The Blessings of Wrestling: 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

It’s quite a story that we’ve been following the past few weeks from the Book of Genesis—Jacob and Esau. It began even before they were born. “Rebekah became pregnant. But the boys pushed against each other inside of her, and she said, ‘If this is what it’s like, why did it happen to me?’ So she went to ask the LORD. And the LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb; two different peoples will emerge from your body. One people will be stronger than the other; the older will serve the younger.’ When she reached the end of her pregnancy, she discovered that she had twins. The first came out red all over, clothed with hair, and she named him Esau (meaning "hairy"). Immediately afterward, his brother came out gripping Esau’s heel, and she named him Jacob” (meaning he who cheats. Genesis 25:21-26, Common English Bible).

Two sons destined to be rivals, a rivalry that would be inherited by the descendants, the nations of Israel, and to Israel’s south, Edom. One, physically stronger, rough and hairy all over. The other, more clever, grasping for the advantage, and not above cheating to get his way. If you were to make a TV series of this story, you could call it, “Hairy and the Heel.” We’ve heard different parts of the story these past few weeks. We heard how Jacob wrestled the birthright of the older son from Esau with a bowl of stew. We missed the episode in which Rebekah helped disguise Jacob in Esau’s clothing and goat hide. So, when the blind father, Isaac, wishes to bless his oldest son, he gives that blessing to Jacob instead. Not surprisingly, the “Heel” then has to high-tail it out of Canaan in order to escape being killed by “Hairy.”

Then, we heard God enter this story for the first time. There is the Heel, on his way to an unfamiliar place, unsure of his fate. But it is to this man, whose name means, “cheater,” that God shows a ladder to heaven, with angels ascending and descending, and then repeats the promises he made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham, “Your descendants will become like the dust of the earth; you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants. I am with you now, I will protect you everywhere you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done everything that I have promised you” (Gen. 28:14-15).

What a God of unmerited grace this is. And yet, responding to this promise, our hero the Heel keeps putting conditions on his own submission to God: “If God is with me and protects me on this trip I’m taking, and gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God” (Gen. 28:20-21). Jacob is still wrestling for the advantages of wealth and security. Well, our hero makes it to his ancestral homeland of Haran, east of Canaan. He falls in love with Rachel. But his Uncle Laban tricks him into marrying the older sister Leah, and then getting Jacob to agree to work for him for seven years in order to marry Rachel as well.

Well, our hero the Heel finally gets out of Haran, with both wives, and a whole lot of livestock that he basically swindled from Uncle Laban. And he makes his back to Canaan, and his brother “Hairy.” Maybe the years apart have softened up Esau, made him ready to let bygones be bygones, not. The messengers returned to Jacob and said, “We went out to your brother Esau, and he’s coming to meet you with four hundred men.” (Gen. 32:6). What will our hero do now? He splits his camp in two, and begins sending messengers with gifts of livestock to his brother coming to meet him with four hundred men.

And then he spends the night alone by the river. Except that suddenly, he’s not so alone. “But Jacob stayed apart by himself, and a man wrestled with him until dawn broke” (Gen. 32:24). Who is this “man”? At first perhaps, Jacob thinks it might be Esau, who wants to kill Jacob himself with his own cold hands. As the night struggle wears on, perhaps Jacob wonders if all the demons in his life have come together on this night: the insecurities that drove him to steal all his older brother’s advantages, to hoodwink his father, and his uncle. Maybe all those pressures have built up in his heart and have burst out, so that Jacob is literally wrestling himself.

But as the night turns to dawn, and Jacob continues to struggle with this “man” who has faithfully struggled with him, he begins to sense that this is more than a man, and that the man he is wrestling with is the one man who might be able to help him. “The man said, ‘Let me go because the dawn is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I won’t let you go until you bless me.’ And so God asks, “What is your name?” And Jacob speaks his name that is also a confession: “I am the Heel, the cheater.” And this faithful God says, “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer, but Israel, because you struggled with God and with men and won.” (Gen. 32:28).

God wrestles with us on our terms, for as long as it takes. We’re all victims of someone, or something, that has left its scars on our hearts, and God knows that. So when those scars leave us feeling insecure, God will wrestle with us, for years if necessary. This God of amazing grace will wrestle with us until we are ready to face the demons within ourselves, those insecurities that have led us to grasp for wealth and possessions, power and control, being “right” about the issue of the day, emotional comfort in whatever friends of the moment were willing to feed us. God wrestles with our complaints until those complaints become our confession.

