THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ There are a few things we need to keep in mind when reading today’s Gospel lesson. One is that Matthew, who is probably not the tax collector Jesus called to be a disciple, speaks primarily to followers of Jesus who were raised in Judaism. We’re about a half-century or so after the resurrection and among those driven from their homes when the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem in the year 70. 

Another thing to remember is where Jesus is at this point. He’s in the Temple, in Jerusalem. This chapter of Matthew begins with what’s called the Triumphal Entry. To put it in context, we should have had Palm Sunday about two weeks ago. Jesus spends not just one week, but probably several months in Jerusalem before he’s arrested, tried, and crucified. 

Jesus doesn’t play it safe. Matthew tells us that one of the first things Jesus does is cleanse the Temple, driving away those who profit from commerce at the kiosks in the outer mall. If that wasn’t enough, at least it was too early to overturn the tables at the women’s annual Christmas bazaar. Then he would have been in some real trouble. 

Along come those with a sense of authority—the wardens and vestry, if you will—with the Temple Standing Committee off in the wings, and probably a few from the disciplinary board hiding in the shadows observing and taking notes. We heard part of the opening interrogation last week. “Just who do you think you are?” they want to know. 

But instead of answering their self-serving question, Jesus pretty much tells them they aren’t who they pretend to be. As you might guess, they’re not all that pleased but don’t yet understand why. A bit later Matthew tells us that after hearing the parables, they realize Jesus is talking about them. Time for some closed-door meetings. 

When we read today’s Gospel lesson, we have all that stuff in the background. That prepares us for what we must face today, and not just a lesson about some figurative workers two thousand years ago. 

Today we have to learn that despite property deeds, purchase receipts, and years of maintenance and upkeep, we are little more than tenants here. In our denomination, as well as a few others, a local congregation might claim ownership of property, but in truth we hold it in trust for the larger body such as a diocese or a conference. You might remember hearing and reading about litigation over that issue during the past couple of decades. 

Our claims to ownership tend to supersede the true purpose of our life here. We tend to care more about various structures—buildings, rituals, protocols, and the like—than we do about somehow expressing the claim made upon each of us as stewards of the story that drove Jesus to Jerusalem in the first place. 

So let’s consider that identity—tenant—in light of our own experience, if we have some. There’s rent to be paid, for sure, but there’s also a deposit equal to that rent, if not more. There’s some upkeep to the dwelling by cleaning and not causing damage even when hanging a few things on the wall. In return, we get (hopefully) a sound roof, working heat, and perhaps some convenient appliances. If all goes well, when we leave, we get our deposit back. 

We are also tenants on this earth. God’s purpose in creation was to make a place where life would be sustained. Everything necessary was in place before late on that first Friday; God took some of the earth, formed it, and breathed life into it. Yes, that story is not literally what happened, but it serves to tell us why we are here. That reason is to be tenants who care for God’s creation as a sign of God’s care for all creatures.

Like the so-called wicked tenants in today’s Gospel, we use what God has provided for our own selfish purposes, grabbing more and more for ourselves while neglecting those around us. We’ve moved mountains, literally, to mine coal and other materials in order to enrich ourselves, leaving behind scars and valleys filled with what we don’t want, blocking streams, causing flooding, and poisoning water. We make wealth more important than people and elect leaders who will help us keep doing that.

When we are born into the Body of Christ, we hopefully get a warm, welcoming community to nurture and nourish us in the life of the gospel. We find our place in a relationship that is meant to mirror the life of the Trinity, sharing joys and sorrows, gain and loss, and learning from each other how we live in the midst of all that.

We learn that being nurtured in this life teaches us how to do the same for the next generation, that it’s not just about each of us individually earning a place in an idealized heaven in the next life so much as it is to not create a life of hell for those around us struggling to live together in God’s creation. We offer the only thing we truly have—our lives—in return as tenants blessed by all God has given to sustain the lives we live.
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Then, when all is said and done, we offer life itself back to the one who gave his life for us, and who gives life to us. In return, we receive life as we could not have imagined, as our life-long deposit is returned to us on an ever-living table of blessing in God’s eternal presence.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS
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​ Today’s Epistle lesson is one of the most important excerpts from all of Scripture. You’ve heard the words read, you’ve sung a paraphrase of them. Now hear them again from a different translation, The Common English Bible: 

Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort in love, any sharing in the Spirit, any sympathy, complete my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united, and agreeing with each other. Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus: 


Though he was in the form of God,
he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave
and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human, 
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross. 
Therefore, God highly honored him
and gave him a name above all names, 
so that at the name of Jesus everyone
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow 
and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 
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Paul is in prison, in chains for his work spreading the Gospel. The preceding chapter of the Philippian letter expresses an upbeat attitude, even to the point that those who use Paul’s difficulty to gain attention to their own work are at least still spreading the Gospel, talking about Jesus. 

