THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

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 At a recent conference I heard a word that seemed to be the thread in the needle sewing its way through every workshop and presentation. Different speakers spoke of ministries where those living on the margins of society found nourishment of body and soul, clothing of shirts and pants and hats and coats hanging on hooks of righteousness, which means living in right relationship. The word was solidarity. 

We might hear the word solidarity in political terms. It was the name of a movement that helped move Poland out of the oppressive domination of the Soviet Union. Its many-faceted expressions helped raise one leader to that country’s presidency, and another to the papacy. 

I listened to the various conference speakers and began to hear solidarity in an old, familiar way. If there had been time and opportunity for open discussion, I wanted to ask, “Isn’t solidarity just another way to say incarnation?” 

Incarnation is what this night is all about. It’s not a birthday party; events described in Luke’s Gospel were more likely to have happened in Spring. It’s also not about a recent event, as Jesus was probably born sometime around the year three or four BCE. Manger birth records are somewhat incomplete. 

You can research the reasons why December 25 was chosen as the date to celebrate the meaning of this day and find that the idea of light coming into the dark world made a lot of sense by celebrating it as the days were beginning to lengthen. Then go ponder the sense of that to those living in the southern hemisphere, where hours of daylight have just peaked and are beginning to shorten. Our ideas, our hymns, our traditions are very much a western European, northern hemisphere thing. 

I’m tempted to say that our celebration seems to be more about us than it is about Jesus. But, then, that is true on many levels that often get ignored in our revelry. 

The birth of Jesus takes on new meaning when we consider it as God choosing to be in solidarity with us, with all humanity, and even with all creation. 

God comes to us in the weakest, most vulnerable form—a human baby, who will take longer to learn to walk and talk and eat and care for himself than any other animal on the face of the earth. The event we celebrate this night is a call for us to remember that we are more likely to find the true God whom we seek in the most vulnerable, the weakest, the poorest, the neediest among us than we are in any fortress of power and wealth. 

Isaiah speaks familiar words that echo that same call. He points us to an event, but that 
​ but that event in turn calls us to be that which we claim for ourselves. The prophet’s words remind us that we are to be the light that shines in the darkness by joining those huddled in the shadows, and then lighting the path out. We are to be agents of new life joined in solidarity with those caught in the birth pangs of despair and uncertainty, acting in some way as midwives into new life. 

One of the speakers at that conference I attended is herself a mother of three who reminds us that giving birth is painful and messy—and that’s before the first diaper change. We who gather here to celebrate a long-ago birth are asked to remember our own new birth by water and the Spirit, children of God who are then sent to be light in an increasingly darker world that God still loves enough to become part of it through the body of Christ, the church, and to declare the new birth of redeeming love wherever we go. 

The old folk song says “Go, tell it on the mountain.” May we find courage and hope to declare it in the dark valleys, too. Because the birth of Jesus sets in motion the way to our own, and everyone’s new birth, now and forever. 
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THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ Today’s Gospel is probably my favorite, and may be the most important lesson in the Gospels outside the resurrection stories. In these few verses of the Prologue to the Gospel of John, we have the very essence of the meaning of today’s celebration. 

While much of this day seems to be more like a baby shower, there’s a lot more to it. It’s in the first few words: In the beginning. Not the birth, for which John gives no details, but THE beginning. The earth was without form and void and darkness covered the face of the deep. 

But God was, to put it in human terms, in body, mind, and spirit. We hear that in Genesis--and a spirit from God hovered over the face of the waters. Then things start getting interesting. It all begins with And God said. 

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. God speaks, and things come into being. God speaks, and there is light, with all forms of life soon to follow. 

John tells us these things—light and life—are intimately related. Except he reverses the order so they become inseparable. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. Not just some, not a special group. All people. 

Scientists tell us of neutrinos. Slivers of light found everywhere in the universe, present in and around all that is. There is never complete and total darkness, but light is present everywhere. When it gathers into one place, it not only brightens the space around it, but it enables that which darkness cannot overcome. It enables sight, allows vision. Not just seeing, but able to know, in part, as God sees and knows in whole. 

