THE REVEREND E. WAYNE ROLLINS Today’s lessons echo some we hear throughout the church year. The first lesson
from The Acts of the Apostles recounts a story we often hear on Easter Sunday. The second lesson is similar to some we hear during Advent, and then possibly at a funeral. And the Gospel contains an omitted section of the Maundy Thursday gospel. All three have a common thread. In fact, it’s the thread that runs through all of Holy Scripture. That thread is faithfulness. Peter is called before church leaders in Jerusalem. It’s sort of like being summoned to the bishop’s office. Or, perhaps more generally understood, to the principal’s office or those dreaded words some of us heard as a child. “Just wait until your father gets home!” Sorry about those flashbacks. Peter is charged with answering an accusation that sometimes begins with either “we’ve never done it that way before” or “we used to do it this way.” The charge? He baptized Gentiles. He didn’t take time to circumcise the males, or put them all through catechism. What he did was witness the presence of the Holy Spirit in those Gentiles before he even baptized them, and decided he’d better catch up to what God was already doing. Peter had just gone through a couple of change of life issues himself. First, he stayed with a guy named Simon, whose profession was a tanner. Simon handled the bodies and skins of dead animals, coming into contact with blood. That made him unclean. That also made it possible that guests in his house were unclean. Then, Peter fell asleep before dinner, but he was hungry. So he dreamed about food. Not roast lamb with couscous and a side of potatoes and tabouli. He dreamed about scorpions and snakes and other creepy crawly things he wouldn’t find on the local kosher buffet or salad bar. “What I have declared clean you shall not declare unclean,” says the Voice of God to Peter. So, rather than being faithful to his traditional teaching, Peter is changed, converted, if you will, into faithfulness to this new thing God is already doing. John, in exile on the island of Patmos, has a vision of the new Holy City of Jerusalem. We have a more contemporary vision of that city before us. Both draw upon traditional understandings and familiar structures. But there’s something different about it all, beginning with one basic understanding. The city John sees is something God gives, not something made by human hands or planned by contemporary architects and artists. 1The city that God will give is based on a foundation laid by Jesus himself when he met his closest friends for supper just before he was arrested. Today’s Gospel picks up just after Judas leaves the room, albeit with a full stomach and clean feet. Jesus gives the mandatum novum, the new commandment. He goes so far as to tell his followers that they will be known by how they live this commandment. Not about how they followed a set of rules, or demanded that others do the same. “Love one another as I have loved you. By this they will know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another.” I happen to believe that he was still thinking about Judas when he said that. Now, before we turn love into just another law that we have to follow, let’s consider it instead as the foundation for who we are and all that we do. We have stories about how others have done that in preparing for us to follow, and not just for themselves. The image in front of us grew from a desire springing from John’s words about God being the light of the new Jerusalem, “a golden light, [with] clouds that would symbolize the joyous feeling of life over the Holy City.” Our faithfulness, our real faithfulness, is to the God who is Alpha and Omega, who was and is and is to come, who said to Moses “I AM WHAT I WILL BE.” Future tense. We are called to be faithful to that God who isn’t finished creating us yet. Our faithfulness is, therefore, to who we will be and to where we are going. Having said that, I can imagine some conversations might yet begin with “we used to . . .” or “we never did it that way . . . .” Sometimes those sentences can give us something on which we can build. But, too often, they tend to serve as a means to control or stifle the Holy Spirit, and we find ourselves standing at another buffet of scorpions and snakes. I don’t really care if they do taste like chicken. And I’m hoping there isn’t time to prepare a special paté for coffee hour. How do you imagine the new Jerusalem? What would Wilmington, Delaware look like if we lived that idea, based in love for all creation in the same way God loves it and all who live in it? I ask these questions because the new Jerusalem is to be our way of life as followers of the crucified and risen Christ. The new Jerusalem is found where Jesus’ followers bear his cross of love, and help shoulder that burden when others find it too heavy to carry for themselves. This isn’t a yellow brick road, and we don’t need to concern ourselves with the false prophets behind the curtain. We follow the true and living Lamb of God, and we carry the light of that life into the darkness of our own time. We don’t grow weary of waiting for the new Jerusalem and try to build it ourselves through judgement and legislation. We live the life of the new Jerusalem as the godly alternative to those attempts. That is who we are, and we are known because the Holy Spirit speaks to us and works through us to reveal the light of God’s love to all who live in the despair of darkness. God’s gift is the New Jerusalem, where God’s people are the embodiment of Love itself, for the healing and consolation of those seeking the new world that God creates as the place for our future life in God’s eternal presence.
