Pentecost 18, Year B (2024)

 Jeremiah 11:18 – 20 :: Psalm 54 :: James 3:13 -4:3, 7 – 8a :: Mark 9:30 – 37

This is the homily given at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA), Gettysburg, Pennsylvania on Sunday, September 22, 2024 for Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“THE MYSTERY OF FAITH”

(Homily text: Mark 9:30 – 37)

A good part of my Army career was spent as a singer in the U. S. Army Chorus, which is an element of the U. S. Army Band (Pershing’s Own) in Washington, D.C.

As part of our after-dinner entertainment, we would often close our performance with a setting of a song that came from the early years of World War II, entitled “Dogface Soldier”.

Some lines from that song offer us a way to begin to consider our Gospel reading for this morning. Here are the lyrics I have in mind:

I wouldn’t give a bean to be a fancy-pants Marine,
I’d rather be a Dogface Soldier like I am.

I wouldn’t trade my old ODs for all the Navy’s dungarees,
‘cause I’m the walkin’ pride of Uncle Sam.

On all the posters that I read, it says, “The Army Builds Men”,
so they’re tearing me down to build me over again …

Here-in lies a mystery: Each new recruit to the military is infinitely valuable, but only if that new recruit can be torn down in order to be rebuilt. For our walk of faith, we are reminded that each one of us is infinitely valuable to God, but only if we offer only ourselves to be remolded into the image of God.

That “tearing down, in order to rebuild” sentiment in the song lies at the heart of what Jesus is doing in this morning’s Gospel text, reminding His disciples that, in order to be useful to God, they’re going to have to allow themselves to be torn down, so that the Lord can rebuild and remold them into useful tools for the ministry that lies ahead of them.

Before we look at this morning’s text, let’s back up to last Sunday’s appointed text in order to see where we’ve been.

Last week, we hear Jesus ask His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” In response, the disciples offer various answers (probably ones they’d heard from the crowds). Then, Jesus asks “But who do you say that I am?” Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Christ”.

Perhaps at that point, the Lord figures that the disciples are ready for the next lesson, so He says that the Son of Man will go to Jerusalem, where He will suffer, die and be raised on the third day. Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke Him. Jesus responds by saying, “Get behind me, Satan, you are thinking like the world thinks, not as God thinks”. Then Jesus makes explicitly clear where the road to Jerusalem leads: To the cross.

The cross is the perfect example of that “tearing down”, self-emptying process with which the walk with God, the walk to usefulness in God’s plans, begins.

Now, this morning, Jesus repeats the prediction of what will happen once He gets to Jerusalem.[1]

Then, Jesus offers an object lesson on the requirement that, in order to enter the kingdom, we can bring only ourselves, leaving behind any pretense, any past achievements or status: He take a little child and sets the child in the midst of the disciples. While we may think that this is a lovely picture, in the culture of the day, there’s more going on….in the culture of the day, a child was a nobody. Oh, yes, children were an older person’s security in their old age, but the mystery is that children were not regarded with much value, unlike the attitudes in our own society today.

So the mystery unfolds: To enter the kingdom and to be useful to God, one must bring only ourselves, allowing God to “tear us down” in order to rebuild us again.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too hard on that original band of Jesus’ followers. After all, their claims to self-importance simply mirror the ways of the world in which they lived. The scribes, Pharisees and the priests all promoted their own importance. So did the Romans. Might makes right, the most powerful win, etc.

But Holy Scripture offers us a completely different set of values: Consider, for example, that it is often the younger who is more favored in God’s sight. It is the poor, the lowly, the outcast, whom the Lord seeks out.

Being in the world, for people of faith, brings along with it the challenge that we mustn’t allow the attitudes of the world to seep into our set of values and the ways we think and behave. Nor must the Church allow such values to infiltrate its life and witness to the world.

To assist in resisting the attitudes of the world, we engage in confession at the beginning of our liturgy, bringing only ourselves and offering to God ourselves, in all honesty confessing the ways in which we’ve not honored God’s ways and will for us. We come in Holy Baptism, offering only ourselves, allowing this ritual death and resurrection process to begin our walk with God. We come to the holy table of the Eucharist, being reminded that it is a ritual re-enactment of Jesus’ own self-emptying process on the cross for our welfare and for our salvation. We come to this holy table, seeking not to be consoled, but to be remolded into the image of Christ. We come, not to only to be comforted, but to be challenged.

