Reformation Sunday, Year C (2025)

Jeremiah 31: 31–34 / Psalm 46 / Romans 3: 19-28 / John 7: 31–36

This is the written version of the sermon given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, October 26, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.

 

“THE CHURCH AS GOD’S TOOL, GOD’S AGENT IN THE WORLD”

(Homily text: Romans 3: 19-28)

Ever think about how important tools are to living our lives, day in and day out?

For example, if a knife can’t cut, it’s usefulness is impaired. If a hammer’s handle is broken or cracked, it’d be best to get it fixed before trying to use it. If a yard stick is broken, it is useless for trying to measure something.

Without tools, we’d struggle to get things done. Try driving a nail without a hammer, and it doesn’t work very well. Try cutting something without a sharp and useful knife, and the result will be a the same.

OK, perhaps you get the idea.

Now, if we think about it, the Church is God’s tool, God’s agent in the world. It is one way[1] God chooses to make His Name known in the world, to give glory to God’s Name, to bear witness not only to our wayward human behaviors and inclinations, but also to God’s great mercy and love. The Church is an effective tool when it faithfully does these things. Put another way, the Church’s purpose is to connect God to people and people to God, and to nurture that relationship.

But in the time of the Renaissance, about 500 years ago, the Church was a broken tool.

Many people in Europe saw the lack of the Church’s usefulness to the ordinary person. (But, by contrast, the clergy and the monks were doing pretty well.) Some voices dared to raise their concerns, and many paid a heavy price for doing so. (Look up the account of Jan Huss’ witness and sacrifice, to cite but one example. Huss lived about 100 years before the Reformation took place.)

The Church, in that day and time, didn’t bear witness to God. It didn’t share the message that God is a holy, righteous and judging God, but also a loving, merciful and forgiving God. The Church’s message was one of harshness, absent any mention of God’s love.

The Church was in love with worldly power, prestige and wealth. It took the message that God would sit as judge of all humankind and turned that message into a money-making scheme, selling Indulgences in order to liberate sinful people from the horrors of Purgatory and Hell. The resulting inflow of money went to Rome in order to build St. Peter’s Basilica. (One account of the influx of money from European countries was that, in England, about one-quarter to one-third of the Gross Domestic Product was going to Rome each year!)

The Church in that time did little to educate people about the basics of the Christian faith. After all, their worship was in Latin, a language that, even in that day, few people understood.

What a sad state of affairs! What a testimony to the truth that, left to their own devices, human beings can make a royal mess out of things.

Into this mess, some courageous voices emerged. Martin Luther was one such voice. On October 31, 1517, he posted a series of things he wanted to talk about on the church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Posting such discussions points wasn’t at all unusual, for many in the seminary there routinely did the same. It was what Luther wanted to talk about that proved to be provocative.

Luther wanted to talk about God’s grace, not only about God’s judgment. We know that Luther struggled with his own sense of sinfulness and unrighteousness before God. But all of the Church’s remedies for that situation, in his day and time, didn’t offer any relief or sense that God had forgiven his shortcomings. Luther saw in Holy Scripture (the Bible) no basis for the selling of Indulgences, realizing that such an understanding had no basis at all in God’s truth.

So, we know that Luther’s understandings were greatly helped by reading and studying St. Paul’s Letter to the early churches in Rome. There – and perhaps in our reading, appointed for today in chapter three - Luther came to understand that there was nothing he could do on his own initiative to receive God’s forgiveness and God’s mercy and love. St. Paul’s explanation offered the reality and the truth that God’s forgiveness and mercy is God’s gift, pure and simple. It is God’s free gift, received by faith.

So, Luther came to see this formula: Scripture alone, Grace alone, Faith alone.

Thus began God’s plan to fix a broken Church, an impaired witness to God’s nature, completely understood.