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THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS The Fourth Sunday of Easter is designated Good Shepherd Sunday. All three
years of the lectionary cycle contain Psalm 23, and the Gospel lesson is always a portion of the tenth chapter of John, where Jesus says “I am the good shepherd.” The day is rich in symbols, and we have enough hymn settings of the Psalm to overfill our bulletins. And, if you want, you can search our own windows for shepherd images and symbols. Just not now. Scripture contains the word shepherd almost from the beginning. It is the task of Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son, the one of technicolor dreamcoat fame. It’s also the role of another son, the first victim of sibling rivalry. Abel is a “keeper of herds,” which implies sheep and other animals. And, of course, there’s David, Jesse’s youngest son, a shepherd boy anointed to be king over Israel when the Saul project reminded Israel to be careful what they prayed for. The ritual sacrifices from the time of Abraham onward often used a lamb as the offering. The Passover sacrifice instructs the slaughter of a lamb, whether from the goats or the sheep. Lambs are known to be some of the most passive animals in domestic use, unless, as I’ve been told, that lamb grows up to be a ram, an animal that seems to take its name quite seriously. I’ve often wondered why a lamb, seemingly so innocent and docile, is the appointed animal for so many ritual sacrifices. Of course, cattle, oxen, and birds are offered, too, along with grain and incense. But when it comes to the most important sacrifice, that of Passover, it’s a lamb. No substitutes, only the instruction to share with a neighbor if that family cannot afford a lamb. After the death of David’s son, Solomon, and even with Solomon himself, sibling rivalry tended to overshadow the role of shepherd into one of individual power. Solomon was nearly kept from the throne by a jealous half-brother, and then his own sons’ rivalry resulted into dividing the kingdom into two parts—the north called Israel and the south, Judah. That division never healed, in a large part because rulers concentrated more on holding power than being shepherds of the people. As we know, that tendency continues to lead many into temptation. Shepherds are seen as expendable, their defenses weak. They wander from place to place as newer, fresher pasture is needed. They have only the shepherd’s staff, crooked at one end to help pull a wandering sheep back to the herd, and blunt on the other to push away an attacking wolf. Other than that, they are powerless, at least at first sight. Jesus says the sheep know their shepherd, and the shepherd knows the sheep. There is strength in numbers, especially when those numbers gather as one with their shepherd in the lead. And the good shepherd is the one who cares at least as much for the sheep as for his or her own status or power. I say at least, knowing that when Jesus claims the title as Good Shepherd, he is ready to sacrifice all for the benefit of the sheep in his charge. And, somehow, the sheep know and trust that to be true, even if they don’t yet realize that could be their own path. The image before us today is of the sacrificial Lamb of God, slain for the salvation and redemption of the world. He is the one appointed as the true, the Good Shepherd for God’s people, the one who holds power, wisdom, and might in part because he knows what it’s like to be the lamb. He is the one who enters our suffering by suffering himself, so that we might be joined to him not just in that, but in his life lived forever in the presence of God. So, the images before us today, of lamb, of shepherd, of victim and victor, are one in the same in that they are the very image of the one true God, the one in whom we profess our faith and place our trust. He is the one who invites us into his life, even in death, to be transformed, converted, if you will, into the transcendent immediate presence of this same Lamb who promised to be with us always. The Good Shepherd opens the door for sheep of all nations, of all types, to enter into the fold of eternal life. He promises to guide us into all truth by caring for us, even by becoming one of us in ways that invite us to care for others in the same way he cares for us. So, like the Lamb of God, we are invited to be both sheep and shepherds, sometimes all at once, sometimes only one at a time. It’s when we find we are only one of those that the risen Christ just might appear in the form of the one we are not, reminding us of who we are called to be by virtue of our baptism into his death and resurrection. The image of the innocent docile lamb has one more function. It is a way we often don’t see God, yet it is the image of God presented to us in the cross. The innocent, defenseless one goes willingly to the sacrifice, because that’s what it takes to do the work of salvation for all that is created by the same one in the power of creation. The Good Shepherd, the very image of our Creator, uses both weakness and power to give us life. As the image of both shepherd and sheep in our own time, we are called to do the same—not only for ourselves, which is idolatry, but for those who know only weakness and the oppression of those who seek only power. The Good Shepherd stands before us as the Lamb that was slain. The life of Christ’s church is known in how we translate that image into life-giving, life-nurturing truth for all who seek it. THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS We have about as many reasons for being here today as we have individuals