There’s some debate around the poem in today’s lesson. Is it an older hymn used by Paul, or did he write the words himself? Is he paraphrasing the words of others to allow a new hearing of familiar words? We don’t know, because no earlier manuscript of this text predates Paul’s letter. But consider that Paul writes these words maybe as soon as two or three decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus. So even if they are an older hymn, they can’t be that old. The words of the hymn we just sang were written the same year this parish was founded. In the history of the church, that’s not all that old, either. 

The opening words of the poem can be somewhat confusing, starting with the first word. Though he was in the form of God . . . . Consider the choice made by the editors of the New International Version: 

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. . . . 
British Bishop and scholar N. T. Wright wants that sentence to begin with “because,” emphasizing a divine intent. Because he was God, which makes everything else not only possible but very real, as real as “let there be light.” As real as a humiliating death. As real as a glorious resurrection from the dead. 

And it’s more than intent. It’s about ability. Because Christ is one with God, because Christ is with God, working with God from before creation itself, Christ is the only way possible for the redemption of humanity. The one whose activity formed creation is the only one whose action can promise a new creation. This comes by way of choosing to become human, to embrace all by becoming one with humanity even as Christ is embraced by and embraces God. And by doing this, all creation, heaven and earth, is joined as one dwelling place for God’s ongoing work of creating life and offering salvation. 

All this happens not by asserting power and authority, but by bending under the burden of carrying all that is to the altar of the cross, giving all of life back to God as the only acceptable offering that could be made. After all else has failed—laws, miracles, punishments, exiles, losses and gains—only one thing was left to reveal to the world: who God really is, God’s true nature, and God’s reason for creating life in the first place. 

Love. 

Only love can set aside ambition and entitlement and, to use our contemporary transactional language, accounts payable and receivable, in order to invite the unworthy and rebellious to come back home. Only love can forgive past and even future transgressions so that relationships are restored to new and enduring life. 

Only love can look beyond individual aspirations and pervasive greed in order to invite the empty, forgotten, discarded shells of existence into meaningful and, dare I say, resurrected life. And Love itself chose to do this, not in order to gain those final words of today’s poem, but to offer those words as the possibility, the only real hope, to all who hear and are embraced by them. 

Because Christ set aside all that was rightly his alone and became one with and for all of us, we have a share in the glory that is given to him. It becomes ours when knees humbly bend, tongues haltingly confess, and hearts and hands give all we have, all we are to present the only offering we can possibly make. That offering is not things but a confession as deep as eternity itself.

​Jesus Christ is Lord. 
 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ Poor Jonah. Nothing seems to go his way. He’s given a job to do, but doesn’t want it and tries to run away by catching the next boat out of town. His running puts the lives of others in danger, so he’s thrown overboard, only to be swallowed by a big fish. Then, before he figures out how to fung shui the alimentary canal, his presence provides proof that prophets are prone to causing indigestion in many species. He is, you might say, the Rodney Dangerfield of prophets. 

Today’s first lesson is the end of the story, so it needs a bit of explanation. Jonah lived at about the same time as Amos, Micah, Hosea, and the first prophet named Isaiah. He’s from the northern kingdom of Israel, which is under siege by the Assyrian army. Anyone know the capital of Assyria? Ding ding ding. Nineveh. 

The last thing Jonah wants to see is the sparing of Nineveh from God’s wrath. He admits that God is a forgiving being, and that if he preaches repentance to them, they might just take him at his word and do it. Jonah wants to see vengeance, not redemption. But no, that’s not what happened. The closest Jonah gets to vengeance is by becoming what could have been the retaliation of millions of future sushi dinners. 

Of course, there’s more to the story, including the fact that it’s all a metaphor to reteach Israel itself the possibility of forgiveness and redemption even while they’re under siege. It’s also a story of God’s sense of humor. My Old Testament professor in seminary pointed out that the last words of today’s lesson might just be the last time God is quoted as speaking directly to a human being up until the time of Jesus. If you didn’t notice, the very last words are sarcasm. Go figure. 

These few weeks we’re hearing Jesus’ teaching not only of the availability of forgiveness, but of the very real requirement of our being forgiving even as we are forgiven. I keep listening for a change of inflection when we repeat the words “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” I haven’t heard much change yet. 

