One of my first seminary courses was Church History. Near the end of the first
semester, we re-enacted the Council of Nicaea, held in 325. Constantine was the
emperor, and he had recently declared Christianity an accepted religion in the empire.
However, friction remained as a threat to the pax Romana, because rival sets of belief
caused real fighting among many followers of the Prince of Peace.

The result of the council in 325 was the framework for what we now call The
Nicene Creed. At issue was the nature of Christ. Was the man Jesus of Nazareth both
human and divine, or was he human and made divine at the resurrection or ascension,
or both, or was he always divine and somehow only appeared to be human flesh? Real
battles ensued over how those questions and related ideas were answered, and the
council hoped to settle the issue once and for all.

In that seminary portrayal, I played a major part. I was Arius, a presbyter who
held that Jesus was only human, not coeternal wih God, but created by God. The
Arians among those gathered found themselves the losers when the final votes were in,
and Arius was declared anathema, and banished from the sacramental life of the
institutional church. It’s important to note that, while much biblical and revelatory
foundation for what we say we believe is true, the “official” documents were decided
by a vote among gathered leaders. Some may wonder whether God had a vote, or even
paid attention. The lasting qualities of the outcome suggests that the answer is yes.
Later on, when Arian-friendly leadership returned to the institution, Arius was
to be reinstated into the life of the church. However, on the night before he was due to
receive the sacrament again, he was poisoned and died. So, as you can tell, the work of
the council didn’t really settle things in everyone’s mind. Contentious politics didn’t
develop in our own time. Indeed, several centuries lapsed before actual military action
forced what’s called “Arianism” to the sidelines.

It was actually a bit fun being the chief heretic at that re-enactment, and
occasionally, still is. I do try to avoid blasphemy while tip-toeing through the tulips of
heresy, mind you. I think that’s an important distinction to be made.
Having said all that, let’s take a look at that creed we now take for granted, and
see if there’s still something to be learned from the words we often say without really
thinking about them.

One of the more important phrases comes at the beginning. “We believe in one
God . . . .” As opposed to the older Apostle’s Creed, this one speaks of community. We
believe, not “I” believe. Setting aside the meaning of belief itself, the next important
word is not God, but “one.”

Scripture tells us time and again that there are many gods. The life of Israel is a
continual struggle with their devotion to rival gods. Indeed, their name, Israel, means
“strives with God.” You can read through the historical books of Kings and Chronicles
and find them straying from the God who brought them out of Egypt. The Psalms, too,
point us to the knowledge that there are many rivals to worship of the God whose name
first given to Moses is, “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE.” Take an honest look at how we
treat, even revere some we call celebrities, or political or business leaders. In some
communities, especially poorer ones, that applies to anyone who seems wealthy. We
haven’t strayed too far from ancient Israel’s worship of the baals. We’ve just renamed
them.

But we say believe in ONE God. Emphasis on “one.” Then we go on to confuse
things by naming aspects of this one inclusive and expansive God by how we know this
one God, including in three persons.

We believe in one Lord. This title, given to Jesus of Nazareth, the risen Christ, is
carried from an ancient name for the God of Israel. In order to avoid taking the proper
name of God in vain and keep the third commandment, a word, Adonai, is used in
Hebrew scripture. We see it translated in our widely used version as LORD, using small
capital letters for the word. You’ll see that in this morning’s first reading and the
Psalm. That way of writing “Lord” is also used to indicate a different Hebrew proper
name for God—Elohim, although then it could be for the word “God” instead of Lord,
reading as Lord GOD. It keeps proofreaders off the streets and out of trouble.
​
Our creed, therefore, states a belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the cosmic Christ
who existed with God before creation, and who not only reveals, but is the activity of
God, as things happen when God speaks at the moment of creation itself. It’s what
John’s Gospel points us to with his words, “In the beginning was the word, and the
word was with God, and the word was God.” Whole sections of libraries exist with
attempts to explain what that means. Then God speaks again, and another book or,
eventually, a whole new shelf is added.

The Creed goes on to begin to explain who Jesus, the Christ, is. Then there are
statements about the Holy Spirit whose work continues to reveal God’s presence in the
world and in our lives. Particularly, the Creed points to that work as seen in Christ’s
church. The origin of the Spirit became a later issue in the church, resulting in the
East/West schism in the eleventh century.

We can spend a lot of time debating whether the Creed means the institutional
church or the body and community of individual believers. But there are always those
who will channel their inner Torquemada, so some caution might be advisable. That
leads me to a question that I continue to try to answer. Which is more important—what
we say we believe or what God has done before those creeds were developed?
I think you know the answer I lean on. It’s related to Paul’s statement in Romans
regarding the faith of Abraham and the giving of the law. In a nutshell, the earlier
event is what saves us. The later writings help us by guiding our lives, but they alone
cannot save us. That is Paul’s point in today’s second lesson.