present in the room. Some may have concerns that compel attendance, some may want to see friends. Some may be here because it’s what they do on Sunday mornings. And, yes, some of us are paid to be here. Whatever the reason, we may be surprised to find that everything is suddenly changed. One way is that the risen Christ might just show up. Another is that we could find ourselves transported into the presence of the living God, surrounded by hosts of heavenly beings and saints gone before us. Both of those surprises are given to us in today’s lessons. Saul, whose change of life included a change of name, is suddenly confronted by the risen Christ as he makes his way to Damascus to persecute believers. Peter, out doing his day job (at night) is surprised by the appearance of a man wanting a few fish for breakfast. And John, on Patmos, finds that his morning worship transports him way beyond his bulletin and prayer book. Turns out that it wasn’t going to be your typical Sunday morning. We enter these doors most likely expecting to find what we’ve always found. We sit where we usually sit, a holdover from the days when parishes were supported by those who could afford to buy a pew for their family to sit in that year, while the poor stood around in the back and in the balcony. We expect to see familiar faces, sing familiar hymns, hear familiar words in scripture and prayer. What if all that suddenly changed? There’s a scene in an old episode of The Simpsons where the pastor finds he’s had all he can take and launches into a tirade in the almost empty church. Bart and a couple of others witness this, and as the camera pans to a stained glass window, Bart says, “It’s a good thing Jesus wasn’t here to see that.” But what would we do if Jesus did show up? What would our response be if we suddenly found ourselves, in one way or another, in the actual, physical presence of the risen Christ? We try to recreate moments we read about in scripture. We quote Jesus’ words when we pray, we say and sing the words that even Isaiah hears sung in God’s presence. But we take them for granted, our rote performance little more than an attempt to veil what we really desire, even if we don’t realize that. Maybe that’s because the cost of our desire is so high we don’t want to pay it. I’m not talking about offerings of money, or even talent or labor. John tells us what it costs, shown to him in his vision. Instead of a conquering hero or great warrior, he sees a lamb, a slaughtered lamb. He sees those martyred for their faith, begging “how long until justice is served,” even though justice for them is being in the presence of God. Like us, they seem to think of justice in terms of revenge, which doesn’t seem be God’s own definition of the term. The one found worthy is the one who has been sacrificed. The one who is worthy is the one who gave up everything coming to him. He was murdered, buried in a tomb meant for another. But he stands at the throne of Almighty God, raised from the dead, worthy to receive cries of “Holy, holy, holy.” Way back in the good old days, when the Eucharist was to be celebrated, the priest would ask those who considered themselves worthy of receiving communion to come and kneel at the altar rail. If enough came forward, the prayers of confession and to consecrate the bread and wine continued and those kneeling at the rail would receive Holy Communion. If there weren’t at least five kneeling there, the priest would dismiss the congregation and all would leave without receiving communion. I wonder what would happen if we approached this table today in the same way, but for a different reason. What if we came forward with some trepidation not because we may not be worthy, because none of us really are, but because, with fear and trembling, we might just find ourselves standing in the very real presence of Almighty God? In this Easter Season, and really for all time, we are called to bear witness to the Lamb that was slain, who stands as both victim and victor in the presence of our Creator. We can only do that by emptying ourselves of all that stands between us and God, so that we might be filled with the light that shone on Saul, that presence that said, “Cast your net on the other side.” Only when we empty ourselves of our personal wants and demands can we be filled with the presence of the risen Christ. Then, our lives become a greeting to all the world wherever we go. “Alleluia. Christ is risen.” That’s why Jesus calls us here. THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS The Easter season moves us into seven weeks of hearing from the Acts of the