“Forgive us OUR sins AS we forgive those who sin against US.” That’s what we’re praying for. Be careful. It might just get answered. 
Jonah is a personification of Israel itself, and, by extension, a personification of us when we choose vengeance over forgiveness. It’s the same lesson Paul tries to remind the church at Philippi when he says to live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. It may be true that while anger is appropriate when it reveals injustice, forgiveness is the only thing that allows us to stay in relationship. It is, as an advisor once said, “the only thing that allows us to stop trying to live a better yesterday.” 

When we forgive, we remain in some type of relationship with those we forgive. It takes effort, a willingness, and desire to remain in a relationship. Consider that as the reason why God offers forgiveness to all—even the Ninevites among us. It is God’s willingness, God’s desire to remain in a faithful relationship with God’s people, God’s children. The cross of Jesus shows the extreme length to which God will go to do that by submitting God made flesh to torture and death in order to redeem both death and all those subject to it. 

That lesson is at the heart of Paul’s teaching, the very core of the Gospels, and a hard lesson for Jonah to learn. Maybe once Jonah figured out that his whole calling and strange journey was as much about teaching him who God is as it was about being God’s messenger, he can mourn the loss of a bush simply because the bush died and not because he had to sit all alone in his sunny pity party. 
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Maybe we can learn that one, too. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​Paul’s letter to the church in Rome is densely packed with theological arguments regarding the relationship between Christian and Jewish believers. While it’s obvious which side of that debate Paul lands on, he also is an active part of both sides, that is, if sides are actually warranted. 

Today’s lesson from that letter raises a few questions, primarily as to why Paul even broaches the topic. Is he referring to Jewish dietary law and tradition? Is the meat offered at dinner part of a sacrifice made to an idol? Or does he really just crave a bacon cheeseburger? 

For a while I worked as the music director in a large Roman Catholic parish and taught in its schools. There were those who maintained the “no meat on Fridays” rule, even though that restriction had been relaxed except during Lent. The high school football team got energized every Friday when they went to their cars after school on game days and found dead fish on them. While they blamed players from opposing teams, they didn’t stop to think that they, too, were in class when it happened. Their own coaches owned up to the prank, but not before they retired. 

Keeping the rules helps us orient our lives. We learn discipline and structure. We might also learn a feeling of superiority for being faithful to them. That is Paul’s reason for addressing the issue, and his words might result in both a raising up and a lowering down, depending on individual senses of their own ways of life. 

All this goes back to the beginning of the letter. Paul spends a lot of time debating the idea that salvation comes through faithfulness to the law as opposed to salvation being a free gift that came before the law ever existed. Yet, we continue to this day to hear that we must obey certain rules and follow set traditions in order to be “saved” and a part of the family of the faithful. 

And, indeed, we tend to subscribe to that ethos. We just call them nice acceptable words like "constitutions" and "canons" and "bylaws," and my favorite, “we’ve always done it this way.” These documents, and sometimes the traditions, help us maintain some order to our communal lives. They also help us understand where authority and responsibility lie, both for those who are held responsible and for those who might desire to usurp authority. 

But there is one overarching aspect of Paul’s teaching that governs everything else. That is that our life together is governed by one thing—unity in Christ in faithful fellowship, understanding that it is solely by God’s grace that we are saved. Nothing else can usurp that grace, and no demand for adherence to laws and traditions can substitute for God’s faithfulness toward us.

To believe otherwise is to somehow try to replace God with ourselves. To insist that others adhere to our ways of life is to possibly deny not just Paul’s teaching but also the words of Jesus in John’s Gospel, where he tells his disciples that the Spirit will reveal more of God’s truth to them “when they are ready.” And, sometimes, it’s ready or not; here it comes anyway, because our selfish stubbornness wants to strangely inhibit God. We have yet to learn how exhausting those exercises in futility can become. 

The bottom line of all this is that we are not capable of judging others, even though we can point out behaviors and customs that don’t necessarily seem to fit our own. That distinction then leads to a discussion about merging old customs with new expressions while also maintaining the fruitful life of the community. When we judge, we supplant God. When we do that, we risk being atheist in some way, although we more often put ourselves in God’s place without giving it a second thought. 

In our relationship with God, we are all weak. In God’s relationship with us, we are made strong enough to accept our weakness, and the same weaknesses in others. We make no claim to superiority, exorcised of our need to control the behavior of others, even as we meet them so we might learn from each other the benefit of our life together in Christ. 

That life is made more abundant as much by our differences as by our similarities. After all, which one of us can contain the fullness of God, the One who was and is and ever shall be part of all of it? 

