Today we move into the last few weeks of the church year. The time between the Feast of All Saints and the beginning of Advent on November 30 used to be known as Kingdomtide. It’s a time when we hear about what we might think of as “last things,” especially events like Armageddon and the end of the world. 

When Paul wrote his letters to various churches he was convinced, and convinced them, too, that Christ was going to return to earth during his own lifetime. He was so convincing in his first letter to the church in Thessalonika that many of them sold everything and spent their time waiting for the event to happen. He also had to address the question regarding what happened to those who died before Christ returns. 

Weeks, months, even years go by without the return of Christ as they expected it. After some time elapsed, food and shelter became a bit of an issue. So Paul wrote a second letter. We hear some of that today, as Paul admonishes those who can work to get back to it and stop depending on others to feed and shelter them. 

What presents itself as an immediate satisfaction of personal needs might obscure the crisis of faith that comes about when what we expect from our teachings doesn’t come to fruition. Was Paul wrong? Has Christ forgotten about us? Has God abandoned us? Are we believing in vain? 

The Hebrew prophets faced the same questions. Well, not about Paul, because he wasn’t born yet. The same goes for the incarnation of Christ. But the others, well, maybe. 

Haggai was a post-exilic prophet, whose words date from about 520 BCE. He urges Judah to get back to work on rebuilding the Temple destroyed by the Babylonian army some sixty years earlier. They’re worried about getting the work done, including replacing all the furnishings stolen by Nebuchadnezzar’s people. 

“I’ll shake the heavens and the earth,” Haggai quotes God as saying, “and everything you need will pour in from all the nations.” These days it seems to require the same action just to get parts to fix a boiler. 

I wonder if part of Judah’s difficulty lies in the possibility that, like today’s Gaza, there is so much evidence of death and destruction that life seems unimaginable except for haunting memories. But memories are in the past. To imagine a future life, we need help. We need God. Not the magician god so many seem to believe in. You know, the one who waves a hand from a distance and suddenly makes it all better. We need the God of all that will come to be with us as we try to discern where to begin. 

We need courage and more than a little humility to ask not if God has abandoned us, but when or where we might have abandoned God. The Sadducees who challenge  Today we move into the last few weeks of the church year. The time between the Feast of All Saints and the beginning of Advent on November 30 used to be known as Kingdomtide. It’s a time when we hear about what we might think of as “last things,” especially events like Armageddon and the end of the world. 

When Paul wrote his letters to various churches he was convinced, and convinced them, too, that Christ was going to return to earth during his own lifetime. He was so convincing in his first letter to the church in Thessalonika that many of them sold everything and spent their time waiting for the event to happen. He also had to address the question regarding what happened to those who died before Christ returns. 

Weeks, months, even years go by without the return of Christ as they expected it. After some time elapsed, food and shelter became a bit of an issue. So Paul wrote a second letter. We hear some of that today, as Paul admonishes those who can work to get back to it and stop depending on others to feed and shelter them. 

What presents itself as an immediate satisfaction of personal needs might obscure the crisis of faith that comes about when what we expect from our teachings doesn’t come to fruition. Was Paul wrong? Has Christ forgotten about us? Has God abandoned us? Are we believing in vain? 

The Hebrew prophets faced the same questions. Well, not about Paul, because he wasn’t born yet. The same goes for the incarnation of Christ. But the others, well, maybe. 

Haggai was a post-exilic prophet, whose words date from about 520 BCE. He urges Judah to get back to work on rebuilding the Temple destroyed by the Babylonian army some sixty years earlier. They’re worried about getting the work done, including replacing all the furnishings stolen by Nebuchadnezzar’s people. 

“I’ll shake the heavens and the earth,” Haggai quotes God as saying, “and everything you need will pour in from all the nations.” These days it seems to require the same action just to get parts to fix a boiler. 

I wonder if part of Judah’s difficulty lies in the possibility that, like today’s Gaza, there is so much evidence of death and destruction that life seems unimaginable except for haunting memories. But memories are in the past. To imagine a future life, we need help. We need God. Not the magician god so many seem to believe in. You know, the one who waves a hand from a distance and suddenly makes it all better. We need the God of all that will come to be with us as we try to discern where to begin. 

We need courage and more than a little humility to ask not if God has abandoned us, but when or where we might have abandoned God. The Sadducees who challenge Jesus with an absurd question about the law seem to have done just that—abandoned God—by forgetting important aspects of their own teaching. The same holds true for Judah in 520 BCE.

“You are not the first,” the prophetic voice declares. Others have been here before. Learn from them, remember their faith, and their faithfulness. Go back, wander in the wilderness of forgotten history and find your path to the future lies in their footsteps.

Remember where you felt most alive, and let that life lead you as a light through the darkness. Don’t waste your time whining about how difficult it is, fearing that what has already been done will happen again. Come together, joining life with each other—and with God—to accomplish more than anyone but God can imagine.