Each of these liturgical acts has in common the conviction that we must bring only ourselves in offering to God. The mystery is that our very selves is that one thing that God most seeks to receive.

Come, Holy Spirit, kindle within our hearts the willingness to be emptied, that we might be rebuilt and remolded into useful tools for God’s purposes and work.

AMEN.

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[1]   There are three such predictions in Mark’s text.

Pentecost 10, Year B (2024)

II Kings 4: 42 – 44 / Psalm 145: 10 – 18 / Ephesians 3: 14 – 21 / John 6: 1 - 21

This is the homily given at St. James’ Lutheran Church (ELCA), York, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 28, 2024 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“OVERCOMING”

(Homily text: John 6: 1 – 21)

One way to understand everything that’s connected to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ among us, is to see that He overcame many limitations, boundaries and obstacles as He carried out God’s will.

So, today, we have before us John’s account of the feeding of the large crowd of about five thousand. (This miracle must’ve been very important to the early Church, for each one of the four Gospels recount this event.)

The feeding of this large group, who were gathered somewhere in the countryside, offers several examples of the Lord’s overcoming limitations.

We might begin by noting that the disciples wonder about what sort of a solution there might be for their situation, as they consider what to do about finding food for so many people.. Philip asks how they are to go into town and buy food for the people. “Two hundred denarii wouldn’t be enough to feed them all”, he says. (Two hundred denarii would be about eight months’ wages for a common day laborer.) Human limitation seems to indicate that there’s no solution to be had. But the Lord sees beyond that, for -as John tells us – the Lord knew what He was going to do.

So, for example, Jesus overcomes the limitation of the available food with which to feed this amount of people: Five loaves and two fish. (I am fascinated that it is Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, who brings the young boy to the Lord with the loaves and the fish...was this an act of faith on Andrew’s part? John doesn’t tell us anything about Andrew’s motivation in bringing the boy to the Lord.) Then, the Lord multiplies the loaves and the fish, making enough that everyone got their fill of food, with twelve baskets left over.

And, since our assigned text for this morning also includes the report of the Lord’s walking on the water on the Sea of Galilee, we might notice that the Lord overcomes the limitations of the natural, created order.

As we widen out our vision to see other ways in which the Lord overcame obstacles, boundaries and limitations, we need look no further than the commonly-held ideas that were prevalent in the time of our Lord’s earthly visitation.

Consider, for example, the circumstances under which the woman who had suffered from internal bleeding, for a period of twelve years (a text from Mark’s Gospel account, heard a couple of weeks ago). Since she had a bleeding disorder, she would not have been able to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship and to perform the various rites that the Law of Moses required. Furthermore, since she was ill, many probably thought that her condition was due to some grievous sin that she’d committee. She was an outcast. But Jesus reaches over these barriers, and once she is healed, He says to her, “Your faith has made you well.” Prior to the Lord’s healing, she was a person who was without hope, without any chance of a new and better life.

Jesus had a practice of hanging out with the undesirables of His day, the tax collectors and the other notorious sinners. When criticized by the Pharisees, He declares that it isn’t the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. Notice, given the attitudes of the times, that hanging around with “unclean” people also made the person associating with them unclean. But Jesus willingly breaches those barriers and destroys those attitudes.

The power to overcome that marked Jesus’ earthly ministry continues to be active today in people’s lives.

When we offer to God our limited resources (like the five loaves and the two fish), God can multiply the offerings we bring in order to bring God’s will into reality. The Lord has the ability, still, to widen our horizons and our expectations about what is possible.

Our Lord possesses the ability to break down barriers that separate one person (or group) from another. Our Lord is a bridge-builder. We who claim His name are called, likewise, to break down barriers and expectations that divide and separate us one from another. St. Paul will pick up this theme, declaring that – in Christ – there is “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female”, hut that all are now a new creation, all are one in Christ.

Finally, our Lord overcame death and the grave, and now lives eternally. That means that we Christians are a “resurrection people”, meaning that we believe in new life, new beginnings. Because of this reality, our Lord can erase whatever has gone on in our lives before now, offering forgiveness, new hope and new and deeper meaning.

Thanks be to God, who sent His only Son to overcome barriers, limitations, expectations and even death, and to offer us life in all its fullness and meaning.

AMEN. 

