Lent 4, Year C (2022)

Joshua 5:9 – 12 / Psalm 32 /    Luke 15:1 – 3, 11b – 32

 

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, March 27, 2022.

 

“ACTING LIKE THE ONE, OR THE OTHER?”

(Homily text: Luke 15:1 – 3, 11b – 32)

The gospel writer Luke has given us wonderful gifts in the various parables that he’s passed along to us. So many of those that we read in his account are ones that we wouldn’t know, absent his diligence in collecting them. For example, think of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which is probably one of the best-known of the parables. Or the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, to cite another.

This morning, we are treated to the Parable of the Prodigal Son, another of one of the well-known parables.

But this parable could also be known as the Parable of the Expectant Father, or the Parable of the Hard-hearted Older Son, for there are three characters in Jesus’ story, and each one tells us something important about the nature of God, and of our behaviors as human beings.

Let’s begin by tracing the nature of each one of these three.

We’ll begin with the younger son, the prodigal one.

Jesus tells us that this younger son asks his father for his share of the inheritance. The father, being generous, gives him what he asks for, and Jesus tells us that he goes off to a far-off land, where he proceeds to spend all he’s received in riotous living. Now, Jesus says, the money is all gone, and this younger lad is reduced to working for a native of that foreign land. The young son sinks so low that he is working with pigs. (Remember that Jesus’ original audience was made of up of Jews, for whom pigs were an unclean animal….I believe Jesus is trying to drive home a point about the depths to which this young man had descended.) Jesus adds that the son would like to eat the stuff the pigs are eating, and that “no one gave him anything”.

Having sunk to such a depth, the younger son comes to his senses, and decides to return home. He rehearses his confession speech that he will offer to his father along the way.

Let’s stop there, and we’ll pick up the story of his encounter with the father in a moment.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the father. It turns out that the father has been looking for his younger son, so much so that he sees the son coming a long distance off. He runs to greet the son (remember that, in that culture, a grown man wouldn’t run, for to do such a thing would be to cast off one’s dignity). Upon meeting the son, the younger son begins his rehearsed speech, which is interrupted by the father’s acceptance of him back into the family. (I think this is an important point in the Lord’s parable, and one that it would be easy to overlook.) The father decides to throw a party for his son.

Meanwhile, Jesus tells us, the older son has been out in the fields. When he hears the noise of the party going on, he comes in from the field and confronts his father. His speech is a quite a bit different than the younger son, for the older son recites all of the sins of the younger son, and then reminds his father of all the good things he’s done faithfully over a long period of time.

This parable lends itself easily to understanding it from an allegorical analysis. (Recall that allegory essentially means “this = that”.)[1]

Beginning with the father, we can reliably say that Jesus is trying to tell us something about God’s nature. So then, we see that God the Father is generous, even to the point of allowing us to do things that are harmful. But God also looks and waits, expectantly, for us to come to our senses and to return home to Him. In this sense, then, what had been lost (in the parable, the younger son; in our lives, us, each one of us) is found again when we come to our senses and return to God’s ways.[2]

The younger son depicts our ability to want to choose to live our lives by our own desires and our own wills. Jesus makes clear that such a path often leads to problems.

The older son might represent our own tendency to want to stand on a platform of our own achievements and “good deeds”. We might be tempted to say to God, “Look at all the good stuff we’ve done.” (No doubt Jesus had in mind the attitudes of many of God’s people in that day and time as they touted their rigorous adherence to the requirements of the Law of Moses. The Pharisees, for one, were marked with such behaviors, as the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector makes clear.)

The question we might pose to ourselves this morning, in light of the message of this parable, is this: “At what times in my life have I behaved like the younger son? And at what times in my life, have I been tempted to try to stand on my own laurels as a basis for being righteous?”

If we’re honest with ourselves, it’s possible that we’ve behaved in both modes, at least now and again.

Jesus makes clear that the only proper approach to God is one of repentance, contrition and confession. (What a marvelous Lenten theme!) The blunt truth is that any right relationship with God begins with the realization that it is a “zero-sum” proposition. We must begin by offering only ourselves, yes, even with all our flaws, mistakes and sins. God knows all of these things anyway, so it won’t do to try to downplay or to cloak their ugliness.

But fortunately, God takes up the attitude of generosity, not the attitude of judgment and disdain that we see in the older son. God is looking and waiting for us to come to our senses.

Isn’t it comforting to know that those are the markers of God’s nature, that He is righteous and holy, but also merciful and forgiving? Yes, indeed, it is.

AMEN.

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[1]   Analyzing and understanding Holy Scripture was frequently done in the early Church by using allegory.

[2]  The Parable of the Prodigal Son is the last of a series of three parables in chapter fifteen, each of which share a common theme, that of things that were lost, but had been found. The first one is the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:4 – 7< and the second is the Parable of the Lost Coin (15:8 – 10).

Lent 2, Year C (2022)

Genesis 15:1 – 12, 17 – 18 / Psalm 27 / Luke 13:31 – 35

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, March 13, 2022.

