THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

It is observed that we live in what’s called a “post-truth age.” About a decade
ago, a senior advisor to the president stated that they had “alternative facts.” That same
president is back in office, and throughout his public history has kept a whole fact-
checking industry in business. It may be his greatest contribution to employment
numbers.

While many are alarmed at these statements, they’re not all that new. It’s not
like the last decade suddenly saw the immediate arrival of those alternative facts.
We’re here today because that same process tried its best to undermine to activity of
God, made known in Jesus of Nazareth. And we can celebrate today because God
revealed a truth beyond any of those alternatives.

Jesus prepares his disciples for his departure from them. In John’s Gospel, that is
through his death. He appears a minimum of three times after his resurrection, and we
have heard those stories this year. He says he must leave so that the Spirit of Truth can
come, who will speak to Jesus’ followers, continuing his teaching as time goes on.
It’s that part of today’s Gospel that often gets overlooked, or, in our quest to hold
onto what we’ve been taught and experienced, ignored. The result of that, as it is in our
political climate, is conflict.

“The Spirit of Truth . . . will lead you into all truth.” Jesus tells us later in this
farewell discourse. “The Advocate, whom [God] will send in my name, will teach you
everything . . . .” Jesus refers to the Advocate, sometimes called Paraclete, the promised
Holy Spirit five times in this discourse. In other words, there’s more to this life of
discipleship than what was covered in confirmation class.

I once taught a class I called Episcopal 101. We covered the time frame from the
English Reformation up to recent history. At that time, debate was raging over the
consecration of Gene Robinson as a bishop. In my parish, the debate continued over the
ordination of women, even though our diocesan bishop was female. Now, they have a
gay bishop diocesan, whose husband is their priest-in-charge. The Advocate continues
to define “irony” for us.

Look at our history as a nation. This weekend, now known as Memorial Day,
came about as “decoration day,” a day of mourning when the graves of soldiers who
died in the Civil War were visited and flowers placed upon them. Now, it’s the
beginning of summer, with cookouts, fireworks, and other celebrations that serve to
distract us from the pain and destruction of war, which makes it easier to start new
ones. The nation’s longest continuous Memorial Day parade, which may have a few
small groups of veterans of previous conflicts marching in it, is more of a two- to three-
1hour advertisement of where to buy stuff. I know this because it lined up in front of the
house where I lived for four years. They have learned something true, though. After
many years of, shall we say aromatic missteps, they put the horse brigades at the end of
the parade.

Some might point out that Jesus says there are things the disciples just aren’t
ready for, and the Spirit will fill them in when they’re ready. So, what if we’re not
ready? That’s when we might create alternative facts to try to isolate us from the truth.
That leads to more conflict among ourselves. It also puts us in conflict with God.
Let me add that we don’t always know whether current events are from the hand
of God, and the teaching of the Holy Spirit. When the early church began to rise,
leaders of the Hebrew faith met in Jerusalem to discuss what to do about it. Many
wanted to stop it. But one leader, Gamaliel, who happened to have a student named
Saul, now Paul, said to his friends, “If it is not of God, it will not last. But if it is of God,
and we oppose it, we could find ourselves opposing God.” We’re about as far from
Gamaliel and friends as they were from Abraham. So it’s probably safe to say God’s
hand is at work as both continue side-by-side.

Truth is not always convenient, nor is it always comfortable. But we follow one
who said of himself, “I am the way, the truth, the life.” To deny truth is to deny Jesus,
which in turn is to deny God. To deny truth, in effect, makes us atheist, at least in part,
despite our self-imposed claims to identities. I say “in part” because when we make up
our own truth, we make the case that we are, for ourselves and those who want to
follow us, our own god.

We are called to speak the truth in love, which means that we speak words that
are true, with the intention that those words build us all up and bind us together in the
truth of the love of God. Truth is not self-serving, meaning to condemn others and
make us superior. Truth’s intention is to be life-giving, even when its words expose our
guilt and the error of our ways.

Conflict is the evidence that not every side wants to admit Truth. There is no
“agreeing to disagree” when it’s just an avoidance of an uncomfortable truth. And
allowing room for all to believe what they want to believe does not allow the insistence
that others believe the same. God’s truth, revealed by the Advocate, the Paraclete, the
Holy Spirit, lives outside individual belief.
​
In short, if it is of God, it is true. Alternatives, to our lives as disciples of Christ,
are revealed as nothing more than self-serving lies, and show that we only worship
ourselves. And that’s the truth. I’m going to resist Lily Tomlin’s exclamation point.

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.

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.