Easter 4, Year A (2023) “Good Shepherd Sunday”

Acts 2: 42 – 4 / Psalm 23 / I Peter 2: 10 – 25 / John 10: 1 – 10

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, April 30, 2023, by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“A PURPOSE TO ALL THINGS: SHEPHERD AND FLOCK”

(Homily text:  John 10: 1 - 10)

A fascinating image we have of the Lord is that He is our shepherd. Think of the appointed Psalm for this Sunday, which begins with the statement “The Lord is my shepherd”.

The image that often comes to mind of the Lord as shepherd is a tranquil scene in which a shepherd has a young lamb wrapped around his shoulders (a well-known painting depicts the Lord that way).

If we dig a little deeper into the business of shepherding, it’s possible we’ll see quite a depth of meaning for the relationship that we, the Lord’s sheep, have with Him, our shepherd. Hopefully, we’ll see that the shepherd and the sheep of his flock each have interwoven purposes and roles to fill.

Let’s look a little deeper then…

We might begin with the place that shepherds had in the ancient world. We see, in those times and in that culture, that being a shepherd wasn’t the most notable or sought-after calling. Think, perhaps, of King David as the prophet Samuel comes to David’s father, Jesse, informing him that God had sent him to Jesse’s household because God had chosen one of his sons to be king in the place of Saul[1]. As Jesse parades one son after another in front of Samuel, Samuel says, of each one, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Finally, after seven of the sons have come and gone, Samuel asks Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” Jesse says, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” When David came in, Samuel was instructed by the Lord, who said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.”

Note that David was the youngest of the sons, not the oldest or the older ones, the ones we might expect would be the ones chosen. And, note that David is a shepherd.

This aspect of shepherding might prompt us to consider that the Lord is not only the one who cares for us, but the Lord is also the one who is called to serve us, His sheep. Jesus’ remark comes to mind here: “…I am among you as one who serves”.[2]

A shepherd’s work involves leading the flock of sheep. One of the tasks involved in leading sheep is to lead them to places where there is good grazing. Transferred into the relationship between God and God’s people, we can see that the Lord, as shepherd, leads us into all truth, and leads us into those things that will benefit our wellbeing.

Another task that is a part of shepherding is the protection of the flock. Sheep are well-known for being able to get into trouble, trouble that they, themselves, cannot free themselves of. To aid in rescuing sheep that are in danger, the shepherd carries a staff, known as a crook, with a hooked end on one end (to retrieve sheep from danger) and a pointed end on the other, to prod sheep to go in a direction that is good for their welfare.[3] In our walk with the Lord, we are rescued from those things that would harm us us spiritually, even as we are prodded by the Lord to make changes in our relationship with Him.

As often as we focus on the shepherd and the work that the shepherd does, we would also do well to consider the flock itself.

The shepherd’s purpose is directly related to the existence and the welfare of the flock. Simply put, if there is no flock, there is no need for a shepherd.

The sheep themselves also have a purpose, and that is to provide wool for clothing, and – in Old Testament times – lambs for Temple sacrifices. We, as the Lord’s flock, have a purpose to fulfill in His plans for the world and those who live in it. That purpose has to do with casting the Lord’s light into the darkness of the world by what we do and by what we say.

We are the Lord’s flock, His people. The Lord, as shepherd, preserves us, nurtures us, and leads us, that we might be known as the Lord’s possession forever.

Thanks be to God.

AMEN.

 

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[1]   See I Samuel 16:1 – 13.

[2]   Luke 22:27b

[3]   The Bishop’s crozier is a stylized version of the shepherd’s crook.

Easter 3, Year A (2023)

Acts 2:14a, 36 - 41
Psalm 116:1 – 3, 10 – 17
I Peter 1:17 – 23
Luke 24:13 – 35

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, April 23, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“KNOWING THE LORD, AND MAKING HIM KNOWN”

(Homily text:  Luke 24:13 – 35)

St. Luke provides us with a wonderful account of one of the Lord’s resurrection appearances, this one to two of the disciples as they made their way from Jerusalem toward a town called Emmaus on Easter Sunday afternoon and evening. This account is Luke’s alone, a wonderful gift to us and to Christians down through time.

One aspect of the interchange in this account between Jesus and the two disciples that’s always fascinated me is that as the Lord joins the two on the road, neither one of them recognized Him. Then, Luke tells us, “Their eyes were opened” and they knew who He was. This happened over a meal at the inn they were going to as the Lord broke bread with them.

Isn’t it interesting that their being able to know Jesus’ identity was given as a gift, something they themselves couldn’t have managed to come to know. I think that’s a good way to understand the substance of what happened.