The Temple was rebuilt, although it faced destruction again in 70 CE at the hands of the Roman army. Paul’s hearers got back to work, and the Sadducees will somehow have to reckon with this new thing we call resurrection.

We need to remember that the path we walk began long before our remembered personal histories—sometimes personal hysterias—we refer to when we say, “we used to do it this way.” That’s the second of at least two sets of “Seven Last Words of the Church.” The first is “we’ve never done it that way before.” Some things are best left in the rubble.

In our walk and witness of death and destruction around us, on our city streets, in ways of life, on the evening (or 24 hour) news, it’s difficult to see the light of life. That is, until we rediscover that the light comes from within, a sign of the Spirit’s presence in the world that is our calling to share.

Remember that the promise of abundant life was made under the threat of oppression and death. Jesus offered it while being challenged by religious authorities at every turn, and under the threat of punishment by political authorities threatened by his promise, one that their self-proclaimed gods could not fulfill. Jesus’ offer stands today, as it did the first time, as an alternative to the ways of power and greed, even while acknowledging those powers will do all they can to oppose him.

God has given the answer, one we celebrate every Spring. It’s both answer and promise as we empty ourselves of fear and need to control, and let the light of God’s love shine brightly from within us wherever we find ourselves.

Who knows what might happen? God does. The rest of us are left to be surprised as Christ returns again and again in so many ways. It’s how we, and the world anxiously waiting, are blessed by his presence.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you.” These are not easy words to hear for those who have lost everything and have been forced to move far away from their home. They want more of what we heard at the end of last Sunday’s Psalm: 

O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy the one who pays you back for what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones, and dashes them against the rock! 

That is where unredeemed anger leads us—desiring revenge, even destruction upon those whom we judge have wronged us, or even pose a possible threat against us. It is where wars begin. But wars have their foundation in an event long before there were enough folks around to fight them. 

For that, we have to go back to near the beginning. 

Did you know that you can commit what can be called “original sin” by standing upright, fully clothed and buttoned up? The sin—separation from God—occurred in the garden and continues now when human beings attempt to be God, usually by replacing any idea of who God is with ourselves. 

Perhaps that’s so easily done because we have changed our ideas of who God is and the signs of God’s presence with us. 
Genesis tells us humankind is created “in God’s image,” male and female, not just the first male. If we could take a picture of God it would require the gathering together of every human being who ever lived, who now lives, and who will ever live in one composite photo. For starters. 

And yet, when we dare to gaze into the eyes of a child of God who looks and sounds differently from us, we often find ourselves looking into the presence of our Creator. 

I have some friends who have learned how to write icons. Not paint or draw, but write icons. Tradition holds that when we look into the eyes of an icon, we look into eternity itself. Consider the possibility, then, that when we look into the eyes of another human being, all of us descendants of those first ones created “in God’s image,” then we gaze into living icons, catching a glimpse of the eternal captured in human form. 

The prophets tell us that the Babylonian exile, along with the utter destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, came about when God’s people forgot that the image of their creator is found in the poor and needy, the widow and the orphan, the sick and destitute. In fact, God’s image is more readily found in those folks than in our own mirrors when we tout ourselves as being blessed because of the size of our homes and 401K accounts.

A huge battle of the Protestant Reformation came about over whether the words of Holy Scripture should be translated into the various languages of the people. In our tradition, a large printed version of the Bible must be placed in the public space of the parish so that anyone who wants to can read it at will. Arguments were made over whether the average person could rightly interpret the meaning of the words long before there was much consideration of how they might be taught to read them in the first place. At that time, many of the clergy were also illiterate and could not read the words, either.

When we read these words for ourselves, we might question whether what we’ve always heard they mean is actually true. I think this is one big reason why church membership and attendance has fallen away over the past several decades. Many of the loudest voices claiming belief in God use sections of scripture to support their own biases and opinions while ignoring the less convenient writings.

This became more evident when The Reverend Jerry Falwell sold the soul of the evangelical movement to Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential campaign. Both wanted to stand close to power. One result has been that the evangelical movement has become less about faith and more about control of political life. Many have heard its voice and found it wanting of any notion of the work and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth they read in scripture. So, they ask, why would we want to be part of that?

The evidence supporting those who question is found in the lack of faith that God is a living presence in our own time, and that we must enact our own will through legislation and force, if necessary. After all, it is up to us, many say, to make our way into heaven by living pure, and often isolated lives so that we arrive unstained at the pearly gates.

Such teaching doesn’t have room for healing the sick, feeding the poor, seeing the foreigner as our neighbor. It also doesn’t have room for the emptying of ourselves in service, or of Christ and the cross. So, it doesn’t seem to have room for a God who choses that as the way of saving the world.

When we ignore the cross, make sure we remain filled with whatever substitute for faith we might find, and continue to pass by on the other side, we find it all too easy to ignore the welfare of the city where God has sent us. To justify ourselves, we point at them and call them hellscapes, war zones, crime-infested pools of squalor. And those things might come true because they are what we have created by our isolation from them. We accept systems of inequality and injustice, so long as they serve us well.