Pentecost 9 – Year B (2024)

Jeremiah 23: 1 – 6 / Psalm 23 / Ephesians 2: 11 – 22 / Mark 6: 24 – 30, 36 - 43

This is the homily given at St. James Lutheran Church (ELCA), York, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 21, 2024 by Fr. Gene Tucker.

 

“SHEPHERDING”

(Homily texts: Jeremiah 23:1 – 6 & Mark 6:24 – 30, 36 - 43)

Some years ago, there was a wonderful movie series called “Back to the Future”. The premise of the three movies in the series was that an eccentric inventor (played by Christopher Lloyd) had invented a time travel machine. His young acquaintance (played by Michal J. Fox) was the one who often made use of the invention, traveling back in time to various places, and also traveling forward.

If we could make use of such a time travel machine, what would we discover about daily life in the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry? What would we discover about people’s daily existence? What would we discover about their walk with God in that time, 2,000 years ago?

Our findings might surprise us a bit. Some of  the information we might glean might shock us. Although we don’t know all the details of life in the Holy Land, then under Roman occupation, we can glean quite a lot of information.

Let’s begin then, with people’s daily lives.

One thing that is sure to strike us is that, for most ordinary people, life – each and every day – was a struggle. Food supplies were dependent on the results of the crops and their yields. So what we call “food insecurity” today was probably a fairly common situation. For another, Roman taxes were high, and the graft and corruption that the Romans tolerated in the collection of taxes made the situation worse. (Think of the account of the chief tax collector, Zacchaeus, in Luke 19:1 – 10). Life was short, perhaps 35 to 40 years at best for most people. Death was common, and medical care was next to nonexistent. (Consider the story of the women who had suffered from internal bleeding for twelve years – an account we heard a couple of week ago – as proof of the lack of cures for various conditions.)[1] There were few occasions for celebrations…weddings would have been an exception, for marriages carried with them the possibility that a new generation would come into being.

And what of people’s walk with God, their faith life and practice?

Here, too, some attitudes and practices would strike us as being strange. Some might shock us.

A chief concern in people’s relationship with God was the question of who was clean, and who was unclean. This concern encompassed people’s physical health, as well as their behaviors. For example, if a person had a bleeding wound or condition (as the woman who had suffered from internal bleeding for twelve years, cited above), they would not have been able to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to perform the appointed rites and sacrifices that the Law of Moses required. They were outsiders, excluded from the congregation of the faithful. At the Temple, priests would station themselves by the doors to screen out those who could not come in. The list was long: Those with limps, those with skin conditions and diseases (can you imagine what would happen if I stationed myself by the door this morning, asking if those who entered if they had any bleeding wounds, or assistance in walking, or a skin rash?) The motivation for allowing only the most-healthy was to present – in God’s presence – only the best and the most perfect.

But the attitude of the spiritual leaders of the people (the priests, the scribes and the Pharisees) only added to the burdens on the people. These leaders were proud of their status in the scheme of things, proud to walk through the marketplaces in their long robes, proud of the broad fringes on their prayer shawls, proud to be greeted by their titles. They looked down on this itinerant preacher Jesus, because He hung around with unclean people (tax collectors and others), and He touched unclean, unhealthy people (thereby making Himself also unclean and unhealthy). One gets the impression that these leaders believed that God didn’t have soap strong enough to clean up these outcasts. And, they felt sure, God didn’t have enough soap to clean up this person Jesus.

Moreover, the prevailing attitudes were that if a person was sickly, or was poor, it was due to God’s judgment for some unseen violation of God’s laws. Conversely, if a person was healthy or wealthy, or both, the belief was that that person must be the recipient of God’s favor and goodness, a direct result of that person’s faithful observance of the Law of Moses’ requirements.

If we think about it, this situation is an awful imbalance in what God’s people had received in their own Holy Scriptures. For there, we read about God’s holiness, God’s righteousness, God’s hatred of sin and wrongdoing. Bur we also read about God’s merciful nature, God’s willingness to forgive, God’s desire to love.

It’s as if God’s people, led by the attitudes of their leadership, had focused on one of God’s natures, God’s holiness and righteousness, but they forgot about – or neglected - God’s merciful, loving and forgiving nature.

No wonder, then, that Jesus laments that the people are like “sheep without a shepherd”, for their leadership failed to care for – and to educate the people in their care – about God’s dual natures. They were using one of God’s natures to suppress and to oppress God’s people.

