THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

I often wonder if one of the problems the contemporary institutional church faces is one we’ve created for ourselves. It’s not that different ways of explaining our faith seem to contradict each other. (They do.) Nor is it that we’ve discovered through the years that words in original languages didn’t mean what we thought they did, but we’ve held onto incorrect meanings because, well, that’s what we’ve always done. (That’s true, too.) 

One of the earliest controversies of the church was about baptism. It’s our rite of initiation into the community of the faithful. In some cases, it’s a naming ceremony, too, as birth certificates are a fairly recent thing in our society, and baptismal records were perhaps the only written evidence of date of birth, parentage, and so on. We have a seal used on transcripts of those records as a mark of their official nature. 

Discussions over the effect of baptism included arguments over whether a person could be baptized a second time, and if a person sinned after baptism whether that person was doomed for all eternity. Nevermind the amount of water used, or the question of pouring, sprinkling, or full immersion in the ritual. 

These questions persist in our own time. You might recall a discussion just a year or so ago about the validity of hundreds of baptisms in a parish of another denomination in this country because the priest said, “we baptize you,” instead of “I baptize you.” And, in some instances, I have had to ask whether a person was baptized using a Trinitarian formula, our own requirement for the validity of the sacrament. Even in scripture, the question was raised whether a person received the baptism of John or in the name of Jesus. 

All of these questions, while worthy of discussion, put the emphasis on what we do instead of what God has done in the birth, life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. And so I also wonder whether many of these questions and debates are really about our need to control who’s in and who’s out, turning our fellowship into more of a social club than a living agent of Good News for all people. 

This isn’t new, either. In The Acts of the Apostles, Peter is called before a council to explain why he baptized a Gentile household. We hear a part of his defense every year on Easter Sunday. So, maybe we’re not just trying to control who’s in and who’s out, but we’re really denying a universal effect of God’s act of salvation. In essence, it seems we’re trying to control God. That spills over into our debates about who is worthy of ordination, even though the call stories we hear from candidates echo those made by the ones now making decisions. 

From the time of Abraham, through the prophets, to Mary and Joseph and the first disciples, we’re told that God made the first move in calling individuals to a new relationship of faithful living—a covenant relationship established by God. I suppose any of those I named could have said no, and it could be that we don’t read of initial negative responses because, well, why bother with those? The first indication I read of any choice in the matter is in W. H. Auden’s For the Time Being, where the angel Gabriel says to Mary, “You must choose him who chooses you.”

I haven’t devoted any time (yet) to a sermon on the question, “what if Mary had said ‘no’?”

But it is worth our time to consider whether in all this we have simply made things more difficult than they need to be. So much of popular discourse on religious matters seem to focus on a God who is, frankly, pretty weak. It’s almost as if the act of creation wore God out, eliminating any energy for much of anything else until the resurrection, except for that Red Sea crossing thing.
Even accepted atonement theories seem to weaken God. A penalty had to be paid. A ransom paid to the devil. An ultimate sacrifice had to be made to satisfy all beings of divine origin.

All these points, and many others, avoid dealing with a much simpler question. What if salvation is made possible for everyone, and everything, just because God says so? We might require baptism in order to be a member of our church, but is God unable to work in and through us until that happens? Is salvation only made possible through faithful church membership?

I think you know my answer to those questions, but there are those who might be thinking of channeling their inner Torquemada and looking for enough dry wood to barbecue a heretic.

I believe the Apostle Paul’s point in all his letters is that God has accomplished all that is necessary for the salvation of the world. And, even Jesus himself, when asked “who can be saved?” replied that for humans it was impossible. But, he continues, for God, nothing is impossible.

Think about that. Our “yes” to God is our acknowledgement that God is already working in, through, and for us. Nothing we do here will save us, but everything we do here is in gratitude for the gift of salvation given freely to us. We don’t show up in order to earn anything, nor do we stay away because everything has been completed. We gather to discover again what it means to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world. Children of God.