When faith gets replaced by fear or becomes self-serving, we find ourselves in exile from God. Faith is what gives us courage to answer last week’s Psalm with the words “we must sing our songs by the rivers of a foreign land. We must play our harps ​and let others hear our tunes. We must care for those who would threaten us, for if we don’t, how will they learn of the ‘peace that passes all understanding?’”

To take a hint from this morning’s Gospel, seeking the welfare of the city means being the place where those seeking healing find a place to go, just as the Samaritan leper who didn’t have a priest who could verify his healing, instead of the place where only those who belong can enter. Jesus never had tenure or a letter of agreement with the Temple. He became the Temple, and passes on the position to his disciples. He doesn't ask us to build structures where we all too often hide from the city. Instead he calls us to be walking, talking, serving temples of flesh and blood and Spirit who reveal the image of their Creator and Redeemer as they seek the welfare of those around them.

Seek the welfare of the city where God has placed us. Dare to look into its eyes, seeking a glimpse of the eternal living within. If you can’t see it, then help it find its way to the Creator of life itself, where the image of a New Jerusalem (a word translated as “City of Peace,” or, better yet, “Rain of Peace”) begins to take shape all around us. That’s “rain” as in precipitation falling from the sky. We’ll talk about that in relation to baptism another time. Remember that it is in the welfare of the city where we find ourselves that we find our own well-being. That’s just as true today as it was for Jeremiah more than 2,500 years ago.
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THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ Let me begin by saying that if anyone wants to try out Jesus’ example of even the smallest amount of faith, the Property Committee has a dogwood tree they’d like to show you. 

Today’s Gospel lesson has a parallel in Matthew; there it comes in response to the disciples’ inability to heal a man’s epileptic son. That event comes earlier in Luke, and today the disciples’ request seems to come out of the blue. It follows a teaching about forgiveness, something to be given when asked for, no matter how many times the sin is repeated. 

It’s no wonder the disciples want more faith. It’s gonna take a lot of faith to forgive the same sin as much as seven times in one day! But it needs more than faith. It needs living faithfully, which means how we live in relationship to others and not just something we think we possess. 

You might be wondering what today’s lessons have to do with Francis of Assisi, whom we commemorate this day one day after his appointed feast day. If we could we might choose the lessons for that day and remember Francis’ story about giving up all worldly possessions and walking naked out on the street to the embarrassment of his bishop. 

Given that option, perhaps it’s best we dive more deeply into faithfulness. 

Francis, or at least stories about him, can help us with that. 

It was on his feast day several years ago that I got a reminder about faithfulness. I made a quick trip to pick up a few groceries before a scheduled pet blessing service. I pulled into my driveway, and as I got my items from the car, a still, small voice spoke to me. It said, “meow.” 

I turned and saw a gray tabby cat sitting at the end of my driveway. I later learned that the neighbors had named him “Bob.” Bob repeated his request as I walked up the steps and into my house. I had nothing suitable for a cat to eat, so I tore a slice of bread into small pieces, placed it on a plate, and took it out to the front porch. 

I set it down, whereupon it was sniffed and rejected. Bob looked up at me and again said, “meow.” This one had a slight inflection which I interpreted to say “cat does not live by bread alone." I had to get back to the appointed service, but returned to that grocery store and bought a bag of cat food. 

Some of you may have noticed how quickly word about certain parish events spreads from mouth to ear. Cats invented that process, and they’re still better at it than any of us try to be. To make a long story somewhat shorter, I probably was known as the strange cat guy on my block, with a small herd of them appearing each evening for sustenance. They did learn to space themselves out, for if a disagreement among them necessitated my intervention, food and water disappeared. My experience as a social worker providing in-home behavioral management to families has seen many interpretations.

All that, and more happened despite my lease forbidding pets inside or outside. And, I'm allergic to cats.

The point of all this is that I believe we are given companions of the four-legged, two-winged, swimming and slithering varieties to remind us of our capacity for faithful relationships. Sometimes the faith is ours, sometimes it is the pet’s.

The same goes for other human beings in our relationships. Sometimes they remind us of our need to be faithful and the wealth of real life found in it. Sometimes they help us remember that, yes, we are taught to forgive as often as it takes. And sometimes we might need to just say that it’s difficult to forgive because the repeated sin endangers our ability to remain in faithful relationship together. That helps us understand that faithfulness often means speaking the truth in love, and not being an enabler.

And maybe God puts us all together so that we remember the act of faithful forgiveness that gives us life as God’s children. So, as we offer blessings, we remember that we are at first blessed. That is, after all, part of our purpose. Blessed to be a blessing. It’s not ours to possess, and cannot live unless it is shared.
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You see, our faith is increased by living faithfully. With each other, with creation, with God. That's how faith works, and how it grows.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

 Let me start by making a confession. I really don’t like talking about money. It caused a rift in a part of my family that had some, while the rest of us just got by from paycheck to paycheck. We weren’t what some call “dirt poor” in Appalachia, but we were pretty close to it. 

