Pentecost 4, Year A (2023)

Proper 7 :: Jeremiah 20: 7 – 13 / Psalm 86: 1 – 10, 16 – 17 / Romans 6: 1b – 11 / Matthew 10: 24 – 39

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, June 25, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“THE FAITH: A RESOURCE AND A TOOL”

(Homily text:  Matthew 10: 24 – 39)

We human beings make use of a wide variety of tools, which are resources that allow us to do things that we wouldn’t be able to do, otherwise.

Knowing what a tool’s abilities are is important, in order to know how to use that tool effectively.

Some tools can be used without much instruction, in order to use them safely. But nearly all the tools, the resources, we use carry with them some sort of a warning, some sort of a set of instructions about their capabilities, their limitations, and – in particular – the danger that the tool or resource can pose if used improperly.

One tool or resource we use quite a bit is books, whether they are used in “hard copy” (paper), or whether or not they are used in electronic form. A book can inform, it can educate, it can shape a person’s ideas, thoughts or grasp of reality. But books can also be used as a tool to spread ideas that are destructive to others.

Another tool we use quite a lot is bolts and fasteners of various kinds. These things allow us to connect things to one another in ways that we wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. But a bolt that not sufficiently tightened, or – just as bad – is overtightened, poses a risk if the things it is supposed to hold together come apart. Think, for example, of the various items in a car’s suspension system. If those things aren’t held together tightly, the result could be catastrophic.

No wonder that so many of the things we used now carry warning labels, so that the users will be aware of the dangers of misuse.

These examples bring us to the topic of today’s Gospel text.

In it, Jesus instructs His disciples, as they are being trained to go out into the world carrying the Good News (Gospel) with them. Implicit in the Lord’s instruction that we hear this morning is that making use of the tools that God has provided in the sending of Jesus Christ to take up residence among us will pose a danger to the ones who make use of them.

The Lord says that making use of the tool of the Gospel will cause division among people, as those who hear the Good News either accept or reject it.

It’s possible that the members of the church of which Matthew was a part (modern-day biblical scholars think that Matthew’s church may have been located somewhere in what is now Syria) had begun to face the persecution that the Lord portrays, as He says that those who bear the Good News will be betrayed by others they had known and loved, and would be dragged before judges because of their faith.

In our country today, we don’t face those sorts of challenges and dangers (we are blessed to live in America!). And yet, outright opposition to the Christian faith is more pronounced than it would have been not too many years ago.

Even if we don’t face the sorts of dangers that being dragged into court entail, then we should be aware that giving testimony to what God has done in our own lives can be misused, to the detriment of others. Using the Bible as a brickbat to scold others is one common way of misusing God’s truth. Even here, there’s a warning to Jesus’ disciples, not to use methods that the Lord Himself didn’t use to share the Good News of God in Christ. To be clear, Our Lord reserved His harshest criticisms for those who thought they’d figured out all there was to know about God and God’s ways. I am thinking here of the Scribes, the Pharisees, and the ruling elite in the time of our Lord’s visitation and earthly ministry.

We, too, should be aware that, in order to properly use the resources that our Lord Jesus Christ has given us means that we will hold that gift in love, and share it with love, to all with whom we come in contact. In that way, we use the gift of Christ, who is our most valuable resource, in the ways in which God sent Him into the world, bearing witness to God’s love, and sharing that gift in love.

AMEN.

  

Pentecost 3, Year A (2023)

Proper 6 :: Exodus 19: 2 – 8a / Psalm 100 / Romans 5: 1 – 8 / Matthew 9:35 – 10:23

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, June 18, 2023, by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“A PRIMER ON MINISTRY”

(Homily text:  Matthew 9:35 – 10:23)

You and I, each one of us who have been called by God into a relationship, have a ministry.

Your ministry (as lay persons) and my ministry (as an ordained person) aren’t all that different, really, even though there are some differences in these two ministries, lay and ordained.

What we have in common is that we are all called to share the Good News (the Gospel) of what God has done in the sending of Jesus Christ into the world. We are to do that by sharing, as our Baptismal Covenant states it so well, “by word and deed the Good News of God in Christ”.

What is different is that, I, as an ordained person, am specifically tasked with the business of equipping those in my care with the tools they will need in order to share that Good News. That said, I, too, am tasked with the business of sharing the Good News by what I do and by what I say. When a person is ordained, their previous calling to do the business of being a baptized person doesn’t go away. New tasks and new responsibilities are added to what was in place before ordination.

So today, we are given a primer, a textbook teaching, on the business of ministry. Our Lord calls and sends out that original bunch of disciples, whom Matthew will call in his text, Apostles. These original twelve were first called to be disciples, and then they were sent out (the basic meaning of the word “Apostle” – a person who is “sent out”) into the wider community to bear witness to what they had seen Jesus do, and by what they had witnessed in His teaching and in His love for people, as Apostles.