Our rules, written and otherwise, might help determine whether we fit in a particular group, parish, or denomination. They do not and cannot determine whether we or anyone else happen to be Christian. The constitutions and canons and bylaws serve to help define and protect the institutional church. At times it seems that they also try to protect God, when, in fact, our rigid boundaries and idolatrous grip on our rule books might instead try to protect us from God’s ongoing creation of new life. 

God will have no part of that, and probably just moves on to plant the seeds of the Spirit in more fertile ground. All of Paul’s letters, and the Gospels that come a bit later, point us to that fact. Read them again with that in mind, and give thanks that, like today’s Gospel tries to teach us, God’s number of times to forgive is as infinite as God’s grace. Just don’t take that for granted. Go and do it yourselves, because that's what God does for us. ​

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

I once faced a group of children and asked a question. “What’s it like to be Christian?” One kid spoke up immediately. “It means to be nice.” This was in that very wide Bible-belt region where many who claimed the title “Christian” were more likely to condemn those who weren’t just like them than they were to ponder whether they themselves offered an image of the risen Christ. 

I wasn’t sure what I might have heard as an answer to my question, but as I think about it now, it seems like I was given an easy out. I say that because many of our ideas of “being nice” mean we give in to many of the ways that enable and support conflict, just so we can avoid it. 

So, let me ask another question. How many of you here really enjoy conflict? 

I ask that in full confidence that I’m not preaching at the Red Mass, with a congregation of legal professionals whose livelihood often entails engaging in conflict. I also ask that as one who must confess an avoidance of conflict as much as possible. It’s something I learned watching my own mother, who shied away from any conflict. 

I also ask that question in full confidence that I am standing before a congregation that is conflict averse, and who avoid any open expression of conflict in favor of appearing “nice.” You might have discerned that I’ve outgrown a bit of my conflict avoidance by now. 

I once attended a workshop to help us learn how to deal with conflict. It didn’t hurt that it was in Honolulu in February, where conflict seemed to be washed away by the surf on Waikiki Beach just on the other side of our windows. Our greatest conflict at that point seemed to be with distraction. 

We were taught how to “handle” those who thrive on conflict. I learned soon after that the techniques we discussed didn’t really resolve conflict; instead, they seemed to require reinforcing the box we tried to place the sources of conflict in. 

Call it God’s will, karma, or God’s sense of humor, I shortly found myself as rector in the most conflicted parish in that diocese. They didn’t like female clergy but had a female bishop. They didn’t like the ordination of LGBT persons. There was a hidden history of clerical abuse related to that, but I didn’t know that yet. I soon discovered that they really didn’t like each other all that much sometimes, either. It seemed like when they had a choice of biblical persons to imitate, they chose the Pharisees. 

Today’s Gospel gives us a lesson in how to deal with conflict. Telling someone they’re headed for Hell isn’t in the syllabus. Neither is playing nice and letting abuse and bullying win the day. 

The Gospel teaches us that conflict resolution is first and foremost based in relationship. A wounded person is to go to the one who caused the wounds and explain their perspective in a way that is honest but not threatening. The conversation occurs in the spirit of reconciliation, not vengeance. If reconciliation does not occur, then a witness is added. If that doesn’t work, then the whole congregation is informed, still, mind you, in a spirit of reconciliation. 

If all that is ineffective in restoring the relationship, then the offending person is to be treated “as a Gentile,” an outsider. This is not, at least at first, what we might call excommunication, but rather an opportunity for evangelism. It is an opening to teach again the reconciling love shown to all of us on the cross and an invitation to share in its humility in a desire to also share in the resurrection to new life. 

If reconciliation comes about, we then have to admit that the new relationship will be different from what it was, at least for awhile. We cannot forget, nor can we pretend that the wounds have not occurred, especially when scars remain visible. Maybe that’s one reason why Jesus showed his amazed disciples his own scars after he was raised from the dead. 

We cannot avoid conflict, and to say there is no conflict is to live in denial, no matter where or who we are. I’ve said many times after several decades of church work, where two or three are gathered, there are probably at least five opinions. I sometimes experience conflicting opinions in my own household, and I live alone! 

Living in the love of Christ means we hold each other to some form of accountability. In fact, we can only do that, hold each other accountable, when we love each other enough to help ensure we are faithful to the truth given to us in the Word made flesh. 

To deny accountability, to avoid speaking the truth in love in order to avoid conflict, is to deny the possibility of redemption for both of us. As I told a friend one evening regarding that avoidance, if we deny redemption, we might just remove ourselves from possibilities of salvation. 