So when it comes to these latter sections of the Gospels at about the same time that we’re talking about next year’s budget and pledging support, I really just want to go away and join Thoreau in the woods, or maybe just sit in a garden somewhere until it’s all over. 

But here we are. Letters and pledge cards are showing up in our mailboxes, whether from our parish or other community organizations seeking support. My last parish had issues with pledge campaigns that always fell short, so I invited the recently retired vice-president of development, his successor and his assistant from the University of Michigan to talk to our stewardship committee. They were all active members of our parish. 

To my surprise, the current leader of that group said he thought I should go into fund raising. That pretty much fits my definition of a personal hell, especially if you add pumpkin spice lattes as the only beverage available for consumption. I replied that I didn’t like talking about money. But his point was that I get excited about what money makes possible. 

That brings me to ministry. And that, in turn, brings me to something I read many years ago. When we talk only about numbers, whether it be budgets or statistics, we’re engaging in the realm of death. Ministry, on the other hand, is about life. Ministry is about engaging the eternal life of God in our own lives and into the world around us. 

The Apostle Paul seems to be making that point when he tells his young protégé Timothy that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Not, mind you, as we’ve often heard, that money is the root of all evil. It’s about what we truly love, not necessarily about commerce. 
I mean, let’s face it. Churches in the early middle ages didn’t concern themselves with money, except when it came to buildings and their maintenance. They had altar rails not because folks needed someplace to kneel and support themselves while receiving communion. The rails existed to keep the chickens and lambs and other animals from walking onto the altar area and leaving their own donations on the floor during the consecration. Now we’re more concerned about wine spots and candle wax on the fair linen. But the animals, eggs and milk, and harvested produce were presented as an offering so that the clergy had something to eat during the coming week.

Throughout scripture we find some teaching about how we use the wealth given to us. And it’s consistent. Those who have much have much required of them. Those who have an abundance have it so that they can give something to the poor who don’t have enough.
Granted, scripture doesn’t talk about the necessity of mopping floors, paying electric bills, elevator maintenance, heating and air conditioning. It also doesn’t talk much about salaries, except that those who travel to spread the Gospel should accept what is given to them because workers deserve their pay. I don’t know about Delaware, but my home state of West Virginia says in its constitution that there are three professions—medicine, the law, and ministry. But, sadly, it doesn’t say that they should be paid equally, even though each at one time required not a master’s degree, but a professional degree beyond undergraduate work. Remember I said I don’t like to talk about money.

I’ve been asking folks here to begin talking about ministry, even while some need to be alerting us to the fiscal aspects of our communal life. In other words, I want to hear about how the money you give works in ways that spread the good news of Jesus Christ. I want you to begin talking about what electricity, heat, air conditioning, a roof that doesn’t leak, an elevator, clean floors and empty trash cans, and all the other stuff we spend your offerings on does to tell those around us about the God who calls the dead to new life. I want to hear your experiences of the risen Christ who calls you by name and shows up when you least expect it.

I want to hear how you help those who might also bear the name “Lazarus” even while you make those who own the gates where Lazarus sits aware that not just the crumbs, but the bounty on their tables also is a gift from God, and by sharing it with those who don’t have enough, they give it not just to Lazarus, but back to God.

I want to hear your ideas and experiences of how you’ve dared to name the darkness around you so that you might find the courage to carry the light of Christ into it. I want to not just hear how you’ve helped the many Lazaruses of our time, but also how you’ve somehow steered the gatekeepers and gate owners to God’s idea of real justice.

What I don’t want to hear is that you’ve thrown a little money around so that someone else can do the work for you. That is, unless someone else can do so much more with your supporting resources combined with others and you want to make sure you’re helping in some way. After all, none of us can solve all the problems of the world by ourselves. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to reveal the overwhelming vision of the God who is known as “I am what I will be.”

There is a scene in the movie Auntie Mame where the central character, who is very well off, proclaims, "life is a banquet, and most poor [souls] are starving to death."

​I substitute souls for what she really says. While the debate around the quote focuses on existential issues and embracing the wholeness of life's experiences, it's important that we look closely at all the souls implicated in that quote. It's not as obvious as we might like it to be.

Hunger has many dimensions. We must do what we can to satisfy the immediate need for others. But we are also called to name what is profuse in our own culture--the hunger for meaning, for companionship, and yes, for love that gives life and not just a passing thrill.
Don’t give up on the rich man until it’s too late. Walk with Lazarus to his table and invite him to join in the feast God has prepared for all of us by sharing the bounty spread so richly before us all. Greed teaches us that it’s okay to fill our stomachs while we starve our souls. Let your witness reveal just who is really starving to death.

​I substitute souls for what she really says. While the debate around the quote focuses on existential issues and embracing the wholeness of life's experiences, it's important that we look closely at all the souls implicated in that quote. It's not as obvious as we might like it to be.

