that the Lord of all life desires to be one with us, with each of us individually, fully, completely and eternally.

Each time we come to the holy table of the Eucharist, we will benefit immensely if we will remember that we are coming to be one with Jesus. This is no memorial meal, in which we look back mentally at the Lord’s earthly sojourn with us. No, it is much more, for the Lord is really present under the forms of bread and wine, in a way we might not fully understand, but which is, nonetheless, actually so. Remembering in this sense is to be understood as “putting it all together again, just like the first time”, as my former Bishop once said.

As we approach the holy table, we come to commune with (the literal meaning of this word is to “be one with”) the Lord. This token of the Lord’s love for us strengthens us, empowers us, reminds us that we have been claimed by Christ in Holy Baptism, by which we have become a child of God forever and forevermore.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

Pentecost 11, Year B (2021)

Proper 14 :: I Kings 19:4 – 9 / Psalm 130 / Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2 / John 6:35, 41 – 51

 

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, PA, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, August 8, 2021.

 

“DO WE HAVE ENOUGH TO GO ON?”

(Homily text:  John 6:35, 41 – 51)

Let’s ask ourselves these two questions this morning: “Do we have enough to go on? Do we have enough of a foundation to believe the things of God?”

After all, nearly everything in life demands some sort of a foundation upon which to build. We know this from our houses and other structures: They all require a good, solid foundation. The same is true of whatever we accept as scientific or another sort of truth: They, too, demand some foundation upon which to rest. I could name many other such examples.

As we look at this morning’s Gospel text (our continuation of an exploration of our Lord’s feeding of the crowd of five thousand, as we find it in chapter six of John’s account), we can see that the Lord is building a foundation for faith. But it’s not yet complete. In fact, that foundation won’t be complete until the events of Good Friday, Easter Sunday morning and Pentecost are all accomplished. Then, in retrospect, those who’d been exposed the truths of God as Jesus Christ has made them known will begin to understand just what the Lord was saying about His being the “bread of life”.

But I risk getting ahead of the story by looking forward into the events that will take place at the end of Jesus’ earthly journey and into the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, at which time the Church will be born.

Let’s back up a bit, into today’s text, to see how the Lord is constructing the foundation for faith, one block at a time.

We’ve been privileged to spend time in John’s account for the past few weeks, looking at the unfolding account of Jesus’ miraculous feeding of a large crowd with just five loaves of bread and two fish. As that event comes to a close, some in the crowd who’d been fed follow Jesus around the northern side of the Sea of Galilee, where a back-and-forth conversation ensues between members of the crowd and the Lord.

Little bit by little bit, the Lord unfolds the greater and deeper truth about His nature, as He attempts to get the crowd to see beyond the immediate, that is, the provision of food, into the deeper truths that it is that bread which is the true and eternal bread for which they ought to be longing. In response, the crowd says, “Sir, give us this bread always.” (See John 6:34.)

Now, in today’s passage, the crowd wonders how it is that Jesus can be the One who has come down from heaven. After all, they say, “Don’t we know this man’s father and mother?” (Verse 42) In response, Jesus affirms the truth that, unless the Father has drawn someone, they won’t be drawn to God, or to the things of God.

Finally, Jesus advances His listeners’ understanding by saying that the bread that He will give is His “flesh”.

Now, all the ingredients are in place for Jesus to make the statement that, “Unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood,” that person will have no life in them. (Verse 52) We will consider the implications of that statement in next week’s homily, for the statement leads us directly to the Eucharist.

We’ll sidestep consideration of the Eucharist for the moment, and reserve that topic for next Sunday. Instead, let’s look at the matter of the foundation that our Lord is forming for those original hearers, and for us.

Before we begin our consideration, we ought to remind ourselves that, at this point in Jesus’ earthly ministry, the complete account of what He has been doing, and will do, hasn’t unfolded yet. It would be unfair for us to judge those first witnesses and hearers too harshly for their failure to understand just what God was up to in the sending of Jesus Christ. (Frankly, I often think that if I was among that first group of witnesses, I’m not so sure I’d understand and grasp what God was doing, either.)

As I think about the nature of the foundation that God is providing, it has two aspects: A physical and tangible aspect and a spiritual and unseen aspect.

The physical and tangible aspect of the event before us is the multiplication of the five loaves and the two fish.  This sign, as well as all the miracles that Jesus did, are meant to show to us that it is God working in each of these events. After all, one of the aspects of God’s nature is His ability to create and to recreate. Here we see the ability to create in action: The multiplication of the loaves and the fishes. So, in this instance, the spiritual and unseen truth is God’s presence in the act of creating.

If we believe the scriptural witness about this (and other) events, then we are being provided with the proof we need in order to come to faith. God is providing us, in the accounts we read in the sacred pages of the Bible, a record of His mighty acts, done in days gone by, as He works among ordinary, fallible people.

The biblical witness is the foundation we require, the platform upon which to come to mature faith in God and in God’s provision of a tangible and visible proof of His presence among us. Jesus Christ’s coming, taking up our humanity to the full, provides us with what we need.

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.