Apostles and many familiar post-resurrection stories from the Gospels. The Second Sunday of Easter always draws our attention to the upper room appearance of Jesus to the remaining apostles. It’s two appearances, one week apart. The second is about Thomas, who was absent at the first one. The Epistle lessons alternate years. Two of the three-year cycle feature readings from the Pastoral Epistles, particularly the letters of Peter and of John. The third year gives us selected verses from the last book of Christian scripture, the Revelation of John of Patmos. That is this year. The Revelation to John is perhaps the most well-known and least understood book of the Bible, especially in fundamentalist circles. It was regularly featured in Sunday School classes in the church where I was raised. It is so popular among them that a whole series of shows on what’s called The History Channel portray graphic interpretations of the book’s apocalyptic visions. That’s why I now refer to that network as the hysteria channel. John is in exile on the island of Patmos. He writes letters to seven different churches, or congregations, in the part of Asia now known as western Turkey. It seems they follow some of the same paths that caused Paul to write to Corinth, Colossus, Galatia, and others. They try to be these new people of God called The Church, but like the first people of God, known as Israel, they have quite a bit of difficulty working out what that means. Much of what John writes is interpreted as threatening to the seven churches. The consequences are dramatic, culminating in a cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. John tells us that good will win, mostly because in the resurrection of Jesus, good has already won. What happens then depends on which side they, and by extension, we choose for ourselves. All that we’ll have to leave for another time. Since the impetus for John’s writing is his vision of the consequences of the way of life of each congregation, I’m led to wonder what John would write to the church, if there was just one congregation, of Wilmington. It’s tempting to list some of the perceived missteps and errors evident in the present-day church. One of those is the fact that we are so divided, be it by style of worship, or governance, or the fact that we just don’t get along. But to avoid all that, and find our way home before Tuesday, let’s look at some of the basics. 1Remember where you came from. The first lesson of the Easter Vigil reminds us of the story of creation, ending with God forming humankind from dust, and breathing life into that creation. Indeed, Ash Wednesday does the same thing, reminding us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. This past week I repeated those words as we commended one of our members back to God’s safe keeping. But we treat creation, the earth, as little more than a resource waiting to be mined for our own benefit and wealth. We neglect what I believe is our purpose—to be caretakers formed in the image of the Creator and giver of all life—placed here to continue God’s work of caring for the very thing that supports the life we live. We ignore our relationship to the earth, as if those words of Genesis were a lie, and we are not a part of the very ground we plunder. To change that, we have to remember who we are. We are, simply put, God’s gardeners, with all life finding its roots and sustaining nourishment from God’s garden. Between microplastics and forever chemicals, we find it more important, more lucrative, to ignore the possibility that we fill the food we eat—mass produced to decrease its cost while increasing its convenience—with substances that very well could inhibit life rather than sustain and nurture it. We might as well eat the packaging it comes in while we’re at it, because what still appears to be food probably contains quite a lot of the ingredients of the package. All this comes as evidence that we’ve forgotten the end of John’s Revelation. We don’t remember where we’re going, or at least hope we might go. If you read past the cosmic battle, the many-eyed beasts, and, yes, the dragons, you find that we’re basically back where we started. We’re back in the garden, or at least a newer version of it, where God dwells with God’s people as Genesis tells us, walking in the garden in the cool of the evening. A French anthropologist and priest, Teilhard de Chardin, got into trouble with church authorities by writing and teaching that all life was evolving. He wasn’t speaking in a Darwinian sense, despite all the evidence of competition for what is called the Darwin Awards. Those are designated for outstanding acts of no attempt whatsoever to be the fittest survivor. Teilhard teaches that all life is evolving back to its Creator, that all our struggles are with forces that try to deny God’s original blessing. “It is good.” “It is very good.” That is a competition which John describes, one that has been ongoing since Adam and Eve found the first recipe for apple pie. Remember that you are dust. Dust brought to life by the Spirit of God, washed by the waters of baptism into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. We find our heart’s desire in our journey back to our Creator, the source of our very life, who calls us to nourish all life—plant, animal, and human—without judging it, but instead acknowledging God’s first blessing. 