The effects resulting from that conversation are that conflict continues to endure in the minds of some. And as a result, we are outsiders to each other. Children of God, gathered together, the work continues. 

That work includes our accepting that, from a Christian perspective, conflict resolution is not a “win/lose” proposition according to cultural standards. If we must use competitive terms like "win" or "lose," the Gospel teaches us that the only “win” is to restore the relationship in some life-giving way. If that does not, or cannot happen, then everyone loses. 

This holds true for personal relationships, parish health and growth, and even for a nation that has chosen to ensnare itself in “forever wars” ever since victory seemed like a forever gift after 1945. 

And while we treat competition as a game, when it comes to relationships, it’s life and death, not life or death. Moses set that choice before us. Wisdom continues to await our making the correct choice. 
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As I said, the work continues. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

Last week we heard the preceding verses to today’s Gospel, Peter’s confession and Jesus’ response. Today we hear what it really means to confess Jesus as the Christ. It’s not a lesson likely to result in what some among us have described as “happy clappy people.” 

First, though, we have to deal with Simon, now called Peter. He’s a bit full of himself at this point, relishing the afterglow of Jesus’ response to Peter’s confession. Peter simply cannot accept that his Messiah must suffer rejection, cruelty, and death. After all, centuries of teaching point to the coming Messiah as a conquering king, one who will deliver Israel from those very things Jesus says must lie ahead not just for him, but as we soon learn, for those who follow him. 

Peter learns that as quickly as his earlier words echoed the Spirit of God, his next breath could just as easily inhale an opposing spirit. Jesus makes that point abundantly clear. “Get behind me, Satan!” It’s easy to envision the shock on Peter’s face, and even his gasp seeking a renewed spirit. 

I’ve often thought that Jesus isn’t just speaking to Peter at this point. His words are more directed at the spiritual source of Peter’s admonition. The Gospel begins with an encounter with that same source, where Jesus rejects the offer of power and worship. I wonder what he might say to those of us gathered today to celebrate his grasp of those very things he found necessary to reject. 

My thoughts also cause me to wonder what our world might be like if Jesus’ words were accepted. What if Satan, the accuser, the adversary, actually chose to heed them and instead of continuing to try to undo the work of Jesus, decided to follow him. It’s a great big “what if.” Maybe the biggest what if in history. 

“If anyone wants to be my disciple, that one must take up her or his cross and follow me.” He continues with words calling us to accept suffering and hardship, and even death, just as he will show he does for himself. 

Peter wasn’t the first to misunderstand what that means. Jeremiah, some five or six centuries before, bellowed his lament to God. He calls God out as unreliable, as a trickster who made promises to the prophet that appear to be broken, even completely forgotten. 
God’s answer feels a bit unwelcome, and again not leading to a state of “happy clappiness.” “You will stand before me.” Not in judgement, but as the front person speaking not just for God, but God’s own words to the people whom Jeremiah would rather see struck by several well-placed lightning bolts. 

God tells Jeremiah that the wounds, the sorrow, the rejection felt by the prophet are also borne by the One in whose name he speaks. It’s not easy to accept that your work might be justified only after your own life has ended, but later when your words become true, become historical fact. It’s also not easy to accept that those who must suffer are those you also love, revealing God’s own emotion while watching it happen. 

I once spent a weekend helping with a diocesan youth retreat, with about 150 teenagers gathered at a local parish. One of the breakout sessions focused on words from today’s Epistle. “Pray for those who persecute you.” Stories of bullying and other high school traditions came out. 

I switched the focus for a bit when I asked, “Have any of you prayed for Osama bin Laden lately?” He was still alive at that time. They stared at me, and I explained, “Not that his work will find success, but that his heart and mind might be changed.” A few weeks later I asked the same question of my parish across town. 

The crosses we bear could become known when cries for justice let go of the desire for vengeance, but instead go to the source of the many injustices around us and call their instigators to true discipleship, to follow Jesus with us. A cross we bear could be one where we let go of individual wants in order to help furnish someone else’s very real need. But I think the greatest cross we must bear is the one written in love shown toward those seemingly filled with hatred toward ourselves and others. 

Those crosses mean we die to ourselves, we repudiate many of the things that our selfish selves want to grab, leaving us with nothing life-giving to share with others. That is the discipleship Jesus means when he says, “Follow me.” 

