Deuteronomy 26:1 – 11 / Psalm 91:1 – 2, 9 – 16 / Luke 4:1 – 13
This
is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker
on Sunday, March 6, 2022.
“KEEPERS OF THE ’SEVEN DEADLY WORDS’”
(Homily text: Deuteronomy 26:1 – 11)
Let’s
talk this morning about the “Seven Deadly Words”. No, not the “Seven Deadly
Sins”, but those seven words often either heard in the church, or which are,
more commonly, seen in the attitudes of some in the Church, those words which
are “But we’ve never done it that way!”
It’s
possible that many, if not most, churches have some sort of a contingent in
them which is entirely devoted to keeping things the way they are and have
been, no matter if those entrenched attitudes and practices are beneficial or
are even reflective of the lively presence of God. We might call such keepers
of the past the “Old Guard” of the parish.
At
this point, it’s important to say that the Church cannot be the Church if it
loses or fails to appreciate its past, and to make known to this generation and
the generations-to-come the worth and the value of the Christian faith as it
has been received and has been passed down through time. So, the past isn’t a
bad thing, not at all. Without remembering our past, we cannot be the Church,
pure and simple.
It’s
our regard for the past and our relationship to it that is the problem. If
we’re unwilling to allow the Holy Spirit to work among us to fan the embers of
our faith into a lively fire, if we’re resistant to the work of the Spirit, and
if we’re content to simply be the way we’ve always been, then we run the risk
of engaging in some form of idolatry. (Idolatry being defined as any idea,
practice or thing that gets put in the place that God ought to occupy.)
Potentially,
there are two problems with our relationship with the past, and our attachment
to the way things have always been: One is that our past, either in the local
parish or in the wider Church, hasn’t always reflected the holiness that God
expects of His people. The reason for this is that we human beings, though we
are endowed by our Creator with wisdom, reason and skill, can err and get off
the narrow way that God calls us to follow. So our past, as God’s people, isn’t
perfect. We are called to look at that past, appreciate the heroic struggles of
Christians in times past to work for God’s truth to be made known, even as we
acknowledge openly that, at times, the Church and those in it have been wrong.
The
other problem with our willingness to cling to the status quo is that if our
eyes are focused on the road behind us, we will be ill-suited to being
effective witnesses for God in a world in which we may be called to meet new
challenges. Put in military terms, we won’t be well-equipped for future
challenges if we’re meeting them with yesterday’s means. God wants us to be
nimble in our responses to His leading. Otherwise, we won’t be as effective a
tool in God’s hands for His work in the world.
At
the root of all that we’ve said here is the word idolatry, something we
mentioned a moment ago. Our Creator knows us well, He knows that we’ll want to
save the best for ourselves, even if it’s some sort of a security blanket in
which we wrap ourselves, being too comfortable in our own expectations of what
looks like faithful living in God.
It’s
because of the reality that we’ll want to reserve for ourselves the best and
most beneficial things we think we own (including our own self-satisfaction
with ourselves and our spiritual condition) that God demanded the ancient
Israelite to offer to Him the very best they had, the first fruits of their
labors. Our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy lays out the liturgy that
was the means by which people offered to God the first fruits, the best they
had to offer. They were to devote to God the very thing they, themselves, might
have wanted for their own wellbeing and security.
By
demanding the first fruits, the best of what they had, God designed a continual
reminder that He was all about upsetting the apple cart of His people’s
expectations.
Dear
friends, that’s what Lent’s all about: Upsetting the apple cart of our
diminished view of how well we’re meeting God’s expectations and vision for us
as we walk the walk of faith. There’s no room in this equation for adhering to
the notion of “But we’ve never done it that way.”
AMEN.
