Proper 12 :: Ezekiel 17:22-24; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; II Corinthians 5:6-17; Mark 5:6-17
This is a homily given at Christ Lutheran Church (ELCA), in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, June 16, 2024 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
"GROWTH AND CHANGE"
The leader of the clubhouse would come in and say, “All rise for the men’s pledge”.[1]
Part
of that pledge went this way: “I’m a man, and I can change, I guess.”
Perhaps
we’d do well to remove some of the burden on men, and alter that pledge to say
“I’m a human being, and I can change, I guess.”
Another
change we might make, one that is of importance to each of us as Christian
believers, would be to say, “I’m a Christian believer, a follower of Jesus
Christ, and God expects me to look for change in my life and in the lives of
others.”
Change
(and growth) are at the heart of the two short parables that our Lord told His
original group of disciples, the ones we hear this morning.
The
first parable reminds us that it is God who will bring about change and growth,
perhaps in ways that we might not understand completely. Put another way, we
could say that the parable reminds us that “God’s got this”.
The
second parable assures us that growth and change are inevitable. From small
beginnings, God will ensure growth at the time of maturity, in His good time
and on His schedule.
Perhaps, to the early churches in Rome that Mark may have been writing to, these two parables were meant to encourage and to strengthen their faith and their resolve to persevere in the face of harsh persecution.[2]
When
we think of change, and of God’s ways of bringing about change, we might
remember and recall the big ways in which God does those things. For example,
ancient Israel remembered God’s deliverance of His people from bondage in
Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, the
water from the rock in the wilderness, and the provision of manna in the
wilderness.
For
Christians, the sending of God’s Son fits the thrust of both of today’s
parables, for God’s work in sending His Son is God’s way of working, and the
small beginnings of Jesus’ sojourn among us began in small and humble ways, but
it didn’t end that way.
In
our own more recent history, we recall God’s work through the agency of Martin
Luther and the other reformers.
As
much as we might want to cry out with the prophet Isaiah and say, “O, that you
would rend the heavens and come down”[3] and fix all the world’s
problems, God’s way is often not of the big and dramatic variety.
The
truth is that God’s locus of activity is often in the human heart, mind and
soul. God’s works in mysterious ways to change human beings from the inside
out.
Since
this is Father’s Day, I can’t think of a better illustration of God’s ways of
working, mysteriously, to bring about change on my father’s life. It is a tale
of small beginnings and great and wonderful endings.
One
Saturday afternoon, my father admitted to my mother that he was having chest
pains. My mother, who was a formidable force and not one to be trifled with,
told him that he was going to go to the hospital.
My
dad objected to that idea. (Now we’re back to “I’m a man, and I can change, I
guess”….but only if you absolutely force me to!)
He
went to the hospital. And it was a good thing he did, because in the wee hours
of Sunday morning, he had a massive heart attack. His heart stopped. The
doctors and nurses came running, and got his heart started again. But then it
stopped. Back and forth the battle was waged over a three-hour period. In the
end, they were successful.
In
the morning, the doctor came in to see my dad and said, “Jess, if you want to
live, there’ll have to be some changes,”
You
see, God met my dad at the end of life’s road. And, in essence, God said to my
dad, “OK, Jess, do I have your attention now?”
Changes
there were.
From
that time forward, my father, who’d been a longtime alcoholic, never again took
a drink. My father, who’d been running away from God for much of his adult
life, withdrawing into a world of regret over unfulfilled dreams and
aspirations, found God again, and was found by God again.
Little
did my mother know that her prayers, her constant prayers over a thirty-year
period, were about to be answered, but in God’s way and in God’s time. You see,
my mother, in addition to being a formidable force to deal with, was also a
prayer warrior.
Each
one of us who have gone through the waters of baptism are enlisted in the work
of changing and growing into the full measure of Christ. As we do, we can bear
witness to the fulness of life, the depth of meaning, and the joy of being in a
loving relationship with God.
Then,
we can turn around and bear witness to all these good things, and to the fact
that God is a God of second chances, of new growth, and of a new life.
Truly,
it has been said that the Christian faith is more often caught than taught.
Thanks
be to God, who brings about change and new life.
AMEN.
[1] My memory isn’t as good as I thought. The
Men’s Pledge is actually the “Man’s Prayer” in the show. The prayer is a bit
different than I’d remembered. It says, “I’m a man, and I can change, if I have
to, I guess.”
[2] Many scholars today believe that Mark’s
gospel account was the first one written, perhaps not too many years after the
Emperor Nero’s persecution of the Christian community following the Great Fire
in Rome in the year 64 AD.
[3] Isaiah 64:1