So that we might have an idea of what sort of business we will be engaged in as we carry out our ministries, our callings, our charge to bear witness in our time, in our place, and in our lives, let’s examine some of the things the Lord says are important to remember as we make our way into the wider world. After all, we are called first to be disciples, and then we are sent out into the world as apostles.

We might begin with this: The work to be done is enormous in its scope, and the need for workers to meet the demands of the work will be great. Matthew tells us that the Lord “had compassion” for the people, because they were like “sheep without a shepherd”. Therefore, the Lord says, “Pray that the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest”.

The size of the work to be done in the world is, in every age, enormous in its scope and in the challenges of ministry. Why is this so? One reason is that, as a new generation comes along, it must be informed and trained in the ways and in the knowledge of God. Another reason is due to the activity of the Evil One, whose purpose is to separate people from God and from one another. These two realities are unchanging, down through time.

Then, the Lord goes on to inform these original disciples about the realities that they will face as they go out into the world. His instructions sound (to my ears anyway) a bit like a new soldier who’s going through initial training, being formed and conditioned to meet the challenges of military service, trained to meet the worst conditions such service might entail. What we’re talking about here is spiritual warfare. We might characterize what the Lord said by recalling this bit of wisdom: “Expect the worst, you won’t be disappointed”.

Those who are called and sent are to travel lightly, the Lord says. We could summarize His instructions by saying, “Focus on your ministry, take what you need for that ministry, but leave behind anything that isn’t essential”.

Now, the next set of instructions consists of the hardships that will be present.

First, there will be opposition, right alongside successes, as the message, the Good News, is shared. Some will reject the message and the messenger. (How much I would like to believe that that isn’t going to be the case!) Alas, the truth is that not all persons will accept the Good News, and not everyone is going to benefit from it by entering into a relationship with God. Holy Scripture is very clear in its declaration of the truth that some will reject God’s offers and God’s love. Put another way, the truth is that some ministries will fail, even as others succeed.

Then there is the very real possibility of outright hatred and violence, directed to the messenger as the message is shared. I believe we’re seeing evidence of such change in our own society nowadays. In time, it’s possible that Christians will be outrightly persecuted for their beliefs here in our own society.

The spiritual battle we alluded to a moment ago confronts us with a choice: We can either run from the field and away from the conflict, or we can face it head on, we can endure whatever comes our way, and we will find favor with God if we do.

Come then, Holy Spirit, and kindle within us the fire of our love, strengthen our feeble hands and our weak knees to stand firmly, and to travel with your purposes in view, as we are sent out into the world in witness to your love.

AMEN.

  

Pentecost 2, Year A (2023)

Proper 5 :: Genesis 12:1 – 9 / Psalm 33:1 – 12 / Romans 4:13 – 25 / Matthew 9:9 – 13, 18 - 26

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, June 11, 2023, by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“THE LORD’S CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP”

(Homily text:  Matthew 9:9 – 13, 18 – 26)

This morning, we are blessed to hear the account of Matthew’s call to become a disciple of the Lord. We get the impression that Matthew’s response, as he sat at the tax booth receiving people’s taxes, was immediate. That is to say, it seems as though Matthew got up, left everything on the table as he was working, and perhaps simply walked away to follow the Lord. We don’t know for sure, but perhaps he told an assistant, “Take care of this stuff, I quit”.

Matthew’s call to follow the Lord meant a radical change in the shape and the future trajectory of his life.

For one thing, Matthew, who is also known as a Levite, was one of a class of priests. That he is known to be a Levite identifies him as one of the group of “local” priests. Matthew was also working for and collaborating with the occupying Romans. Jews who did that were especially despised for their work, for they were assisting the Romans in their occupation of the Holy Land. That Matthew was, most likely, also a priest, probably made their dislike for him even greater. I think it’s safe to assume that that was the case. No wonder that tax collectors were often lumped in together with other notorious sinners.

When Matthew got up from the tax booth that day, he became a member of a new community, which was composed of others who had said “yes” to the Lord’s call to discipleship.  What was the character of this new group of followers of Jesus, those who would become Matthew’s new community? That aspect of Matthew’s call and conversion is also fascinating, for it included another disciple who – given normal expectations and behaviors of the day, and given an absence of Jesus’ leadership – would have absolutely hated Matthew. The disciple we’re talking about is Simon the Zealot. The Zealots were a group of people among the Jews who advocated the violent overthrow of the Roman occupation. Maintaining such a stance meant that they would, most likely, have harbored a deep hatred of tax collectors. But the reality of having become a disciple of the Lord meant that such normal ideas and attitudes melted away as a new priority took their place.

This is, by way of a summary, the nature of Matthew’s call to follow the Lord, and the character of his conversion to being a disciple – and then an Apostle – of Jesus Christ.

