Pentecost, Year C (2025)

Genesis 11: 1–9 / Psalm 104: 24–34, 35b / Acts 2: 1–21 / John 14: 8–27  

The is the homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, June 8, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.

 

“GOD’S ‘CORRECT’ BUTTON”

(Homily texts:  Genesis 11: 1–9 & Acts 2: 1–21)

Whenever I have to address an envelope, or to write something that others will need to be able to read, I use a typewriter. No, not an old, mechanical one like an old Underwood, but an electric one. The reason I use one of these things is because my handwriting isn’t at all good. In fact, it’s terrible, and worst of all, it’s getting worse as time goes along.

I can’t use a typewriter without having correcting ribbon in the machine. The reason for that is that my typing skills aren’t all that good, either. (In fact, I am self-taught…I can manage, but sometimes typing is a real challenge.)

As I think about the history of God’s dealing with human beings, I think that God must need to have a whole lot of correcting ribbon in the typewriter of His plans and desires for humankind.

Consider, for example, the two accounts of people speaking the same language, or speaking different languages that are before us this morning.

Our Old Testament reading relates to us the tale of the building of the Tower of Babel, while our reading from Acts informs us about the Holy Spirit’s gift of being able to speak in different languages.

In the Genesis account, we read that the whole human race spoke the same language. And so, those ancient peoples decided to make a name for themselves by erecting a tower that would reach to the heavens. When God sees this activity, and – more importantly – the motivation for it, He decides to confound their speech, making them speak different languages so they couldn’t understand one another, and – in the process – couldn’t manage to do anything they set their minds to.

In the Acts reading, recounting to us the coming of the Holy Spirit with discernable and powerful signs of His presence, people who spoke the same language were suddenly able to speak languages they had not previously known. The purpose of the Spirit’s gifting is obvious: It provides a tool to spread the Good News of what God had done in the sending of Jesus Christ.

Notice the correction to the human condition and to human behavior: In the Genesis account, those tower-builders were out to make a name for themselves, to promote their own glory. In the Pentecost event, God is glorified by the spreading of the Good News.

God does, indeed, have a “correct” button, and plenty of correcting ribbon as He deals with us human types.

The pages of Holy Scripture are filled with accounts of people who interacted with God, but who needed “fixing” in some way or another.

This last point brings us back to the Pentecost event.

We read Peter’s sermon, delivered on Pentecost, in our reading from Acts this morning. Gone from Peter’s character and behavior are his bumbling ways, and his inability to understand what God was doing in the person and work of Jesus Christ. God has corrected the text of Peter’s life, and now his speech is clear, and it is powerful.

We should ask, “What does all this have to do with me, and how does it inform my walk with God?”

That’s always a question that ought to be in our minds and hearts, and on our lips. After all, one of the purposes of Holy Scripture is to inform us about God’s nature and God’s ways, and to relate to us the ways that God has dealt with those He has chosen to be His emissaries to the world in ages past. In those sacred pages, we read of the successes, the mistakes, and the outright failures of those chosen ones. But we also read about God’s determined efforts to correct and fix what was less-than-useful for His divine purposes in those He had chosen to be His servants and witnesses.

So, too, will this same dynamic work its way out in our own lives: God will patiently correct, form, mold and shape us so that we can fulfill that divine plan that God has in mind. To be sure, the Holy Spirit has a major role to play in this process, as the Spirit did on Pentecost. The Spirit’s power to inform, to convict, to correct, to empower, and to enlighten is the same yesterday and today, and it will be the same until the end of time.

Thanks be to God for His patience, for His forbearance, and for His insistence on correction and amendment of life, so as to fit us out and make us into instruments of His divine will and purpose.

AMEN. 

Easter 7, Year C (2025)

Acts 16: 16–34 / Psalm 97 / Revelation 22: 12–14, 16–17, 20–21 / John 17: 20–26

This is the homily that was prepared for Flohr’s Evangelical Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania for Sunday, June 1, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.

