A homily by Fr. Gene
Tucker, given at Trinity Church ,
Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Christmas Eve,
December 24, 2011.
“BLESSINGS GIVEN, BLESSINGS RECEIVED”
(Homily text: Luke 2: 1 – 20)
We
begin tonight with a bit of humor….
A
pizza delivery man in Rome (Italy) was speeding through the city. By all contemporary Roman standards, this
guy’s driving was “off the charts!”
As
he sped by, a Roman policeman saw him and gave chase. Eventually, he caught up with the guy, and
once he’d made his way over to the delivery man’s motorcycle, asked him why he
was going so fast.
The
delivery man said, “Well, officer, you don’t understand. I have the exclusive contract to deliver
pizza to the Holy Father at the Vatican.
Now the Holy Father likes his pizza to be very hot and fresh, and so I
drive as fast as I can so that it will be hot.”
The
policeman thought to himself, “Of all the excuses I’ve ever heard in my career,
this is certainly one of the most creative.”
So the policeman said, “Well, your story doesn’t seem very believable,
but just to be sure, I’m going to give you an escort to the Vatican. If you’re lying to me, you’re going to go to
jail.”
So,
two take off, the policeman clearing the way for the pizza and its
deliverer. They reach the Vatican, and
the delivery man gets off his bike, walks up to the door of the Vatican, and
knocks. The door opens, and the Cardinal
takes the pizza and disappears, leaving the delivery man standing at the door.
The
policeman is leaning on his bike, watching all this, and suddenly, a thought
occurs to him, “I’ll bet that, since I gave this guy an escort, that that pizza
got there in record time. And, I’ll bet
that the pizza is really hot and really fresh.
I’ll bet that the Holy Father really appreciated that, and I’ll bet
he’ll be giving that delivery guy a big tip.
Since I gave him an escort, I think I ought to have half of his tip.”
So
the door opens again, the Cardinal greets the delivery man, and something
happens between the two that the policeman can’t quite see. The door closes, and the delivery man makes
his way back to his motorbike and to the policeman.
As
he gets close enough, the policeman tells the delivery man about his plan,
saying, “You know, I’ll bet that because I gave you an escort through town,
that you got a really big tip from the Holy Father today. Now I think you ought to give me half of your
tip.”
To
which the delivery man says, “no problem, here it is…”
Gesturing
to the policeman, the deliveryman makes half of the sign of the cross.
It
is Christmas Eve. Would you like to have
half of God’s blessing, or all of it?
That’s
the issue before us as we remember the birth of Jesus Christ, our Lord and
Savior, tonight.
For,
you see, God showers all of His blessing on us by sending us His only Son,
Jesus, to be born as a human being. Put
another way, we can say that “God got into the trenches with us” by entering
human history, by immersing Himself fully in our human condition.
But
I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
We
ought to define what a blessing is, in the first place….
In
the context of giving a blessing, we mean that God:
-
Bestows His
divine favor on us. There’s nothing we
can do to earn that blessing.
-
Gives us a free gift in the sending of His Son.
-
Wants to give us the benefit of His presence with us.
But
God’s blessings, like all blessings, are meant to be received. The circle remains broken if we don’t accept
His blessings, like a Christmas gift which is offered, but refused. Christmas
gifts are meant to be given and received.
When
we receive the blessing of Jesus Christ into our hearts, a connection is
established between God and us. When we
receive that blessing, then the benefits of that blessing can be realized in
our lives.
Once
God’s blessing is accepted, then we can be a blessing to God, living our lives
in accordance with His holy ways. We
become a blessing to others as we give glory to God and seek to bring about
God’s kingdom in this world (as the Lord’s Prayer says, “Thy kingdom come on
earth, as it is in heaven”).
We
can learn a lot about God as we consider His blessing, seen in the person and
work of Jesus Christ. Here are some of
those realities:
- God is
love. Jesus Christ comes to show us how
loving the Father is. The thrust of
Jesus’ teachings, His miracles, and especially His death, show us the depth and
the strength of God’s love for each of us.
- God is a generous gift-giver. The work of Jesus in His earthly ministry
overflows with generosity, especially to those who could do nothing to earn
God’s favor….the sick were healed, the outcasts (prostitutes, tax collectors
and others) were restored to God’s favor, and those who were oppressed by sin
and the attacks of the evil one were delivered and were protected.
- God is a risk-taker.
The time in human history in which our Lord was born was a hard and
difficult time: life was short and
unpredictable, the Roman occupation of the Holy Land was oppressive (some estimates
are that the rate of taxation of the people approached 66% of their income!),
the spiritual leadership of the people was weak and self-serving, and the
religious practices of the day had become mere formalities. Knowing full well what reception Jesus would
receive, God sent Him anyway. We see
this most clearly in Jesus’ crucifixion.
Would any of us send our child to do good in the world, knowing that
they would be rejected and killed for their efforts?
- God often works in barely noticeable ways, and in
unexpected ways. The circumstances of
Jesus’ birth give us a clue to how His earthly ministry will unfold….Not many
knew about His birth, and when He was born, He was born to a mother who was
probably of the lower, poorer class, in an out-of-the-way town in a backwater
part of the Roman Empire.
The
question comes to us this Christmas:
“Have we received God’s blessing?”
You
may wonder, “How do I do that?”
The
answer is quite simple, really…Our Lord Jesus Christ stands ready to enter our
hearts, but we have to open the door and invite him in. A verse from Revelation 3:20 says it
best: “Behold, I stand at the door and
knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and
eat with him, and he with me.”
It’s
as simple as that. There’s no “right”
formula for this prayer, no exact words which are necessary to establish the
relationship, only the heart’s desire to come to know the Lord personally, and
to cement the relationship with Him. It
is enough to either pray, think or say, “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, take
up your place there, that I may receive and return your blessing in
thanksgiving for all you have done for me.”
Once
that happens, God can offer us His full blessing. Our hearts and minds will overflow with God’s
love and God’s goodness. And as our
hearts overflow, we will be able to pass along those blessings to others, and
the world will be a better place, one heart and one mind at a time. After all, it is in the human heart that much
of God’s activitity takes place….God working, one person, one heart, at a time.
How
about you? Have you received the
fullness of God’s blessing, offered in Jesus Christ?
I
pray that you have.
If
you haven’t, won’t you make an early New Year’s resolution and do so?
If
you have, but have allowed your heart to become distracted from the things of
God, or have allowed your heart to cool toward the warmth of the love of God as
we know it in Jesus Christ, then won’t you confess your distraction or your
coolness to Him and re-establish the relationship you once had?
As
your priest, my main task in ministry is to assist you to establish a personal
relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and to do all that I can to help
keep that relationship alive and glowing with the unmistakable love of God.
AMEN.
