Pentecost 20, Year A

Proper 25 -- Exodus 22: 21-27; Psalm 1; I Thessalonians 2: 1-8; Matthew 22: 34-46

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Springfield, Illinois on October 26, 2014.

“A COMMAND TO LOVE?”

(Homily text: Matthew 22: 34-46)

Many of you will know that, in my life before I was ordained, I was a singer.  While I was in music school, some of our voice students used to sing a song which was entitled, “Love in the Dictionary”.[1]  Its lyrics were those of the definition of the word “love” as it was found in the old Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary.  Here they are:

Love: A strong, complex emotion or feeling of personal attachment,

causing one to appreciate, delight in, or crave the presence

or possession of the object, and to please and promote the welfare

of that object;

devoted affection or attachment;

specifically, the feeling between husband and wife;

brother and sister;

or lover and sweetheart;

One who is beloved;

a sweetheart;

animal passion;

the personification of the love-passion;

Cupid;

in some games, as tennis, nothing.

Perhaps it’s true that most people think about love quite a lot.  We know that loving and being loved is beneficial to one’s health and well-being.

But just what is love?   And more importantly to our gospel text this morning, why does God command us to love?

Let’s explore both of these questions.

First of all, when many people think of love, they think it is an emotion.  “Love is how you feel about someone,” they might say.

But the truth is that love is far more than an emotion or a feeling.  Love has power and force. Notice how the definition of the song I mentioned earlier takes account of the power of love, as it says that love is “a strong, complex feeling….” Love can cause things to happen, to change.  Take, for example, the famous love story of Antony and Cleopatra….I’ll grant you that this love story isn’t a particularly positive example, but consider what happened when these two people thought they loved one another:  Things happened, and the world was changed as a result.

Or consider the power of love that causes a spouse to care for another spouse whose health is failing, caring for them over a period of many years.  Love has power, love is a force.  We could go on to cite examples of a parents’ love for a child, a love that is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure the child’s welfare.

Now, let’s consider the requirement, the commandment, to love.

In today’s gospel, Jesus is asked the question, “Which is the great commandment in the Law?”  In response, Jesus quotes what is known as the Sh’ma, which is found in Deuteronomy 6: 5, and which is repeated by faithful Jews twice a day.  The Sh’ma says this:  “Hear, O Israel:  The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  Then, Jesus adds a second commandment, a quote from Leviticus 19: 18, which commands us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.[2]

One might expect that Jesus would have cited one of the more well-known “Thou shalt nots” in the commandments, perhaps one from the Ten Commandments, in forming His answer.  But He doesn’t do that at all….He cites the requirement to love God, and to love others as we love ourselves.

Putting the two words “love” together with the word “commandment” seems a bit odd, doesn’t it?  Can we order someone to love us?  Shouldn’t love arise naturally and freely out of our very inner self?

Of course it should.  Love should arise from our very nature, the truest part of who we are.  Love ought to be so much a part of who we are that we can’t keep from loving.

And maybe that’s exactly the point Jesus is driving home.  After all, God’s people in ancient times had known of God’s love by the many ways that God had saved them.  God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, God had led them through the waters of the Red Sea on dry land.  God had made a covenant agreement with them in the desert, telling them that they were His special and unique people.  God had given them the land of Canaan as their own possession.  God had brought them out of bondage in Babylon so that they could return to the land that God had promised them.

These generous, saving and loving acts of God are just a short summary of a long list of things that we could cite which demonstrate God’s love for the people He has claimed for Himself.

Loving, caring and saving seem to be a very important part of God’s nature.  God can’t help loving, caring and saving.

And as God loves, cares and saves, these essential parts of who God is flow outward from God to us.  God doesn’t hoard His loving, caring and saving, keeping it to Himself.  Instead, God’s nature is to shower us with His love, His care and His salvation.

Which brings us to the supreme expression of God’s love, care and salvation:  Jesus Christ.

In Jesus Christ, God’s love is most clearly and most powerfully seen and experienced.  In Jesus Christ, we see the nature of God to reach out to us, showering us with God’s love, God’s care and God’s salvation.

But why does God command us to love?

Perhaps the answer is that, because loving is so central to God’s nature, God wants us to know how important loving is to our health and well-being.  Having the capacity and the disposition to love must become a part of the very core of who we are as human beings.

For loving God and loving others as we love ourselves draws out of our own self-centeredness.  Loving God connects us to God.  Loving others connects us to others.