2That is the beginning of finding the grace and peace John uses to greet his readers. When we continue our own journey in both grace and peace, looking for and longing for and offering grace and peace, all else comes in a distant second in the competition for our own lives. It is then that we find our journey is on the right road. THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS “What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.” So says Juliet, thinking of Romeo, who, if he were called anything other than a Montague would be her accepted love. Or, if she were anyone other than those called Capulet, would find the freedom she seeks. We could go on about star-crossed lovers, but this is not literature class. Nor is this an exercise in poetry, no matter how familiar or based in such rich history. Because the names today mean so much more than two troubled lovers seeking a life-long love. Yet it is love that calls a name today. It is love that sees life through tears of grief, finds hope beyond despair. It’s a familiar name. Miriam. Mary. As familiar as it is to her, we can imagine her surprise to hear it this morning. When the risen Christ speaks that name, he upends everything. upended by his rising from the grave. That is why we’re all here today. Oh, sure death is God raised Jesus from the dead, because it’s the final thing God must do to upend the way the world has been working up until now. So it’s time to start showing what that new life is going to be in ways the old world may not want to accept. God’s new world, this post-resurrection world, is going to be different in ways we’re still working out some two thousand years later. Let’s start with the obvious. One of the qualifications to be an apostle is that the person had to know Jesus before his crucifixion, then be a witness to his life after the resurrection. In three of the Gospels, those very first witnesses were women. And even in Mark, it is the women who discover the empty tomb, although they are so afraid they tell no one what they found. Yet, for most of those twenty centuries since that day, we continued to repeat the error of those first disciples who treated the witnesses of women to whom Christ revealed himself as “an idle tale.” But Christ is not limited to our own ideas about how things are supposed to work. Oh, and if anyone wants to discuss the final verse of the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas in the context of today’s so-called culture wars, have at it. There’s that name. Mary. Or, in the language of first-century Palestine, Miriam. Jesus speaks it to a beloved friend, calling her to recognize not just an old friend, but an amazing new life that is offered to her. Everything she thought she knew about the world is changed, and she, by answering when her name is called, becomes part of this new world. We live in a culture, in a world that judges value by the accumulation of things. We see houses as something other than homes, but instead as an investment just waiting 1for an upgrade to something bigger and better. The same seems to go for once venerable institutions. We treat them, and those within them, as objects to be consumed. Those who paid attention in biology class know how that always ends up. When the risen Christ calls our name, it is a call to life as we never thought possible. It’s a call to see everything differently, an upending word that is our very identity to be a part of that which is eternal. It is a call to transcend the deathly ways of our consumer-based culture, transforming them into life-giving, life-sharing ways that live in a culture of redemption, where the life of another—any other, with no difference in regard to gender, ethnicity, or other ways we divide ourselves—has as much value as our own, and each is of value to the very Creator of life itself who chooses to give life back to the dead. And if you think that upends life as we know it, just wait until you find that life that lives beyond the grave, where the risen Christ calls you by name and you find that name translated as “Beloved.” I’d love to hear what the Bard of Avon says about that, just for starters. But first, I’d like to hear how you describe it. I imagine there’s a whole world of potential witnesses to your own new life. So go ahead. Surprise them. THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS So much of what we do this morning is familiar. We get up very early, gather in
