THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

Matthew’s Gospel uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven” more than any other book in Christian scripture. He uses language that his first hearers could understand, as the concepts arise from ancient Hebrew tradition. 

We don’t share that tradition, even though we’ve been hearing and reading the same scriptures Matthew’s audience read and heard. Our understandings of the words kingdom and heaven are colored, tainted, if you will, by more recent uses of the terms. 

It probably doesn’t help our post-enlightenment minds when Jesus uses parables to describe these words. We have to remind ourselves that the key word in these stories, several of which we hear today, is the word like. That’s a metaphor, not current usage, like, “I, like, heard this parable, and I was, like, confused by its, like, meaning.” Heaven help us from the likes of that compulsion. 

In order to understand what Jesus means by the “kingdom of heaven,” we need to accept that both terms, kingdom and heaven, are limited by our language, especially when we try to use them to describe that which is of and from God. Because, like the word “God,” when we think we have defined them, they are, by definition, wrong. 
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Early Hebrew understanding of the word “heaven” meant what we might refer to as the sky. It was a visible area that stretched as far as the eye could see and contained not only air but also the sun, moon, stars, and, as they were discovered, other planets. This area was separated by a shield, or dome, that separated them from the earth. Think about that when you read the story of creation in Genesis one. 

The early history of Israel tells us of a one-time extended family growing into multitudes of people descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. They were known as tribes. These tribes grew until they were led by some chosen by God, known as judges and prophets. 

One of those prophets, Samuel, was approached by leaders of the tribes asking that he anoint a king to lead them, like other nations around them had. Samuel resisted until God told him to go ahead, since they were not really rejecting Samuel but were trying to reject God’s leadership of them. You can read again how all that worked out in the short- and long-term. 

That’s the short version. There’s more. 

It’s difficult to express what it means to have God in “the heaven” and the presence of that God on earth. Surely we have some understanding of the Holy Spirit, and we celebrate the Incarnation at the end of December. But wrapping our minds around an immortal one who is tortured and executed seems to defy description without making it little more than a transaction in some other-worldly marketplace. 

Then we get to work on helping others get an idea of what resurrection means for themselves and, as Paul tells us, for all creation. We fumble with words that often add to the confusion. 

So, what is the kingdom of heaven? Not "What is it like?" but "What is it?" 

It is both as near to us as breathing and yet not yet fulfilled. It is of more value to believers than anything we can attach a number to. It is at the core of our being, but not anything we can possess. 

The kingdom of heaven is at once past and future, with hints in the present when the people of God, who might call themselves Christian or Jewish or Muslim, or any other name, find themselves to be active participants in the ongoing work of caring for and revealing God’s love for all creation and its creatures. Not because they hope to gain entrance into the kingdom and grab a selfie at the pearly gates, but because the living love of God made real in the risen Christ is the guiding principle of their lives. 

The world around us, indeed, and all creation labors in its quest for the kingdom of heaven. Our task is to live in this groaning, weary world in such a way as to invite all who desire it to join us in our own quest for its fulfillment. 

It is, after all, what we’ll be praying for in just a few minutes. 

I wonder what our reaction might be if that prayer got answered at the very moment we say, "Your kingdom come, your will be done.” 

Imagine a world where evil does not and cannot exist. Imagine a world where no housing or food shortages are known, where sickness and death are no more, and where all those who are, as Paul says, “in Christ,” past, present, and future, are alive in bodies that will never die. 

Now imagine all that on this planet, not in some far-off spiritual world. Because that's what scripture teaches. It’s what we say we believe in the creeds. The resurrection of Jesus that we celebrated just a few short months ago is just the beginning of the new age of God’s kingdom, an age yet to come to its fulfillment. 

We do not build that kingdom, but we do build a community for that kingdom. That idea that we call heaven is fulfilled when Christ returns to “judge the living and the dead.” And it is to happen here, on planet earth, and will mark the fulfillment of the promise, “I will be with you, even to the end of the age.” 

That age is the restoration of God’s first gift—a garden where all that is needed is supplied, where God takes pleasure in “walking in the cool of the evening” and spending time with and in the creation restored to its original blessing of goodness. 

Maybe when we start living for that answer to our prayer “your kingdom come," we'll begin to really understand our role as caretakers of creation, stewards of all that God said is “very good.” It’s the big picture that includes us as stewards of the story that continues to be the only true hope for all creation. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

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Matthew's Gospel is written to a Jewish audience trying to reinvent themselves a decade or two after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. Matthew’s first hearers are in Antioch, a part of that Jewish diaspora, and it’s likely many still remember living and working in Jerusalem. 

Returning to their home is not an option. Rome continues to rule there, with its imperial cult and obedient army. And, while Matthew is not likely to be an eyewitness to the life of Jesus of Nazareth, he takes the name of a disciple whom Jesus called. That disciple likely passed down first-hand knowledge of Jesus’ teachings, and we hear one of those today. 

