Proper
9A – 5th Sunday after Pentecost July 5, 2020
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, Romans 7:15-25a
Panzer Liturgical Service
If you ask an American to give one word to describe what we
value most, many would say, “Freedom.” It’s actually a bit of a battle cry these
days. People want freedom… freedom to go wherever they want… freedom to not
wear a mask if they don’t want to … freedom to try to resurrect a flawed past, hiding
in the shadow of heritage … freedom to reject a different view of history or
the experiences of others that don’t match our own. Our friends at
Merriam-Webster define freedom like this:
a : the absence of necessity,
coercion, or constraint in choice or action
b : liberation from slavery
or restraint or from the power of another: independence
c : the quality or state of
being exempt or released usually from something onerous
d : unrestricted use[i]
It’s in the title of our 4th of July holiday – Independence Day. The day we declared ourselves liberated from the tyranny of British taxation and rule… a lot of people died in the process of making our imperfect dreams of a representative democracy come true. And in many ways, it got us to where we are today, because there’s a little place in each of us that wants to believe that my needs, desires, and wants are the most important thing in the world, and everyone else comes second.
If you have read the passage from Romans out loud, I’ll bet you found it as confusing as I did. As I teased out the verses, much like one would try to unknot a poorly wound hank of yarn, I saw how Paul put his finger on the problem of the human condition. Our very humanness gets us into trouble. We know what the right things are… we are called to love God and neighbor in all we do. But we often act to meet our own desires first, even when we know that it’s not in anyone’s best interest. We like the idea of rules and law to make an orderly life; but we like it better for others, so we look for ways to circumvent the very restrictions that are meant to keep everyone safe.
We have to remember that Jesus is speaking to a particular crowd. Many of the early Christians were still practicing Jews, and being Jewish was ALL about the law. For the Jews of Jesus’ day, the rules were not just the focus of religious practice, but became the very thing being worshiped. Even under Roman rule, the practice of the Jewish religion became enculturated, seeping into how everyone lived – how they ate, how they dressed, how they worked, and how they played. Being a Jew wasn’t just about what you believed about God or worshiped on the Sabbath – it was infused into the practices on every minute of the day. And the people who did not conform were seen as less than, often shunned and abused in the process.
When Jesus began his ministry, he was admired for his bold teaching, for the miracles that he performed, and the large crowds that followed him. But it didn’t take long for his message to because less palatable. Today’s gospel shows one Jesus’ most human moments of Matthew’s gospel. Jesus, recognizing the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders and the violence that stemmed from it, is frustrated and angry as he speaks to them. He says, your faith sounds like a band that has come together to play, but they can’t figure if they are playing at a wedding or a funeral, and instead of music there is only noise.
When we look at the ministries of John and Jesus, we see mirror opposites, but with similar outcomes. Like Jesus’ cousin John, things start well and end poorly. John’s ministry was very different from Jesus’. John lived an austere lifestyle and eventually, people turned him away because he didn’t accept their invitations to wine and dine. Jesus partied, but not with the right people… he ate with sinners and tax collectors. Many people rejected Jesus for his welcoming nature; others rejected the message he preached as too simple and common. Caught up in the perfection of practicing the law, many were unable to see the good news unfolding before their very eyes.
If we are looking for a savior who will take away all of our problems and responsibilities, then Jesus is not the messiah for us. Instead, our biggest challenge is to see that when Jesus takes away the burden of sin in our lives, he places new burdens on our shoulders.
We live in a culture that extols liberation, freedom, and independence. And yet God has created us for connection, relationship, and interdependence. Jesus comes to us, not offering us complete independence, but a new set of dependencies whereby we can be truly free.
My mom is 86 and lives in a skilled nursing center in SC. Over the four years since my dad died, her physical health has remained fairly strong, but it has gradually become evident that she needed round-the-clock supervision. We are lucky because early on, my parents chose a senior community that would allow for step-up care in a place where people know her and love her, and they had the means to pay for it. And while the COVID crisis has taken away many things, it has also drawn me closer to my siblings and their families. Instead of connecting randomly, we have scheduled meetings to make decisions together about her care, and to support one another as we deal with our own family, health, and work issues.
