PENTECOST 23C 2025

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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