And so here we are today. No singing angels, no fearful shepherds, no manger or lowing cattle. The Word became flesh and lived among us. That Word, John tells us, is light and life, enabling those who receive him, who believe in his name, to become children of God. 
The meaning of this day, and of every day since the birth of Jesus, is found in the continuing life of the children of God who keep revealing God’s glory in the life-giving, light-bearing new beginnings of Almighty God. 

We come together, each of us like a walking, talking, breathing neutrino, gathered so that in some mysterious way the light of Love itself can break into the darkness of our own time to say to a misshapen, purposeless world, “Let there be light,” by being that which we declare so that life can flourish in all the abundance Jesus promises later in the Gospel. 

​You see, the work of creation continues; the Spirit keeps hovering over the deep, shrouded places of our time. The Word desires to become flesh time and again, known in its fulness of grace and truth. Children of God, we have much work to do.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

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 “What is in a name,” asks the Bard of Avon. Quite a lot, as it turns out. I once taught a confirmation class where the question arose, and I asked the students to research the background and meaning of their own names. A couple of surprises were in store. Try it when you get a chance, if you haven’t already done so. 

Sometimes those meanings go beyond definitions or family traditions. For instance, when I was growing up, if I heard my first name, it meant Mom was mad about something. 

Names in scripture tend to point us to a meaning well beyond personal identity. One of the more important ones was given to Jacob after wrestling all night with a heavenly being. He is renamed “Israel,” which means “strives with God.” Then there’s Simon whom Jesus renames Peter, which means rock. The same root gives us the word “petrified.” We interpret the name change to refer to the faith found in Peter’s confession of who Jesus is, although Matthew tells us Jesus renamed Simon when they first met. Given other characteristics and responses from Peter after that event, we might have other interpretations. At times he seems to be fairly hard-headed. 

Today’s lessons give us two important names. Isaiah tells us about one, and a messenger to Joseph gives us another. Let’s start with Isaiah. 

Judah is in trouble, as we’ve noted throughout this Advent season. King Ahaz is anxious and wants a quick solution to current issues. The prophet urges the king to have patience. There is a young woman, already pregnant, whose child will grow and be weaned. “By the time the child can eat solid food, those who threaten you will be gone. Just wait, don’t rush into something that might eventually be more harmful than current troubles. Why, soon things will be so good here that parents will be naming their sons Emmanuel, because the evidence will show that God is truly with us.” 

Matthew borrows Isaiah’s words to try to show that the child Jesus is their fulfillment. The Church did the same thing through the centuries. But in Isaiah’s time, the prophet gives a more immediate answer, there’s a more immediate need. Lots of babies will be born and weaned in the nearly 800 years of time between Isaiah and the birth of Jesus. 

When we look at today’s Gospel, it reads like  a contradiction of itself in the way Matthew quotes Isaiah. The name of the child born into Joseph’s care is not Emmanuel. It’s Jesus, or more precisely, Yeshua or Jehoshua. Just as we might today call a boy named Peter by the nickname “Rocky,” Mary’s baby could just as easily be called “Josh

It’s the meaning of the name Yeshua that’s important. It means “one who saves,” or even “God saves.” Those who know history will remember another Joshua, who led the descendants of Jacob, called Israel, into the promised land after Moses departed from them. That Joshua was a great leader and warrior, the one who conquered Jericho. Some of the oldest writings in the Hebrew Scriptures are in a book called by his name. 

Jesus is the Latin word for the Greek translation of the Aramaic name told to Joseph, who, as the human father, is the one to name the child, claiming him as his own. Actual parentage isn’t part of the discussion at this point. By naming the child, Joseph pledges himself as a primary caregiver, and names the son as his own heir. The naming also establishes Mary’s son, Jesus, firmly in the lineage of the descendants of Abraham, a major point of Matthew’s writing. 