Hunger has many dimensions. We must do what we can to satisfy the immediate need for others. But we are also called to name what is profuse in our own culture--the hunger for meaning, for companionship, and yes, for love that gives life and not just a passing thrill.
​
Don’t give up on the rich man until it’s too late. Walk with Lazarus to his table and invite him to join in the feast God has prepared for all of us by sharing the bounty spread so richly before us all. Greed teaches us that it’s okay to fill our stomachs while we starve our souls. Let your witness reveal just who is really starving to death.



 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

At first glance today’s Gospel lesson leads to a fairly simple conclusion. Actually, that holds for second, third, and probably more glances. The conclusion? Today would have been a great day to be on vacation. 

As Luke tells it, Jesus gives us a confusing and difficult parable. While some have said that Jesus told parables so that he could get out of town before the authorities realized he was talking about them, today’s words continue to have us ask, “what in the world are you talking about?” 

There’s a dishonest manager whose actions catch up with him. He takes a few final steps to make sure he still has some friends around when he needs them by directing them to reduce their debt to his master. Then, his master praises him, even though his own future assets might be diminished. 

To top it off, Jesus commends the manager's actions as though to sign-off on how the world works. He calls the manager “shrewd” while urging his own followers to imitate the manager’s wisdom. It calls to mind words of a former mentor, who cynically said after considering current events, “never let ethics get in the way of expediency.” 

There is no doubt that the manager in today’s parable is a trickster. But then, that same word has been used to describe Jacob, whom God renamed Israel. The manager might be more aptly described as a scoundrel. If that’s the case, why would Jesus hold him up as an example worth emulating? 

Sure, the possibility exists that the amounts written off at the manager’s suggestion were his commission, and he’s letting go of what he would have gotten now for what he hopes might be a better payoff in the future when he runs out of money. But that doesn’t answer the larger question posed in the parable. 

Is Jesus asking us to be scoundrels? If so, then we need to dig a little deeper to discover the wealth, and the identity of the master implied in this parable. 

Okay, we’re in church, so it’s not a big leap to imagine God as the intended master. It’s also not a stretch to consider that all that lives around us belongs to God. We call how we use and care for all that “stewardship,” especially when referring to tangible things. 
But what about intangible things like love, forgiveness, and grace? 

These three things are, after all, the property of our Master, given to us to manage not as we see fit, but in the name of our God. They exist as part of God’s own being, and are made known by how we distribute, or manage them in the name of the risen Christ. The identity that we claim, that claims us, Child of God, follower of Jesus Christ, Christian, is rightfully ours not just because we try to love, struggle to forgive, and often act gracefully.

These identifiers are ours because when we love, forgive, and are graceful, God is present with us. This goes beyond the ongoing work of redemption, far surpasses our understanding of justification. It is the ongoing process of incarnation itself, that act of God that we celebrate late in December, but is not limited to one day each year and certainly not confined to the body of a newborn infant.

These gifts of love, forgiveness and grace are given to us not as commission for work well done, and not so that we have something to offer back in repayment. They are ours to give away to others that in some ways might seem at least scandalous to some, making us, in some way, scoundrels in their eyes.

But it is not their eyes that matter. It is the heart of God, in whose name we continue the work of managing the distribution of the wealth of love, grace, and forgiveness offered to all. Some may see the gift as an easy way out—you know, go straight to eternity, and show your get out of hell free card. That’s known as cheap grace, something Bonhoeffer readers will understand.

We all stand in need of these things at some point, something I learned one afternoon while attending a Eucharist at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. I had wandered into the place after walking all the way up Powell Street, unaware that those who knew how things worked jumped on the trolley at the bottom of the hill. I looked to my left as I stopped to catch my breath, and saw the cathedral a couple of blocks away.

I saw a sign stating the time for the daily Eucharist, and spent a bit of time and money in the gift shop as I waited for it to begin. There were about a hundred of us there on a sunny Thursday in a side chapel a bit larger than this place. I listened and participated in the liturgy. Then a voice said to me as I rose to approach the altar for communion, "Here we are, the perfumed and the unwashed, all in need of grace and forgiveness."

It's when we recognize our own need for those things that we find we have what we need to offer them to others. And it is in the recognition of our need, and the offering to meet the needs of others, that we discover and remember that we are loved by the same Love that calls all life into being and joins us in it in some cosmic community that promises to last forever.
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So, yes, perhaps it is that we are called to be scoundrels—scoundrels of love, scoundrels of forgiveness, scoundrels of grace. Because when we manage them well, and offer them as freely as we receive them, we find ourselves in a greater company of faithful scoundrels in what will be our eternal home.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

So, anyone else hearing the song “I’ve got friends in low places” after hearing that Gospel lesson? How about now? Earworms can be bothersome, but fun to make happen. 