Surely St. Augustine of Hippo[1], perhaps the western Church’s foremost theologian, would agree with the idea that being able to know God and His son, Jesus the Christ, is a gift, God’s gift. Augustine says that our sinful condition is so profound, so deep, that we are entirely unable to know God, absent God’s gift of grace, which corrects our faulty vision and which enables us to see God clearly.

Since Cleopas and the other, unnamed disciple, were able to know the Lord as the bread was being broken, the question might arise in our thinking: “What are the ways we know God?”

Here are some ways with might know God:

1.   In the Holy Eucharist: We come to the holy table at which the meal of communion with the Lord is celebrated. Essentially, this action is a ritualized enactment of what happened at the Last Supper. Our understanding, as Episcopalians/Anglicans is that the Lord is really present[2] in the bread and in the wine in ways that we don’t fully understand. But, we maintain, we don’t need to fully know just how this mystery works. It’s important simply to know that it does. To receive the bread and the wine, according to this understanding (which, I believe, is the correct one) is to become one with the Lord – to commune (defined as “being one with” Him.

2.   In Holy Scripture: The Bible is a record of God’s dealing with humanity over time. I firmly believe that each incident in this interactive drama is preserved for us in its sacred pages because – due to God’s unchanging nature and the human condition’s recurring nature – the basic elements of the interaction between God and humankind are unchanging. So the things that happened many centuries ago are bound to happen again. Therefore, the Bible retains its relevance to our lives today.

3.   In God’s working in other’s lives:  One reason the Church exists, and – in particular – the local parish exists, is to provide a laboratory for us to see God at work in each other’s lives. For example, when someone is miraculously healed of a physical condition, something that medical science is unable to explain, we might come to the conclusion that God was at work in the process. Likewise, when someone overcomes a serious challenge – addiction of one kind or another is an example – God can be seen in the process of restoration.

Now, in connection with this last point, we might ask ourselves, “How is my life a means by which the Lord is made known?” After all, it’s been said that our lives and the way in which we live them, is the only Bible many people will ever read. True enough, I think.

No wonder that St. Paul, writing in many of his letters to the new Christians in the churches he had founded, admonishes them time and again, telling them that – because they have come to Christ and have become Christ’s forever – they can no longer live as they did beforehand. Their lives must change, reflecting God’s character (love, joy, peace, patience, perseverance, etc.) and the new and better way of living that Christ’s true and abiding presence makes known.

So may it be for us today.

AMEN.

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[1]   Augustine lived from 354 – 430 AD, and was Bishop of the north African city, Hippo.

[2]   This understanding of the nature of the Eucharist was articulated by the reformer Martin Luther. He used the term Consubstantiation to explain that the Lord was really present in the communion elements. His position is midway between the Roman Catholic understanding, known as Transubstantiation, a belief that the accidents of the communion (bread and wine) do not change, but the substance of them (the Lord’s presence) does change, and the Protestant understanding, which maintains that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial, and nothing more. 

Easter 2, Year A (2023)

Acts 2:14a, 22 – 32
Psalm 16
I Peter 1:3 – 9
John 20:19 – 31

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, April 16, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“THE LORD FROM WHOM NO SECRETS ARE HID”

(Homily text:  John 20:19 – 31)

Imagine a scenario in which a person’s innermost thoughts, desires, and actions become known. An example of that might be someone who’d committed a crime, whose deeds are now known. Or, perhaps, a remark made in private which is then disclosed to others. Both of these scenarios would normally lead the person involved to feel exposed and vulnerable.

That seems to be the case with the Lord’s offering to Thomas, that Thomas would be allowed to do the very things that he had demanded in order to come to believe that the Lord’s resurrection was an actual event.

We need to back up a little into this account, for it will help shape our understanding.

A week before, on that first Easter Sunday, the Lord appeared to ten of His disciples. John tells us that Thomas wasn’t with them on that occasion. But then, Thomas was with them a bit later on (we don’t know exactly when). At the time he is with the other ten disciples, he is told that the Lord is alive, and that He had appeared to them. In response, Thomas says that he won’t believe unless he is able to put his fingers in the print of the nails in the Lord’s hands, and to put his hand into the spear wound in the Lord’s side.

Then, on the first Sunday after the first Easter Sunday[1], Thomas is with the other disciples, and the Lord appears to them. Looking at Thomas, the Lord gives Thomas permission to put his fingers into the print of the nails, and to place his hands in His side. In response, Thomas says, “My Lord and my God!”

Notice that the Lord knows what Thomas had demanded to be able to do in order to come to faith. All throughout John’s Gospel account, Jesus knows things that only God can know. (It is a marker - in John’s account -  of Jesus’ divinity, His oneness with God the Father.)