Constantine tried to keep the peace. We all know how that worked out. That’s
due to the practice that, in order to be part of the institutional church, one had to adhere
to a statement of faith. That became more important, in the eyes of many, than the
work accomplished on the cross of Jesus and God’s answer to all that by raising him
from the dead.

My hope is that this will lead to further discussion. For now, as I said earlier, it’s
still sometimes fun to be the heretic.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

It is observed that we live in what’s called a “post-truth age.” About a decade
ago, a senior advisor to the president stated that they had “alternative facts.” That same
president is back in office, and throughout his public history has kept a whole fact-
checking industry in business. It may be his greatest contribution to employment
numbers.

While many are alarmed at these statements, they’re not all that new. It’s not
like the last decade suddenly saw the immediate arrival of those alternative facts.
We’re here today because that same process tried its best to undermine to activity of
God, made known in Jesus of Nazareth. And we can celebrate today because God
revealed a truth beyond any of those alternatives.

Jesus prepares his disciples for his departure from them. In John’s Gospel, that is
through his death. He appears a minimum of three times after his resurrection, and we
have heard those stories this year. He says he must leave so that the Spirit of Truth can
come, who will speak to Jesus’ followers, continuing his teaching as time goes on.
It’s that part of today’s Gospel that often gets overlooked, or, in our quest to hold
onto what we’ve been taught and experienced, ignored. The result of that, as it is in our
political climate, is conflict.

“The Spirit of Truth . . . will lead you into all truth.” Jesus tells us later in this
farewell discourse. “The Advocate, whom [God] will send in my name, will teach you
everything . . . .” Jesus refers to the Advocate, sometimes called Paraclete, the promised
Holy Spirit five times in this discourse. In other words, there’s more to this life of
discipleship than what was covered in confirmation class.

I once taught a class I called Episcopal 101. We covered the time frame from the
English Reformation up to recent history. At that time, debate was raging over the
consecration of Gene Robinson as a bishop. In my parish, the debate continued over the
ordination of women, even though our diocesan bishop was female. Now, they have a
gay bishop diocesan, whose husband is their priest-in-charge. The Advocate continues
to define “irony” for us.

Look at our history as a nation. This weekend, now known as Memorial Day,
came about as “decoration day,” a day of mourning when the graves of soldiers who
died in the Civil War were visited and flowers placed upon them. Now, it’s the
beginning of summer, with cookouts, fireworks, and other celebrations that serve to
distract us from the pain and destruction of war, which makes it easier to start new
ones. The nation’s longest continuous Memorial Day parade, which may have a few
small groups of veterans of previous conflicts marching in it, is more of a two- to three-
1hour advertisement of where to buy stuff. I know this because it lined up in front of the
house where I lived for four years. They have learned something true, though. After
many years of, shall we say aromatic missteps, they put the horse brigades at the end of
the parade.

Some might point out that Jesus says there are things the disciples just aren’t
ready for, and the Spirit will fill them in when they’re ready. So, what if we’re not
ready? That’s when we might create alternative facts to try to isolate us from the truth.
That leads to more conflict among ourselves. It also puts us in conflict with God.
Let me add that we don’t always know whether current events are from the hand
of God, and the teaching of the Holy Spirit. When the early church began to rise,
leaders of the Hebrew faith met in Jerusalem to discuss what to do about it. Many
wanted to stop it. But one leader, Gamaliel, who happened to have a student named
Saul, now Paul, said to his friends, “If it is not of God, it will not last. But if it is of God,
and we oppose it, we could find ourselves opposing God.” We’re about as far from
Gamaliel and friends as they were from Abraham. So it’s probably safe to say God’s
hand is at work as both continue side-by-side.

Truth is not always convenient, nor is it always comfortable. But we follow one
who said of himself, “I am the way, the truth, the life.” To deny truth is to deny Jesus,
which in turn is to deny God. To deny truth, in effect, makes us atheist, at least in part,
despite our self-imposed claims to identities. I say “in part” because when we make up
our own truth, we make the case that we are, for ourselves and those who want to
follow us, our own god.

We are called to speak the truth in love, which means that we speak words that
are true, with the intention that those words build us all up and bind us together in the
truth of the love of God. Truth is not self-serving, meaning to condemn others and
make us superior. Truth’s intention is to be life-giving, even when its words expose our
guilt and the error of our ways.

Conflict is the evidence that not every side wants to admit Truth. There is no
“agreeing to disagree” when it’s just an avoidance of an uncomfortable truth. And
allowing room for all to believe what they want to believe does not allow the insistence
that others believe the same. God’s truth, revealed by the Advocate, the Paraclete, the
Holy Spirit, lives outside individual belief.
​
In short, if it is of God, it is true. Alternatives, to our lives as disciples of Christ,
are revealed as nothing more than self-serving lies, and show that we only worship
ourselves. And that’s the truth. I’m going to resist Lily Tomlin’s exclamation point.