It was not a choice for our Sequence Hymn for a few reasons. One is that it would violate a few copyright laws. Another is that the remaining lyrics express a very different perspective from Christian service. Then there’s the point that I only pretended to like country music for awhile because it irritated my brother when I asked for it on the car radio. 

George Whitfield, a preacher at the beginning of the Great Awakening, pulled no punches during his sermons, which could go on for hours at a time. A printer by the name of Benjamin Franklin in a town a bit north of here heard him, and offered to print Whitfield’s sermons so folks could buy them to read again. 

Whitfield was born in Gloucester, England early in the 18th century. He was one of those “methodists” whose fiery oratory caused him to be banned from respectable pulpits such as those in any Anglican parish. But he had his supporters, one of whom was known as Lady Huntington. Her peers were not amused. 

The Duchess of Buckingham wrote: “I thank your Ladyship for the information concerning these preachers. Their doctrines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect toward their superiors in that they are perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common lechers that crawl on the earth. This is highly offensive and insulting and I cannot but wonder that your Ladyship should relish any sentiment so much at variance with high rank and good breeding.” Imagine those words spoken by Dame Edith Evans in her role as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. The good version, not the one made in 2002. 
Just who did he think he was, this Mr. Whitfield, by including the poor and hungry and homeless as those worthy of not only hearing, but benefitting from the Gospel? 

He probably thought he was a follower of another man criticized for doing the same thing. 

That man, Jesus of Nazareth, wasn’t alone. Even a cursory glance at the Hebrew prophets makes it difficult to avoid mention of neglecting the poor, the widows and orphans, the hungry and destitute, as reasons leading to the destruction of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the exile of Judah to Babylon. Ezekiel goes back even further, naming those same reasons for the destruction of Sodom just as a man named Abraham was making his journey from his homeland of Ur. That place, by the way, is the same region of that later exile. More about calling God’s people to leave the comfort to which they’ve become accustomed at another time.

Unless, of course, we take today’s Gospel to heart and refuse to leave unchallenged the practices all around us of neglecting the poor and hungry, of harsh treatment of those who look and sound different from us.

It seems that we, like Abraham, are still wandering from the comfort of an accepted and acceptable status quo to the land that we will be shown once we get there. We cling tightly to what is familiar, even accepting biases handed down to us. We work hard to preserve what already is, as if it alone is the kingdom of God we spend a few Sundays each year talking about before we’re distracted by a baby that, according to perceived mythology, never even needed a diaper change. Nevermind that “no crying he makes” mythology itself is more like diaper contents than true belief.

Garth Brooks might not have sung lyrics we would find appropriate for us this morning. But we might let our minds wander back a couple thousand years and somehow hear the soon-to-be incarnate Christ singing the title words as justification for becoming human and joining us in our earthly wanderings to the places we are yet to be shown.

We might hear those words again when we consider the meaning of a sentence in our baptismal creed, “he descended to hell.” It doesn’t get any lower than that. You’ll remember also hearing that early teaching tells us he pulled his friends out of that place as he returned.

So, while I’m at it, I might as well quote another familiar song title. “Love lift us up where we belong.” Anyone remember feeling years younger yet?

While the earworms battle for space inside our skulls, consider that God’s bias is toward those who find themselves helpless, who are told they are unworthy, who have nowhere else to turn, and God’s redeeming love not only joins them in their dark, lost places, but offers transformation through the transcendent presence of God to light their way forward. After all, it is in the dark, dank cellars of life where the Light of the World can shine most brightly.

So if we don’t have friends in low places, we might lose sight of that love that lifts us up to where we all belong as children of God. And to get back to my own preferred genre, let the double fugue of those subjects and their countersubjects be a most interesting counterpoint of the life we hope to find in and spreading from this place God has led us to, at least for the moment. And while you're at it, give thanks to Almighty God for continuing to have friends in low places. You know, like us.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ It has been said that we see things not as they are, but as we are. That’s often true. Often we look again and see something we did not see before. Artists are good at causing this to happen. If you want a more contemporary cultural example, there are those puzzles that appeared at the end of Mad Magazine. 

I wonder what would happen if we could or even tried to see things, including ourselves, the way God sees them? 

I like to think that I’m getting a “God’s eye view” when flying long distances at a high altitude. I know I’m a bit closer to some birds than some consider God’s location to be. But since I’m unlikely to get frequent flyer miles on the International Space Station, I’ll take what I can get. 

The role of a biblical prophet is to help us see ourselves as God sees us. That can be very different from what we want to see in the mirror. But this is a first step in any form of ministry, whether it be with those gathered around us this day or at any place else we might go. 

It’s a first step because we must see ourselves as God sees us before we are able to see others as God sees them. Our self-serving, perhaps self-inflating images may actually impede ministry, especially to others. If you’ve been involved in any twelve-step program, you’ll recognize that. Step one is admitting our helplessness, while step two is admitting that we need someone, or something, more powerful to lead us—to minister to us--in order to heal, however that occurs. 

