Sermon - 5th Sunday After Pentecost (7/5/2020)
Zech. 9:9-12; Ps. 145:8-14; Rom. 7:15-25a; Mt. 11:16-19, 25-30
At the beginning of today’s gospel reading, Jesus compares his hearers to children playing in the marketplace, saying to one another. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.” At first-century weddings, it was customary for men to play the flute and for women to dance, and at first-century funerals, the custom was for the women to wail loudly while the men performed the rituals of mourning. So we can imagine the children in the marketplace, the boys playing over here and the girls playing over there. The boys call to the girls, “Let’s play wedding. We’ll play the flute, and you dance.” And the girls call back, “Don’t tell us what game to play. Let’s play funeral, we’ll wail and you mourn.” And neither group wants to play the other group’s game. Both groups blame the other for not playing along. It’s your fault I’m not having any fun because you won’t do what I want you to do. Who are you to tell me what to do? And on it goes.
Does any of this sound familiar? Nobody’s going to tell me what to do! The problem is that other people won’t do what I think they should do. Children do this, yes, but let’s be honest, they learn it from adults. It happens all the time in our families, one person wants to do one thing, another person wants to do something else. We know that it’s easiest for everyone when we can find a way to get along that respects the needs and the dignity of each person – yet sometimes we bicker, we get resentful, and then everyone is just weary and heavily burdened.
On this Independence Day weekend, we particularly see how this kind of bickering and resentment exists in our nation. We’re a large and diverse society and we’ve always had lots of divisions and disagreements, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen things as stressed as they are right now. We’ve all been through a lot these last few months, many of us staying at home a whole lot, many of us separated from people we love, some of us stressed with balancing taking care of family while working from home for weeks on end, others having to go out every day to work and worried about the health risks to themselves and their families, others having no work and no income and worried about how to survive. It is a lot for all of us to carry, and it is no wonder that we are weary and heavily burdened.
And under those burdens, our social fabric is starting to tear. We see some people freaking out with anger over being told to wear a mask, and others freaking out with anger that people won’t wear a mask. I went grocery shopping on Friday and it felt to me like nobody was respecting 6 feet of space and it really bothered me. And whatever frustration we feel, it’s so easy right now to find people of another political persuasion from ours to point the finger at. As a result, we’ve got real problems. We all remember back in March how we saw what was happening in Italy, how horrifying that was. Well, more people in the United States tested positive for the coronavirus last week than have tested positive in Italy from the beginning of the pandemic. And if we don’t get it together, there’s going to be a lot of unnecessary suffering and death – and how much more weariness and burden can we take?
Here the gospel has something to say. In Martin Luther’s famous treatise On the Freedom of a Christian, he framed his thesis as follows: “A Christian is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.” How can both of these be true? Because we are justified, we are made right with God entirely by God’s doing, we need nothing except faith that it is so, it has nothing to do with us. So we are free from every requirement and burden that someone wants to put on us. We don’t have to do anything that anybody tells us to do. But, having been drawn into the life of God who gives freely and loves unconditionally, we are inspired to love others freely and unconditionally, not because we have to but because we get to. God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does – and we have been set free precisely so that we can without fear or compulsion but freely love our neighbors – all our neighbors – as God loves them.
In today’s gospel passage Jesus says: 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.” Note that Jesus doesn’t say: Come to me and you won’t have any yoke at all, you can do whatever you want. The farmer puts a yoke on the ox when the farmer has a job for the ox to do, and Jesus doesn’t say that there is no job for us. But if you are feeling weary and heavily burdened, if you feel the heaviness of the world on your shoulders, if you are weary from carrying a load around by yourself for so long, Jesus has a task that is much easier than the task and the burden that we have put on ourselves.
[Bonhoeffer:] "We can of course shake off the burden which [Jesus lays] upon us, but only find that we have a still heavier burden to carry -- a yoke of our own choosing, the yoke of our self. But Jesus invites all who travail and are heavy laden to throw off their own yoke and take his yoke upon them -- and his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. The yoke and burden of Christ are his cross.”
The burden Jesus gives us is the cross?? That sounds hard – and it is, but not as hard as trying to do everything yourself. The way of the cross is the way of trust that God loves the world so much that God sent the Son into the world to save it. To trust that God loves my neighbor, even more than I do, that God is working, right now, on behalf of me and my neighbor and all of the creation, that we get to share in that work – it may cost us, it may cost us a lot, but it’s not nearly as difficult as carrying the weight of the world by ourselves.
My hope for us and for congregation: that we can first experience ourselves what it means to be relieved of our burdens and stresses by accepting the yoke of Jesus. And that, in doing so, we can help others to see that the yoke of Jesus is easy and light. So that others who are weary and heavily burdened will see that none of us needs to try to carry it alone, that none of us needs to frustration, that none of us needs to insist on our own way, that all of us are invited to a much easier path, the path that Jesus walks for us and with us, the path of forgiveness, mercy, and love.