God saves. That’s what the name Jesus means. Matthew tells us the divine messenger said to name Mary’s baby Jesus because “he will save his people from their sins.” After all the talk this morning about the meaning of names, let’s look at what that sentence means. 
We could all come up with varying lengths of lists of what we call “sins.” I once walked by a place where some folks were gathered, some of whom I knew, and they were enjoying the effects of inhaling a particularly aromatic herbal substance. I stopped and looked at them and said, “I smell sin!” They laughed, which could have been a by-product of the occasion. They didn’t stop smoking. 

One of our canticles, used regularly as the Glory to God, has the phrase “you take away the sin of the world.” Singular, not a whole list. In order to understand the a contradiction of itself in the way Matthew quotes Isaiah. The name of the child born into Joseph’s care is not Emmanuel. It’s Jesus, or more precisely, Yeshua or Jehoshua. Just as we might today call a boy named Peter by the nickname “Rocky,” Mary’s baby could just as easily be called “Josh.” deep meaning of the names before us today, we need to understand just what sin is.

Throughout its history, the Church has treated sin much in the same way we treat the common cold. We identify and address symptoms because we really don’t seem, or perhaps don't want to understand the real root of the cause. Of course, we know that the common cold is caused by a very old form of the corona virus. But again, we are able to treat only the symptoms, and not eliminate the virus.

A few years ago, one writer, I believe it was Diana Butler Bass, identified sin in a way that helped me, and I want to see if it helps all of us.
Sin is living in a state of being separated from God. It is evidenced in many ways, often through disobedience, oppression of ourselves and others, in attributes such as greed and idolatry and being judgmental. Several different theories have been offered as to how we are redeemed, how atonement is made from a life of sin. All of those in some way seem to ignore what actually happened, the event identified by the names given in today’s lessons.

As human beings, we are always in some way separated from God, because we cannot contain all that is God. Jesus, too, entered into sin by becoming human, although his divine nature meant that he was not separated from God as we are. That is due to his eternal divinity, not because of any physical condition of his earthly parents.

We are saved from sin not by anything we do or could possibly ever do. We are saved from sin because in the coming of Jesus to us as a human baby, God becomes one of us. This is not to make us like God, even though we try to achieve that on our own, which Jesus himself declared impossible. In order to save humanity, God didn’t pay a ransom to the devil, or provide a human sacrifice to replace the animals slaughtered on the altar of the Temple. Instead, God shows us the true depth of redemption by becoming human, by embracing humanity that in a profound way gives us the real meaning of “loving our neighbor as ourselves.” By embodying the teachings of Jesus, known to be the will of God, we allow ourselves to be a small revelation of the presence of God. That is a sign of our salvation.

The birth of the child to be raised by Mary and Joseph will come to be known by those around him in the same way Isaiah tried to explain to Ahaz. His presence, his life, his words and deeds are the evidence given to us that God is with us. Emmanuel. His presence is what saves us; the nearness of the Holy Spirit continues to be that same evidence just as it was with Jesus on the winding paths of Galilee and in the Temple courts in Jerusalem. It’s also the sign of God’s presence on the streets of Wilmington, Delaware when followers of Jesus continue his work of healing and reconciliation, our mutual redemption.

Jesus, Emmanuel, Yeshua, is the fullness of the life of God in human form that accepts even the cross, for it is by entering into death itself that the threat of eternal destruction is cast away, and even death is redeemed. It is in that redemption that we find the completion of the event we celebrate later this week.
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It’s not just about the birth of a baby. Jesus, Emmanuel, means the redemption of humanity, indeed, ​indeed, of all creation, coming full circle so that it’s not just God with us, but ultimately, we are with God. Forever.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​It is said that “without a vision, the people perish.” Today’s first lesson is all about a vision. It’s not a memory, but an invitation to dare to believe in something better than what is past or even what is present reality. 