Agricultural metaphors abound in Matthew. Today’s parable of the weeds is unique to Matthew and addresses some issues that might have arisen among people who find they live in a new setting and culture. Their center of worship is no more. Their identity seems to be dissolving before their very eyes. And what about living among others who are very different in culture, tradition, and ancestry? 

Matthew’s task is difficult. He has to convince his first hearers of their need to look ahead and consider a new identity because of what has happened. It’s not just the destruction of the Temple and the surrounding city. Matthew has to convince them that what they thought would happen was wrong. They need to accept that in light of how a traditional belief actually worked out. 

That belief is in who the expected Messiah is and how that Messiah would work. Expectations of a strong military leader did not come to fruition. There was no overthrow of the occupying Roman government and its army. There has been no restoration of what Matthew calls “the kingdom of heaven” to Israel. 

Instead, Israel is once again driven from its homeland, losing once again the tangible sign of God’s long ago promise to their ancestor Abraham. So, it seems natural that they would turn away from that promise and seek to establish their tightly-held identity all on their own. 

After all, their world has changed. It’s vastly different. If only they could bring back “the good old days” when prosperity reigned and everyone lived and thought alike. 

Now, all they see are like weeds growing up all around them. The urge is to pull them up, get rid of them, to make the garden of themselves look and feel good, even perfect again. 

But that could very well cause more damage to themselves than the weeds could ever do. Besides that, determining what is good and what is seen as evil is something only God can do. And despite our best efforts, we still are not God.

In some way, Matthew tries to remind his hearers of their own forgotten past. They are now aliens in a strange land—again. That was true when Judah was taken captive and driven to Babylon. It was true when their ancestors were overtaken in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and many fled to Egypt, where their ancestors once lived to escape famine in their own land.

Being aliens in a strange land is their identity, it’s in their ancestral DNA. Abraham, known as Abram, left the familiarity of home and comfort to go to a land God would show him when he got there. And from that land he received, and believed in a promise.

What about us? For those of us who have moved around a bit, it seems somewhat easier to accept an alien identity than it might be for those who have been in the same place for years, even decades. Yet, the world around us seems strange. Many things have changed, and we find ourselves attempting to recreate the world that once was.

Consider that all those alien experiences of Israel and Judah were God’s way of forcing them to rethink the immense possibilities of the very promise made to Abraham. Maybe there is more than one way to give birth to children of God’s promise. And maybe many of those have already reached adulthood at the time of rebirth.

There is hope in planting seeds. There is hope in waiting patiently for growth and hope in gathering harvest. But that harvest ultimately belongs to God, even when some of it might be used to feed ourselves.
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Maybe the issue is that we keep our focus on identifying weeds instead of on the promise of growth. Maybe, by grace we can discover a beneficial place among us for some of those weeds. After all, even a dandelion leaf can find its way into a gourmet salad.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​I once worked with a congregation that sponsored a monthly food pantry. Folks would pre-register with evidence of household size and income so that the truck would arrive with enough food. We usually had a lot left over, with nowhere to store it. 

One day we had so much canned food left over that someone called a friend from a large charismatic congregation some twenty miles away. A man arrived in a cargo van, and we loaded the remaining cases into it. As he was preparing to leave, he told me, “We appreciate the food. We want to use it to get folks into the church so we can get them saved.” 

I was stunned. After he drove away, I thought, "We don’t need to get them saved. We need to find a way to tell them they are saved.” 

The eighth chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome is the centerpiece of the Epistle. Paul sets the stage in the first four chapters as he describes the difference between observance of the law and dependence on grace. Chapters five through eight are one long crescendo following that preliminary discussion. It’s helpful to read those four chapters straight through in a different translation so our minds are stirred anew by Paul’s words. 

We take so much for granted. We hear each Sunday’s lessons from the same translation and mostly with the same ears as we’ve always done. We assume that what we’ve always thought we believed is true without questioning whether that is so. I began asking questions about that before I went to seminary; in fact, it was the answer that startled me and led me to believe my call to ministry might not be on the organ bench but in the pulpit. 

It’s no secret that I was raised in fundamentalism. I heard repeated altar calls that followed an hour or so of singing and testimony and then at least thirty minutes of hellfire and damnation preaching. I’m surprised there weren’t some primed to light a match somewhere so the smell of sulphur might cause us to think we were staring into the very fires of hell if we didn’t go get ourselves saved, maybe for the second or third time. 

My startling answer came when a minister, also named Paul, dared to tell a group of us the truth, much in the same vein as the apostle he loved studying. One of our group had been badgered by classmates at college, who told him that since he didn’t believe what they did, he couldn’t be saved. 

I have since described that way of thinking and what is truly spiritually abusive as so much “male bovine residue.” 

