THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​I don’t think the Hebrew prophets can be confined to their own time on earth. Let’s take a different look at Isaiah’s words and attempt to discover what they might mean for us now.

“In days to come, the stature of Immanuel Highlands shall be raised above the clamor and uncertainty of today. People of many traditions and backgrounds will come to it, seeking teaching that comes from God just as God’s people heard from Moses at the base of Mt. Sinai.

“Many will come, claiming this to be the place where they learn the true meaning of Immanuel, God with us, for here they will find a new way of life, teachings that echo through eternity, words that help them find abundant life as promised in the coming of God’s Messiah.

“God’s teaching will by itself judge between what is true and what is false, between what is good and what is evil. Those who seek truth and goodness will understand the fallacy of warring words and deeds leading to destruction, and here they will find the light their souls seek. It will be a light that will enlighten those who live beyond it, inviting more and more into its brightness.

“O people of Immanuel, called to embody these teachings, words made flesh, let us walk together into the light of the Lord, into the truth of God’s presence.”

I wonder what that looks like. As the people now known as Immanuel Highlands, your lives are to be both the artist’s brush and the very canvas that reveals what those words mean.

That may sound strange, perhaps naïve. But when made flesh, these words hold not only the innocence of a newborn baby, but the fulfillment of the promise made in that very birth. Just live today as if it’s already here, because that promise is as near as the Spirit that gives it life.

​ The writings of Isaiah figure large in the three-year lectionary cycle during Advent. Today’s first lesson is from the one we call First Isaiah. He speaks to the southern kingdom of Judah, which is under siege during the Syro-Ephraimatic War. King Ahaz turns to the prophet for advice as Jerusalem is under threat of destruction led in part by its cousins in the northern kingdom of Israel. It goes back to sibling rivalry; the two kingdoms were founded by feuding brothers, two sons of King Solomon. Traditions, especially harmful ones, die hard. 
The people live in fear, with good reason. They look in every direction for allies, for a force more powerful than those at its doorstep, to come to their defense. They look everywhere, shall we say, but up. 

We know history. We know the kingdom of Israel was eventually destroyed. We know the resulting conflict between the survivors, later known as Samaritans, and the people of Judah. 

We’re talking about nearly eight centuries before the birth of Jesus. So the concerns of the people are not of those who can afford to wait eight hundred years for the promises made by the prophet, including some we’ll hear later in this season. 

The prophet attempts to stir their imaginations to see beyond present anxieties to a promised hope. But to gain that vision, they need to set aside their fear of death and destruction and remember who, and whose, they are. 

They are not alone, either in their anxiety or in their hope. 

Before we get to the hope part, we need to name our fears, own our anxieties. It’s the ancient tradition of naming our demons so that we have some leverage over them. It means having the courage to call out loud the very real time and events we find ourselves in, and not be like the Black Knight of Monty Python fame, stubbornly exclaiming “it’s just a flesh wound.” 

In our country, many fear for that thing we call “democracy.” We have many definitions for that word. In our city, we fear for the rise of homelessness and poverty, trying to end hunger and its oppressive nature even as its prevalence seems overwhelming. In our parish, we fear not only for survival, but, in some way, we fear the changes presented by both growth and decline. Sometimes it seems like one of our lessons ought to come as “a reading from Catch 22.” 
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So let’s reach back for some help. Like so many times, we need to hear again from those who’ve been here before and lived to tell about it. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ It might seem odd to hear today’s lessons in the context of Christ the King Sunday. It is odd. But it’s not the lectionary that’s odd. It’s our understanding of what it means to proclaim Christ as King. 

Today’s title goes back to a century ago. In 1925, Pope Pius XI thought the world was becoming too secular, with the rise of atheism after World War I and the dissolution of most of Europe’s monarchies. So he declared that the church would observe a Sunday as Christ the King. At first, it was in October. Later on, it was moved to the last Sunday of the liturgical year. 

It’s a bit ironic that Pius XI also entered into an agreement with Benito Mussolini that exchanged the Roman Catholic Church’s voice in political affairs with the establishment of Vatican City as a separate state. The institutional church’s silence helped lead to the atrocities of World War II, assisted by the same inaction of the Protestant institutional church in Germany as Adolph Hitler rose to power. Both decisions illustrate a vast misunderstanding of Christ as King that make today’s lessons seem out of place. Both decisions point to an understanding of church as empire, or as some call it, Christendom. 