THE REVEREND E. WAYNE ROLLINS

Today’s lessons echo some we hear throughout the church year. The first lesson
from The Acts of the Apostles recounts a story we often hear on Easter Sunday. The
second lesson is similar to some we hear during Advent, and then possibly at a funeral.
And the Gospel contains an omitted section of the Maundy Thursday gospel.
All three have a common thread. In fact, it’s the thread that runs through all of
Holy Scripture. That thread is faithfulness.

Peter is called before church leaders in Jerusalem. It’s sort of like being
summoned to the bishop’s office. Or, perhaps more generally understood, to the
principal’s office or those dreaded words some of us heard as a child. “Just wait until
your father gets home!” Sorry about those flashbacks.

Peter is charged with answering an accusation that sometimes begins with either
“we’ve never done it that way before” or “we used to do it this way.” The charge? He
baptized Gentiles. He didn’t take time to circumcise the males, or put them all through
catechism. What he did was witness the presence of the Holy Spirit in those Gentiles
before he even baptized them, and decided he’d better catch up to what God was
already doing.

Peter had just gone through a couple of change of life issues himself. First, he
stayed with a guy named Simon, whose profession was a tanner. Simon handled the
bodies and skins of dead animals, coming into contact with blood. That made him
unclean. That also made it possible that guests in his house were unclean. Then, Peter
fell asleep before dinner, but he was hungry. So he dreamed about food. Not roast
lamb with couscous and a side of potatoes and tabouli. He dreamed about scorpions
and snakes and other creepy crawly things he wouldn’t find on the local kosher buffet
or salad bar.

“What I have declared clean you shall not declare unclean,” says the Voice of
God to Peter. So, rather than being faithful to his traditional teaching, Peter is changed,
converted, if you will, into faithfulness to this new thing God is already doing.
John, in exile on the island of Patmos, has a vision of the new Holy City of
Jerusalem. We have a more contemporary vision of that city before us. Both draw
upon traditional understandings and familiar structures. But there’s something
different about it all, beginning with one basic understanding. The city John sees is
something God gives, not something made by human hands or planned by
contemporary architects and artists.

1The city that God will give is based on a foundation laid by Jesus himself when
he met his closest friends for supper just before he was arrested. Today’s Gospel picks
up just after Judas leaves the room, albeit with a full stomach and clean feet.
Jesus gives the mandatum novum, the new commandment. He goes so far as to
tell his followers that they will be known by how they live this commandment. Not
about how they followed a set of rules, or demanded that others do the same. “Love
one another as I have loved you. By this they will know that you are my disciples, that
you have love one for another.” I happen to believe that he was still thinking about
Judas when he said that.

Now, before we turn love into just another law that we have to follow, let’s
consider it instead as the foundation for who we are and all that we do. We have stories
about how others have done that in preparing for us to follow, and not just for
themselves. The image in front of us grew from a desire springing from John’s words
about God being the light of the new Jerusalem, “a golden light, [with] clouds that
would symbolize the joyous feeling of life over the Holy City.”

Our faithfulness, our real faithfulness, is to the God who is Alpha and Omega,
who was and is and is to come, who said to Moses “I AM WHAT I WILL BE.” Future
tense. We are called to be faithful to that God who isn’t finished creating us yet. Our
faithfulness is, therefore, to who we will be and to where we are going. Having said
that, I can imagine some conversations might yet begin with “we used to . . .” or “we
never did it that way . . . .” Sometimes those sentences can give us something on which
we can build. But, too often, they tend to serve as a means to control or stifle the Holy
Spirit, and we find ourselves standing at another buffet of scorpions and snakes. I don’t
really care if they do taste like chicken. And I’m hoping there isn’t time to prepare a
special paté for coffee hour.

How do you imagine the new Jerusalem? What would Wilmington, Delaware
look like if we lived that idea, based in love for all creation in the same way God loves it
and all who live in it? I ask these questions because the new Jerusalem is to be our way
of life as followers of the crucified and risen Christ. The new Jerusalem is found where
Jesus’ followers bear his cross of love, and help shoulder that burden when others find
it too heavy to carry for themselves.

This isn’t a yellow brick road, and we don’t need to concern ourselves with the
false prophets behind the curtain. We follow the true and living Lamb of God, and we
carry the light of that life into the darkness of our own time. We don’t grow weary of
waiting for the new Jerusalem and try to build it ourselves through judgement and
legislation. We live the life of the new Jerusalem as the godly alternative to those
attempts.