And that covers such a wide variety of expressions that our understanding of it can only be found in community. Salvation is not something we get for ourselves so that we get into heaven when we die. Salvation is the assurance that death does not have the final answer, so that we boldly proclaim life to its very face. That’s true whether it be in the face of illness, violence, greed, or individual and institutional fear.

​There exist in our own time those powers that weaken when God’s light-filled, dare I say salty children show up and name them for who and what they are. I said recently to a Wednesday gathering that evil is incapable of learning, so it keeps repeating its same mistakes over and over again. It even tried once to forever weaken God. But then God got its attention by pointing to an empty tomb.

Our darkening world needs more and more of the light that continues to shine from the many tombs of our own time. Choose to be the light that has already chosen you to bear it.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ A long time ago in a diocese far, far away, I read a book entitled Dreams: God’s Forgotten Language. I remember it being an interesting book, but didn’t take to heart its real meaning until God decided to remind me what I had forgotten. 

I was in seminary, a place where dreams often find themselves encountered by nightmares. My life was changing in many ways; two other journeys through graduate school didn’t seem to be nearly as personally challenging as did the present. And, the death of a mentor and both of my grandmothers in a four-month span caused much introspection. 

I started having nightmares, really vivid ones that startled me from sleep with the feeling that there was a presence in the room that I feared seeing. I remember being afraid to open my eyes in the darkness to peer into that dark corner where I sensed the presence was lurking. I do remember its shape and purpose forming in my thoughts. It was a vampire, and I did not have Buffy on speed dial, which actually didn’t even exist then. 

These dreams occurred, often nightly, until I posed a question and dared answering it. What is it that seems to be draining the very life out of me? My inability to face the answer led to other issues affecting my life and my ability to glimpse even a slight possibility of what I’ve since understood as Jesus’ promise of abundant life. 

Okay. Enough true confessions, lest someone begin writing a script for the next Lifetime or Hallmark movie. I tell you this because today’s lessons point us in directions away from ways of life that are often draining away God’s purpose for us, God’s promise to us, even, dare I say, God’s dream for us. 

Israel is in trouble, problem child that it has been since Jacob started limping. Corinth is a fractious place, the haves positioned against the have nots, while some others come along and make spreading the Gospel a competitive sport. Jesus’ followers are learning a new way of life, a movement that will challenge the status quo not only of religious leaders, but will expose the lie taught by the governing Pax Romana. 

In The Many Lives of Greta Wells, the author Andrew Scott Greer writes of a young man walking in the New York City snow with his sister and his dog, who does what dogs do at every tree along the way. A woman emerges from her front door in her housecoat and yells at them to “take their dog away. They’re killing the trees.” The young man looks at her and asks, “Ma’am, are you the person you dreamed of being when you were a young girl?” 

I want to paraphrase that question for us as the parish known as Immanuel Highlands. Are we the parish, the people God dreamed of us being when our founders were led to form this part of the Body of Christ in 1870? Looking even further back, are we all together, as that Body, Christ’s Church, whom God dreamed of us being as Christ was raised from the dead? Are we, some of the spiritual descendants of that rascal Jacob, renamed Israel, whom God had in mind, the God whom Jacob wrestled with all night, resulting in that limp I mentioned a few minutes ago? 

The answer we may not want to admit is perhaps “not sure,” or even, “no.” And so, we gather from week-to-week to hear and ponder again what it takes to turn that “no” into a resounding “yes.” Resounding, mind you, because it will be echoed by the God who dreams us into being in the first place. 

To reach that “yes,” we may find ourselves in a great reversal similar to those Beatitudes we might have memorized in Sunday School. We might need to lay aside, slay if you must, our individual achievements and self-congratulations to not just see others as our equals, but to choose equality with them by changing our judgmental opinions of both of us. 