And as God blessed the wrestler, “Israel,” so God blesses us, with what exactly? As Jacob limps toward his brother, he doesn’t know if Esau will accept his offerings of livestock. What blessing has God given Jacob? It’s not certainty about the future. It’s not a pat on the head that everything will be alright; although in the end Esau embraces his brother and the two are reconciled. Perhaps, the blessing is understanding of himself, the good and the bad within him, and the peace that comes from knowing that God has loved him and accepted him, warts and all. Perhaps the blessing is to be free from anxiety; to know that he can change his life; and if he falls, God will wrestle with him again as he picks Jacob up, dusts him off, and sends him on his way.

Through Jesus Christ, we have inherited the promise God made to Jacob: “Every family of earth will be blessed because of you and your descendants.” We all are Israel, struggling with God and men, and by God's grace winning. God’s hand is always there, either to wrestle with or to embrace. Take it.

Asking the Right Questions--The Parables: 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked (Matthew 13:51).

Perhaps you'll consider it good news that this is the last Sunday for us to consider the parables in Matthew 13. I wonder if you feel like we're on parable overload today: mustard seeds, yeast, buried treasure, the finest pearl, nets and fish. How do you make sense of any one of these, much less all of them? What unites them is how Jesus begins each parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like...” In each parable, Jesus uses the present tense, and he uses recognizable images from this world to describe what the kingdom of heaven is like. So, the kingdom of heaven is not just a future reward. The kingdom of heaven is right here, today. God already reigns as Lord of this world, and we are called to recognize it in the world around us, and to value it above all else.

But recognizing God’s authority in this world isn’t always easy. That is something else that all these parables have in common. The kingdom and the power and the glory, which these parables point to, are hidden. The kingdom is hidden because it is dangerous. C.S. Lewis referred to this world as “enemy-occupied territory.” And according to Lewis, “Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.” We who are called disciples of this Christ the King have the eyes and ears to recognize his kingdom, and to stake our energy, our treasure, our life and our death, on this kingdom.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable. The parables are not a “how-to” set of precise rules for getting out of God's dog house. The parables are not a cheat sheet for getting the right answers to the test. The parables are not meant to give us the right answers so much as to help us ask the right questions.

The first two parables, about the mustard seed and the yeast, are spoken to the “crowds,” and not just to Jesus's students the disciples. Jesus is speaking to anybody listening, friends and enemies. And so he speaks in code, through these parables. And in both cases, the kingdom, to which these images of mustard seed and yeast point, is hidden. The mustard seed is hidden by nature of it's being so small. And yet it becomes a tree. Trees were symbols of imperial kingdoms. And so this tree represents an imperial kingdom. But it does not seize power by military conquest or political propaganda and clever slogans. The kingdom of heaven begins in humility and service. Can the crowds recognize this servant-led kingdom?

We then hear Jesus tell of a woman who “mixed in” yeast with three measures of flour. But the word translated as “mixed” actually means, “to hide.” The woman hid the yeast of the kingdom within the three measures of flour of this world. To use Lewis's words, this is the sabotage we're called to do. There is opposition to this kingdom of servanthood over power. We have to recognize that opposition for what it is. It may be fear and resentment within us, or fear and resentment that is acted out around us. But we also need to recall how just a little sabotage from just one of us can make enough bread to feed hundreds with hope, and love.

Then, Jesus speaks only to us his students, his disciples, about how much value we are prepared to place on this kingdom of servanthood. Roman law actually dealt with the question of finding buried treasure on someone else's property. And the law basically said, “Finders, keepers.” Understandably, we still flinch a little bit at the underhand way in which this man lays claim to his hidden treasure. But we know that the “lesson” here is not to attain the kingdom of heaven by any means necessary. Both these parables leave us with the question: How valuable is this kingdom of servanthood to us? What are we willing to give up to attain this everlasting treasure? How much opposition are we willing to endure?

So, “Have you understood all these things,” Jesus asks his disciples; to which they respond in unison, “Yes.” Personally, I think they answered a little too quickly. I won't ask you that. But as we leave the parables behind, for now, I pray that if I haven't given you a neat and tidy set of answers, that at least I have left you with the right questions. How will the seeds being sown right outside this door produce a yield of thirty to one, sixty to one, or even a hundred to one? What weeds do we need to let Jesus pull out of our hearts so that the sun can shine on the wheat? Who are we called to serve in the kingdom of heaven? Where is the opposition? And what will we give up for the only treasure we can take with us?

We who have been trained as disciples in the kingdom of heaven don’t need to come up with all the answers to these questions today. Being a student of Jesus the Christ doesn’t mean we have to get 100 on the test just to pass. We just need to ask those questions, and wait for Jesus to answer them.