One of the first things we learn in Clinical Pastoral Education, or the training of chaplains, is that we need to leave at the threshold those parts of ourselves that get in the way of doing real ministry. To use spiritual terms found in scripture, we must empty ourselves to make room for the Holy Spirit to fill us with God’s redemptive presence. Leave the ego and its assumptions outside. They’ll wait for a more opportune time. 

The words we’ve heard over the past few weeks from Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, and today, Jeremiah, serve to alert Israel to how God sees them in their current way of life. They refuse, except for perhaps only a few, to see themselves in the same way, and by doing so separate themselves from God, despite warnings and admonitions. God ultimately accepts that separation. At least for a generation or so. 

There may be a time in each of our lives when we’ve found we need to separate ourselves from those who refuse God’s image of themselves and others. I found that reluctance, or the lack of alternatives to be an impediment to healing while doing social work with addicts and victims of abuse. Many entered voluntary or forced treatment, only to be returned to the same relationships where the addiction or abuse flourished because while treatment may have been provided, no work was done with former associates or to provide a different, safer place to begin a new life.

Like I said, the former way was waiting for a more opportune time. If that phrase sounds familiar, read the accounts of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Then remember who it is doing the waiting.

So let’s ponder in our hearts how God might truly see us, assuming that God hasn’t already decided to look elsewhere for the image God looks for in the presence of the Holy Spirit among us. That is the possibility we must always consider, and not take for granted that attendance and offerings, an occasional good deed, or even receiving the sacraments ensures that image.

One way I’ve found helpful is to ask the question, “Where is God in this?” Whether it’s a planned event or a looming decision, I think it’s important to keep that in mind. That reminds me of a cartoon I once saw on the administrator’s desk in a parish where a friend once worked. The congregation is gathered and the priest presents a proposal with the words, “It has the support of the Vestry, the Bishop, the Standing Committee and we believe it to be God’s will. Any questions?”

I would want to say, “Really?”

Ministry is not our way of repaying God for our salvation. Rather, the evidence of our salvation is our participation in the ministry God gives us to do, which is to proclaim—and be—the presence of the divine in a human form that others not only understand, but find the desire to join.

What does that mean for us? Given recent news we’ve shared with the parish regarding finances, it’s important that we have these discussions. How we do that will be an ongoing process. In the meantime, invite through prayer and reflection (an important word in many ways) the true image of God, and how God views the images we present. Then, pray for the answer to my previous question. Where is God in all this?
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I’m looking forward to hearing your answers.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

From time-to-time it’s important to step back and reflect on some important questions. I’ll begin by stating them, then try to provide some possible answers. 

The first one was asked by Jesus. “What are you looking for?” This is how the NRSV translates John 1:38. The question is somewhat related to another. “Why are we here?” But the answer to each can be very different from the other. I’ll take them in reverse order. 
When it comes to gathering for worship, our answer might be “this is what we do at this time on Sunday morning, and this is where we do it.” Another might be, “I’m a member here, so here I am.” We might even claim (or assume) certain rights and privileges in our answer, or point to some responsibilities that come along with physical presence. 

When Jesus asks the question, those near him look for the promised Messiah, and they follow John the Baptist’s teaching. In particular, these folks ask where Jesus is staying. Perhaps they want to learn more, but a mind influenced by current events might wonder if there’s an ulterior motive or a more nefarious reason. 

Jesus answers them by saying “come and see.” He expects them to commit to spending some time in conversation and witness so they can discern for themselves whether he is the one they seek. That is going to take more than an hour one morning each week, assuming they stick around at all. 

A second question seems to rise from our culture. We operate in a works righteousness economy, where you get paid for the work you do. At least, that’s what it is on the surface. Discrepancies occur (still) that relate to differences of gender, race, and other factors not really related to ability. The question is also more personal. “What do I get out of it?” 

For several decades I’ve received materials and comments that focus on what’s referred to as a “worship experience.” I heard it once in an ecumenical clergy gathering, and said that I always thought that it was God who was supposed to have a good worship experience. One older priest nodded, while most of the others didn’t seem to have considered my point. Another time I was accused of “not making us feel good about ourselves.” I don’t remember if it was that Advent Sunday where John calls the Pharisees a brood of vipers, but there are occasional reminders of that verse. And sometimes there are those who seem to follow the wine of communion with the whine of disappointment. 


My third question is, I believe, most important, yet is one that doesn’t get a lot of discussion. “What have we got?” 

​I’m not talking about buildings and programs or financial resources. I’m taking my cue from today’s Epistle lesson, which follows up on those from the last two Sundays. It’s helpful to take some time and read from the beginning of chapter eleven of Hebrews through today’s chapter. To answer this question, we also have to admit what we don’t have.

When Israel stood before Mt. Sinai, the earth trembled, the heavens roared, and smoke rose from the mountain. It must have felt like getting an up close and personal view of an active volcano just before it erupts. They were rightly afraid of getting closer, and they begged Moses to intercede for them so they might continue living. The rest of Hebrew scripture is a chronicle and commentary on how that relationship worked out once the mountain was in the rearview mirror.