We might also hear that “yes” in response to our uttering the “no.” The world has changed since 1870, let alone since the day of Jesus’ resurrection or of Jacob’s all-night wrestling match. We can’t change that, nor can we stop the changes that lie ahead of us. God’s yes could come as the response to evidence that, no matter what, we remain faithful as we live into the promise of abundant life, reaching out to others with one hand as we reach out toward the possibilities of God’s dream for all of us with the other. 

Yes might mean that we let go of worship as being something we do for a prescribed hour and five minutes on Sunday (with music, forty minutes without) and see true worship as an all-encompassing way of life, our offerings being our whole selves and not just a portion of our paycheck. 

We might need to remember a phrase we hear once a year so that we can truly “walk humbly with our God.” Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. In other words, we are not God. If we see an outward and visible sign of our faith in our accomplishments and our possessions, then we have to admit that the god we worship is pretty much the person we see in the mirror. 

Of course, understanding the meaning of God’s dream might also mean setting aside memories that once exhibited life, but whose re-creation results in life being drained from us. Our devotion to the past too often finds our grip around our own necks, and risks seeing our dreams turned into nightmares of confusion and burnout that cannot offer life, only death in some form as an escape from them. 

So, after all that, what is God’s dream for us? While we engage a process to rediscover the answer, let us keep in mind that it’s been the same all along. From the moment of creation, through the call of Abraham and the prophets, even in the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, God’s dream is the same: faithful children, heirs of a promise that has once and for all eliminated the nightmare of eternal death, choosing instead to present the gift of abundant life that goes on forever. How that dream becomes flesh and lives among us is our commentary on our own re-awakening. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ Some of you know that I’ve gotten a bit involved in raising orchids. I’ve been fascinated by them as I walked by displays in various places, and bought a couple to decorate my home. Keeping them alive seemed to be a continuing issue, so I gave it up. 

When I moved here, I rented a house that has southwestern walls that are all windows. One has a large bay window with a substantial shelf that could be used for seating. I decided to put some plants there that I brought with me, including some herbs that I would use while cooking, another passion I’ve enjoyed through the years. 

I decided to try my hand at orchids again. As most orchid enthusiasts will admit, what begins as an interest can quickly become an addiction. For many, it then became a business. I do have a doctor’s approval for my own addiction. 

The brightest, most showy orchids are often the cattleyas, the flowers sometimes appearing as corsages or in wedding bouquets. Many growers have worked to create hybrids of these, fertilizing one with pollen from a flower of another color or appearance. They collect the seeds and plant them to see what happens. 

Those seeds are as tiny as particles of dust, and can number in the hundreds. But what’s interesting about them is that each seed can produce a plant that after about seven years or so produces a flower that is very different not only from the parent plants, but from others whose seeds came from the same pod. You won’t know exactly what you have until the flower is produced. 

Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth gives us the identity we call “the body of Christ.” And, as you’ll see from today’s Epistle lesson, that body is made up of widely different individuals who sometimes don’t act like they’ve come from the same parentage. I don’t mean they are supposed to all be biological siblings. I mean that, as Paul says, they are born into a new family by virtue of their baptism, adopted as children of God. And, as you might have experienced a time or two, sometimes families don’t get along. 

Paul addresses many issues along the way in this letter, more than I want to cover this morning. When he gets to the most important one, which we again often hear at weddings adorned with displays of orchids and other flowers, we’re reminded of the foundation of our reason for being, the very thing that calls us here and gives us life. 

You’ll remember it with these words. “If I speak with tongues of [humans] and of angels.” Got it? He goes on to say, “but [if I] don’t have love, I am nothing more than a sounding gong or clanging cymbals.”  

You see, it’s not that we agree on everything or even get along 100% of the time. Our reason for being, and something we alone as the body of Christ might be able to teach the world around us, is that our disagreements are met with the same Love that calls us into being and is the foundation of our life as Christ’s church. As we’ll hear especially in the upcoming Lenten season, it very well could be that our cross to bear is Love itself, especially in the face of conflict and division, and, critically, hopelessness. 