The tenets of the Reformation were these:

1.  That the Church’s worship ought to be in a language that people could understand;

2. That the lay folk in the Church were the most important part of the Church, not the least important part; and

3. That people ought to be able read the Holy Scriptures for themselves.

There’s much more we could say about all these things. Perhaps, as we look back on the events that Luther (and others) set in motion, we could reflect on the values that these reformers maintained. In many ways, we continue to try to understand and to incorporate those Reformation values in the Church today.

For the continuing reality is that, in this age and in every age, the Church stands in need of fixing, of reform, in order that it might be God’s effective tool in the world, bearing witness to God’s nature and devoted to sharing the Good News (Gospel) of what a difference knowing God through Christ, personally and deeply, makes in people’s lives.

AMEN.

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[1]   To be sure, the Church isn’t the only way God can work in the world. And when the Church fails to faithfully carry out its mission and mandate from God, God can work around the Church. 

Pentecost 19, Year C (2025)

Genesis 32: 22–31 / Psalm 121 / II Timothy 3:14 – 4:5 / Luke 18: 1–8

 

This is the written version of the homily given at St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on Saturday, October 18, 2025, and given at Flohr’s ELCA Church in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 19, 2025, by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor at Flohr's.

 

“FAITH AND PRAYER: OUR TOOLS FOR EFFECTIVE CHRISTIAN LIVING”

(Homily text: Luke 18: 1–8)

We begin with some humor…

It is Sunday morning, and the pastor is scurrying around, getting ready for the service. He notices (with some interest) that Charlie is sitting in the back pew. The pastor is a bit baffled, but interested in Charlie’s presence, because Charlie isn’t a regular attendee at church, and Charlie doesn’t seem to be especially spiritual.

However, the pastor notices that Charlie seems to be engaged in intense prayer. Indeed, the pastor is correct. Charlie is engaged in intense prayer. If the pastor could hear Charlie’s prayer, he would hear this: “O God, I really need to win the lottery this week. The grand prize is really big. I’m counting on you to come through for me. Thank you, God. Amen”.

Charlie goes through the service, shakes hands with the pastor on his way out the door (something that I call “running the clergy gauntlet”), and makes his way through the week.

But there is no winning lottery ticket for Charlie.

The next Sunday, Charlie is present again, and just like the previous Sunday, he is there quite a bit before service time. He is, again, engaged in intense prayer, the same prayer as last week.

But there is no winning lottery ticket for Charlie that week, either.

On the third Sunday, Charlie is again in the same spot, and he begins his prayer, using the same words he had used the previous two Sundays. But he gets only a few words out before God’s voice thunders from the rafters. God says, “Charlie, work with me here, buy a ticket, why don’t you?”

For this, the Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost, we have before us Jesus’ Parable of the Unjust Judge. (This is material that Luke, alone among the Gospel writers, passes along to us.)

To be sure we don’t miss what the meaning and the application of the parable is, Luke introduces it by telling us that the Lord told this parable so that His followers would continue to pray and not to lose heart. (Perhaps this parable was an important encouragement to those early Christians who heard and read Luke’s account, for by the time of Luke’s writing, the early Church was facing hard times and difficult persecutions.)

We would do well to look at a few details of the parable.

The first thing we ought to notice is found in verse 5. Most translations use some sort of a phrase denoting that the widow who seeks justice from this unjust judge is going to “wear out” the judge by her constant pestering. But the Greek conveys a different sense. Literally, it says that the widow is going to “beat him [the judge] up and below the eye”. Put into an English idiom, we would say that the widow is threatening to give the judge a black eye, meaning that the judge will lose his reputation by continuing to refuse to hear the widow and to give her justice.

The next thing that we should notice is that the Lord is comparing the judge, who is dishonest and unjust, to God, the ultimate judge who is – by contrast – completely just and always willing to hear the prayers of those who seek after Him. Essentially, the Lord is making use of a rhetorical device known as “Lesser-to-Greater”. Oftentimes, when this device is used, it is identified by the phrase “how much more”. Here, we do not have the phrase “how much more”, but the Lord still makes the comparison, as He says that “will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night?”. Then, a little later, He adds, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”.