​Paul begins this section by saying, “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He begins to sum up his argument with today’s words: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” While Paul’s rhetoric can be difficult to understand, what he basically says is this:

There is nothing you can do, nothing you need to do, to earn salvation.

You are saved, in a relationship with, and at peace with God through the saving work of Jesus of Nazareth. Not because you earned it, but because that’s how much God loves you. That’s how much God desires to be a part of your life. You are one whom God felt worthy of dying for.

But it goes beyond that. You, I—we are ones to whom God offers the life of the risen Christ. Faith in Christ, made real by participating in the creative and creating work of the Word made flesh, still living among us, is the sign to others of the same life-giving love that we believe saves us all.

That means we don’t attempt or need to bribe others to come into our fellowship to get them saved. It means we offer them food because they are hungry. It means we offer clothing and soap and, yes, toilet paper, because they have enough, shall we say, residue to deal with because we live in and often support a system that wants to bury them under all that.

The life of the Spirit isn’t reserved for some future time and place we call heaven. The life of the Spirit is here, right now, waiting for doors to open through which we enter into that life by making room for the Spirit to enter into our own.

We don’t, and cannot, get saved. But we can live in the Love that saves us, which Paul tells us is ours because God desires it to be so. As the words so often spoken, and which we probably take for granted, tell us, our true offering in response to God’s gracious gift is to “walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us.” That walk is our life in Christ. The gift keeps on giving. The Love is forever.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ At first glance, today’s lessons seem disjointed, unrelated. The first lesson sends me to Advent with a side of Georg Frederic Handel. The Psalm is reassuring, hopeful. The Epistle seems ready to remind us why we should feel guilty, while the Gospel simply wants to yell, “grow up!” 

There’s some doubt that the same writer penned today’s first lesson as the one who wrote chapters one through eight. Those chapters speak to a people fresh from exile, whose king coming to them could well have been Darius of Persia. Those returning from exile found a city in ruins. They depended on a benefactor for support and relief. Darius passed through Judah on his way to settle a dispute in Egypt, so he may have spent some time among those whom his predecessor, Cyrus, freed from the Babylonians. 

Today’s words, however, seem to speak more to the time of Alexander the Great, a couple of centuries later. Judah is threatened once again, and was occupied by the Greeks after they overthrew the Persians. Then along came the Romans and a second destruction of Jerusalem a generation or so after Jesus. 

People living in uncertainty often reach out for anything, or anyone, who can provide a sense of peace amid turmoil. Those living in Jerusalem during Jesus’ time lived in hope of a Messiah who would come from the lineage and tradition of David. Now, those who know that history will understand that David’s time was not all that peaceful. Only a generation later, with the death of Solomon, Israel was divided internally, perhaps setting in motion the conflicts that would ultimately destroy both kingdoms. 

Hence, Jesus’s admonition. John came living in austerity, and they complained about him. Jesus spends time eating and drinking with those around him and they call him a glutton and a drunk. Some complain because the Temple is only open when it’s not convenient, or the hymns are too long, or too many, or too few. And the Temple hours have changed, on top of all that! Some say they got nothing out of the sermon or the prayers or anything else, as if they were the ones being worshipped. It’s too cold. It’s too hot. All my friends are having fun right now at the beach or the park or the ball game or at brunch. 

The risen Christ hears a lot of complaints. And probably still wants to shout, “GROW UP!” 
We have yet to learn that our reason for being here is not about us. Worship isn’t about attendance; it is about attendING to the one we worship. Worship is not about receiving, but about offering ourselves in gratitude for what has already been freely 

given. Worship is not about numbers, but being present in the number of the redeemed who then go to do one thing. 
That one thing is to live in the expectation that God will come, that the risen Christ will be present among us, that the Holy Spirit will speak to us and through us as a sign of that very singular hope. 

That expectation is in Paul’s struggle to be a living apostle of Christ, especially when so many temptations lie close at hand to entice him away from the purpose of his life. He speaks of law and grace in ways that can be difficult to understand, but that we can all recognize as true in our own lives. 

Jesus gave us one task—make disciples. If everything else we say we do in his name doesn’t help us do that, then they are little more than a distraction. Maybe that’s why so many struggle. Our focus has become about buildings and programs and even competition with other parishes that we’ve forgotten not only how to make disciples, but how to BE disciples. 

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tries to reveal the presence of God among his own people. After awhile, he turns in another direction and moves instead among outsiders, called Gentiles. Maybe he heard all the whining and complaining he could take, and decided to go elsewhere. 

I heard a story once that while leaving church one Sunday morning, a person was heard saying “I didn’t get anything out of that service today.” Pray that’s not the voice of God we hear, but that instead God hears our voices of prayer and praise and faith, and accepts our real offering of ourselves in gratitude for the hope God has given us in raising Christ from the dead. 
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That’s when the words of the Psalm begin to make sense.