 

“HOPELESSNESS – OR – HOPE?”

(Homily texts:  Genesis 15:1 – 12, 17 – 18 & Luke 13:31 – 35)

Our Old Testament reading, appointed for this morning, offers us a glimpse of Abram’s predicament, which isn’t a good one at all: For Abram[1] and his wife, Sarai, have no children. Now, they are both “up in years”, and the prospect is that there will be no children for them.

God appears to Abram in a vision and says, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield, your reward shall be very great.” In response, Abram says to God, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus”, to which God replies, “This man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir.”

At this point, it would be good for us to pause for a moment and remember how important children were in biblical times. There are many accounts of Scripture of the bad straits that people who had had no children were thought to be in. Consider, for example, Hannah’s childless state, until God told her that she would give birth to the prophet Samuel. Or Elizabeth, the Virgin Mary’s cousin, who was childless. Luke, in his Gospel account, tells us that her childless condition was a reproach to her. In time, however, God gave Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah their son, whom we know as John the Baptist.

Abram’s situation seems hopeless. If we expand the scope of our reading this morning, we discover in the following chapters of the book of Genesis that Abram and Sarai come up with their own solution to their problem of childlessness, for Sarai urges Abram to enter into a marriage with her slave girl, Hagar. To this union, Ishmael is born. But God reminds Abram that Sarai will be the mother of this promised son.

Eventually, Abram and Sarai understand that God’s promise contains within it the power to bring that promise into reality. Acting in faith and in response to God’s promise, they become the parents of Isaac.

St. Paul, writing to the early churches in Rome, says that “Hope which is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”[2]

Hope that is not seen…..

Hope has an unseen and invisible reality, doesn’t it? But it also has a tangible reality, as well.

That tangible reality rests in God’s demonstrated ability to bring about those good things that God has in mind for us. The pages of Holy Scripture contain the record of God’s mighty acts, often acting in the midst of dire and seemingly hopeless situations, to bring about a better day in the future. If we look into our own life’s history, perhaps we can find that same sort of evidence. Or perhaps we can find that same basis for hope in someone else’s life experience.

Our appointed Gospel reading for this morning carries much the same theme of hopelessness and hope. Jesus laments that the spiritual condition of the city of Jerusalem is such that those in the city to whom He was sent were unwilling to come into His care. “How often would I have gathered your children as a hen gathers her brood,” He says, “and you were unwilling”.

The visible reality we hear in Jesus’ statement seems to be one of a failed ministry. Jesus’ attempts to bring God’s people into a proper relationship with God seems to have borne little or no fruit. Like Abram and Sarai, there are few spiritual children that have come from His work.

And yet, Jesus exhibits the same sort of faithfulness that Abram and Sarai eventually showed. For He says, “Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.” Mentioning even the certainty of His own death, He is determined to stay the course laid out for Him.

Faithfulness, the faithfulness of Abram and Sarai, the faithfulness of our Lord Jesus Christ, forms the bridge from the unseen and unrealized hope that God promises to the experienced reality of hope which has been fulfilled. Abram and Sarai become the father and mother of a great multitude, numbered as the stars of the heavens. Jesus Christ becomes the source of a great number of Christian believers, who cannot be numbered, for they are so many.

“Now hope which is seen is not hope”, St. Paul writes. In the midst of so much troubling news in our world today, we can rely on God’s promise of His continued care and presence. For, as St. Paul will also writes in the eighth chapter of his letter to the early churches in Rome, “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.”[3]

Thanks be to God!

AMEN.

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[1]   Both Abram and Sarai undergo name changes: Abram is better known as Abraham, and Sarai is better known as Sarah.

[2]   Romans 8:24b - 25

[3]   Romans 8:28

Lent 1, Year C (2022)

Deuteronomy 26:1 – 11 / Psalm 91:1 – 2, 9 – 16 / Luke 4:1 – 13

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday, March 6, 2022.

 

“KEEPERS OF THE ’SEVEN DEADLY WORDS’”

(Homily text:  Deuteronomy 26:1 – 11)

Let’s talk this morning about the “Seven Deadly Words”. No, not the “Seven Deadly Sins”, but those seven words often either heard in the church, or which are, more commonly, seen in the attitudes of some in the Church, those words which are “But we’ve never done it that way!”

It’s possible that many, if not most, churches have some sort of a contingent in them which is entirely devoted to keeping things the way they are and have been, no matter if those entrenched attitudes and practices are beneficial or are even reflective of the lively presence of God. We might call such keepers of the past the “Old Guard” of the parish.

At this point, it’s important to say that the Church cannot be the Church if it loses or fails to appreciate its past, and to make known to this generation and the generations-to-come the worth and the value of the Christian faith as it has been received and has been passed down through time. So, the past isn’t a bad thing, not at all. Without remembering our past, we cannot be the Church, pure and simple.