Jesus’ comparison of the unjust and dishonest judge with God (that “Lesser-to-Greater” stuff we looked at a moment ago) brings with it some implications for us, as the Lord’s disciples.

For one thing, there is no need to pester God in order to receive an answer. God is, Holy Scripture tells us, always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and is more willing to give us what is best for us than what we can ask or imagine.

For another, since God is the ultimate source of all goodness, all love, and all generosity, we would do well to present our needs, our concerns and our desires to Him, doing so on a regular and ongoing basis, but without pestering. This is (I think) a middle ground between the pestering that the widow in our parable had to do to receive justice, and the opposite extreme which is characterized by complete disregard for God’s ability to assist us in times of need.

Since God is concerned for our welfare, God’s answer to our prayers will always be best for us, even if the answer God provides is either, “yes”, “no”, “not now” or “I have a better idea”.

One more thought is worthy of mention and consideration: In the joke with which we began, Charlie’s problem was that he wanted all the benefits of winning the lottery. But Charlie hadn’t done his part to make that possible. (This point is a wonderful commentary on the ways we human beings often think and behave, I think!). In today’s parable, Jesus makes clear that having faith is essential when we approach God with our praise, our thanks, and our desires. Faith is much like Charlie’s lottery ticket: Faith connects us to the possibility of receiving God’s response. Faith “gets us in the game”, if you like. Having faith is our part in the God-and-humankind partnership.

Holy Scripture encourages us to “pray without ceasing”. (I Thessalonians 5:17). As we continue to pray, it’s possible that we might be the ones who change, who come to see God’s will more clearly.

AMEN. 

Pentecost 18, Year C (2025)

II Kings 5: 1–3, 7–15c / Psalm 111 / II Timothy 2: 8–15 / Luke 17: 11–19

This is the written version of the homily intended for Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on October 12, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.

 

“THE FOUR TESTS”

(Homily text: II Kings 5: 1–3, 7–15c)

(Introductory note:  We considered the appointed Gospel text for this Sunday three weeks ago, when we made use of the 1958 Service Book & Hymnal as part of our parish’s 240th anniversary celebration. Luke 17: 11–19 was the appointed Gospel in that liturgical resource. I thought it might be a good idea, therefore, to consider our Old Testament lesson, appointed for today, since we considered the Gospel text on that occasion.)

The Old Testament lesson before us this morning suggests (to this preacher, anyway) a different approach than we might otherwise take. With this idea in mind, let’s examine the text to see its major points. Then, let’s ask ourselves if we might find ourselves in a need or situation that is similar in some way to the needs we discover there.

The account of the commander of the Syrian army, Naaman, who is afflicted with some sort of a skin condition[1] brings with it some background that isn’t totally clear. What is clear is that the Syrians and the Northern Kingdom of Israel (situated in Samaria[2]) had fought some sort of a military engagement.  Apparently, by the time of Naaman’s visit to the king of the Northern Kingdom, there was some sort of a truce, or a cessation of hostilities, that allowed him to make a journey to Samaria. At least there is some ability for the Syrian king to communicate with the king of the Northern Kingdom, as is evidenced by the letter which accompanied Naaman.

As we look at the text, we discover the following:

1. Recognition of a need which requires a response:  Naaman’s condition is bad enough that he (apparently) seeks some resolution. Indirectly, we notice that Naaman’s king becomes aware of this need, and generates a letter to the king of the Northern Kingdom.

2. Test # 1 - Godly wisdom from an unlikely source: The text tells us that a Samaritan girl who had been captured during a raid by the Syrians, and who had become a servant to Naaman’s wife, is the one who suggests that there is a prophet in Israel who can address Naaman’s condition. Though this is a highly unusual source to be heeded – given the structure of society in that time – Naaman’s wife[3] makes the girls’ advice know to Naaman.

