The Eve of the Nativity – Christmas Eve – Year A (2022)

Isaiah 9:2 – 7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11 – 14
Luke 2:1 – 20

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Saturday, December 24, 2022 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

 “PASSING IT ALONG”

(Homily text: Luke 2: 1 – 20)

Once upon a time, as the church service was ending, and the altar call was given to those in attendance, a man came forward, raised his arms, and said, “Lord, just fill me up, just fill be up!” This went on for awhile, the man continuing to say, “Lord, fill me up, just fill me up!”, until a woman sitting in the front pew said, quite loudly, “Yes, Lord, fill him up! He sure does leak!”

(Hope this little story brings a smile to your face.)

In all seriousness, though, being a “leaky” Christian isn’t a bad thing. In fact, if we think about it, it’s a required thing.

Perhaps an explanation is in order:

At Christmastime, we celebrate God’s great gift in the sending of His Son to take up our humanity. God “got in the trenches” of human life and existence as He came in the person of Jesus. That eternal God, the One who made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, came in the person of the second person of the Holy Trinity, the One we call the “Christ”. (Yes, I’m getting a little theological here.) Put another way, God’ cared enough about the world’s welfare and the betterment of the people living in it that He chose to send the very best: Himself.

Christmas is, therefore, all about gifts and gift-giving. (Indeed, the realization that God gave the best gift He could give to humanity is the basis for our own gift-giving at Christmastime…because God gave an immense gift to us, we, in turn, give gifts to others.)

God’s gift-giving isn’t meant to be some theoretical abstraction, some set of ideas that we think about. Though thinking about God’s great gift, given at Christmastime, is important, and though it’s important for us to learn more and more about God’s nature and God’s will for our lives, merely thinking about these things isn’t the goal of God’s gift-giving.

The goal we are challenged to meet is to come to an intense, personal, one-on-one love relationship with God through Christ. This means that the journey is an inward one, into our very innermost self, into our minds, our hearts, and our very souls.

When we take that journey, we come to realize more and more fully that God’s essential nature is to be generous with His love. If we can return to the little story with which we began (above), we can say that God’s desire is to “fill us up”. God’s desire is to fill us up to overflowing with meaning, with love, with an awareness of how precious we are to Him. There is no fuller or more complete basis for a healthy way of living than to be in such a relationship with God.

But this transfer of divine love and attention isn’t meant to end there. As we receive God’s love, attention, and direction, we are called – in turn – to leak a little, or to leak a lot, allowing the healing waters of God’s love to flow out into the relationships with have with others. We are required to share what we have received at God’s hand. As we do so in response to God’s command, God will see to it that we are refilled with more and deeper love and a more intense relationship with that One who created us and who loves us deeply and intensely.

In this intensely personal way, God’s kingdom comes into being, one Christian believer “leaking” out God’s love from themselves into the lives of others, a direct transfer of God’s healing waters from God to each believer, to another person.

AMEN.

  

Advent 4, Year A (2022)

Isaiah 7: 10 - 16

Psalm 80: 1 – 7, 16 – 18

Romans 1: 1 – 7

Matthew 1: 18 – 25

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 18, 2022 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“NECESSARY SUPPORTING ROLES”

(Homily text:  Matthew 1: 18 – 25)

One of the great mysteries of life is the reality that God, that great, almighty God whom we worship and adore, chooses to work with human beings to carry out His plans and purposes for the world. (Not that I’m complaining, you understand…it’s an awesome thought to realize that we matter to God, and that God uses us human beings – normal, everyday human beings like Joseph and Mary – to be the agents by which He works.)

This morning, then, we are treated to Matthew’s account of God’s working with Joseph, Mary’s soon-to-be-husband, as God lays plans to intervene in human affairs directly through the birth of Jesus.

Given the circumstances of the society of the day and its expectations, Mary’s unanticipated pregnancy posed some real challenges – yes, even dangers - for both Joseph and for Mary. For, in those days and in those times, one did not become pregnant without the benefit of marriage.[1] To find oneself in such circumstances was to bring dishonor and shame to oneself and to one’s family. Matthew takes care to tell us about Joseph’s own struggle with the implications of Mary’s situation (see Matthew 1: 19).