More On Reverence: Making Holy Things

At my old home church, Grace in Alexandria, the smell of incense always lingers in that sanctuary, whenever you’re in there. One parishioner here has told me that they could detect the scent of candles in the original sanctuary. And it was more than the two lit candles on the altar. These recollections remind me of what a friend said about old churches, that by their prayers and presence, human beings can make a place “hallowed,” or a holy place set apart for God’s presence among his people.

There is truth to that observation, so long as one doesn’t make the leap to saying that by our prayers and presence, we have the power ourselves to conjure God to be with us. If we fall into that temptation, then we’re no different than a fortune teller, and our worship would become no different than a séance.

To be reverent before God is to be respectful of God’s will. And while I trust that God responds to our prayers and other acts of reverence, we must accept that it is entirely up to God to respond to us. It is God who ultimately makes us holy, who sets us apart for the service we give to God in our worship.

I’ve asked the question, What is reverence and how should it be expressed in our worship? Some have honestly responded that they just don’t feel very reverent in Founders Hall, compared to the original church. Do you feel the same way? I can understand wanting to get back into a space built for worship, as opposed to fellowship. I hope each Sunday, as you see the progress being made on the new sanctuary, that you are filled with hope, and that hope helps you feel more blessed in the space we currently worship in.

In the meantime, I think it might help to remind ourselves of that Sunday, more than year ago, when we “Set Apart” Founders Hall “for Sacred Use,” using the liturgy from the Episcopal Book of Occasional Services.

“You will bring them in and plant them, O Lord, in the sanctuary you have established…Blessed are you, O God, ruler of the universe. Your gifts are many, and in wisdom you have made all things to give you glory. Be with us now and bless us as we dedicate our use of this space to your praise and honor. As often as we worship you here, precede us and abide with us. Be known to us in the Word spoken and heard, in fellowship with one another, and in the breaking of bread. Give us joy in all your works, and grant that this space may be a place where your will is done and your name is glorified, through Jesus Christ our Savior, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.

We have prayed thus. We trust that God has heard our prayer, and will respond with truth and grace.

Our Patient Master: 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Let both, weeds and wheat, grow side by side until the harvest.” (Matthew 13:30).

Yesterday, as Bishop Parsley announced the election of our suffragan bishop, Kee Sloan, to be the next diocesan bishop of Alabama, I thought of today's parable. Aside from his gentle and positive spirit, I think that so many of us at the convention voted for him because, having served in this diocese as long as he has, Kee knows where the wheat and the weeds are in this diocese. I also suspect that when Kee is “invested” as our diocesan bishop, and the buck stops with him, he will discover a few more weeds. It's not the weeds we know about that trip us up, but the ones we don't see until, like the landowner in our parable, it seems to be “too late.” But it's never too late for the landowner of this world.

So what is a parable? Let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature of common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.” At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like of Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable.

In fact, this parable might have meant one thing to those who first heard Jesus tell it, and something at least slightly different to Matthew. I'm struck by the differences between the telling of the parable and its interpretation. In Jesus' telling of this parable, what I hear most of all is the patience and mercy of the Landowner. In the interpretation of this parable, the emphasis is on this Master’s judgment and vindication. I believe that Jesus intended for his parables to be “strange” enough, and doubtful enough about its precise application, to inspire each generation to find in these stories the truth they need to hear.

Speaking to “the crowds,” Jesus tells his story of a landowner who plants good seeds of whole grain wheat in his field. But that night, with the ground feshly plowed, an enemy comes and scatters the seeds of darnel. Darnel was a weed. It didn't bear fruitful grain. But you wouldn't know that right away. The darnel weed looked like the wheat when it sprouted and grew. You wouldn't know the difference between the wheat and the weeds until the end, when the grain came forth, and the poor landowner sees all those weeds among his wheat. His servants are clearly irritated at the extra work they have to do. But they’re ready to defend their master and root out those evil weeds. But their Master says, “No, because if you gather the weeds, you’ll pull up the wheat along with them. Let both grow side by side until the harvest.”

Now taken literally, the story doesn't entirely make sense. If the wheat has borne its grain, then it shouldn't be that hard to tell the difference between the wheat and weeds, and to pull the weeds while leaving the wheat alone. So why wait? One interpretation might be that it's for God to decide when it is time to pull up the weeds, not us, and that we need to be patient with God when it seems to us that he is taking too long. Another way to see this story might be to remember how hard it is to tell the difference between the darnel and the wheat while they're still growing. As the landowner is patient enough to wait for the weeds and wheat to reveal themselves, we who certainly know less than the landowner should also be patient with the weeds.