Alas, this abandonment of duty by the leaders in Jesus’ time wasn’t the first time that God’s people had been so poorly led or cared for. The prophet Jeremiah, working some six centuries before Jesus’ birth, had to deal with similar problems.

Down through time, keeping a good balance between God’s merciful and loving nature, and God’s holy and righteous nature, has been a challenge. It was a challenge in Jesus’ day, and it’s been a challenge for the Church, as well.

Consider that, in the second century, a person named Marcion claimed that God simply wanted to give His people good things. God was – in Marcion’s estimation – a great, big Sugar Daddy.[2] Marcion rejected all of the ideas that God was a holy God who demanded holiness of the people who claimed His name. In time, the Church would reject Marcion’s ideas as being heretical.

Fast forward, now, to the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Here, we find the Church emphasizing God’s judgment. An individual named Tetzel went around Germany, portraying the torments of hell and God’s eternal judgment on unrepentant sinners. In graphic fashion. “Buy indulgences”, Tetzel proclaimed, “and your relatives will be spared the torments of hell and God’s judgment”.

Of course, Martin Luther and other Reformers recognized an imbalance in this understanding of God, and they worked against it. Their legacy is a gift to Christians everywhere, the understanding that God is a holy and righteous God, but also a loving and merciful one.

As a result of Martin Luther’s struggle to accept the reality that God can forgive, because God wants to forgive those who are forthright in admitting their shortcomings, the understanding that Law and Grace is a wonderful way to understand God’s essential nature. Such a proclamation has been a wonderful gift from Lutherans to Christianity as a whole and to the whole world.

What are we – as followers of Jesus Christ – to do with the challenge of maintaining a proper balance in our understanding of God’s dual natures? How might we proclaim to the watching world that the God who loves us is also a holy and righteous God, a God who demands that those who claim His Name are to strive for holiness themselves?

For one thing, it’s best to introduce people to God and God to people by emphasizing that God’s nature is one of love. To do so means that we will adopt Jesus’ approach as He dealt with the “unclean” people of His day.

For another, we shouldn’t neglect the fact that God wants to bring each and every one of us into a holy, upright and godly life. The Holy Spirit’s role here in critical. The Church’s task is to create the conditions where this can occur. Transformation into the image of God’s righteousness and holiness might, for some, be a lengthy process. We should be ready for the long haul.

Finally, we must realize that God’s desires for us mean that not everything is permissible, not every belief or behavior is acceptable, not every idea is holy or noble. There are limits that God sets for His people to follow.

So, come Holy Spirit, assist us as we strive to proclaim God’s nature with accuracy and with humility.

AMEN.

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[1]   Mark 5:24 - 34

[2]   Marcion also rejected most of the Scriptures of the New Testament, all those except some of St. Paul’s letters and a portion of Luke’s gospel account. He accepted only those things that he approved of. 

Pentecost 5 – Year B (2024)

Proper 13 :: Job 38: 1–11 / Psalm 107: 1–3, 23–32 / II Corinthians 6: 1–13 / Mark 4: 35–41

This is a homily given at St. James Lutheran Church (ELCA), York, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, June 23, 2024

 

“GROWTH AND CHANGE”

(Homily text: Mark 4: 35 – 41)

During my years in seminary, we had a wonderful theology professor who would begin every class session with this statement: “Class, it’s a pleasure to do theology”.

In response, some in the class would quietly utter a groan.

In spite of the reaction of some of my classmates, it truly is a pleasure to do theology. Doing theology allows us to reflect on God’s nature and attributes, and on the ways in which God has acted in times past (offering us a clue as to how He might act in our own time, or in times to come).

With this thought in mind, let’s do some theological reflection on the familiar account of Jesus’ stilling the waters of the Sea of Galilee as He and His disciples made their way by night through a storm.[1]

The setting for this event is the beautiful lake, called Gennesaret on some places, and the Sea of Galilee in other places. This beautiful body of water is a spectacular fresh water lake, surrounded by hills and mountains. Looking at it, one might think that it was located in some mountainous region. In truth, it lies about 700 feet below sea level. The lake is fed by the Jordan River, coming into it from the north. The Jordan also flows out of the lake on the south side, heading toward the Dead Sea, which lies about 1,200 feet below sea level.[2]

Due to its setting and the presence of the surrounding hills and mountains, the Sea of Galilee is prone to sudden storms and high winds. The waves on the water can be quite high. Imagine then, being in a relatively small boat[3] (perhaps about twenty-seven feet in length) at night as this storm arose.