We don’t know how the seeds we plant in love might grow and blossom. But it is Love that helps us see the beauty in each one as it grows and blooms. It is love that helps us nurture the growth as we wait for the blossoming that may come only periodically, and that may last only a few days or even just a few hours. But Love calls us to anticipate the next blooming season, until we all burst forth into the blossoming of life with a fragrance that lasts through all eternity. As we wait for that moment, let us anticipate what that might be even as we know we’ll be surprised at its coming in fullness. 
​
Love is the foundation of our life together and it is also our invitation to those around us. Our call, if you will, is to invite others into a new life of love that seeks us out, walks with us, even into death itself so that we are led by the outstretched arms of Love into new life, both here and in the age to come. You see, it is in Love, for Love, and by Love, that we ourselves blossom into life that is, each in its own way, lovely 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ These Sundays in January always feature call stories. We hear of Jesus’ calling the first disciples, who will make up that group known as “the twelve.” Today we also hear a somewhat different call story, that of the second prophet named Isaiah. It’s not as dramatic as the call of Isaiah number one, but it is a substantial message. 

This prophet isn’t just about calling the descendants of Jacob, named Israel, back into their proper covenant relationship with God. His call is much broader: 
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” 

We can spend a lot of time on that shift of focus and our presumed interpretations of it. Since a colleague once said she learned in seminary that a sermon should be about two things—it should be about God, and it should be about ten minutes—I’ll jump to the point. 
I want you to consider your own call. Yes, I know we speak that language when we talk about ordained ministry. But we each have times we remember and things we do with our lives that seem much more fulfilling than others. Consider, then, that those moments identify to you the substance of your own “call.” By that, I mean your purpose in life. 

But that, too, is too little a thing. Not that it doesn’t matter, but as followers of Jesus, whom we believe to be The Christ, The Messiah, we live in relationship with each other in ways that extend our personal call stories into a much broader emphasis. 

So, Immanuel Highlands, what is your call? What is your purpose, your reason for being where we are at this particular time? It is too light a thing to focus only on finances or property maintenance. That can be done in pretty much the same way if we didn’t gather here at all, because that emphasis would be the same for other stately, though quasi-religious buildings in other places. We call those mausoleums. 

The call of Jesus of Nazareth is a call to new life. Notice that those he called left what they were doing, and whom they were doing it with, and set out in search of an answer to his invitation to “come and see.” Second Isaiah pretty much faced the same journey. He didn’t know exactly what being a light to the nations might mean, but he had an idea that it was something far greater than setting Israel back on the right course as they anticipate leaving exile to return to what’s left of what they call “home.” 

So, using Jesus’ words, what do you expect others to find when you invite them to “come and see?” First, we have to move beyond the art gallery idea regarding windows and architecture. We are not docents. We are disciples. To drive the point home, answer another question. When did you last make a return visit, let alone a weekly visit, to a familiar art gallery or museum? 

Maybe we are the ones who need to seek the answer to “come and see.” Maybe our complacency, even apathy that things will just keep going along the same as they have for decades, has blinded us to the answer we need to risk finding before we can even begin inviting others to join us. 

Maybe we need to rediscover the life we once found, that still exists, although in different revelations, when we first came and saw. Maybe we haven’t seen for ourselves even yet. But we have many travelers, seekers, if you will, who have joined our journey along the way, so we're not alone. Giving how God often works, they might be the ones who point out to us what was right before our eyes all the time. 
We may go forward in ways we hardly imagined. But if we fail to step out because we fear where we might go, then we risk being little more than the museum or mausoleum others want to avoid. 

I’ve often asked “why are we here?” It’s time to ask loudly, “why should we remain here?” The answer begins to become clearer when we dare to come and see the truth of where we are. 

Are we a light to the Highlands neighborhood? Do our neighbors really care whether we’re here? Or do they stay away because they know we’re here and for some reason don’t want to be part of us? I’ve known the answer to each of those questions to be “yes” in different places. 