Then we have to pick up one more cross, the one that asks, “Are we really following Jesus?” Is our work, is our soul’s desire, a revelation of the Spirit of the Messiah, the Son of the living God? If not, then we need to look again at who it is we truly follow. Yet, too many times, we decide to do that which makes us feel good about ourselves, and create a god in our image who we hope will magically make our own desires come true. 
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Because as Jeremiah learned, standing before God now, facing in the same direction as our Creator, seeing as God sees and speaking God’s word in so many ways, could mean that when we turn and stand before God in our final direction, facing the Giver of life, we find the salvation of the crosses borne by us, and once and for all, the cross borne for us. And then, we might hear another confession that identifies who we are, words that say, “Welcome home, my child.” 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​Every person seeking ordination in The Episcopal Church meets with the diocesan Commission on Ministry sometime near the beginning of the process. When I met the Commission in West Virginia some 25 years ago, the chair asked me a pointed question. “Who is Jesus Christ for you?” 

I didn’t hesitate. “He’s the pattern for my life.” The expected answer was more along the lines of words like "Lord," "Savior," "Messiah," or perhaps a recitation of a theological formula memorized in seminary. As you might imagine, there was some ‘splainin’ to do. 

Today we hear Matthew’s version of what’s known as St. Peter’s confession. Since we’re Episcopalians, we have a feast day for that—January 18. But it falls neatly into the sequence of Gospel lessons now, and it’s worthy of our attention more than once a year. 

At first, it seems as if Jesus is having an identity crisis. “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” he wonders out loud. It may just be the first documented publicity poll in the history of the world. There are a few incorrect answers. “But who do you say that I am?” 

Peter, never shy about being the first with his hand in the air, says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

Throughout its history, the institutional church has provided many answers to the question about who Jesus is. The western church, based in Rome, took Jesus’ follow-up remarks to mean Peter is the first pope, and the institution is the rock upon which Peter’s confession stands. 

And so it was for much of the West until a monk named Martin took hammer in hand and said not so politely, “I disagree. I think there’s more to it.” And so, there was some ‘splainin’ to do. 

At the beginning of this story, Peter was known as Simon. His answer results in Jesus’ renaming him. The name Peter is our translation of Petra, meaning “rock,” and so we might call him “St. Rocky.” More than an ordination to high authority, Jesus indicates that Simon, now “Rocky” will be known differently. He will be known not by his given name, but by his confession of who Jesus is. He is himself forever changed by those same words. 

The words that follow cause me to wonder whether they were inserted by later church authorities, appearing to be spoken by Jesus in order to justify institutional norms. More ‘splainin’ needing much more time. 

“Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.” Is Jesus giving the disciples, particularly Peter, authority over both heaven and earth? If so, shouldn’t our prayer be changed to “our will be done in heaven as it is on earth?” 

Maybe. 

You see, if the earlier words are true, then there is no separation between the places where God’s will is done. That’s true if the Spirit speaks and works through us to reveal not just God’s will but also to reveal who Jesus truly is for us. And if the Spirit speaks through us and works through us, then it is the same as if Jesus is physically present, revealing God’s will for all creation. Then, if you jump ahead to read the end of the story, you’ll find that heaven and earth become one—again. More ‘splainin.’ 

Paul says, “I appeal to you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” We offer ourselves as vehicles for God’s purpose, God’s will, so that the words we pray are more than words we simply say. They are a reminder of who we are in Christ, a remembrance of who Jesus is for us. It is your will be done, not our will be done. To mean the latter is to continue the work of the serpent in the garden to undo creation by making god(s) in our own image. 

The works we do and the treasures we seek go much further than the words we say to reveal who Jesus is for us. Even then, those things fall way short of explaining the fullness of who Jesus is. Our hands and hearts are just as important as our words in making our confession. And since our confession is usually incomplete, we’re left where we have often been before. 

There’s more ‘splainin’ to do. We have the rest of our lives to do it. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​One day while in seminary, a few of us got into my car and went into Columbus, Ohio, to rummage through used bookstores. On the way back, we started discussing the upcoming Sunday lessons. One of those was today’s Gospel. A classmate expressed his confusion over it, especially Jesus’s initial response to the Canaanite woman. Use of the word translated as “dog” was as derogatory as any four-letter word we might imagine. 

I had a thought about that and said, "Maybe it’s Jesus’ own conversion.” That led to a discussion about how all the stories in Matthew had been located in Jewish territory up until this point. After this, Jesus begins to move into Gentile territory. 

The history of the institutional church has many stories about membership, at first about the effect of baptism and whether it could or should be repeated. Then, boundaries were set around the table—who could receive Holy Communion and who could administer it.

