Proper 9-A
July 3, 2011
The Rev. Marguerite Alley
Well, once again, John has pulled a fast one on me. Not only has he left me with a particularly difficult set of lessons for today, he is not even here so that I might appropriately thank him for it! Alas, I shall have to thank him by preaching a legendary sermon, that will just really make him sad he missed it. So, regardless of what I actually say in next few minutes, your assignment is to completely blow it out of proportion, (in any direction you like!) and be sure you tell lots of people how good or bad it was!
Now I was sorely tempted to pull out a previous sermon based on Romans 7 . But I decided that not only do you deserve better than that, you deserve some kind of decent explanation of the Gospel this morning. I am going to focus most of my attention on the last portion, verses 25-30. I will though, hopefully place the opening in context as well. If you have any questions or comments following, please be sure to ask Fr. John.
First, if you will allow me a teaching moment…..We have recently entered the longest season of the church year. This season is generally referred to as “Ordinary Time”. Ordinary refers not to this time being plain or common or boring, but rather the “counted” Sundays(from the word “ordinal”) that follow the Feast of Pentecost. During Ordinary time, we primarily hear stories about, quotes by and teachings of Jesus. These stories and quotes and teachings help us understand our own story and the story of the Christian church. Our church, and many others as well including Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics have worked together to create a wonderful teaching aid called the Common Lectionary. This tool takes each of the Gospels and spreads the majority of it across the Sundays following Pentecost in a three year cycle. So the first year, called year A, we hear from Matthew, year B we hear from Mark and year C we hear from Luke. The Gospel of John is quite different from the others, so portions of that gospel are extracted and used at times appropriate and are also included in special services like the Burial Office.
One of the best things about our Lectionary is not just that we read most of a Gospel in 25 to 30 Sundays, but also that we read some sections that we might not know about or in fact choose to read. While it does contain the stories with which we are most familiar, it also has passages that would be easy to overlook because either they are not very nice stories, or they are hard to understand. Our lectionary though, is one of the great ways in which we can be connected to our brothers and sisters in other denominations. On any given Sunday, it is comforting to me to know that scads of people all over the world are reading and wrestling with the same passages. So…..if you don’t like Matthew, just wait till next year this time and we will be reading from Mark, of the following year when we read from Luke!
This morning’s reading from Matthew ends with one of the most often quoted passages of all scripture. “Come unto me, all who labor and are heavy laden”, Jesus says, “and I will give you rest”. Matthew 11:28-30. You can find this passage inscribed on headstones, in colombaria, on stained glass and virtually anywhere else where people might find comfort from hearing or reading. It is a wonderful idea, and one that can provide a good deal of comfort when we feel as though we are just slogging through a life of burden, when our efforts to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps have failed and we feel we are sinking under the weight of all we must bear. I would suggest to you though, that while this passage gives us great comfort today, it meant something altogether different to those who heard it for the first time.
Jesus had just completed a trip with his disciples to several Galilean cities, where he had preached and taught and healed many people. His experience had been less than what we would consider successful. The people to whom he was speaking were not the poor, the oppressed or the down trodden. The people in these cities were, by the standards of the time, young, upwardly mobile, professionals. Their local economy was in good shape, and the state faith institution was still intact. They didn’t really see themselves as needing anything Jesus had to offer. The first part of the passage is where Jesus expresses his frustration at the fact that these folks aren’t interested in his message. He then goes on to tell God he is glad that these intelligent and capable people DON’T understand his message! My understanding of this statement is that Jesus wants to be clear that one cannot understand God merely because they are smart and capable. He wants us to understand that Wisdom and Divine Revelation are two very different things, and that in order to receive divine revelation, we must be as open and innocent as children. In a sense, he is saying that those who know God do so because God allows us to know him, not because we have “figured him out”.
Then we come to our favorite comfort passage. After telling us that we cannot know God because we are smart and able, he offers this thought of comfort, aid and support. Whether Jesus is referring to an actual physical burden, such as for those who were laboring for the Roman Empire as slaves carrying sticks and mud for building projects, or whether he was referring to the very human burden of grief or fear, it is not clear to me. My commentaries suggest though a third alternative and that is that the burden is actually a religious burden. This makes more sense to me.
