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 REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

There’s a sentence at the end of today’s Gospel that has always bothered me. It’s
not one of those “Jesus, I really wish you hadn’t said that” sentences, about something I
don’t want to follow. It’s my difficulty in accepting the reality of the statement. “The
poor will always be with you.”

This comes in the context of an intimate gathering at the home of Mary, Martha,
and Lazarus, whom Jesus has recently raised from the dead. Martha is busy in the
kitchen and Lazarus is probably still a bit lost in the meaning of what has happened to
him, while being aware that he will have to experience death a second time. There are
those plotting to make that sooner rather than later, because a lot of folks started to
believe Jesus is the Messiah because of Lazarus’ new life. We’re not told how all that
worked out for Lazarus, but we know that he will have to experience death again
however it occurs.

Mary comes into the room, opens a bottle of expensive perfume, and pours it on
Jesus’ feet. Judas, the treasurer of the group of disciples, objects. The perfume costs
about the same as a year’s wages for the average worker. And while we’re not told this,
it’s easy to imagine that Judas wasn’t the only one wondering why it wasn’t sold to help
raise money for the poor. Matthew and Mark put that question from the disciples,
plural.

“She’s preparing for my burial,” Jesus says. Then comes that sentence. “The
poor you have always with you, but you will not always have me.”

We know about thephysical aspect of that last part and what follows. But my problem is with the first part.
Why in God’s creation, which was first pronounced “good,” do we continue to have
issues of poverty, homelessness, and starvation? In other words, why hasn’t God fixed
that by now?

Actually, God has done just that.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the book where Moses summarizes everything he’s
taught the Hebrew people just before he leaves them and they move into the promised
land without him, we have this instruction:
​
There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to
bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to
occupy, if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire
commandment that I command you today. When the Lord your God has blessed
you, as he promised you, you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow;
you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.

If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of
your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-
hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your
hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. Be careful
that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of
remission, is near,’ and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and
give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would
incur guilt. Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account
the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.
Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command
you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’ [Deut. 15:4-
11]

A lot has been written and said regarding John’s perspective on Judas’ hypocrisy
and Mary’s devotion. But Jesus’ words, while compassionate toward Mary and her
extravagant gift, express the reality that leads him toward the cross. That reality is that
we too often choose not to obey the teachings that have been given to us. Furthermore,
our disobedience not only sent Jesus to the cross, it continues to crucify him in the form
of those whom he said will always be with us. I dare you to ask those losing food
assistance what it feels like to face crucifixion because the wealthiest nation in the world
chooses to not follow what Moses teaches us, choosing instead to follow the last words
of Rhett Butler.

Some might point out that Moses says these commandments apply only to those
who are also Israelites. And in Moses’ time, that may have been true. But in another
place he teaches them that they are to treat the alien in their land as one of their own,
for they too, especially as they stand on the Moab side of the Jordan River as he speaks,
were once aliens in a foreign land, and God heard their cries for deliverance. And, by
the way, they will be aliens in the land they will soon enter. Even if they use a boat
named “Mayflower.”

Then we have Paul’s words that in Christ “there is no longer Jew nor Greek, male
nor female, servant nor free,” but that all are made one in Christ’s death and
resurrection. It is into that death, and in hope of that resurrection, that we are baptized,
and in our tradition, make a vow to “seek and serve Christ in all persons” and “strive
for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.”
Those vows, by the way, the church treats with the same seriousness as those made
before the altar in holy matrimony.

So, looking at the sacrifice that Jesus is about to make while having dinner with
his closest friends at Bethany, just a few days before the Passover they, and we, will
never forget, I ask you to consider what you give in return. I’m not seeking an offering
that will meet the remainder of this year’s budget. I’m also not expecting you to
single-handedly solve the problem of poverty in Wilmington, Delaware. But I won’t deny you
the opportunity to do either—or both of those things.

I’m asking you to consider the abundance of life God gives you, that extravagant
gift of mercy, grace, and forgiveness offered on the cross of Jesus, and what you give
back in thanksgiving for all of that.
​
I wonder what our little part of the world would be like if the aroma of our
extravagant grace filled the air around us. Let’s break open the jars we keep so tightly
sealed for ourselves and find out.