Recent history regarding the effects of salvation and its reception only helps to reinforce those boundaries. It causes one to wonder why so much energy is used making sure some are excluded, as if God couldn't decide that and needed our help. But then, there's that line heard at Peter's confession, which comes around next week. Stay tuned. 

When we look back at Hebrew teaching—from before and during the time of Moses through the later prophets—we find answers our ecclesiastical ancestors seem to have forgotten. Moses taught, actually included it in what’s considered “The Law,” that aliens and foreigners were to be treated like family. Some family traditions probably mean they are to be treated better than close relatives, but that’s another sermon for another day. When I had siblings in children’s choirs, I often had to say at the beginning of rehearsals, "For the next hour, act like you’re not related.” 

Today’s lesson from that part of Isaiah that covers the restoration of Judah from the Babylonian exile is a case in point. Remember that Judah’s salvation in this sense comes at the behest of the Persians, who are agents God uses to deliver Judah from captivity. Then remember that ancient Persia is modern-day Iran, and Babylon was in what’s now Iraq. That is also Abraham’s native land. We still have ancient lessons to learn. 

The Canaanite woman is an outsider whose mere presence in the room, let alone conversation, means those present are ritually unclean. All she asks is what any mother would want for her child—for her to be made well. Jesus ignores her at first, then finally answers her plea in such a way as to try to just make her go away. Her reply reminds him who he is, which she evidently sees better than anyone else in the room. I can imagine her expression and her determination as she says, "Even the dogs eat the crumbs under the children’s table.” 

I can also imagine that Jesus’ expression changed with his recognition of the consequences of this encounter. Moving from rigid boundaries to compassion, he says, “Go. Because of your faith your daughter is healed.” 

Because of her faith, Jesus’ own faithfulness expands beyond the rigid boundaries of tradition and expectation. If we don’t want to accept that interpretation, then consider this whole scene as a challenge to everyone else in the room that their own boundaries might just exclude them from God’s compassion, God’s salvation. 

And maybe that’s the point. 

The late Rachel Held Evans had an evangelical zeal that led her to the desire to let others know they lived outside her perceived boundaries of God’s grace. She and her husband moved into a part of Chicago known as Boystown, where a majority of the residents were and are homosexual. At first, she wanted to “save” them from their wicked ways. 

Then she got to know her neighbors. She witnessed their love and caring for each other in ways that only those brought together by their outcast status seem to be able to do. She then begins to speak of her own conversion. “I went there wanting to make them Christian. Instead, I learned from them what it really means to be Christian myself.” 

You see, when we truly live into our faith, when we open all the deadbolt locks on the doors of our hearts and minds, we might discover that we are where we are not because God has work for us to do, but that God’s work is really happening within us. I’ve told you many times that God can be sneaky. 

Sometimes we get so settled in our traditions and practices that we lose sight that another way might be just as good, or perhaps even better. Sometimes it takes what might be considered the intrusive presence of an outsider to startle us to a wider understanding of our faith. That's because our faith is often so limited by our own personal boundaries that we lose sight of God’s infinite and eternal love. 

That does not mean that God loves each and every thing going on within and around us. But it does mean that God’s love reaches out to embrace the unloved and sometimes unlovable in our own perspectives. It's just that God uses our own arms to embrace them. It also means that we stand firm in the face of unloving spirits that work to exclude those who differ from themselves. And while many might boast that God loves us just as we are, the love of God does not leave us there but leads us through a life of continued and continuing redemption as we move into closer relationship with our Creator and each other. 

When serving as a hospital chaplain, I was called late one night to visit a patient in the emergency department. She was dropped off in a state of hysteria by friends after they convinced her that demons were going to claim her eternal soul. She said over and over that she knew God was stronger than demons, but she was so afraid. 

After a few repetitions, I began to interrupt her. “But God is stronger.” Again. You said God is stronger than demons. But . . . God is stronger. She began to calm down, and I finally said some words she seemed to have never heard before. “God loves you.” 

We talked more, and after about two hours of waiting for the behavioral health nurse to approve admission, she consented to receive Holy Baptism. Altar guilds would be hard pressed to find the necessary furnishings for baptism in an ER room, but we made do. Let your imagination wander to what I used as a holy water basin. I have no idea what happened to the demons who drove her to the hospital. Visions of water and dissolving witches from the Wizard of Oz come to mind. Baptism, anyone? 

Sometimes demons work overtime to make sure we don’t notice who they are. Our work involves naming reality and where it leads us. Like that day with Jesus and the Canaanite woman, and like the promise of all the Isaiahs, sometimes it also means we ourselves are converted in ways that help to see as God sees us and those around us. That in itself is a full-time job. 