We’re used to seeing coronations as events of pomp and ceremony. Well-orchestrated rituals occur, including the wearing of rich garments, the placing of jeweled crowns on heads, and other pageantry. In most places, it is a religious figure of the institutional church who places the crown on the head of the monarch. There are those who have said that cannot occur in our country because we don’t have a nationally-recognized religion. I’ll refer you back to Napoleon Bonaparte for that, who took the crown and placed it on his own head after no Archbishop or Cardinal would do it for him. Then there’s the prevalence of our best-known oxymoron, christian nationalism. You can’t have one of those if it’s aligned with the other without making both words a lie. 

The institutional church, particularly in the western world, established itself not with a vision of the Christ given in scripture, but instead in the image of political empire. When the Roman Empire fell in the sixth century, the western religious authorities found a void they wanted to fill with themselves. The Pope took the place of the Emperor, and for nearly a millennium western emperors bowed to the pope’s authority. That began to change on October 31, 1517, when a priest named Martin Luther took hammer and nail in hand and said, “I disagree.” Of course, the rise of civil government, separate from religious authority, was happening at the same time. 

Okay. Enough of today’s history lesson. Take a look at today’s Gospel and learn again just what it means to say Christ is king. We heard the whole story on Palm Sunday when we read Luke’s version of the Passion.

Now, imagine Jesus, stripped naked, nailed to a rough piece of wood and left hanging in the hot mid-day sun to die. Juxtapose that with a monarch in rich flowing robes, head adorned with a golden crown and priceless jewels, orb and scepter in hand. You might even compare the image in today’s scripture with the one at the center of the window on our northern wall. Our window is a representation of the status of empire. Our Gospel lesson is the stark reminder of what we have actually received.

The two birth narratives and all four Passion stories give us the image of God who sets aside all the trappings of glory in order to take on human flesh. We have an eternal, life-giving One who sets aside immortality to redeem mortals. We have a man from a backwoods town who wanders around without a set place to call home, but who desires to take up residence in our hearts. We have a healer who shows us how to offer our hands, our tables and all that is on them, to proclaim a healing love along with real food and bread to satisfy not only human need, but eternal hunger.


And even in the painful throes of death, we have a heart that rises to proclaim forgiveness and reconciliation. We have all that because that’s who God is for us. That’s who Jesus of Nazareth came to reveal to us. And, as the Body of Christ, that’s who we are called to be as we bear his name into the world he came to save from the despair and futility of expecting salvation to come in the trappings of wealth and power, two of the very real traps evil sets for us in so many ways.
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Perhaps one day we will find the Christ of God’s empire—an empire of service and sacrifice founded and given life by an eternal love. When we do, we’re also likely to still find a cross, words of forgiveness, and the stark reality of real grace. And with that, we’re also going to find an empty tomb—not the one Jesus left behind, but the one meant to be our own. After all, you can’t find that until you’ve accepted as your own the community of humanity that Jesus became one with, and the cross and all that comes before it. That is the road to the reign of Christ, and our path to eternal life.

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THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

 Before ordination, I worked as a case manager for an in-home behavioral health service that operated in rural West Virginia. I started with them in a county that was at one time one of the largest coal-producing counties in the country. While I was there, those coal seams were pretty much depleted, and now it’s one of the poorer regions in an already poor state. 

One day I needed to drive a client to Charleston for medical treatment. As we traveled out of the hills toward the river, I heard “such tall buildings.” The tallest structure in town was, I think, about 21 stories high, not quite as high as some of the mountains in the area where my client lived. 

Jesus’ companions were also unfamiliar with the big city as they made their way around Jerusalem. They are amazed at the size of the Temple, probably trying to imagine, as we do ourselves, how those stones were placed so high above them. We have the same reaction as we consider the great pyramids and medieval cathedral towers and ceilings and other fortified structures from that time. 