the pre-dawn light, make a fire, and chant our way into our usual gathering place. We hear familiar, even comfortable stories. We might try to imagine ourselves in those stories—creation, the flood, leaving what felt like home even in its oppression. We might even allow our minds to wander into a cemetery and imagine a few bones starting to rattle, then seeing all those buried there standing up, ready to live again. If you were too young to remember, the words we speak, the water we feel might remind us that we were once baptized. Notice that I said that in past tense. We were baptized. In all this familiarity, and with several years of Easter stories in our personal histories, perhaps there’s still something that needs to change. After all, neither our clocks nor our calendars operate in reverse mode, as if we’re destined to relive all our yesterdays. If you try that, you could be the very definition of job security to any number of therapists. Paul doesn’t speak in past tense. “Do you not know that you are baptized into Christ’s death?” he asks. Are, not were. Baptism is not an event we mark each year, like a birthday or anniversary. I doubt that most of us would remember the exact date if we are called upon to reveal it. I would have to go search for the certificate, even though it happened when I was a teenager. I remember the place very well. It’s the date that eludes me. Maybe that’s appropriate. Because our baptism isn’t a one-time thing. It’s for life, it’s about life, it is our way of life. It’s not about getting branded in some spiritual or mystical way so that when the time comes we get a free pass into heaven, and even get to use the priority boarding line. We are baptized into Jesus’ death and raised from the waters of baptism to live new lives, not just in the hereafter, but in the here and now. That means that our lives, our resources, and God’s desire for the flourishing of life for everyone are all interconnected, with our focus on how God equips us for ministry to those whom Jesus invited into his own life—the poor, the outcast, and, yes, those called “sinners.” That identity was for those who lived outside the fellowship of God’s people, and whose lives serve as indicators, symptoms, if you will, of that separation from the creator and giver of life. When he reminds the church in Rome that they are baptized, Paul calls them back to their true selves, to live as the light of Christ in a world that celebrates darkness and ungodliness. It’s not just about those things we might expect as symptoms. It’s about the willful neglect of the needy, the poor, the outcast, the prisoner (most likely in a debtor’s prison. Rome had more immediate ways to deal with lawlessness, as we know.) Baptism invites everyone into this new way of life, a way we celebrate this morning, but often miss its real intention. Our own baptism is the opening of our invitation to this new life, a life which in its many and various ways is also the invitation we extend to others to baptism. It is our invitation to discover again what really matters, and set aside those things that are destined to die, even if we say they add meaning and purpose to our lives. “Do you not know that you are baptized into Christ’s death?” Our answer is found in how we live the life of resurrection that claims us when we answer, “yes.” THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS It is finished. Consummatum est. John tells us those were Jesus’ last words. It
seems so. His lifeless body hangs on a cross in the hot afternoon sun. For him, it’s all over. Others will come and remove his body, wrap it and place it in a cave prepared for another. When it’s time, some will return to perform rituals that, in their own way, prepare them for when it will be their time. Then, that will be finished. But there remain some things undone, a list of incompletenesses that continue to this day. One of the things on that list is a nagging question, the answer to which continues to evade us. Why? Not “why does the answer evade us,” but why was Jesus crucified? We have the answers presented by his accusers, yet those didn’t really persuade the judge, who ended up giving in to their demands, because political expediency was more important than truth. We have centuries of theories, trying to explain in one way or another not just what happened, but why and its effect. But those aren’t as satisfying as we might have hoped, even the one called the “satisfaction theory.” So, it seems that it’s not quite finished just yet. Oh, in the minds of those who opposed him, it might look like it’s done. They can go home and celebrate, pat each other on the back and exclaim, “well done.” But maybe it’s something else that’s finished. Maybe what’s finished is the lesson on how to do ministry. Watch how those who have experienced something care for those who do so for the first time. I first learned this while standing outside before a funeral when a woman approached and asked where the new widow was. I replied that she was in the church building. Then I heard, “That’s where I’m going. You don’t know what this is like until you’ve lived through it yourself.” And maybe it’s more than that. It seems ironic, but the way God, through Jesus of Nazareth, chooses to overcome death itself is by entering into it. By dying. And the ultimate act of ministry is revealed, that by entering into death, Jesus finishes the work that will end death itself. He does this for all, for all time, past, present and future, and to do that must enter into their death so he might release them from it. So maybe that’s what’s finished. If so, then it’s just getting started. THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS “We wish to see Jesus.” Philip hears the request, goes to Andrew, and together