A logical conclusion we can draw from the Lord’s foreknowledge of Thomas’ demands is that, if the Lord knew what Thomas had said, then He also had the ability to know everything else about Thomas: His thoughts, his actions, his desires, his attitudes, and so forth.

Thomas had been “found out”.

But notice what the Lord did: He said to Thomas, “Don’t be faithless[2], but believing.”

The Lord could easily have invaded Thomas’ heart and soul for the purposes of wreaking havoc in Thomas’ innermost being. But the Lord does just the opposite: The Lord grants Thomas permission to come to faith, to be able to be completely whole for the first time in Thomas’ life. (Remember that Thomas is portrayed in John’s Gospel account as a fairly dour person. See John 11:16 for an insight into Thomas’ character.)

As a result of Thomas’ transformation, he is now fit to serve the Lord as an emissary of the Good News of God in Christ. We know from tradition that Thomas became just such an emissary, traveling as far as the subcontinent of India, carrying the Gospel story with him.

If the Lord knew all about Thomas, then the Lord also knows all about us….our thoughts, our actions, the ways in which we have fallen short of God’s high standards of behavior, our unwillingness to surrender ourselves completely to God’s invitation to a new and transformed life.

For, we need to remember, we’ve all been “found out”.

In the face of such a realization, we might want to hide from God’s gaze. But God comes, not to rummage around in our hearts and minds in order to create havoc, but to ferret out of us all that is unseemly and all that that falls short of a complete transformation of heart, mind and soul.

Absent such a complete self-surrender, our walk with God hasn’t really begun. For our journey into the waters of Holy Baptism signifies that we have died – completely died – to our old way of life, in order to be raised to a new way of life.

Thank you, Thomas, for your complete and total surrender to the Lord’s sovereignty and will. May we do the same.

AMEN.

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[1]   This would be the eighth day after the resurrection. The timing of this event is one reason why we hear today’s Gospel text on the first Sunday after Easter. By the way, the number eight in the Bible signifies a new beginning. For Thomas, the events that took place on the eighth day was a new beginning in his life.

[2]   Thomas has become known as “Doubting Thomas” because of this incident. But the Greek word is better translated  as “faithless” or “unbelieving”.

Easter Sunday – The Sunday of the Resurrection, Year A (2023)

Acts 10:34 - 43
Psalm 118:1 -2, 14 – 24
Colossians 3:1 – 4
Matthew 28:1 – 10

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on Sunday April, 9, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“SEPARATION: A FAILED ATTEMPT”
(Homily text: Matthew 28:1 - 10)

Quite often in our household, the comment is made that goes something like this: “We are victims of the packaging industry.” What we mean by that remark is that, oftentimes, getting an item out of the packaging it comes in is a struggle. Sometimes, it’s necessary to try to figure out where to begin. At other times, a good tool is necessary to cut through the various levels and types of wrapping.

For example, try opening the plastic bag that cereal comes in these days. (Time was when cereal came in a box – like it does today – but it was contained in a paper bag.) These days, cereal is contained in a plastic bag inside the box. If one tries to rip open the plastic bag, the result is likely to be cereal, scattered all over the place. In my experience, a pair of scissors or a good knife are needed to get the bag open without a mishap.

Which brings us to the subject of Easter Sunday, and our celebration of the Lord’s rising to new life from the grave, following His certain death on the cross on Good Friday, and His known burial place on Friday afternoon.

If we do some theological[1] work around the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday, we come to the conclusion that the Evil One lacked the tools necessary to tear apart the link between Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Son’s link to the Father. The Devil lacked the power to separate the Son from the Father, and – while we’re at it – the Evil One also failed to separate the Son’s oneness with God and our humanity.

The devil’s plans failed on both accounts.

By engineering Jesus’ death on Good Friday, the Devil’s hope was to put Jesus away forever, consigned to a place in hell, the place where sin is banished. After all, no one got off a Roman cross alive, and we know from the eyewitness accounts[2] of the events of Good Friday that Jesus’ death was a public one, and that He was completely and totally dead.

If Jesus was human, but not divine, it’s likely that the Devil’s plan might have worked. But hidden in Jesus’ nature is that other nature, that divine one, that one which is one with the Father. So, it turns out, in trying to snatch Jesus from the living, in an attempt to claim yet another human victim, the Devil overreached. Jesus’ divine nature defeats the plot of the Evil One. Jesus cannot be separated from the Father, it turns out.

Neither can Jesus’ divine nature be separated from His human nature. The reality of the Lord’s resurrection on Easter Sunday morning, with His body intact, assures us that the Lord’s Incarnation (that is, His taking on our humanity to the full) is a permanent state. Not even a death on the cross can separate that – can tear the two apart – either.