It’s clear that God had work to do with Joseph to get him ready to assume the role that he would play in providing for and protecting Mary and the infant Jesus. (God also had work to do in getting Mary ready for her role in this divine drama. That is the focus of Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth…see Luke 1: 26 – 38.)

Joseph’s role in Jesus’ birth and growing-up years was indispensable to God plan. For it would fall to Joseph to be the financial supporter of Mary and Jesus, and to be their protector, particularly as they are forced to flee from King Herod’s wrath (see Matthew 2: 13 – 15).

But, the question with which we began is still before us: Why does God choose to work with and alongside human beings, often, normal, everyday human beings, people who are – in the world’s estimation of their importance – of little account? I’m not sure I can answer that question, for it is one which is bound up in the mysteries of God, one that we will have to wait to receive an answer to when we see God in eternity.

The inescapable truth is, however, that God does choose to work through and with people.

God chooses to work through and with you and me. By virtue of our coming to an intimate, intense, lively and personal faith relationship with God, we are fitted out to be ready to do whatever God has in mind for us, so that His will and His purposes in the world can unfold. Essentially, that’s the story of both Joseph and Mary, for they both said “yes” to God’s invitation to be part of His plan for the saving of the world. (Mind you, each of them could have declined the invitation, and we shouldn’t look down on them if they had, for there was great personal danger to each of them, given the situation, as we examined a moment ago.)

We know from Matthew’s description that Joseph seemed to struggle with God’s call. In the fulness of time, God intervened to make clear to him just what God was doing, and what his role in God’s plan would be. We don’t know how long Joseph struggled with the challenges he faced, though I think we can be sure that there was some passage of time until God intervened to clarify the situation.

One final observation is in order: If God calls us to do something in order for His will and His plan to come into being, God can – and often does – keep after us until we grasp the nature and the scope of God’s plan. God can be quite a pest, if need be. We need to be prepared for that, and come to the realization that it is in our best interest to say, along with Joseph and Mary, that we are ready to be God’s instruments for the advancement of God’s kingdom in the world.

AMEN.

 

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[1]   The rules by which society operated in those times dictated that a marriage would be preceded by an engagement. But an engagement, though it was as legally binding as a marriage, and though it could be broken only by a divorce proceeding, did not permit the procreation of children.

 

Advent 3, Year A (2022)

Isaiah 35: 1 – 10
Psalm 146: 4 - 9
James 5: 7 – 10
Matthew 11: 2 – 11

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, December 11, 2022, by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“THE GIVER OF GIFTS”

John the Baptist, in our Gospel reading for this morning, sends some of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”

It would be difficult to peek into John’s thinking to see just what sort of a concept he had about the promised One who would be God’s gift to God’s people. But, I think, we might come to some fairly good conclusions as to what John’s concept of the promised One might be.

Here are some possibilities: Would the promised One be the one to unite all of God’s people, who were, in that day and time, quite divided? Would the promised One be the one to end the Romans’ occupation of the nation’s territory? Would that One be the one to re-establish David’s royal line of kings? Would that One be the one to usher in a new and glorious age for God’s people, and would such a new age be an earthly kingdom that would restore God’s people to their former glory?

Each of these concepts seem to have had a good bit of circulation among God’s people at the time of John the Baptist’s ministry, that same time in which our Lord came to visit us. It isn’t beyond the realm of possibility that John was influenced by one or more of these concepts of the nature of the Messiah, God’s promised One.

But -as is often the case – Jesus’ response to John’s question seems to sidestep the answer John is looking for. His answer is an indirect one, diverting the attention away from Himself and toward something else.

That something else is the proof, the observable proof, of the things that Jesus has been doing in the course of His ministry. The list Jesus provides John is this: The blind receive their sight; the lame walk; lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead are raised up; and the poor have good news preached to them.

At first glance, this list seems like a list of good deeds, done to restore to health and to life those who were severely afflicted.

But there’s something deeper going on here: Each of the conditions having to do with someone’s health carried with it – in that time and place – ostracization from society and exclusion from being able to offer sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem. In addition, each of these health conditions, as well as the matter of being poor, were regarded with contempt, for – as many believed back then – to be ill or to be poor must surely be an indication that the afflicted individual was in their predicament because of some grievous sin. Such people were to be looked down upon and avoided.

Jesus’ actions restore these people to wholeness, not only of health, but to their rightful place in society, to family and to friends.