they go to Jesus. That’s all we know about some Greeks who are in town to celebrate. It looks like if their request was answered, it was from a distance. Jesus doesn’t seem to have time for drop-in meetings. There’s no “do they have an appointment,” or even “show them in.” Instead, we have his answer in the description of a cosmic event, based in familiar agricultural knowledge turned into Christology. We probably wouldn’t go that far in explaining that which we likely don’t understand all that well. So let’s take a moment and look at what those Greeks, and in turn, we think we know. To see Jesus is to see the work of God taking place in human reality. Those gathering to celebrate Passover would have been taught that God’s dwelling place is in the Temple, in the Holy of Holies. A thick curtain obscured the vision of all save the high priest, who could enter the holiest place of the Temple on one day each year. It’s where the Ark of the Covenant is held, the national archive, if you will, of the law of Moses. While Jesus spends his brief ministry pointing any and all who pay attention to the activity, and therefore, the presence of God, he doesn’t give anyone directions toward the Temple. He speaks of glorification and death and sacrifice all at the same time. What he’s really saying is that if anyone wants to see him, they’ll find him in the sacrificial love of himself for the benefit of all. We’re told of an instant example of this as he hangs dying on a cross, when at his last breath the veil obscuring the holiest place in the Temple is torn in two, revealing its emptiness. To see Jesus, the human form of God, look outside the city walls to the place of the skull, and find him in the middle of death itself. “We wish to see Jesus.” The request is made to us today. Do we brush it aside by giving the GPS coordinates to the nearest church building, citing the times when the doors are supposed to be unlocked? No. The invitation is ours to make. “Come and see.” Come and see the evidence of the work of Christ, the ongoing creative activity of God, when suffering is joined by able hands and hearts. Come and see sorrow shared by the joining of breaking hearts so that healing is not such a lonely thing to endure. Come and see willful sacrifice to share the abundance of God’s life with those lost on the winding trails of the shadow of death. Do we really wish to see this Jesus? There are those still making the request. The answer they truly seek is found when our desire is to be the Jesus we want to tell them about. For others to see, we must in some way be Jesus to them. But, of course, there’s more. We, too, wish to see Jesus. And to do that, we need to open our eyes to the possibility—the probability—that Jesus can be found as easily in those who seek as in those who claim to know where to look. It is not ours to decide where the seeds are planted. It is ours to nurture the growth that God gives in the life springing from the seed that is willing to die. THE REV. E. WAYNE HOLLINS “I have given you as a covenant to the people . . . .” These words from the
second prophet we know as Isaiah come as words of hope to a people in exile. They are the first of four “servant songs” found in Isaiah, and designated as such, are often interpreted as pointing to a leader within Israel, or perhaps a political leader (even Cyrus of Persia). Or some say they point to Christ who is yet to come. I want to take a different approach. I do this because, like blame, looking for others to lead us in the way we desire is, I think, misleading. And to tell a bunch of folks hoping for relief that they’ll need to be patient and wait, oh, about five centuries, is, well, just cruel. So, who is this servant? For the people of Judah, gathered in exile in the sixth century before the Common Era, it’s difficult to answer without saying, “Who? Me?” After all, they seem pretty much powerless and subject to the oppressive authority of political leaders. Yet, that is who the prophet calls “God’s servant.” They are to be a “light to the nations,” “givers of sight to the blind,” to lead prisoners out of captivity, to lead those dwelling in darkness into light. For us, it’s too easy to say that is about the people of Judah in exile, or even to say it’s about Christ. Hear those words “I have given you as a covenant to the people” as a phrase that follows our name—individually and collectively as a parish, or more to the point, as Christ’s Church. Winston Churchill is quoted to have referred to the coming second World War as a “gathering darkness.” We, too, might interpret our own time as a gathering darkness as we witness the oppression of the poor and the alien in our land. That oppression will continue—with our consent, mind you—as long as we think that God’s covenant gift for all people is about someone else. “I have given you, Immanuel Highlands, as a covenant to the people