PENTECOST 6A 2026

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ At first glance, today’s lessons seem disjointed, unrelated. The first lesson sends me to Advent with a side of Georg Frederic Handel. The Psalm is reassuring, hopeful. The Epistle seems ready to remind us why we should feel guilty, while the Gospel simply wants to yell, “grow up!” 

There’s some doubt that the same writer penned today’s first lesson as the one who wrote chapters one through eight. Those chapters speak to a people fresh from exile, whose king coming to them could well have been Darius of Persia. Those returning from exile found a city in ruins. They depended on a benefactor for support and relief. Darius passed through Judah on his way to settle a dispute in Egypt, so he may have spent some time among those whom his predecessor, Cyrus, freed from the Babylonians. 

Today’s words, however, seem to speak more to the time of Alexander the Great, a couple of centuries later. Judah is threatened once again, and was occupied by the Greeks after they overthrew the Persians. Then along came the Romans and a second destruction of Jerusalem a generation or so after Jesus. 

People living in uncertainty often reach out for anything, or anyone, who can provide a sense of peace amid turmoil. Those living in Jerusalem during Jesus’ time lived in hope of a Messiah who would come from the lineage and tradition of David. Now, those who know that history will understand that David’s time was not all that peaceful. Only a generation later, with the death of Solomon, Israel was divided internally, perhaps setting in motion the conflicts that would ultimately destroy both kingdoms. 

Hence, Jesus’s admonition. John came living in austerity, and they complained about him. Jesus spends time eating and drinking with those around him and they call him a glutton and a drunk. Some complain because the Temple is only open when it’s not convenient, or the hymns are too long, or too many, or too few. And the Temple hours have changed, on top of all that! Some say they got nothing out of the sermon or the prayers or anything else, as if they were the ones being worshipped. It’s too cold. It’s too hot. All my friends are having fun right now at the beach or the park or the ball game or at brunch. 

The risen Christ hears a lot of complaints. And probably still wants to shout, “GROW UP!” 
We have yet to learn that our reason for being here is not about us. Worship isn’t about attendance; it is about attendING to the one we worship. Worship is not about receiving, but about offering ourselves in gratitude for what has already been freely 

given. Worship is not about numbers, but being present in the number of the redeemed who then go to do one thing. 
That one thing is to live in the expectation that God will come, that the risen Christ will be present among us, that the Holy Spirit will speak to us and through us as a sign of that very singular hope. 

That expectation is in Paul’s struggle to be a living apostle of Christ, especially when so many temptations lie close at hand to entice him away from the purpose of his life. He speaks of law and grace in ways that can be difficult to understand, but that we can all recognize as true in our own lives. 

Jesus gave us one task—make disciples. If everything else we say we do in his name doesn’t help us do that, then they are little more than a distraction. Maybe that’s why so many struggle. Our focus has become about buildings and programs and even competition with other parishes that we’ve forgotten not only how to make disciples, but how to BE disciples. 

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tries to reveal the presence of God among his own people. After awhile, he turns in another direction and moves instead among outsiders, called Gentiles. Maybe he heard all the whining and complaining he could take, and decided to go elsewhere. 

I heard a story once that while leaving church one Sunday morning, a person was heard saying “I didn’t get anything out of that service today.” Pray that’s not the voice of God we hear, but that instead God hears our voices of prayer and praise and faith, and accepts our real offering of ourselves in gratitude for the hope God has given us in raising Christ from the dead. 
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That’s when the words of the Psalm begin to make sense.