Scholars tend to place today’s lesson from Isaiah as something an editor misplaced from the time of Second Isaiah, who speaks to Judah in exile. The prophet invites those moved far from their homeland to imagine not just the restoration of what they might have heard from some who remember years past, but to create in their own minds what life might be like when God restores them to their promised land. 

We can spend a lot of time fleshing out the lyrical words of the prophet; indeed, many composers have set these words to some glorious and thoughtful music. It would be very easy to play recordings of some of those pieces and bask in their beauty. But that could fall under what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” We have a much more difficult task before us, one that the whole concept of Advent calls us to when we don’t escape to memories of fawning over newborn babies. 

I want you to imagine the people of Immanuel Highlands being removed from their home. I want you to imagine feeling lost and forgotten in a strange place, where everything familiar is no more, and all that is left are fading memories of what once was. 
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I want to invite you to imagine that instead of desperately trying to continue what once was, you gain a vision of what might and can be as you live into the promises of the God who led you through the waters of baptism, your own Red Sea, back into a life that the same God promised our ancestors would be ours “when we get there.” 

That’s where Judah is when Isaiah speaks to them. We are part of those of whom Jesus speaks when he says “the least in the kingdom will be greater than John.” To imagine all this, we have to put ourselves in the place of those who question Jesus in today’s Gospel, and also try to see ourselves in his answer. 

To paraphrase, what do others see and hear when they consider Immanuel Highlands? Not as a place with a geographic location and precise GPS coordinates, but as a people called to be, in Jesus’ words, greater than John the Baptist. 

If someone asks that tried and true question, “What in God’s name is going on at the corner of Riverview and West 17th Streets,” how would we answer? Depending on which corner you stand, there are at least four possibilities. But then, we’d need to know more about our neighbors to provide three of those. And, we have to remember the important words in that question are “in God’s name.” 

We might say something about donations to community organizations, or support to Friendship House and Emmanuel Dining Room. We might mention liturgies on Sunday mornings and Wednesday afternoons. We could say something about Kind Mind Kids or a building open to community groups like AlAnon and Indivisible Delaware.

How might we describe encounters with the Risen Christ, or transformational experiences that redefine our very lives? In other words, how can we describe what we, who regularly gather here, hope to see and hear?

Can we talk about difficult times made easier by being part of this community of the faithful? Might we describe somehow finding meaningful life even when seemingly surrounded by desolation and worry? How about tongues suddenly finding words of praise when life’s events steal the words we so desperately need to hear?

The answers to these questions will help us find the vision we seek and need in order to find the promised life that lies before us. They are the answers to questions posed by a strange person standing in the many Jordan Rivers of our own time, a living prophecy shared by Isaiah and so many others that help reorient us not just toward our own vision, but into the very loving gaze of Almighty God.

These visions come as a sign of our salvation, the assurance of our redemption begun when the creative Word of God became flesh, embodying all the words of the law and the prophets and the glorious Psalms that lead to this moment of clear sight.

Without a vision the people perish. But when God’s vision helps us see the way forward, the light of eternal Love shines to reveal our path. It also shows us the way to a life that never ends. Go and tell what that means.

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THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

Today’s news will likely include reminders of a rude awakening experienced on this day in 1941. On a quiet, sunny Sunday morning, residents and naval personnel on the Hawaiian island of Oahu were jolted by the sound of airplanes, the screech of falling bombs, and explosions of ships in Pearl Harbor. 

The next day, before a joint session of Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt called it a “day of infamy” as he asked those gathered before him to approve a declaration of war against Japan. Three days later, mutual declarations came from Germany and the United States against each other. These were the last official Congressional declarations of war produced in this country, but that didn’t keep us from engaging in violence in the years to come. 

These events came almost three thousand years after the prophet Isaiah declared the alternative. He speaks to a people frightened by current events and threats to life and livelihood. 