of Wilmington.” It’s who we are, in the name of the One who gives life to all that lives. To deny that name is to deny God’s glory among us. So we continue to gather, to speak not only God’s praise, but God’s promise of deliverance from the death-dealing ways of our time. Not to say “there, there, it’ll get better” and walk away. Be the servant, which means to be the light of hope in a world of gathering darkness. Because even when it is its darkest, just one candle can diffuse a hopeful ray of light. I often wonder if God’s purpose in the Judean exile was to show those who felt oppressed how to be that light. Maybe that’s why we’re where we are, too THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS It might be a confusing day. It must have been a confusing week. Keeping with
that trend, I offer the following. We’re used to thinking of what’s called the triumphant entry into Jerusalem as the beginning of Jesus’ final week before he was crucified. Along with that we multiply and magnify the word “hosanna.” Some have imagined dueling processions—Jesus through a side door on a donkey, while Pilate and Roman soldiers enter through the main gate of the city in chariots and on horseback. Maybe Pilate did arrive that way. After all, thousands of believers coming into town to celebrate the liberation that made them who they are might just need a show of force to eliminate any thought of that happening again anytime soon. But there are other aspects to consider. When Jesus faces his accusers, he asks them why they didn’t arrest him earlier. He speaks as one who has been around awhile, and there are scholars who think he may have arrived several months earlier, during another festival, Sukkoth. It’s a fall festival, celebrating the harvest they’ve been working toward all summer. Also called the “Feast of Booths,” the celebration commands spending some time and eating meals on each of seven days in a sukkoh, a temporary dwelling made of—wait for it—palm branches. Palm fronds, called a lulab, are waved inside as part of the celebration. That’s also described in Psalm 68. Those cries of hosanna? They are pleas for help, taken from the Psalms. Psalm 118:25 contains the word, which is often translated “save us, we beseech you.” Those cries, echoed in all four Gospels, are heard by us as shouts of praise. But they are cries from those living under the oppressive boot of Rome. So, maybe there’s something else, something more going on here other than a “yay God” moment. In the Psalm, the people cry out to God for salvation from enemies, from possible destruction. I think that in the Gospel stories, they do the same. Word has gotten around that this man Jesus just might be the hoped-for Messiah, so it’s not hard to imagine the people living under Roman occupation crying out once again for deliverance. “Hosanna. Save us. Lead us to success in overthrowing our oppressors.” Of course, that didn’t happen the way they wanted it to, so those cries of “hosanna” didn’t take long to turn into shouts to “crucify him.” So religion allied itself with politics, because one needed the assistance of the other to make this crucifixion happen. It still does. The confusion grows. Those who continued to believe that Jesus is the Messiah stand in utter dismay as they hear the sound of hammer striking nail, of cries of anguish as gravity slowly elongates the torso and distorts the inner organs until the lungs can no longer function. They hear taunts of “save yourself” and derisive laughter as those wielding instruments of power depend on those things for salvation. Then there’s that last gasp for air. And silence. Those who followed Jesus, even if at a bit of a distance, find their confusion increasing as they wonder what comes next. What do we do now? For now, they return home and wait. The combination of Passover and Sabbath are simultaneous events, but celebrating liberation doesn’t quite seem to be the right thing to do. “Are we next? Will there be a knock on my door during the night?” Fear adds to the confusion, and obliterates any sense of peace. Yet, somewhere in the depths of the earth, from the realm of death, comes a faint cry as God’s Messiah enters. “Hosanna. Save us, we beseech you.” You see, we can’t be saved except by the One who enters into all there is to be saved from. That is the meaning of incarnation, that birth we celebrate every winter. And we are saved by One who invites us to enter into his life by dying into ours. And as we live into his life, we share in that which is eternal, so that when we die, our own death becomes new life. Sounds confusing, doesn’t it? But our life as followers of Jesus, the Christ, is to be a witness to God’s power overcoming our weakness working from within ourselves to reveal God’s glory that remains at work in the world God created. And that comes, not by wielding might, but by humbly speaking those words in their true sense. Hosanna. Save us, we beseech you. Maybe when God reveals to each of us just how that happens, all will become as clear as the cloudless dawn of a new day. |
THE REVEREND
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