Here, then, is the deeper, more lasting, gift to those on the margins of society. It is a far greater gift than the earthly sort of kingdom that many dreamed of back then, far greater than the new era of independence that removal of the Romans would bring about.

That wonderful gift proves God’s love and care for each and every individual. No one is a “throwaway” in God’s scheme of things. Each person’s worth is God’s concern. Out of such concern, God eagerly seeks to have a deep, enduring, intense personal relationship with each and every human being.

Jesus’ gift endures today. It is a gift, freely given, but costly to God. To accept such a gift is to have life in the truest and fullest sense of the word. Just as lives were changed by virtue of Jesus’ healing acts and His ability to bring new life, so, today, are lives changed, that new life can emerge.

AMEN. 

Advent 2, Year A (2022)

Isaiah 11: 1 – 10
Psalm 72: 1 – 7, 18 – 19
Romans 15: 4 – 15
Matthew 3:1 – 12  

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, December 4, 2022, by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

 “TO AFFLICT THE COMFORTABLE”

(Homily text: Matthew 3: 1 – 12)

It’s been said that the preacher’s job is to “afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted”. As I reflect on my years as a priest and as a preacher, I believe that description of any worthwhile preacher’s calling is right on the mark.

This Second Sunday of Advent might well be called “John the Baptist Sunday”, for on this Sunday in the Church Year, we hear an account of John the Baptist’s work out in the wilderness, calling God’s people to genuine repentance, and therefore, into a true, lasting and fulfilling relationship with God.

John’s message afflicts the comfortable. Consider his words: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come?” His words are aimed at the Sadducees and the Pharisees who had come out to the banks of the Jordan River to check out what he was doing.

If ever there was a group of those who thought they were among the “comfortable” ones, it would be the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were a lay group, dedicated to the rigorous observance of even the smallest details of the Law of Moses (Torah). They were proud of their accomplishments and the resulting prominent place in society they enjoyed. The Sadducees were the Temple priests, the highest of the three orders of priests, those who served in the Temple.

But these two groups had some significant differences. For one thing, the Pharisees accepted the authority of not only the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures, those attributed to Moses’ authorship, but they also accepted the authority of the writings of the prophets. Moreover, they also accepted the realization of the possibility of resurrection. The Sadducees, on the other hand, rejected the authority of the prophets’ writings and also the idea of resurrection.

But here they are, in league with one another, checking out what this good-guy-gone-astray, John the Baptizer, was doing, hanging out with the troublemakers in the wilderness. (It’s possible, though we don’t know for sure, that some of the Sadducees had known John as he was growing up, for John’s father served in the Temple.)

These two groups were secure in their identities, and especially, in their importance in God’s view of things. They were children of Abraham, heirs of God’s promises. They were righteous, strict keepers of God’s holy laws. They were invested in the highest levels of society. They’d earned their rightful place in the scheme of things.

But John cuts through all of these layers of self-importance and self-identity, saying, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham”.

John’s words are meant to “afflict the comfortable”, and to tear away the layers of insulation that protected these self-made people from the heat of God’s judgment.

But is there any comfort in John’s message?

Indeed, there is.

John’s work offered a true, lasting and enduring foundation for a relationship with God. That foundation rests on the reality that it must begin by digging down into the deepest layers of our hearts and minds, to the place where we realize that we have nothing to offer God but ourselves, in our fallen and sinful state. John’s message is that such a beginning is, in reality, a self-emptying process, just the opposite of what the Pharisees and the  Sadducees were all about.

John’s message and work centered around a baptism, a fall into the waters of the Jordan River, acknowledging our own spiritual filth, which – if we are willing to open up and admit – is our true condition, absent all its attempts to dress up and to cover its essential nature.

Baptism reminds us of our own helplessness. It is a beginning which starts with nothing and winds up with everything. It mirrors our Lord’s own self-emptying, by which He set aside His own place at the right hand of the Father to come and to take up our humanity to the full.

Dear friends, the comfort in John’s work and message is this: God seeks us out, desiring above all things a personal, ongoing, deep and passionate relationship with each one of us. What great, good news. But the initiative in this wonderful relationship is God’s, not ours. All we can offer, all we can do, is to respond in the words of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, “Here I am, Lord.”

AMEN.