That is who we are, and we are known because the Holy Spirit speaks to us and
works through us to reveal the light of God’s love to all who live in the despair of
darkness. God’s gift is the New Jerusalem, where God’s people are the embodiment of
Love itself, for the healing and consolation of those seeking the new world that God creates
​as the place for our future life in God’s eternal presence.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​The Fourth Sunday of Easter is designated Good Shepherd Sunday. All three
years of the lectionary cycle contain Psalm 23, and the Gospel lesson is always a portion
of the tenth chapter of John, where Jesus says “I am the good shepherd.” The day is
rich in symbols, and we have enough hymn settings of the Psalm to overfill our
bulletins. And, if you want, you can search our own windows for shepherd images and
symbols. Just not now.

Scripture contains the word shepherd almost from the beginning. It is the task of
Joseph, Jacob’s youngest son, the one of technicolor dreamcoat fame. It’s also the role of
another son, the first victim of sibling rivalry. Abel is a “keeper of herds,” which
implies sheep and other animals. And, of course, there’s David, Jesse’s youngest son, a
shepherd boy anointed to be king over Israel when the Saul project reminded Israel to
be careful what they prayed for.

The ritual sacrifices from the time of Abraham onward often used a lamb as the
offering. The Passover sacrifice instructs the slaughter of a lamb, whether from the
goats or the sheep.

Lambs are known to be some of the most passive animals in domestic use,
unless, as I’ve been told, that lamb grows up to be a ram, an animal that seems to take
its name quite seriously.

I’ve often wondered why a lamb, seemingly so innocent and docile, is the
appointed animal for so many ritual sacrifices. Of course, cattle, oxen, and birds are
offered, too, along with grain and incense. But when it comes to the most important
sacrifice, that of Passover, it’s a lamb. No substitutes, only the instruction to share with
a neighbor if that family cannot afford a lamb.

After the death of David’s son, Solomon, and even with Solomon himself, sibling
rivalry tended to overshadow the role of shepherd into one of individual power.
Solomon was nearly kept from the throne by a jealous half-brother, and then his own
sons’ rivalry resulted into dividing the kingdom into two parts—the north called Israel
and the south, Judah. That division never healed, in a large part because rulers
concentrated more on holding power than being shepherds of the people. As we know,
that tendency continues to lead many into temptation.

Shepherds are seen as expendable, their defenses weak. They wander from place
to place as newer, fresher pasture is needed. They have only the shepherd’s staff,
crooked at one end to help pull a wandering sheep back to the herd, and blunt on the
other to push away an attacking wolf. Other than that, they are powerless, at least at
first sight.

Jesus says the sheep know their shepherd, and the shepherd knows the sheep.
There is strength in numbers, especially when those numbers gather as one with their
shepherd in the lead.

And the good shepherd is the one who cares at least as much for the sheep as for
his or her own status or power. I say at least, knowing that when Jesus claims the title
as Good Shepherd, he is ready to sacrifice all for the benefit of the sheep in his charge.
And, somehow, the sheep know and trust that to be true, even if they don’t yet realize
that could be their own path.

The image before us today is of the sacrificial Lamb of God, slain for the salvation
and redemption of the world. He is the one appointed as the true, the Good Shepherd
for God’s people, the one who holds power, wisdom, and might in part because he
knows what it’s like to be the lamb. He is the one who enters our suffering by suffering
himself, so that we might be joined to him not just in that, but in his life lived forever in
the presence of God.

So, the images before us today, of lamb, of shepherd, of victim and victor, are one
in the same in that they are the very image of the one true God, the one in whom we
profess our faith and place our trust. He is the one who invites us into his life, even in
death, to be transformed, converted, if you will, into the transcendent immediate
presence of this same Lamb who promised to be with us always.

The Good Shepherd opens the door for sheep of all nations, of all types, to enter
into the fold of eternal life. He promises to guide us into all truth by caring for us, even
by becoming one of us in ways that invite us to care for others in the same way he cares
for us. So, like the Lamb of God, we are invited to be both sheep and shepherds,
sometimes all at once, sometimes only one at a time. It’s when we find we are only one
of those that the risen Christ just might appear in the form of the one we are not,
reminding us of who we are called to be by virtue of our baptism into his death and
resurrection.

The image of the innocent docile lamb has one more function. It is a way we
often don’t see God, yet it is the image of God presented to us in the cross. The
innocent, defenseless one goes willingly to the sacrifice, because that’s what it takes to
do the work of salvation for all that is created by the same one in the power of creation.
The Good Shepherd, the very image of our Creator, uses both weakness and power to
give us life. As the image of both shepherd and sheep in our own time, we are called to
do the same—not only for ourselves, which is idolatry, but for those who know only
weakness and the oppression of those who seek only power.
​
The Good Shepherd stands before us as the Lamb that was slain. The life of
Christ’s church is known in how we translate that image into life-giving, life-nurturing
truth for all who seek it.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

We have about as many reasons for being here today as we have individuals
present in the room. Some may have concerns that compel attendance, some may want
to see friends. Some may be here because it’s what they do on Sunday mornings. And,
yes, some of us are paid to be here.