With the incarnation of Jesus, things take a different turn. Now, instead of a law book and threats of punishment, God decides to draw us in by becoming one of us. Instead of a long slog toward a city in which God dwells, that spiritual place of our lives—God’s dwelling—is given to us, to be an intimate part of who we are. It not only becomes where we live, it in itself becomes incarnate as the source of our very lives.

You see, what we have is a God who loves us enough to share life with us. We have a God who is content to sit back and watch us enjoy the abundance of life that reminds us of God’s presence surrounding us. We also have a God who shows up and often speaks to us in times of trouble and chaos, sometimes whispering “peace, be still,” and sometimes asking “what are you doing here?”

We have a God whom we can approach with our worries and pains and scars, and who can reach out and fill us with new life despite the frailties of our self-offerings. And, we have a God who often does many of these things, and much more, through those who approach in fear and trembling, but have found the very things we seek becoming true for themselves.

And so, to answer a previous question, we are here to somehow embody this transcendent God who chooses to be one of us so that we might finally approach the mercy and grace that reaches out to us. We are here to faithfully do what God has done by reaching out to offer that same mercy and grace that transcends fear of oppression or rejection, because the blood shed on the cross flows through the veins and arteries of our life together as God’s people.
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In this way, our lives join together to proclaim the only words that have given life to the church for two millennia. Alleluia. Christ is risen. All the rest is commentary. Keep in mind—an individual, or a parish, that fears its own death might have difficulty proclaiming those words. But like the first time they were heard, God gives us strength to do more than just say them. God gives us the strength, God’s own presence, found in their truth so we might live them.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

  Today’s readings give us a smorgasbord of choices that range from my having to say “don’t make any plans before Tuesday” and “Jesus, I really wish you hadn’t said that.” 

Then I remember something I learned in elementary math class. Reduce to the lowest common denominator. Or, for a more adult process, take all the ingredients and distill the mix until you get the pure essence. It could be pleasing, it could be bitter, depending on the mix and the botanicals added from our own experiences. 

At the heart of today’s lessons is something beyond any one of us, something that can be found in the larger mix of us, yet remains outside of us. That something is truth. As we were told a quarter of a century ago, truth is not always pleasing, nor is it always convenient.
But instead of calling it what it is, we deny truth by attacking the messenger, choosing instead to offer self-serving “alternative facts” to serve up something more pleasing to our own ears. Satan never had it so easy. 

Take a look at an event in the life of Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham. One night, while trying to sleep before meeting the brother he deceived many years before, he had a dream. In that dream, he wrestled with a heavenly being, a struggle that went on and on through the night. Finally, that being delivered a blow that caused Jacob’s hip socket to displace, and in pain he gave up. 

He was given a new name after that. Israel. It means “strives with God.” Then he limped his way to his family reunion with Esau, and, despite his fears, survived to tell the tale. After all, once you’ve wrestled with God, what’s a bit of sibling rivalry? 

It’s that name, Israel, that matters more. It carries the same promise grandpa Abe heard. Your descendants will be like the stars. I will be your God, and you will be my people. Not a country, but a people. 

By the time of Isaiah, those people, collectively under leadership they willingly followed, forgot that promise. So, God decided to let them face the consequences of their choices. God’s protection against invading enemies will be removed. Their country, so to speak, will face destruction, the people, the result. 

Just to get back to the inconvenient part, read today’s first lesson again, substituting “United States of America” for Israel and Judah. I really like reading and studying the prophets. I hate having to be one. Doing that might feel like hearing the words “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled” from the one we refer to as The Prince of Peace. 

Fire does many things. It provides warmth, it changes items we cook with it. It purifies, eliminating bacteria, viruses, even minerals in metal production. And, it destroys by reducing many forms of matter to ash.

The prophet Malachi tells of this. God speaks through the prophet to say, “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.

But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have [a people] who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years.

“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty. [Mal. 3:1-5, NIV]

Jesus is that messenger, the one who comes as a refiner. His life embodies the teaching and will of God, naming the impurities of our time. The Word made Flesh stands as the fire of truth sent to cleanse us from all that separates us from true worship of our Creator. The division he mentions comes when those accepting Truth, capitol T, find themselves opposed by those holding to alternative facts, capitol L for lies. I’ll admit that holding to the Truth is sometimes like Jacob wrestling with God, and can be a pain you know where.

But like those in the roll call that is the eleventh chapter of the letter to the Hebrews, it is in Truth that we find not just life, but the author of life, who finds great delight in sharing that life, everlasting life, with us as a people, not only as individuals. Like those named, the fulness of that life is found together, including with those who come after us.
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As John’s Gospel tells us, it is in the One who described himself as “the Way, the Truth, the Life” that we find all those things for ourselves and for each other. In holding faithfully, truthfully to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, we might find ourselves needing a bit of purification from time to time. Better now than later.