Matthew wrote this Gospel several years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is important to note that it was written for a Jewish audience. At this time, the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation had failed, and the Temple had been destroyed. The Sadducees (the elite religious class that maintained the Temple) were now out of work so to speak and the Zealots (those who had led the rebellion) were in hiding, in prison, or had been the main course at an afternoon picnic for lions. The Pharisees were the “last men standing” so to speak of the Jewish faith, and they held the future of the faith in their hands. Jesus and his followers were the veritable “burr under the saddle” of the Pharisees. While the followers of Jesus were certainly fewer in number than the Pharisees, they did share a good bit of faith in common. Both had the Torah, the prophets and their devotion to God as the basis of their faith story, their public practice of faith, and their personal faith.
Fast forward now 2000 years or so. It is easy for us to characterize this conflict we are reading about as being between Jews and Christians but this is as far from accurate as you can get!. The conflict is between Jews and Jews. Now today, the conflicts we are struggling with in our own churches are no less bitter than this one we are hearing about. Just as in the conflict within Christianity today, this early conflict between followers of Jesus and the Pharisees, was within one religious tradition and was centered around the meaning of true faith and what God requires of the faithful.
Now most of us have been taught that this struggle to understand the requirements of faith are most simply stated as “works vs grace”. We have Martin Luther to thank for that clarification. Jesus was offering those who would listen, a religion based on grace rather than one based on good works. Every person, who desires to be in relationship with God, finds themselves sandwiched between these two ideas…because as humans it seems to be in our DNA to feel that we must do something to get something, and yet Jesus is saying that we must only “want it” to get it. And even though we often profess to believe that God’s love IS unconditional, we don’t act that way. The passage from Romans this morning reminds us of this was well. We create huge long lists of things we need to do, ought to do, should do, are expected to do and so forth. We act as if our salvation it depends on us. If this is true, then Jesus need not have died on the cross! We have convinced ourselves that there are all sorts of conditions to be met first, rules to be followed, burdens to bear and so forth. We tell ourselves that we are not yet free, or ready or able to serve God.
I have found myself in this position 2-3 times a year, as regards my school job and when I can slow down , relax and just “be”. I tell myself that I just need to get “through this” “past this” or “over this” and then I can relax. As far as my role in the church, I have found myself at times believing that God expects more from me than others. I am not sure why, but I suspect that this is part of the ethos and the pathos of the ordained.
In February 2009, you may recall that I had a rather unpleasant go round with a very large kidney stone. I spent most of the month on my back in bed, trying not to move too much, because the “equipment” that was allowing my kidney to function normally did not like to be jostled. This event occurred at the absolute worst possible time of the school year for me…..during the final four weeks of festival preparation. I doubt I would have taken any time that month for myself, for my friends or even for God as I was totally focused on this monumental performance assessment on the horizon. Well, I discovered some interesting things during my necessary imprisonment. First, my students were more mature that I ever imagined. They rehearsed themselves. What they lacked in knowledge and expertise, they made up for in enthusiasm and repetition. Second, the world seemed to function reasonably well without my assistance. I also uncovered some important information as well. When the sun shines through the blinds in my room and the ceiling fan is running it kind of looks like a moving checkerboard. When you think about a moving checkerboard, you get the idea that even when you have made the right move, you have to keep moving or it becomes the wrong move. I also learned that dogs seem to intuitively know how to walk over you on the mattress without making you jiggle too much, and that they are perfectly happy to sleep next to you, all day and all night when you don’t feel well. I also learned that my cat has a mean streak and likes to bat things off the dresser just to see if you can get out of bed, or if your illness is for real. I doubt I would have learned or discovered any of these interesting and important things any other way.
I think a lot of us labor under the delusion that in order to make and keep God happy we must constantly labor under real or imagined burdens. We load our selves with all kinds of expectations, good deeds that need doing, good and positive thoughts, blameless and obedient lives….all in an effort to accomplish something that was never asked for, expected or required in the first place.
“Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”. These words assure us that those who please God most are not those who carry the heaviest load or the most burdens, but those who are willing to share their loads, those who are willing to enter into a relationship with Jesus in which our load is significantly lightened and our burdens are born alongside us, by one with much broader shoulders and a stronger back. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me: for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” AMEN
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