Whatever the reason, we may be surprised to find that everything is suddenly
changed. One way is that the risen Christ might just show up. Another is that we could
find ourselves transported into the presence of the living God, surrounded by hosts of
heavenly beings and saints gone before us.

Both of those surprises are given to us in today’s lessons.
​
Saul, whose change of life included a change of name, is suddenly confronted by
the risen Christ as he makes his way to Damascus to persecute believers. Peter, out
doing his day job (at night) is surprised by the appearance of a man wanting a few fish
for breakfast. And John, on Patmos, finds that his morning worship transports him way
beyond his bulletin and prayer book.

Turns out that it wasn’t going to be your typical Sunday morning.
We enter these doors most likely expecting to find what we’ve always found.
We sit where we usually sit, a holdover from the days when parishes were supported
by those who could afford to buy a pew for their family to sit in that year, while the
poor stood around in the back and in the balcony.

We expect to see familiar faces, sing familiar hymns, hear familiar words in
scripture and prayer. What if all that suddenly changed?

There’s a scene in an old episode of The Simpsons where the pastor finds he’s had
all he can take and launches into a tirade in the almost empty church. Bart and a couple
of others witness this, and as the camera pans to a stained glass window, Bart says, “It’s
a good thing Jesus wasn’t here to see that.”

But what would we do if Jesus did show up? What would our response be if we
suddenly found ourselves, in one way or another, in the actual, physical presence of the
risen Christ?

We try to recreate moments we read about in scripture. We quote Jesus’ words
when we pray, we say and sing the words that even Isaiah hears sung in God’s
presence. But we take them for granted, our rote performance little more than an
attempt to veil what we really desire, even if we don’t realize that.

Maybe that’s because the cost of our desire is so high we don’t want to pay it.
I’m not talking about offerings of money, or even talent or labor. John tells us what it
costs, shown to him in his vision.

Instead of a conquering hero or great warrior, he sees a lamb, a slaughtered
lamb. He sees those martyred for their faith, begging “how long until justice is served,”
even though justice for them is being in the presence of God. Like us, they seem to
think of justice in terms of revenge, which doesn’t seem be God’s own definition of the
term.

The one found worthy is the one who has been sacrificed. The one who is
worthy is the one who gave up everything coming to him. He was murdered, buried in
a tomb meant for another. But he stands at the throne of Almighty God, raised from the
dead, worthy to receive cries of “Holy, holy, holy.”

Way back in the good old days, when the Eucharist was to be celebrated, the
priest would ask those who considered themselves worthy of receiving communion to
come and kneel at the altar rail. If enough came forward, the prayers of confession and
to consecrate the bread and wine continued and those kneeling at the rail would receive
Holy Communion. If there weren’t at least five kneeling there, the priest would dismiss
the congregation and all would leave without receiving communion.

I wonder what would happen if we approached this table today in the same way,
but for a different reason. What if we came forward with some trepidation not because
we may not be worthy, because none of us really are, but because, with fear and
trembling, we might just find ourselves standing in the very real presence of Almighty
God?

In this Easter Season, and really for all time, we are called to bear witness to the
Lamb that was slain, who stands as both victim and victor in the presence of our
Creator. We can only do that by emptying ourselves of all that stands between us and
God, so that we might be filled with the light that shone on Saul, that presence that said,
“Cast your net on the other side.”

Only when we empty ourselves of our personal wants and demands can we be filled with the presence of the risen Christ.
Then, our lives become a greeting to all the world wherever we go. “Alleluia.
Christ is risen.” That’s why Jesus calls us here.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​The Easter season moves us into seven weeks of hearing from the Acts of the
Apostles and many familiar post-resurrection stories from the Gospels. The Second
Sunday of Easter always draws our attention to the upper room appearance of Jesus to
the remaining apostles. It’s two appearances, one week apart. The second is about
Thomas, who was absent at the first one.

The Epistle lessons alternate years. Two of the three-year cycle feature readings
from the Pastoral Epistles, particularly the letters of Peter and of John. The third year
gives us selected verses from the last book of Christian scripture, the Revelation of John
of Patmos. That is this year.

The Revelation to John is perhaps the most well-known and least understood
book of the Bible, especially in fundamentalist circles. It was regularly featured in
Sunday School classes in the church where I was raised. It is so popular among them
that a whole series of shows on what’s called The History Channel portray graphic
interpretations of the book’s apocalyptic visions. That’s why I now refer to that
network as the hysteria channel.