We must consider that same answer for ourselves, and if true, begin another task one of the Isaiahs sets before us. Be a repairer of the breach. More to come.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ I think there’s an obvious question missing from today’s Gospel. Matthew gives us a more detailed conversation between Jesus and John than the other Gospels. So, when Jesus tells John that he’s presenting himself for baptism “to fulfill all righteousness,” instead of the implication that John says, “oh, okay then,” I think he should have said, “What does that mean?” The answer would have made things a lot easier for preachers who follow them. 

The word “righteousness” has several meanings, one of the most prevalent being “living in right relationship.” It has ministry undertones in other meanings such as justice and charity. However, all of these include the meaning of the festival we just finished celebrating. They are incarnational and require being in relationship with other living things, and not just an individual imputation of what can appropriately be called “self-righteousness.” That is actually just selfishness. 

John’s work, and his chosen location, take an ancient Jewish tradition and expand it beyond the boundaries of Judaism. You may have heard of a mikvah, a pool of water that was part of many homes. A person would enter the pool, walking down steps and through the water and back up steps, usually on the opposite side. Men would bathe in preparation for the Sabbath, women as a rite of purification after their monthly menstrual cycle. Those who for any reason were ritually unclean would enter the mikvah, say, if they came into contact with blood, recovering from illness, or tended to the dead. 

John moves another purpose for the mikvah into the Jordan River. Converts to Judaism, or those whose way of life separated them from the faithful, would enter the mikvah as a sign of ritual cleansing as they joined or returned to the faithful community. 

Jesus was born to a Jewish mother and was circumcized eight days later, keeping the law. He doesn’t need to join that which he was born into, and unless the Gospels are omitting details of a life spent in “riotous living” up until now, doesn’t really need a ritual cleansing. Mind you, a bath every now and then isn’t such a bad thing for communal living, but it’s not the same as cleansing from sin. 

Jesus, Matthew tells us, is here to save his people from sin. His very name, you’ll remember (I hope) means just that. He is on earth to redeem humanity, and to do that, becomes human. What better way to show love and charity toward another than to become one with them? 

Jesus entered the waters of baptism to more fully become just like those he came to save. He shows the definition of righteousness, meaning justice, by submitting to the same ritual as others must also submit themselves. Jesus doesn’t ask anything more of us than that which he expects for himself. Actually, he doesn’t mention baptism again until he challenges religious leaders when they question him. Then there’s what is probably a later addition to Matthew’s Gospel which we call the “Great Commission,” but that includes the Trinitarian formula we use today, and which exists nowhere else in Matthew.

Baptism is our entrance into the community of faith. We bring children to the waters of Holy Baptism as we pledge to love and nurture them as they grow and learn what it means to be faithful. We baptize older children and adults who have pledged to live a life in a different way than before even as we make the same pledge to them as we do to cute babies.

Baptism isn’t so much a quick assurance into heaven as it is a pledge to live together in ways that prevent everything and everyone going literally into hell, whatever form that may take. Like Jesus’ entrance into the fulness of humanity as he came out of the Jordan River, our baptism is a call to live more fully in the community of the faithful, and not as a single individual keeping ourselves more pure than Ivory soap until the trumpet sounds.

When we baptize, we take a person created in God’s image, one whom I believe is already a child of God, and pledge to live together in community in ways that reveal the life of the Incarnate and risen Christ. What that means will take the rest of our lives to discover, no matter where we go. It’s what I call one of the bookends of the church.

The other bookend is what we do when life has ended for one of us and we gather to commend them back to God for safe-keeping for all eternity. We commit remains back to the earth from which we are formed, and which baptism calls us to remember that God loves the earth, too.
​
You see, baptism isn’t about getting into heaven. It’s about being in right relationship, living in ways of justice in loving community. Our lives are the revelation of what it means to fulfill all righteousness. Or not.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​
 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. 
​

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

​ 
 “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.