And when we get connected to God, things change, things happen, things get better.  When we love others, the same things begin to happen, as well.

May the Holy Spirit of God enable us to love God genuinely and with all that we are and all that we have.  May the Holy Spirit of God enable us to love others with all that we are and all that we have, as well.

AMEN.

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[1]   This song was written by an American composer named Celius Dougherty (1902 – 1986).

[2]  These two commandments are part of our traditional (Rite I) Eucharistic liturgy, where they are known as the Summary of the Law.  See page 324 of the Book of Common Prayer, 1979.

Pentecost 18, Year A

Proper 23 -- Isaiah 25: 1-9; Psalm 23; Philippians 4: 4-13; Matthew 22: 1-14

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Springfield, Illinois on Sunday, October 12, 2014.

“INVITATION AND PREPARATION”

(Homily text: Matthew 22: 1-14)

            We begin with a bit of humor this morning……

            A grown son lives with his widowed mother.  One Sunday morning, early, she goes to the son’s door and knocks, saying, “Son, it’s time for you to wake up, it’s Sunday morning.”  The son makes some unintelligible noises, then rolls over and goes back to sleep.

            A bit later, the mother goes to the door again, knocks, and says, “Son, it’s time you got up.  It’s Sunday morning.”  Again, the son grunts a little and falls back asleep.

            A third time, she goes to the door again, knocks harder, and says, “Son, it’s Sunday morning.  You need to get up now and get going.”  The son wakes up and says, “Mom, give me one good reason why I should get up.”

            Mom answers by saying, “Son, you’re the priest, that’s why!”

            The moral of this humorous story is that it is all about an invitation – a call from God - and about preparation to answer that invitation….the priest son had been called, invited to be the pastor of his church.  But being called and invited isn’t enough….that priest son also had to prepare for the position he’d been invited to fill by getting up and by getting ready for services that day.

            Today’s parable, the Parable of the Wedding Feast, is all about invitation and preparation.

            Let’s look at it in some detail.

            First of all, this parable is the third in a series of parables (we’ve heard the first two in the two Sundays immediately before this one) which is directed against the leaders of God’s people in Jesus’ day:  The chief priests, the elders of the people and the Pharisees.  These three groups are the target of today’s parable.

            Next, we ought to acknowledge that this parable – like so many of them – is an allegory.  An allegory may be easily explained by saying it is a case of “this equals that”.   Its intent is to place an easily understood idea next to a spiritual principle….it is not to be taken literally in every respect, for its intent is to look beyond itself to the deeper and more abiding truths of God.  So, for example, in the parable, the wedding feast is a commonly used image for the relationship between God and God’s people, occurring often in the Old and New Testaments.

            This parable looks backward into Israel’s history, and it looks forward into the experience of the Christian Church.  In this respect, this parable is similar to many others, as well.  The parable describes the harsh treatment of God’s prophets in Old Testament times, many of whom were poorly treated and even killed for daring to tell the truth about the wayward ways of God’s people.  Many scholars think that Jesus’ comment about the “King coming to destroy those murderers, and to burn their city” seems to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD by the Roman army.  But this parable also looks backward to the treatment of people like John the Baptist and forward to the treatment afforded many of the early apostles and Christian missionaries.

            Some aspects of this parable deserve explanation:  For example, the individual who was invited to come into the banquet hall, but who was thrown out of the banquet hall because he lacked the proper clothing, seems to strike our modern sensibilities as being an unfair situation.  Yet there is evidence in the Old Testament that if a person was invited to a kingly feast, the king himself would provide the proper clothing so that the individual could attend.[1]

            We said near the beginning of this homily that two themes emerge from this parable:  invitation and preparation.

            Let’s explore both.

            Invitation:  Jesus makes clear that God extends an invitation to come into fellowship with Him (after all, eating a meal together in ancient times signified – above all – fellowship with others) again and again.  God’s people had been invited into a faithful relationship with the God who created them and who had formed them into a people, a people who were supposed to be faithful to Him, living out a covenant relationship.

            The Old Testament prophets and God’s emissaries now, in the time that Jesus came to live among us, were often ignored as they articulated God’s invitation and call.  Oftentimes, they ignored it because they were preoccupied with other things.  That was the experience of the early Christian Church, for the Jews to whom Jesus had been specifically sent largely ignored His message of hope and love.

            So, God issued invitations to come into fellowship to others.  Oftentimes, those who responded were from the margins of society:  The tax collectors, the prostitutes and other sinners, and now, in Matthew’s day, the Gentiles as well.  God’s net had been cast far and wide, inviting everyone into fellowship with God the Father through the Son.