John is in exile on the island of Patmos. He writes letters to seven different
churches, or congregations, in the part of Asia now known as western Turkey. It seems
they follow some of the same paths that caused Paul to write to Corinth, Colossus,
Galatia, and others. They try to be these new people of God called The Church, but like
the first people of God, known as Israel, they have quite a bit of difficulty working out
what that means.

Much of what John writes is interpreted as threatening to the seven churches.
The consequences are dramatic, culminating in a cosmic battle between the forces of
good and evil. John tells us that good will win, mostly because in the resurrection of
Jesus, good has already won. What happens then depends on which side they, and by
extension, we choose for ourselves.

All that we’ll have to leave for another time. Since the impetus for John’s writing
is his vision of the consequences of the way of life of each congregation, I’m led to
wonder what John would write to the church, if there was just one congregation, of
Wilmington.

It’s tempting to list some of the perceived missteps and errors evident in the
present-day church. One of those is the fact that we are so divided, be it by style of
worship, or governance, or the fact that we just don’t get along. But to avoid all that,
and find our way home before Tuesday, let’s look at some of the basics.

1Remember where you came from. The first lesson of the Easter Vigil reminds us
of the story of creation, ending with God forming humankind from dust, and breathing
life into that creation. Indeed, Ash Wednesday does the same thing, reminding us that
we are dust and to dust we shall return. This past week I repeated those words as we
commended one of our members back to God’s safe keeping.

But we treat creation, the earth, as little more than a resource waiting to be mined
for our own benefit and wealth. We neglect what I believe is our purpose—to be
caretakers formed in the image of the Creator and giver of all life—placed here to
continue God’s work of caring for the very thing that supports the life we live. We
ignore our relationship to the earth, as if those words of Genesis were a lie, and we are
not a part of the very ground we plunder.

To change that, we have to remember who we are. We are, simply put, God’s
gardeners, with all life finding its roots and sustaining nourishment from God’s garden.
Between microplastics and forever chemicals, we find it more important, more lucrative,
to ignore the possibility that we fill the food we eat—mass produced to decrease its cost
while increasing its convenience—with substances that very well could inhibit life
rather than sustain and nurture it. We might as well eat the packaging it comes in while
we’re at it, because what still appears to be food probably contains quite a lot of the
ingredients of the package.

All this comes as evidence that we’ve forgotten the end of John’s Revelation. We
don’t remember where we’re going, or at least hope we might go. If you read past the
cosmic battle, the many-eyed beasts, and, yes, the dragons, you find that we’re basically
back where we started. We’re back in the garden, or at least a newer version of it, where
God dwells with God’s people as Genesis tells us, walking in the garden in the cool of
the evening.

A French anthropologist and priest, Teilhard de Chardin, got into trouble with
church authorities by writing and teaching that all life was evolving. He wasn’t
speaking in a Darwinian sense, despite all the evidence of competition for what is called
the Darwin Awards. Those are designated for outstanding acts of no attempt
whatsoever to be the fittest survivor.

Teilhard teaches that all life is evolving back to its Creator, that all our struggles
are with forces that try to deny God’s original blessing. “It is good.” “It is very good.”
That is a competition which John describes, one that has been ongoing since Adam and
Eve found the first recipe for apple pie.

Remember that you are dust. Dust brought to life by the Spirit of God, washed
by the waters of baptism into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. We
find our heart’s desire in our journey back to our Creator, the source of our very life,
who calls us to nourish all life—plant, animal, and human—without judging it, but
instead acknowledging God’s first blessing.
​
2That is the beginning of finding the grace and peace John uses to greet his
readers. When we continue our own journey in both grace and peace, looking for and
longing for and offering grace and peace, all else comes in a distant second in the
competition for our own lives. It is then that we find our journey is on the right road.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

“What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as
sweet.” So says Juliet, thinking of Romeo, who, if he were called anything other than a
Montague would be her accepted love. Or, if she were anyone other than those called
Capulet, would find the freedom she seeks.

We could go on about star-crossed lovers, but this is not literature class. Nor is
this an exercise in poetry, no matter how familiar or based in such rich history. Because
the names today mean so much more than two troubled lovers seeking a life-long love.
Yet it is love that calls a name today. It is love that sees life through tears of grief,
finds hope beyond despair. It’s a familiar name. Miriam. Mary. As familiar as it is to
her, we can imagine her surprise to hear it this morning.

When the risen Christ speaks that name, he upends everything. upended by his rising from the grave.
That is why we’re all here today. Oh, sure death is God raised
Jesus from the dead, because it’s the final thing God must do to upend the way the
world has been working up until now.