 

“CONNECTIONS & CONNECTIVITY”

(Homily text: John 17: 20–26)

Ever think about the things that tie things together, or which connect them?

For example, we could mention such everyday items as string, or rope, or bolts, or screws, or nails. Each and all of these are unremarkable in and of themselves. But, they have their worth, their purpose and their value in their ability to connect or tie other things that are more valuable together.

So it seems as though there’s some sort of a back-and-forth, mutually dependent relationship between these connectors and the things they connect.

The same could be said about our relationship to Christ, to one another as Christian believers, and of the relationship between Jesus Christ, as the Father’s Son and the Father Himself.

All of these interconnections are mentioned in our Gospel text, appointed for this morning. It is part of what has come to be known as Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer”, which occupies all of chapter seventeen of John’s Gospel account.[1]

Jesus’ connection to the Father makes it possible for Him to relate to us all that the Father has told Him and has appointed Him to tell us. Absent that connection, there’d be no need to pay attention to what Jesus has to say to us (except, of course, if we believe that Jesus was simply a remarkable human being, and a great teacher in His own day…sadly, some Christians regard the Lord in just that way).

If we think about it, what the Lord has to say in this prayer is also addressed in chapter fifteen, where He tells us that He is the vine, and we are the branches. This is (at least to my mind) another way of saying that the vine and the branches are connected, one to another. It is that connection that makes fruitful ministry and work possible. In this description, Jesus makes a point of highlighting two important items: The vine and the branches, Then, of course, it isn’t just these two critical parts of the plant, it’s also the connection between them which allows them to function and to produce fruit.

Our Lord prays that all who claim His Name will be one, even as He and the Father are one.

What does/might this “oneness” look like in the world we live in today?

Does it mean that the Church (defined as the Body of Christ, composed of all who have come to faith in the Lord) should be organically one?

Perhaps that isn’t a realistic goal. Perhaps history will tell us that the Church, even in its very early times, was never organically, completely unified into one structure. The very early Church’s structure derived from its allegiance to and worship of the Lord Jesus Christ and the God who had sent Him into the world.[2]

History will also tell us that having the Church organically unified, and under the leadership of one person, isn’t necessarily good thing.

Today, we – all of us who claim the Name of Christ – are children of the Protestant Reformation. That is to say, that following the events of the early sixteenth century, the Church is now divided into many different “families” or “communities”. In times past, and not too long ago, major portions of this faith community wouldn’t have much or even anything to do with one another.

Thankfully, those times are – largely though not completely – behind us. Now, interfaith cooperation is much more common than it used to be. Roman Catholics engage in joint ministries with other Christians. Isn’t this a good thing!  Isn’t is a move in the right direction? Yes, indeed it is.

What can we hope for, given the state of the Church today? What is possible, what is desirable?

My own personal answer would be that we should continue to pursue mutual recognition of the validity and the value of differing expressions of the Christian faith (provided, I would add, that such an expression is faithful to the deposit of faith that has been transmitted to us).  Cooperation between differing faith communities should be encouraged.

At the same time, I think that each faith tradition brings with it certain strengths, certain benefits from which other Christians could learn.

After all, when we get to heaven, it is certain that denominational walls will disappear. There, we will be one in the Father’s presence, and in the Son’s presence, too.

It’d be a good idea for us – all of us – to practice our oneness this side of Paradise. It’s worth remembering that the world around us is watching (at least to some degree), so when we value our oneness in Christ, then we are able to fold into this connection others who, in their turn, will also serve as connections to the Lord with still others who will come to faith.

AMEN.

---

[1]   John devotes five chapters to relating to us things that happened during the Last Supper, devoting chapters thirteen through seventeen to those events.

[2]   Previously, I’ve mentioned Raymond Brown’s book “The Churches the Apostles Left Behind” as a source to understand the varieties of worship, theological emphases, and organization that marked the very early Church. Brown’s conclusion, based on a careful reading of the New Testament scriptures, was that there were no less than seven different models of what the Church looked like in its formative years.