3. Test # 2 – The prophet Elisha’s response: Notice that Naaman expects Elisha to come out of his house, wave his hand over the affected area, and heal him. That Elisha doesn’t come out to greet Naaman is – by the standards of the day – an affront to Naaman’s importance. Elisha’s recipe for Naaman’s healing is delivered indirectly by a messenger. Naaman’s concept of what should happen to address his condition differs from what God’s agent, the prophet Elisha, prescribes.

4. Test # 3 – Wash in the Jordan River:  Naaman’s reaction to Elisha’s directions shows his disdain for the Jordan River’s reputation (was it a muddy stream? We don’t know). Naaman seems to think that the two rivers in his native Damascus are far better places to wash than the Jordan could ever be.

5. Test # 4 – Descend into the Jordan River seven times:  If we put ourselves into the situation that Naaman found himself in, we might well have wondered why Elisha’s direction was that he was to immerse himself in the Jordan River seven times. Wouldn’t a time or two be enough? That would be a normal and an expected reaction. It’s possible that this is part of the test that was put before Naaman. It’s also worth noting that it is another person of lower rank and stature who has to administer some common sense to Naaman, telling him that what Elisha had prescribed isn’t a difficult thing to do. (This is, it seems, a theme in this text, that it will often be the lowest and the least important persons who will be agents of wisdom, common sense, and godly insight.)

With these observations in mind, let’s apply the points we’ve discovered to our own faith walk and to the needs we have.

First of all, we should acknowledge that we have needs that require some response. Oftentimes, we bring those needs before God, as we should. Sometimes, however, we forget to offer thanks to God for His goodness (always a critical component of our prayer life, and one that is often forgotten…read on into today’s text to see that Naaman returns to Elisha to offer his appreciation). We might add that we are oftentimes much more aware of our needs than we are to put those needs before God, or to acknowledge the wisdom of God’s ability to address our needs.

Then, it will be helpful for us to remember that godly wisdom can come from the most unexpected places, persons and sources. We see this in this morning’s text, as it is the servant girl from Samaria who tells Naaman’s wife that there is a prophet in Israel who can deal with Naaman’s problem. Likewise, it is one of Naaman’s servants who asks if what Elisha had told him to do was a very difficult thing, he would have done it. But, the servant says, what Elisha had directed was an easy matter to follow.

Sometimes, what God has in mind doesn’t make sense, from a purely human point-of-view. Naaman turns up his nose at the idea of going into the waters of the Jordan River. For us, at times what God tells us to do might seem – on the surface – like a nonsensical idea. (I think this aspect of what Elisha told Naaman to do is related to the unlikely sources of godly wisdom we see in the text … none of it – on the surface – makes much sense.)

Finally, what God has in mind will – at times – take time, patience, follow-through and obedience. In the end, Naaman sets aside his reservations and his perspectives, heeding the voices of people in his life who are among the least likely ones he would be willing to listen to, to follow exactly the prescription that was set before him.

We close then, with this prayer: Enable us, Lord God, to listen for your voice and your will, even whin that voice and that will come in unexpected ways and from unusual sources. Assist us to see the needs we experience from your godly perspective and not from our own. Then, in your mercy, assist us with your grace to faithfully hear and follow your leading.

AMEN.

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[1]    It will be helpful for us to remember than when Holy Scripture talks about leprosy, the term is generally applied to any number of skin maladies, and not just to our contemporary understanding of the term, which applies – today – to Hansen’s Disease. We do not know exactly what the problem was that afflicted Naaman, but it was significant enough to warrant a trip to Samaria to seek relief.

[2]   It will be helpful to remember that the Northern Kingdom of Israel separated from the Southern Kingdom following the death of King Solomon. At the time of Naaman’s visit, sometime in the 8th century BC, the Samaritans were still of the same racial and ethnic stock as the people of the Southern Kingdom. Once the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom in the year 722 BC, much of the population was deported elsewhere (these would make up the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel). The Assyrians then replaced the deported peoples with peoples of differing ethnic and racial makeup. The descendants of these people are the Samaritans we encounter in the Gospels.