So it’s time to start showing what that new life is going to be in ways the old
world may not want to accept. God’s new world, this post-resurrection world, is going
to be different in ways we’re still working out some two thousand years later.
Let’s start with the obvious. One of the qualifications to be an apostle is that the
person had to know Jesus before his crucifixion, then be a witness to his life after the
resurrection. In three of the Gospels, those very first witnesses were women. And even
in Mark, it is the women who discover the empty tomb, although they are so afraid they
tell no one what they found.

Yet, for most of those twenty centuries since that day, we continued to repeat the
error of those first disciples who treated the witnesses of women to whom Christ
revealed himself as “an idle tale.” But Christ is not limited to our own ideas about how
things are supposed to work. Oh, and if anyone wants to discuss the final verse of the
non-canonical Gospel of Thomas in the context of today’s so-called culture wars, have at
it.

There’s that name. Mary. Or, in the language of first-century Palestine, Miriam.
Jesus speaks it to a beloved friend, calling her to recognize not just an old friend, but an
amazing new life that is offered to her. Everything she thought she knew about the
world is changed, and she, by answering when her name is called, becomes part of this
new world.

We live in a culture, in a world that judges value by the accumulation of things.
We see houses as something other than homes, but instead as an investment just waiting
1for an upgrade to something bigger and better. The same seems to go for once
venerable institutions. We treat them, and those within them, as objects to be
consumed. Those who paid attention in biology class know how that always ends up.
When the risen Christ calls our name, it is a call to life as we never thought
possible. It’s a call to see everything differently, an upending word that is our very
identity to be a part of that which is eternal. It is a call to transcend the deathly ways of
our consumer-based culture, transforming them into life-giving, life-sharing ways that
live in a culture of redemption, where the life of another—any other, with no difference
in regard to gender, ethnicity, or other ways we divide ourselves—has as much value as
our own, and each is of value to the very Creator of life itself who chooses to give life
back to the dead.
​
And if you think that upends life as we know it, just wait until you find that life
that lives beyond the grave, where the risen Christ calls you by name and you find that
name translated as “Beloved.” I’d love to hear what the Bard of Avon says about that,
just for starters. But first, I’d like to hear how you describe it. I imagine there’s a whole
world of potential witnesses to your own new life. So go ahead. Surprise them.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

So much of what we do this morning is familiar. We get up very early, gather in
the pre-dawn light, make a fire, and chant our way into our usual gathering place. We
hear familiar, even comfortable stories. We might try to imagine ourselves in those
stories—creation, the flood, leaving what felt like home even in its oppression. We
might even allow our minds to wander into a cemetery and imagine a few bones
starting to rattle, then seeing all those buried there standing up, ready to live again.
If you were too young to remember, the words we speak, the water we feel
might remind us that we were once baptized. Notice that I said that in past tense. We
were baptized.

In all this familiarity, and with several years of Easter stories in our personal
histories, perhaps there’s still something that needs to change. After all, neither our
clocks nor our calendars operate in reverse mode, as if we’re destined to relive all our
yesterdays. If you try that, you could be the very definition of job security to any
number of therapists.

Paul doesn’t speak in past tense. “Do you not know that you are baptized into
Christ’s death?” he asks. Are, not were. Baptism is not an event we mark each year, like
a birthday or anniversary. I doubt that most of us would remember the exact date if we
are called upon to reveal it. I would have to go search for the certificate, even though it
happened when I was a teenager. I remember the place very well. It’s the date that
eludes me.

Maybe that’s appropriate. Because our baptism isn’t a one-time thing. It’s for
life, it’s about life, it is our way of life. It’s not about getting branded in some spiritual
or mystical way so that when the time comes we get a free pass into heaven, and even
get to use the priority boarding line.

We are baptized into Jesus’ death and raised from the waters of baptism to live
new lives, not just in the hereafter, but in the here and now. That means that our lives,
our resources, and God’s desire for the flourishing of life for everyone are all
interconnected, with our focus on how God equips us for ministry to those whom Jesus
invited into his own life—the poor, the outcast, and, yes, those called “sinners.” That
identity was for those who lived outside the fellowship of God’s people, and whose
lives serve as indicators, symptoms, if you will, of that separation from the creator and
giver of life.

When he reminds the church in Rome that they are baptized, Paul calls them
back to their true selves, to live as the light of Christ in a world that celebrates darkness
and ungodliness. It’s not just about those things we might expect as symptoms. It’s
about the willful neglect of the needy, the poor, the outcast, the prisoner (most likely in
a debtor’s prison. Rome had more immediate ways to deal with lawlessness, as we
know.)