After all, some may be foreigners, outcasts, or alien to us. That doesn’t mean they are those things to God. After we remind ourselves of that, it’s time to make sure they understand that, too. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​The story of the feeding of 5,000 men, plus women and children, is one that’s found in each of the four canonical gospels. Each tells the story in slightly different ways, although each one is what we call a teachable moment for the disciples. 

In Matthew’s version, this event follows a series of parables that try to describe the kingdom of heaven. That’s Matthew’s phrase for the approaching reign of God inaugurated by the birth of Jesus. 

Matthew pauses from the parables to give us a look back as he tries to explain who Jesus is. Today’s story comes just after Jesus has returned to his childhood home in Nazareth. At first, it’s the hometown hero, the boy everyone’s talking about. It quickly turns into questions along the lines of "We knew you when? Just who do you think you are now?” Jesus leaves Nazareth without much to show because of the lack of faith of its residents. Luke gives us a bit of elaboration, which we heard last year. 

The identity question persists. Word of his deeds and teachings reaches Herod, who wonders if Jesus is really John the Baptist raised from the dead. Herod had John beheaded, and Matthew reminds us of that. 

When Jesus hears that news he needs a little “me time.” He tries to get away to a quiet place, but the crowds find out and follow him there. The day goes on, and it’s getting late. The disciples want to send everyone home so they can have supper, but Jesus brings everything home to them when he tells them they can feed the hungry crowd. 

With what? Have you seen the price of groceries lately? Bananas are getting close to a denari a pound, and don’t get me started about the price of eggs, let alone hamburgers. That stuff they call pork is cheaper, but Moses said “no.” 

“What do you have?” asks Jesus. Five loaves of bread and a couple of fish. And there’s no fish helper to stretch things out a bit. And the tartar sauce has been out in the sun all day, so it’s a no-go. 

That’s the beginning of the story. You heard what happened and how much was left over. So, to make a short sermon longer, what does it all mean? 

First of all, it doesn’t mean we offer a little bit and then magically make it do a lot more so we can say we did something. In case you haven’t noticed, none of us here is Jesus in the same way Matthew presents him in today’s lesson. That’s why trying to remake today’s event happen, could turn into little more than a parody where we become the parable we don’t want told. 

But there is something more substantial than our meager attempts at playing God. Matthew’s Gospel has been described as an “apocalyptic gospel,” words that cause some to shy away from it because the word apocalypse raises visions of misinformed interpretations prevalent among fundamentalists and dispensationalists and missed dates for what they call “the rapture.” 

While the feeding of 5,000+ is an event in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, it also points us to a hope that when Christ returns to establish God’s reign on earth—that eternal Kingdom of Heaven Matthew talks about—no one will be left hungry, either for real food or, as the Sermon on the Mount tells us, for righteousness. 

So today’s lesson is not just about something that happened way back when, but a vision of a time yet to come, a promised time of eternal salvation for God’s people and God’s creation. 

Maybe we’re not getting the glimpses necessary to instill hope because many of our efforts are based on offering what we can get by with instead of all that we have on hand. Maybe we’ve waited so long for the fulfillment of the kingdom that we really have stopped believing those words we still say every week: "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” 

But, if we’ve stopped believing that, then why are we here? We might as well declare that the resurrection is just another springtime festival and that Christmas is only about Santa and not the incarnation of the cosmic Christ. 

The difficulty lies in the fact that so many of the teachings of our faith have been co-opted by those seeking only individual and personal salvation in another place and time. Our dissolution of communities, our neglect and distrust of others, our hoarding of personal wealth, and the exhaustive and exhausting need for more are all signs and wonders that compete for faith in the promises of the risen Christ. 

We live in a culture that depends on and requires our belief in scarcity. If we had half as many affordable homes as we have rented storage lockers in our region, we could solve the housing crisis. If we believed in the coming reign of God for all creation, we would start forming a living community where that vision cannot and will not be so easily dismissed. Then, we could get to work taking better care of the world Jesus has promised to return to. 

We’ve spent so much time and energy maintaining budgets and buildings that all we can see is the next utility or repair bill, and we wait in fear for it to come. Maybe we’ll begin to gain a vision of “the life of the world to come” when we, with fear and trembling, offer all we are to join the journey to that life and dare take in the sights along the way, and not bury our noses in the online travel planner. Because some day, all we have will be behind us, and all we are will be left hoping for entrance into the kingdom. 

In the meantime, keep in mind that offering a fish sandwich to a hungry stranger might just be the first tangible sign of salvation they hope for, too. 

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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