[3]   We have to assume that Naaman’s wife told him what the girl had said, and that Naaman heeded this advice the girl had provided. The text doesn’t specifically tell us that that was the sequence of events.

 

Pentecost 17, Year C (2025)

Habakkuk 1: 1–4, 2: 1-4 / Psalm 37: 1-9 / II Timothy 1: 1–14 / Luke 17: 5–10

This is the written version of the homily that was given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, October 5, 2025, by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor.

 

“THE MYSTERY – AND THE POWER – OF FAITH”

(Homily texts: Habakkuk 1: 1–4, 2: 1–4 & Luke 17: 5-10)

 

Everyday life is full of mystery and mysteries.

Consider, for example, a rose. A beautiful rose is a marvelous creation. It often has a delightful and wonderful smell. But how can a rose take the nutrients from the ground or the soil in which it is planted create such a thing from the raw materials it has available? Ultimately, the way it is able to do that is a mystery.

Or, consider that a flashlight can shine brightly. How can a battery, made up of whatever components that it is made from, produce electricity? Or, how can a bulb create a beam of light? To some extent, we are able to say it’s because of thus-and-so. But beyond that, how the flashlight works, given the raw materials it is constructed from, is a mystery.

Yet another example would be the power that a hammer has to drive a nail. Try doing that without one, and it doesn’t work very well. Or, for that matter, consider the power that a lever can generate to do things. To some extent, we could say that the laws of physics can provide an answer. But beyond that, how this happens is, to some extent, a mystery.

Whether we think about it or not, mystery surrounds us on every side. But, though we don’t fully understand how these mysterious things work, we do know they work. Perhaps that’s the more important part of dealing with mysteries. That lesson also applies to the matter of having faith in God.

If these examples have served to shed some light on the reality of mystery in our day-in-and-day-out lives, then I think we might be ready to explore the mystery of faith, faith in God’s ability to change things, and to do marvelous things.

For whatever reason, having faith in God’s power, God’s love and God’s ultimate and final victory, is an essential part of the workings of God (akin to what we said above). Even, we can confidently say, when things seem to be going from bad to worse, as the Old Testament prophet Habukkuk laments in our first reading this morning, having faith in God’s ability to fix things that need fixing is essential.

The Lord Jesus, in this morning’s Gospel text, tells us that, if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, then great things can happen, great things as great as the uplifting of a mulberry tree.

Is the Lord speaking in exaggerated speech, known as “hyperbole”?

Perhaps.

But consider how many times we read, in the accounts of Jesus’ encounters with all sorts of people, the role that faith played in whatever changes took place in those very blessed people who had a face-to-face encounter with the Lord. How often do we hear Jesus say, “Go your way, your faith has made you well”?

And sometimes, the Lord tests people deliberately to see the depth and the outworkings of their faith. Consider the account of the ten lepers (a text we will hear next Sunday), as the lepers come and ask for healing…Jesus tells them to go and show themselves to the priest, as a testimony of their healing. But, notice that none of the ten is healed as they begin their journey to the priest. They are healed only once the journey has begun. There is the test of faith for those ten men. We could cite other examples, as well.

How about you and me?

Do we have faith? Or, do we think that the way things currently are is the way things will be going forward?

Do we have faith to see that God’s power is often put into play when God’s people have faith, and show their faith? For whatever mysterious reason(s), our part in the God-and-humankind equation is to have faith, and to act on that faith. God’s part is often activated when God’s people have faith, and show it.

Do we have confidence to see that God’s way, God’s will and God’s plan is better than anything we can imagine or ask for? St. Paul affirms this in chapter eight of his wonderful letter to the Romans, saying, “All things work together for good for those who are called according to God’s purpose”.

We pray then, that the Lord will increase our faith, that the Lord will overcome our doubts and our reservations about the efficacy and the necessity of having faith.

AMEN.