Baptism invites everyone into this new way of life, a way we celebrate this
morning, but often miss its real intention. Our own baptism is the opening of our
invitation to this new life, a life which in its many and various ways is also the
invitation we extend to others to baptism. It is our invitation to discover again what
really matters, and set aside those things that are destined to die, even if we say they
add meaning and purpose to our lives.
​
“Do you not know that you are baptized into Christ’s death?” Our answer is
found in how we live the life of resurrection that claims us when we answer, “yes.”

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

It is finished. Consummatum est. John tells us those were Jesus’ last words. It
seems so. His lifeless body hangs on a cross in the hot afternoon sun. For him, it’s all
over.

Others will come and remove his body, wrap it and place it in a cave prepared
for another. When it’s time, some will return to perform rituals that, in their own way,
prepare them for when it will be their time. Then, that will be finished.
But there remain some things undone, a list of incompletenesses that continue to
this day. One of the things on that list is a nagging question, the answer to which
continues to evade us.

Why? Not “why does the answer evade us,” but why was Jesus crucified?
We have the answers presented by his accusers, yet those didn’t really persuade
the judge, who ended up giving in to their demands, because political expediency was
more important than truth.

We have centuries of theories, trying to explain in one way or another not just
what happened, but why and its effect. But those aren’t as satisfying as we might have
hoped, even the one called the “satisfaction theory.”

So, it seems that it’s not quite finished just yet. Oh, in the minds of those who
opposed him, it might look like it’s done. They can go home and celebrate, pat each
other on the back and exclaim, “well done.”
But maybe it’s something else that’s finished.

Maybe what’s finished is the lesson on how to do ministry. Watch how those
who have experienced something care for those who do so for the first time. I first
learned this while standing outside before a funeral when a woman approached and
asked where the new widow was. I replied that she was in the church building. Then I
heard, “That’s where I’m going. You don’t know what this is like until you’ve lived
through it yourself.”

And maybe it’s more than that. It seems ironic, but the way God, through Jesus
of Nazareth, chooses to overcome death itself is by entering into it. By dying.
And the ultimate act of ministry is revealed, that by entering into death, Jesus
finishes the work that will end death itself. He does this for all, for all time, past,
present and future, and to do that must enter into their death so he might release them
from it.
​
So maybe that’s what’s finished. If so, then it’s just getting started.

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

“We wish to see Jesus.” Philip hears the request, goes to Andrew, and together
they go to Jesus. That’s all we know about some Greeks who are in town to celebrate.
It looks like if their request was answered, it was from a distance.
Jesus doesn’t seem to have time for drop-in meetings. There’s no “do they have
an appointment,” or even “show them in.” Instead, we have his answer in the
description of a cosmic event, based in familiar agricultural knowledge turned into
Christology.

We probably wouldn’t go that far in explaining that which we likely don’t
understand all that well. So let’s take a moment and look at what those Greeks, and in
turn, we think we know.

To see Jesus is to see the work of God taking place in human reality. Those
gathering to celebrate Passover would have been taught that God’s dwelling place is in
the Temple, in the Holy of Holies. A thick curtain obscured the vision of all save the
high priest, who could enter the holiest place of the Temple on one day each year. It’s
where the Ark of the Covenant is held, the national archive, if you will, of the law of
Moses.

While Jesus spends his brief ministry pointing any and all who pay attention to
the activity, and therefore, the presence of God, he doesn’t give anyone directions
toward the Temple. He speaks of glorification and death and sacrifice all at the same
time.

What he’s really saying is that if anyone wants to see him, they’ll find him in the
sacrificial love of himself for the benefit of all. We’re told of an instant example of this
as he hangs dying on a cross, when at his last breath the veil obscuring the holiest place
in the Temple is torn in two, revealing its emptiness. To see Jesus, the human form of
God, look outside the city walls to the place of the skull, and find him in the middle of
death itself.

“We wish to see Jesus.” The request is made to us today. Do we brush it aside
by giving the GPS coordinates to the nearest church building, citing the times when the
doors are supposed to be unlocked? No. The invitation is ours to make. “Come and
see.”

Come and see the evidence of the work of Christ, the ongoing creative activity of
God, when suffering is joined by able hands and hearts. Come and see sorrow shared
by the joining of breaking hearts so that healing is not such a lonely thing to endure.
Come and see willful sacrifice to share the abundance of God’s life with those lost on
the winding trails of the shadow of death.

Do we really wish to see this Jesus? There are those still making the request. The
answer they truly seek is found when our desire is to be the Jesus we want to tell them
about. For others to see, we must in some way be Jesus to them.

But, of course, there’s more. We, too, wish to see Jesus. And to do that, we need
to open our eyes to the possibility—the probability—that Jesus can be found as easily in
those who seek as in those who claim to know where to look. It is not ours to decide
where the seeds are planted. It is ours to nurture the growth that God gives in the life
springing from the seed that is willing to die.