It’s our regard for the past and our relationship to it that is the problem. If we’re unwilling to allow the Holy Spirit to work among us to fan the embers of our faith into a lively fire, if we’re resistant to the work of the Spirit, and if we’re content to simply be the way we’ve always been, then we run the risk of engaging in some form of idolatry. (Idolatry being defined as any idea, practice or thing that gets put in the place that God ought to occupy.)

Potentially, there are two problems with our relationship with the past, and our attachment to the way things have always been: One is that our past, either in the local parish or in the wider Church, hasn’t always reflected the holiness that God expects of His people. The reason for this is that we human beings, though we are endowed by our Creator with wisdom, reason and skill, can err and get off the narrow way that God calls us to follow. So our past, as God’s people, isn’t perfect. We are called to look at that past, appreciate the heroic struggles of Christians in times past to work for God’s truth to be made known, even as we acknowledge openly that, at times, the Church and those in it have been wrong.

The other problem with our willingness to cling to the status quo is that if our eyes are focused on the road behind us, we will be ill-suited to being effective witnesses for God in a world in which we may be called to meet new challenges. Put in military terms, we won’t be well-equipped for future challenges if we’re meeting them with yesterday’s means. God wants us to be nimble in our responses to His leading. Otherwise, we won’t be as effective a tool in God’s hands for His work in the world.

At the root of all that we’ve said here is the word idolatry, something we mentioned a moment ago. Our Creator knows us well, He knows that we’ll want to save the best for ourselves, even if it’s some sort of a security blanket in which we wrap ourselves, being too comfortable in our own expectations of what looks like faithful living in God.

It’s because of the reality that we’ll want to reserve for ourselves the best and most beneficial things we think we own (including our own self-satisfaction with ourselves and our spiritual condition) that God demanded the ancient Israelite to offer to Him the very best they had, the first fruits of their labors. Our Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy lays out the liturgy that was the means by which people offered to God the first fruits, the best they had to offer. They were to devote to God the very thing they, themselves, might have wanted for their own wellbeing and security.

By demanding the first fruits, the best of what they had, God designed a continual reminder that He was all about upsetting the apple cart of His people’s expectations.

Dear friends, that’s what Lent’s all about: Upsetting the apple cart of our diminished view of how well we’re meeting God’s expectations and vision for us as we walk the walk of faith. There’s no room in this equation for adhering to the notion of “But we’ve never done it that way.”

AMEN.

Ash Wednesday, Year C (2022)

 Joel 2:1 – 2, 12 – 17 / Psalm 103:8 – 14 / Matthew 6:1 – 6, 16 – 21

 

This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Ash Wednesday, March 2, 2022.

 

“SPIRITUAL BARNACLES”

(Homily texts: Joel 2:1 – 2, 12 – 17 & Matthew 6:1 – 6, 16 - 21)

A common practice in many Scandinavian churches, and in churches whose history is of Scandinavian heritage, is the suspension of a model of a sailing ship in the front of the church, usually somewhere close to the altar. Such was the case in St. John’s Lutheran Church in the very small village of Kronborg, Nebraska, where I went to church for awhile as a young boy. My mother had attended that church in her youth, at a time when Danish was still the language of the services.

Seeing that ship near the front of the church inspired me, once I’d gotten a little older, to begin building models of sailing ships. I was fascinated by the directions for painting them once everything had been put together, for the directions called for painting the bottom of the hull a copper color. I wondered about that until someone explained to me that in those days, it was discovered that copper prevented barnacles from attaching themselves to the hull. If enough barnacles managed to make the ships hull their home, the speed of the ship and the energy needed to move it forward would be compromised. So the hulls of those wooden sailing ships were covered with copper plates. (I later learned that, nowadays, a copper-based paint is used to achieve the same result.)

If enough spiritual barnacles attach themselves to the hulls of our souls, hearts and minds, we’ll be in trouble, just like those old sailing ships. The problem with those spiritual barnacles is that they can become a problem little by little. In fact, it’s possible that the growth of these spiritually-inhibiting accretions on our hearts and minds is so gradual that we might not even notice until some sort of a critical mass of these unwelcome “guests” becomes a problem.

Lent offers us the chance to allow God to pull our spiritual hulls into dry dock, and there, to allow Him to scrape off all the spiritual barnacles that may have managed to work their way into our spiritual condition. It’s quite possible that this process won’t be a pleasant one. And, it’s also necessary for us to be aware that the entire hull will need to be subject to this spiritual cleaning process. Not one inch of our ship’s hull of faith can be neglected. I think that’s the intent of the Old Testament prophet Joel’s call to ancient Israel: In effect, he’s saying, “Don’t let anyone be left out of the process of repentance, of confession of wrongdoing, of the need for reformation.”

The spiritual efficiency of our ship of faith is at the heart of the continual need we have for God to pull us into dry dock, and there to clean us up and refit us for His service on the sea of life. No wonder that our Lord Jesus Christ calls us to such a radical understanding of the righteousness that God expects of His people. That, surely, is the blueprint that Jesus laid out for us in His Sermon on the Mount, portions of which we hear each year on Ash Wednesday.

AMEN.