Scripture:
Matthew 11:16-19 and 25-30 (NRSV)
“But
to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting
in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the
flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not
mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say,
‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and
they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax
collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
...
At
that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the
intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such
was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my
Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows
the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to
reveal him. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying
heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and
learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Sermon:
Let us pray:
Patient
teacher, we give thanks for this day, for an opportunity to see new
mercies. We don't always give thanks for your word, especially when
it is confusing, but we know we should anyway. So we give you thanks
for this word too, and ask that the words of my mouth and the
meditations of all our hearts help us to better understand you, and
open us even more to that mercy and grace you shower upon us. Amen.
Someone asked me
what I was going to preach on my first Sunday here, and I said the
scripture where Jesus talks about giving us rest. I have always liked
this scripture because of a song that quotes it, but I guess it might
come off as a little strange that your new pastor has only been here
a week and she's already talking about weariness and a need for rest.
But no, this is not a cry for help! Or not exactly. Because I think
what Jesus was telling his followers here is actually something I
need help with, and I suspect some of you may need help with as well.
Summer is often
seen as a season of relaxation in our culture. Many of us try to go
on vacations. We spend weekends with friends eating hot dogs and
hamburgers, especially for Memorial Day and Fourth of July. But I
find for many of us summer becomes even more of a scramble than the
rest of the year. Who will take care of the kids when we are at work?
Will we get enough rain for our gardens? When will we find time to
mow the lawn? Or, for many of us struggling with the basics, where
will our families find something to eat without free school lunches?
Where will we find a safe and cool place to sleep if we can't afford
air conditioning in our own homes? The heat alone can make us weary.
Summer brings so many questions and it can easily become more of a
juggling act than a restful season.
Our culture is not
one for rest anyway. How often have you felt like you are trapped in
a hamster wheel, trying to do all the things, but as soon as you
accomplish one task, there are ten others? And of course, we can't
ask for help. We have to be independent, pull ourselves up by our
bootstraps or something. Sometimes we seem like we'd rather do it on
our own than actually rely on God.
My story is
definitely one that as much in love with God as I am, I have been
known to try to do the work on my own rather than rely on God. In
fact, my call story is one like that and the last few years have been
like that as well. I was called to ministry when I was nineteen years
old. Well, it was before that, but I didn't pay any attention. I
didn't think God knew what God was talking about so I kept doing my
own thing. My mom is a pastor and I certainly didn't want to be like
her! (I was a teenager, after all.) In fact, the call I heard first
was not to be a pastor but to be a missionary. I went on a mission
trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina when I was sixteen with our very own
Beth Richards, among others. And I had never heard God clearer than
in that country, with those people. I had never really recognized the
transforming power of God's love before I went to Bosnia. So I was
set. Sixteen years old, I knew what God called me to do and I worked
to make it happen.
I am a planner.
That doesn't mean I'm organized, but I have a plan. My roommate in
seminary reminded me recently that when we were serving as student
chaplains in a hospital together, I mapped out all my hours and
figured out what two days I could get sick. “You know you can't
pick what days you get sick, right?” She asked me. But that's just
how I am. I have a plan, and I put it into motion. I had a call, so I
had decided how I was going to respond to the call, what steps had to
happen. I recognized God's voice and then promptly told God I'd take
it from here. So when I was nineteen and one of those steps I had to
take to realize my call fell through, I was desolate. I was studying
abroad in France at the time, and I remember feeling so lost. I would
sit in these huge stone cathedrals, a little like this one, in fact,
and wonder why God would make things so hard. Why would God give me a
dream and snatch it away like that?
As petulant as it
seems looking back on it, I have found many I minister with have the
same question in their own lives. And I find myself asking the same
thing now as I get angry at God for giving me the dream of a family
and snatching it further and further away. Aaron and I have been
trying to have children for years, and we keep coming up to roadblock
after roadblock. It is wearying.
When I was
nineteen, I first felt a little of that weariness. I was weary and
angry and frustrated with God. But I was also a preacher's kid, and
so I kept going to church anyway. I was so weary that I think I gave
up. I didn't know where I was going to go or who I was going to be
after college. So I brought my burdens to Jesus and discovered that
his yoke wasn't so bad after all. That maybe he could be trusted to
plan things a bit. I found an awesome church community in Washington
DC, joined a Bible study and did mission with them. I began to
experience joy again. I didn't feel so alone. And so at the beginning
of summer, at a special worship service for young United Methodist
students, in a small chapel with low lighting and the strum of
guitars, a pastor friend of mine lifted homemade rainbow communion
bread before us, broke it, and I had this incredible sensation wash
over me. I felt like I was home. I felt completely loved, completely
connected. My weary soul, searching for what I was to do, who I was
to be, found rest at the Table. I found rest in Jesus.
But that rest was
not a vacation. It was a call. God called me to keep working to make
all people feel at home at that same Table. And God told me I
wouldn't do it alone.
If
you remember, Jesus urges the weary to come to him, but then he talks
about a yoke. I should let you know, I am a country girl. Aaron and I
went to a high school that had Take Your Tractor to School day.
Still, I don't know much about yokes. In fact, when I think about a
yoke, I think about bondage, even servitude. I think of a power that
someone places on top of another, human or animal, and forces us to
work for them. But I think what Jesus is talking about is more of a
double yoke to pull together, in tandem, a team. We don't have to
work alone, he says. We don't have to wonder how we are going to live
into our call alone. Jesus wears the yoke with us, labors alongside
us, is connected to us, and helps to make our
work to spread God's love easier, not more difficult.1
I wrote in my
newsletter that the scripture through which I seek to understand the
journey of faith is John 10:10, in which Jesus tells us that he came
that we might have life and have it abundantly. As Christians, we
often think we have to work hard, suffer a lot, deprive ourselves in
order to be faithful. Such a life is not abundant. Such a life is not
that of one yoked to Christ. Yes, we will work. Yes, we will suffer.
Yes, we will have to give up some of the things we love. But we do
not have to bear our burdens alone. Christ walks alongside us,
working with us, offering us more abundance always.
God called me. God
was not going to let me be alone, lost, empty. That doesn't mean that
God will prevent anything bad from happening to me. But God says I
don't have to weary myself trying to figure it out on my own. And God
has called each of you by virtue of your baptisms. God is not going
to let you wander alone, either. You might insist on doing the work
yourself. You might try to be independent. But Jesus is there,
reaching for you, offering to help so life isn't so hard. Offering to
help so you can find new life, abundant life.
So, are you going
to keep insisting on doing it your own way? Whether that's your job,
your call, your faith, your relationships? Or are you going to settle
your weary self down and take up the yoke alongside Jesus? This
sermon is a bit of a commitment to you, to stop trying to do it all
on my own and to learn from Jesus. For Jesus is gentle and humble in
heart, and in him, we will find rest for our souls. Hallelujah. Amen.
1Jan
Richardson wrote a beautiful reflection on this passage that I draw
on here: “If the yoke fits...” 2 July 2008, The Painted
Prayerbook, accessed 6
July 2017,
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/07/02/if-the-yoke-fits/.
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