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” the disciples ask the Lord, who is asleep on a cushion at the back of the boat. Mark relates to us that the waves were beginning to wash over the sides, threatening to swamp the vessel.

“Peace! Be still!” the Lord says. Mark then tells us that there was calm. The wind ceased and the waves stopped.

The disciples ask, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Who, indeed?

To make sense of what’s happening in this event, we would do well to reflect on the forces at work and the person who exerts control over them.

The forces are those of nature, which – at this particular moment – are out-of-control. Chaos reigns, and it threatens the wellbeing of those in the boat.

If we access our memory of accounts in Holy Scripture, we remember that, at the beginning of creation, it is God who creates all things, and in the process of doing so, creates order out of chaos. He separates the waters from the dry land, for example. In providing dry land, God makes possible the animal and human life that requires some solid foundation in order to live and to thrive.

As an aside, recall the many instances in the Psalms where we read something like “You, God, have lifted me up and have placed me on a rock that is higher than I”. (I am paraphrasing.) All throughout the Old Testament, we see evidence of an attitude of thankfulness for God’s saving acts, particularly in providing a safe place in the midst of chaos. (A good example is the parting of the Red Sea, allowing God’s people to pass through the waters on dry land.)

So, then, the disciples are asking the right question: “Who then, is this, that even the sea and the winds obey him?”

At the heart of this event lies God’s power to control chaos, and – if we may step a bit onward – to create and to recreate. In this incident, Jesus creates calm out of the storm.

It would be easy to think that the disciples figured out who Jesus is in a logical, step-by-step process. As we read the pages of Holy Scripture, it’d be easy to think that all the events recorded in the Gospels simply unfolded easily and in sequence.

But the blunt truth is that the disciples’ walk with the Lord wasn’t an easy one. For example, consider Peter, who became (after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost) the leader of the early Church and its most powerful spokesman. Prior to the Lord’s resurrection and the coming of the Spirit, Peter was a bumbler, one who was capable of saying really unbelievable things. An example will suffice: On the mountain when Jesus was transfigured, it is Peter who says, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three booths, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”. Recall that it is Peter who denied the Lord three times.

Some of the other disciples were capable of the same sorts of things.

Their walk with the Lord was often one of taking one step forward, and then two steps backward.

We shouldn’t be too hard on that original band of the Lord’s followers. After all, God was doing something wonderful and different in sending His Son into the world, to take on our humanity to the full.

So Jesus calms the storm and quietens the wind and the waves. He demonstrates God’s power over the created order, and over the powers of chaos and disorder.

God’s power, at work in Jesus, reveals to those disciples that God is present in the person and the work of Jesus.

In time, the Church would come to understand that Jesus, the Christ, is One who is fully human, and yet, is fully divine. Two natures, human and divine, in one Lord Jesus Christ. These two natures, human and divine, do not diminish the other, they are not confused with the other.  (Ultimately, Jesus’ nature is a mystery. We can understand that nature to some extent, but we won’t understand it fully until we are in God’s presence in eternity.)

In today’s incident, God chose to reveal something about Jesus to His original band of followers. In time, they would come to see just what was happening, and by what power Jesus stilled the winds and the waves.

We love and adore and worship a Lord Jesus Christ who reveals Himself to us in the things He is able to do by God’s power. Perhaps our Gospel text for today might encourage us to reflect on our own walk with God, and to remember those times and those circumstances when the Lord brought us through stormy times into a place of calm.

Thanks be to God, for His Son who comforts us in all trials and troubles.

AMEN.

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[1]   Matthew and Luke also recount this incident. See Matthew 8: 18, 23 – 27 and Luke 8: 22 – 25.

[2]   The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth.

[3]   A first-century fishing boat was discovered near the shoreline of Galilee some years ago. It was carefully preserved, and is now in a museum. It is about twenty-seven feet in length. Its hull contains about a dozen different types of wood.

Pentecost 4, Year B (2024)

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"

(Homily text: Mark 4:26-34)

Some years ago, there was a wonderful comedy show on Public Broadcasting called "Red Green". Red Green originated in Canada, and its weekly presentation took place in a men's clubhouse.  Each week, the show would open the same way, with the men in the club filing into the clubhouse, where the sat down on benches.

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.

 

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[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