To get the full perspective of Luke’s writings, and not just Jesus’ words, we have to remember that when today’s Gospel was first written, the Temple had been reduced to rubble for at least a decade, maybe longer. The center of worship, the very house of God, according to tradition, was destroyed by the Roman army in 70 CE. That began a centuries-long period known as the diaspora, or the dispersing of the Jewish faithful into the wider world. 

During some of our own discussions of late, I’ve sometimes said, “we’d be in much better fiscal shape if only Jesus hadn’t said ‘go into all the world and build structures and create bureaucracies and I will be with you always.’” Once or twice I’ve gotten a nod, then a bit of whiplash as the hearer does a double take. Just in case you’re wondering, Jesus never, ever said that. But through the centuries we’ve acted as if that was the most important part of the Gospel. So let’s go back to Luke and ponder what he’s really up to. 

We have all been taught, and pretty much accept across the board that our identity as a congregation comes from the name of the place where we meet. Jesus does not teach that either, and I think that Luke might be trying to get us to consider who we are without having a building somewhere to identify us. That was a major spiritual question after the center of worship in Jerusalem was no more. Add to that the idea that God’s house, God’s dwelling was there, too, and you get a sense of what was lost. 

I once lived and worked in a town whose founders prepared a street plan where at every intersection near the center of town was reserved a parcel of land for a congregation of some denomination to erect a building. The Methodists were on one corner. A block in one direction had an Episcopal church building, while in another the Lutherans met. Across that street was a Roman Catholic building built by Irish immigrants. The German one was a few blocks away. Presbyterians were another block in the opposite direction, and two blocks away was one form of Baptist. Others sprung up around the area, resulting that neighbors could walk side-by-side to worship while dividing themselves accordingly just by making a 90 degree turn and passing through “their” doorway.

While I was there, some of us conspired to hold a joint World Communion Day service. We began in our own places, then moved to an accessible place to share Holy Communion. Since the Lutheran congregation had the only building with an elevator among the participating congregations, we met there.

It was also the day of the Episcopal bishop’s visitation to that parish, so he presided at communion. We ended up with Lutheran individual cups, what I called “shot glass communion,” some containing wine, some white grape juice. We had a Presbyterian chalice with grape juice, and an Episcopal chalice with wine. Watching folks move up the aisle for communion while discovering which was being served where was a bit like Kirkwood Highway during, well, any time, with a lot of zigging and zagging to change lanes.

I heard many say as we came together during the peace that they hadn’t been to church with their neighbors before. Despite some discussion after the event, they still aren’t doing that. I mean, it’s okay to share, so long as we’re sharing it in our space and according to our traditions.

I wonder what we might achieve by changing our way of knowing ourselves. That is, by the way, the meaning of the word translated as conversion. Metanoia. It’s about knowing, and changing how we know and see not only ourselves, but those around us, and God.

What if we found the grace to come together as who we’re really supposed to be, setting aside not only names of buildings, but also denominational identities as we gather as Body of Christ people. I believe that is Luke’s intention, as even he seems to know what a grad school professor once told us. “When I was a child,” he said, “a house seemed like the most permanent thing in the world. Then I grew up and bought one and learned I spend half my time trying to keep it from falling down around me.”

We spend an enormous amount of time, energy, and resources to maintain buildings that by nature don’t want to keep standing. Yes, they might be impressive, even beautiful. But we cannot lose sight of our true selves—the Body of Christ—the one raised from the dead, whose gift to us is life itself, his own life, the very life of God, that has no end. That building—that body—is of God’s own making, a community, a breathing flesh and blood home instead of a building, our different sizes and shapes brought together as a rather interesting assortment of stones forming a living Temple of the Holy Spirit right here, right now, and not something we can only hope for in the next life. In other words, neither this building nor any other can legitimately claim to be “God’s house.” The people gathered within, when they choose to not wall themselves off from each other, might claim that distinction, but only as a community of the faithful, or to put it another way, a faithful communion with each other and with God.

Perhaps our physical structures seem so empty because we’ve lost sight of our living, breathing, spirit-filled selves whom Jesus said are to be salt and light and grace for the continuing work of the salvation of the world. I wonder if we finally get that right whether we’ll need a bigger building to meet in.
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Ya gotta love irony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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