Since we’re talking about the Lord’s call to become a follower, and about the changes in life that come when a person decides to follow the Lord, let’s ask ourselves two questions this morning:

    1. When did the Lord call each of us to become a follower, a disciple?

    2. What changes came when the answer was “yes” to that call?

These two questions, I maintain, demand an answer from each of us.

After all, perhaps the Lord’s call came at Baptism. For in Baptism, we die to self and rise to a new life in Christ.

Or, perhaps that call came at a specific time, place and circumstance: That occasion when we realized that we were helpless to change our own lives and to become a Christ-like person. Perhaps we can remember the words we prayed as we asked the Lord to enter our hearts and to begin a process of conversion, beginning with the inner self and working outward to the outer self.

Whether we grew into the reality of what Baptism means over time, bit by bit, little by little, or whether we had a specific conversion experience, each path of our response to the Lord’s call to discipleship always involves a realization that we must bottom out, we must admit we are helpless to attain God’s standards of holiness by our own means and abilities.  After all, the meaning of Baptism is that we descend into the waters which would otherwise overcome and kill us, only to be raised out of the water by God’s grace. We are given a new lease on life, and that new life – as it was for Matthew – meant a new, more meaningful life.

Now, let’s address the second question we asked a moment ago, that one about the character of our lives after we accept the Lord’s call.

Matthew’s call and conversion meant a new path, a new way of being, a new purpose in his life. His behavior following the Lord’s call confirmed the genuine nature of his response to that call.

In our own lives, also, we are called to mirror a different set of values. We are called not to think like the secular world around us, but to be shaped by an entirely different set of values. In every age, the values of God’s kingdom are different than the values of the society in which the kingdom is planted.

So, we can address this question to ourselves: “How is it that I am thinking and acting like a disciple of Jesus? How is my thinking and acting different from the values of the society in which I find myself?”

May the Holy Spirit enable us to see ourselves clearly, as God sees us. May we respond to God’s call to become a follower of Jesus, and may we, by our thinking and our acting, reflect the values of God’s kingdom.

AMEN. 

Trinity Sunday, Year A (2023)

Genesis 1: 1 – 2:4

Psalm 8

II Corinthians 13: 11 – 13

Matthew 28: 16 – 20

 

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, June 4, 2023 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“INVITED IN”

(Homily text:  Matthew 28: 16 – 20)

Imagine being invited in to have a glimpse of the inner life of God.

In a very real sense, that’s what we are offered as our Lord Jesus Christ comes among us, telling us of His relationship with the Father, and promising to send the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth, to comfort us, to enlighten us, and to empower our witness to the great things that God has done.

For, in truth, our Lord is the doorway, the window into that inner life of God, the relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that God in three Persons, yet that God who is one in Being.

Perhaps it’s possible that our Lord provides with about as much information as we are able to understand this side of heaven about the reality and the mystery of God’s nature. Maybe that’s why the Lord uses the language of Father and Son to describe the relationship between two of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity.

After all, what we’re dealing with as we consider the nature of God, is a mystery. God has chosen to reveal some of His nature to us, in the person of Jesus Christ, His Son.

As the Church was planted in this world to provide a witness to the great goodness that the coming of Jesus Christ meant, it had to wrestle with what had happened in the “Christ Event”, the term theologians use to describe all that is connected to the coming of Jesus among us. That wrestling took over four centuries to come to a conclusion, as the Church affirmed that Jesus Christ is truly one with God the Father, and yet – at the same time – is also fully and completely human, as well, with neither the divine nature nor the human nature being confused by the other, nor divided from each other. (For a statement of the Church’s understanding, see the Book of Common Prayer, 1979 edition, page 864, for the Council of Chalcedon’s conclusion about the dual natures of Jesus Christ, adopted in the year 451 AD.)

We said a moment ago that it’s possible that the Lord provides us with about as much information as we are able to understand about God this side of heaven. Related to this truth is the tendency (a naturally-occurring one, I think) to see each Person of the Trinity separately. For example, when we think about God the Son, Jesus the Christ, we might tend to ignore the reality that God the Father is also present, as is the Holy Spirit. The tendency to focus on one of the three Persons is called “modalism”, referring to the idea that we are considering the “mode” in which we experience God.

Considering that the possibility is quite strong for us humans to watch our minds spin in bewilderment as we think about God’s nature as being one God in three Persons, perhaps we can ask for God’s help as we struggle to understand something about the mystery of God’s identity and nature. We are, after all, made in God’s image and likeness, but though we possess some tools for grasping the reality of God’s existence, we are limited in our ability to see God for all that He is. Again, this side of heaven.

Come then, Holy Spirit, and enable us to see more clearly, to know God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to remember that when we encounter one Person of the Holy Trinity, we are also encountering the other two Persons of that same Trinity.

We praise and glorify your holy Name for the glimpse into your true nature that our Lord Jesus Christ has made known to us.

AMEN.