Isaiah speaks directly to King Ahaz. Ahaz is rightly worried about his people and his own well-being. He hears the voice of the prophet, but he doesn’t listen to him. Ahaz attempts to form an alliance with a sometime enemy whose greater enemy threatens the northern kingdom of Israel, who is one of Judah’s threats. You probably don’t have to stretch your imagination to recognize the many red flags flapping in the wind of that situation. 

Keep in mind that of the whole sixty-six chapters of Isaiah’s prophecy, the first 39 or so deal with events some 200 years before the Babylonian exile, but are during the time of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel. The rest pertain primarily to the southern kingdom, Judah, during and after the exile in Babylon. Scholars believe that there were three prophets called Isaiah. Tradition has it that number one became so unpopular in his teachings that he was sawn in two. Ouch. 

In 1780, in what’s now known as Langhorne, Pennsylvania, Edward Hicks was born. His family was Anglican, but his mother died when he was eighteen months old. His father, unable to care for young Edward, sent him to be raised by Friends. Capital F. After the Revolutionary War, his biological family was left destitute as were many of those loyal to the crown. What became The Episcopal Church in the United States faced a similar fate. 

Hicks became a minister of the Society of Friends, known as “Quakers.” He knew conflict, after living through the Revolutionary War, and then being part of a schism in his adopted faith. You might know him best by having seen some of his sixty-​two paintings known collectively as The Peaceable Kingdom. One is in the collection just a few miles north of here at Winterthur.

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.” All that without searching for barbecue recipes. Promises of an idyllic life, free of conflict, death, fear, and all that comes with adversarial ways of life. If you look at some of Hicks’ paintings, you might look at the faces of some of the animals and question whether they’re thinking “how did we get here?” or just “really?” In some, the lion, munching on straw, seems to ask, “how did this happen?”

We live in a very conflicted time, but then, when has humanity not lived in a conflicted time? The rise of one side is seen as a threat to the other. Benefits to some are regarded as theft from those who otherwise wouldn’t miss their absence. Debaters hurl insults and accusations over social media posts while others carry signs and other objects of scorn through the streets.

A modern-day prophet might look on and ask, “So how’s that working for you?”

I can sometimes be a bit of a revolutionary myself. I read about the problem of homelessness and lack of shelter for the poorest among us. Thinking of the site of that art collection I mentioned a few minutes ago, I say, “There’s a house with 175 rooms nearby, already furnished and it has lots of land around for farming and raising food. Make that available for those who need a roof over their heads.”
Again, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to discern the reaction to that statement.

Isaiah gives us a vision of a peaceful, not just peaceable, way of life. It seems outlandish and, frankly, impossible. And it will remain just so because we choose to not be citizens of that kingdom. We choose instead to exercise our own comfort and wealth, electing to toss a little something in the direction of making a difference, and then go home to watch the all-important game where we hope our team will triumph and we can claim to be “winners.”

If anyone’s wondering where their bandsaw is, I can still run.

We pray “your kingdom come” while we choose to live in the alternative. That doesn’t mean God has abandoned us, but that we have abandoned God. Isaiah’s vision of a peaceful, peaceable kingdom didn’t happen in his time, nor did it happen after Jesus matured into a grown man and proclaimed its nearness.

It didn’t happen because those who heard either of them speak chose to live differently. God isn’t one to force us to choose one way or another. Instead, God presents the vision of our choices before us and invites us to select, to live the one that gives life to all, and not just for ourselves. Then, if we choose the other direction, God has a whole eternity to wait for us to learn the consequences. We fall a few years short of that amount of time.

​To bring it home, if you see someone hungry, invite them to join you for dinner. If you see someone homeless, offer your spare bedroom. If you find someone in despair, clinging to what little bit of life may be left dangling before them, stop what might seem more important to you and be perhaps the last friend on earth who offers to sit and listen, or just sit in the stillness of the moment. Isaiah didn’t say it was going to be easy. Jesus said, “take up your cross.”
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In other words, if you really want a peaceful, peaceable kingdom, live it. That’s how it works.