            Preparation:  Notice that two things are necessary to be in fellowship with God:  Acceptance of the invitation, and preparing to properly receive it.  That seems to be the point of Jesus’ comment about the man who didn’t come wearing the right garment.

            Those who have passed through the waters of baptism and who have come to faith in the Lord have accepted God’s invitation to come into fellowship with Him.

            But just showing up isn’t enough.  Today’s parable drives home the point that we are expected to actively prepare to be in fellowship with God.  We do this by reading and studying God’s Holy Word, we do this by serving God by serving others, we do this by amending our lives so that we are clothed in the righteousness of God’s salvation, in much the same way that early Christians were clothed in a white garment once they came up out of the waters of baptism.

            To accept God’s invitation, but to do nothing to properly receive it, is to rely on what has been called “Cheap Grace”.  The two aspects of our walk with God go together:  Invitation and preparation.

            To these two things we have been called.    AMEN.

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[1]   See Genesis 45: 22, Esther 6: 8–9 and Ezekiel 16: 10–13 as examples.

Pentecost 17, Year A

Proper 22 -- Isaiah 5: 1-7; Psalm 80: 7-14; Philippians 3: 14-21; Matthew 21: 33-43

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at The Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Springfield, Illinois, on Sunday, October 5, 2014.

“WHAT’S MINE IS MINE, AND WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE, TOO”

(Homily text: Isaiah 5: 1 – 5 & Matthew 21: 33 - 43)

            “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine, too.”

            That saying might well summarize the moral of Jesus’ parable, which is before us today.  Usually known by the title “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants”, Jesus told this parable directly against the rulers of the Jewish people.

            As we said last week in the parable which immediately precedes this one (The Parable of the Two Sons), the setting for that parable and for this one is the Temple.  It is Holy Week, and Jesus has already overturned the tables of the moneychangers who were plying their trade in the Temple.  And, as we remarked last week, Jesus’ audience perceives that He is talking about them in these two parables.

            What was so wrong with the attitudes and the behavior of the chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees?

            Perhaps the answer is that they confused their role as stewards of God’s kingdom for ownership of it.  Or, as we said at the beginning of this homily, they thought that “What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine, too.”

            Four ingredients make up the parable (not considering Jesus’ comments about the fate of the wicked tenants): 

• The owner of the vineyard,
• The tenants,
• The vineyard,
• The fruit of the vineyard.

            Basic to the story is the relationship between the owner and the tenants.  It is the owner who has established the vineyard, and who has provided everything necessary for it to be profitable.  The tenants are the ones to whom the owner has entrusted the care of the vineyard.  The owner is in overall control, while the tenants are in control of the day-to-day operation, since the owner is away at a distance.

            Next, we should look at the image of the vineyard.  Our reading from Isaiah (to which we referred last week) is most likely the source for Jesus’ use of this image.  The Old Testament prophet likens ancient Israel to a vineyard, one that the Lord had planted and provided for, saying, “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel…”(Isaiah 5: 7)

            It follows naturally that the stewards are expected to produce fruit for the owner of the vineyard, for that us the purpose in establishing it in the first place.  In the parable, the landowner sends his servants to collect the fruit of the vineyard as harvest time comes along.

            Now, we are ready to apply these aspects of Isaiah’s pronouncement and Jesus’ parable to God’s people in ancient times, and to us…..

            First of all, it is important to keep in mind who the owner of the vineyard is.  It is the Lord God in Isaiah’s imagery and in Jesus’ parable.  It is God who has established the vineyard (by establishing His covenant with His chosen people), and it is God who hires people (the house of Israel in Isaiah’s words and the leadership of the Jewish people in Jesus’ parable) to care for the vineyard.  Ownership of the vineyard is permanent, while the tenants are only temporarily in charge.

            Secondly, the vineyard exists to produce fruit.  The production of fruit benefits the owner of the vineyard and those who will enjoy the fruits that it produces.  The tenants or stewards of the vineyard are, therefore, agents of the owner whose task it is to produce fruit for the benefit of others, not for their own benefit.

            You and I are God’s tenants today.  We are in charge, temporarily, of the Lord’s vineyard, which is the Church.  It is our task to produce fruit for the kingdom, for the good of the Lord, and for the benefit of the world around us.  For it is important for us to remember that the Lord may well say, “What’s mine is mine, and what you think is yours is actually mine, as well.”

AMEN.