No wonder that Easter Sunday has been such a great cause for celebration! If the Lord Jesus cannot be separated from the Father, neither can all Christian believers be separated from the Lord Jesus and from the Father. Moreover, our human condition, complete with its physical realities, are important to God. We can never lose those, either, for God will preserve us, whether we die and decay, or whether we are alive when the Lord Jesus returns.

Happy Easter!

Thanks be to God.

AMEN.

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[1]   Theology has to do with the study of God’s nature, and God’s activity in human affairs. Oftentimes, studying how God works gives us clues into His nature. (I hope I’m not making the definition of theology too simple with this statement.)

[2]   Both the accounts in Holy Scripture and also from secular sources..

Palm Sunday (The Sunday of the Passion), Year A (2023)

Matthew 21:1 - 11

Isaiah 50:4 – 9a

Psalm 22:1 - 11

Philippians 2:5 - 11

Matthew 26:14 – 27:66

 

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, April 2, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“WHAT DIFFERENCE TO THESE EVENTS MAKE?”

(Homily text: Matthew 26:14 – 27:66)

The events that took place during the week which is ahead of us, that is, Holy Week, figure prominently in our faith. Surely, Christians everywhere know the basics of what happened on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.

But, in reality, some of the things that happened nearly 2,000 years ago where common occurrences, most likely.

For example, people entering Jerusalem for one of the great festivals may have entered to the acclaim of crowds who’d gathered along the road. For another, a farewell meal, at which a leader of a movement bade goodbye to his followers, probably wasn’t all that unusual an occurrence. Nor was crucifixion, the method the Romans used to keep a lid on the restive population they had conquered and which they ruled with an iron fist. (Crucifixion – let’s remind ourselves – was a form of “state-sponsored terrorism”, a stark warning to potential troublemakers of the fate that would await them if they stepped out-of-line.)

We might be on fairly good ground to imagine that there were various sorts of triumphal entries into Jerusalem at the time of the great festivals. There were, according to the witness of Scripture, various movements among the population to challenge the authority and the presence of the Romans. For example, the great rabbi, Gamaliel, in Acts 5:36 – 37, mentions two such movements: One led by a man named Theudas, and the other led by Judas, the Galilean. At the festivals, the Romans would have kept a close watch on the large groups of people who were gathering to attend the festivals. Perhaps the leaders of these various revolutionary movements entered the city to the acclaim of some, just as Jesus did on Palm Sunday.

Now, let’s fast-forward to the events of Good Friday. As was mentioned above, the Romans used crucifixion as a means of controlling the people they’d conquered. Death on a cross was reserved for slaves and for conquered peoples…a Roman citizen could not be crucified.[1] It’s likely that crucifixions were commonplace happenings, perhaps even ones in which people came to watch the proceedings as some form of macabre entertainment. There may even have been regularly-appointed days for such events. In any event, the well-known trajectory for those who would challenge the authority of the Romans, or, for that matter, the rulers of the Jewish people (known as the Sanhedrin) was a predictable one: The clear pathway for challengers was for them to be done away with (as Rabbi Gamaliel testifies). If need be, the members of the Sanhedrin could manage to cooperate with the Romans to do away with those who would challenge their place and their authority. (Normally, these two groups would be opposed to one another’s presence and purposes.)

If the fate that awaited challengers to the status quo was understood by many, then it’s also possible that Jesus’ farewell to His disciples on Maundy Thursday was also an event that wasn’t unique. We have other records of various kinds of farewells of leaders to their followers.

Given the events of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, if our estimation is that these happenings weren’t all that unusual, then what makes those events stand out in the Christian estimation of their importance? Why do we observe (celebrate?) these events? What makes them important to us?

One answer would be that the events which lead up to Easter constitute Jesus’ faithfulness in fulfilling God’s plan for the redemption of the world. Matthew’s Gospel account makes clear that Jesus had a choice to follow God’s will, or to invoke God’s power to destroy all those who would plot to do away with Him.[2]

Another answer is that the powers of evil were conquered when Jesus rose from the tomb on Easter Sunday morning. In so doing, He confirms God’s power over evil and over death. All the events of Holy Week, therefore, point to and lead us to, Easter Sunday morning. Can there be any greater cause for celebration than that?

A question we might ask ourselves, then, is this: Why are the events of Holy Week important to me? In what way are they important (or not)?

The answer we supply to these questions might tell us a lot about the condition of our hearts, and the character and depth of our faith.

AMEN.

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[1]   Later on, however, Christians suffered this fate, perhaps because of their refusal to sacrifice to the emperor.

[2]   See Matthew 26:53. Jesus tells His disciples that, if He asked, God would send twelve legions of angels to defend him. That would amount to 72,000 angels (a Roman legion had 6,000 soldiers).