We hear the word burden and think of them as something negative. Perhaps we have turned an important corner when we realize that our burdens can also bring us joy as we work with others to find solutions to problems and to celebrate the gifts and graces we bring to the table. More than ever, it seems that being a burden to one another is actually what it means to be a family, blood-related or not. In John’s gospel, Jesus tells his disciples: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” That’s the Christian life in a nutshell.
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Jesus doesn’t call us to be a group of individuals with like-minded goals and aspirations in order to our own needs met. No, Jesus calls us to be a family, where we take on the burdens of one another without worrying about the inconveniences that may come. When we look deep inside our own hearts, we realize that love teaches us that we are never more human than we are when we gladly take on the burdens of other people, friends or family, strangers or enemies. In fact, when we avoid or reject taking on those responsibilities, we are in fact rejecting ourselves as God created us to be.
In my first church, there was this lovely German couple.
They had immigrated to the US in the mid-1950s. He lost a leg on the Russian
front in 1943 and she spent time as a governess in England. He went to college
and became a chemical engineer. She became a teacher. And he went to work for
Bayer, eventually coming to work in the US and attaining US citizenship. One
Sunday in November, Erika invited me to come for tea and stollen on Monday
afternoon. She told me their whole life story – I was there for hours… I think
we ate the whole loaf of bread.
When her husband came home that afternoon, he shared his
version of the story, and talked of how lucky he was that his leg was blown off
because he was sent home to recuperate. He believed that if that had not
happened, he would have died in battle and never made it back to marry Erika
and start their family together.
Later that week, George went in to wake Erika after her
afternoon nap. Sometime in the last few hours, she had peacefully died. Her
funeral was a wonderful celebration, and I gave thanks to God and the family
that I had gotten to spend that day with her so that I could really talk about
her life in a deep and meaningful way.
Just a few months later, another older man in our church
was diagnosed with a tumor in his femur. He was a widower and decided that
this was just his time to go. No surgery. No treatment. He couldn’t see how he
could possibly live a full life without his leg. On the way home, I remembered
George talking about losing his leg, so I called him and asked him to visit Bob
in the hospital.
And a few days late, Bob called and asked me to come and
pray with him before his surgery and to sit with George until he got back to
his room. And when I asked George what happened to change Bob’s mind, he told
me, I listened to him talk, and then I rolled up my pants, took off my leg and
said, “Losing that leg of yours will save your life… I know it saved mine.”
Real love wakes us up to the needs of others, often requiring a total reordering of our days, our years, even our lives. But the good news is this – we are really at our best as we respond to such unchosen, undecided, unplanned demands, interruptions and encumbrances. Because honestly, if we were to say that our lives are totally free of the bothers and burdens of other people, it’s just is another way of saying, “I am lonely. I have no better purpose for my life than me.” And ultimately that is no life at all.
The longer I live a Christian life and teach and preach
and work and play with other people, the more convinced I am that we cannot do
this faith thing alone. We are called to community. We are called to care for
one another. And once that becomes a defining principle for us, then our
burdens get redefined: they become our blessings. And we welcome them because
they are the very things that give our lives real meaning.
And for this we give thanks! Amen.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, we give thanks that you created us for
fellowship with you and with our fellow human beings. In your wisdom, you made
us to be those who long for connection and community. Preserve us, O Lord, from
a desire for independence from you or from our sisters and brothers. Save us
from the lure of solitariness. Give us the grace to see the claims of our
fellow human beings as a call from you to be connected to and responsible for
those in need. Strengthen us as we attempt to love you by loving our neighbor,
particularly our neighbor in need. Help each of us, in our times of need,
graciously to receive help from others and to see their help as a sign of your
love at work in the world. Amen.
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