When we come to the “interpretation” of this parable, a half of one verse about the burning of the weeds has become three verses in the interpretation. Most biblical scholars who aren’t fundamentalists agree that the Gospels were written some 30 years after the events they reported, when it became clear that Jesus wasn’t returning right away, and it became necessary to preserve Jesus’s message. Perhaps Matthew got a little impatient, and wanted to reassure his fellow Christians suffering persecution that they would be vindicated, that there would be a harvest of the wheat and justice for the weeds.

But we need the parable and its “interpretation.” Sometimes we see only the bad; in ourselves, in our community, in our church. It is then that we need to be reminded of the patient landowner. And perhaps we also need to be reminded that what look like weeds to us may, in God’s good and patient time, turn into wheat by God’s amazing grace. Other times we may be too complacent, or too afraid, to face the weeds within us and around us. It is then that we need to hear the voice of our Master, begging us to face those weeds, to change our hearts and lives.

That is never easy, and we might fear the Master’s judgment. But we must always come back to the Master who is also the patient landowner, who doesn’t care how overgrown the weeds might have gotten in our hearts and our lives. He will always see the wheat. If we let our Master and our Owner work with us. If we let him gently and patiently pull up those weeds, only the wheat will be left, to shine like the sun in our Father’s kingdom.

Reverence and Intimacy

Last week, I introduced the theme of reverence. In the Bible, “reverence” before God is usually equated with “the fear of the Lord.” But to be reverent is really to be in awe of this God who is so far beyond our power and comprehension, and yet was humble enough to become a human being and die for us.

On the one hand, we worship a God whose power and wisdom make us want to be very careful about the ways in which we worship him. That leads to a more formal style of worship, with certain actions that must be done in a certain way. This isn’t “stuffy.” It reflects the awe that people should have when they come to meet the Lord of the universe in worship.

On the other hand, as Christians, we believe that God meets us in our worship. In the bread and wine, we see, smell, touch, and taste Jesus the Christ, who is God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit is as close to us as our very breath (The Greek word for “spirit” is the same as “wind”). All this happens because God loves us so much. And so in the bread, the wine, and our breath, God is so intimate with us that he is within us. The desire to celebrate this relationship leads others to want a worship that is more familiar, less formal.

There is one place in our worship space where God’s awesomeness and God’s intimacy come together more than any other. The next time you’re in Founders Hall, look at the cabinet to the left corner of the room, between the front pew and credence table next to the altar. You’ll see a white linen with a small box, glass vessel, and candle. In the old sanctuary, the box and cruet were enclosed in an aumbry that was attached to the wall on the right side of the altar facing you.

Inside the box, or ciborium (pronounced “siboreum”) are wafers of bread. Inside the cruet is wine. But it is not ordinary bread and wine. It is bread and wine that has been taken, blessed, broken and shared with the people of God. It is, in a way that Episcopalians believe but don’t dare to explain, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

When I see a parishioner who is shut-in, I take a wafer from the ciborium and some wine with me in a home communion kit (which looks like a little lunch box so that sometimes I lovingly call it the Jesus Lunch Box). I remind the parishioner that they are being fed with Jesus Christ from the same bread and wine that was set apart at the Sunday Eucharist. In this way, they are reminded that though physically separated, they are still a part of us because we are all part of Christ’s body.

On the one hand, Jesus Christ is very familiar to us. He is always present in our church on that white linen. On the other, what an awesome thing that the Son of God should make himself so vulnerable to us that we can pick him up whenever we choose. That’s why, whenever I approach the “Reserved Sacrament,” I bow down on one knee. That’s my way of showing reverence before this awesome and humble God.

In our holy worship space, let us be reverent, not in fear but in awe, joy, and thanksgiving.

The Parables of Matthew Part 1: 10th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Other seed fell on good soil and bore fruit, in one case a yield of one hundred to one...Everyone who has ears should pay attention.” (Matt. 13:8-9)

“Just give it to me straight preacher.” Well after hearing today's Gospel reading, would anyone like to go to Jesus and say, “Jesus, just give it to me straight.” The parables aren't straight. They're not meant to give those hearing Jesus a blueprint, or a well marked map, or the pleasant voice of your GPS navigator telling you step by step the road to the kingdom of heaven. In between his telling of today's parable and his “explanation,” Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah: “You will hear, to be sure, but never understand; and you will certainly see but never recognize what you are seeing.”

So what good are parables? Well let's start with this definition of a parable by C.H. Dodd: “At its simplest a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.”

At the very least, a parable is not an allegory. It's not like Aesop's fables, where the characters and images represent a specific thing, and there is a clear moral lesson to be taught. But the wonderful thing about Jesus's parables is that they can mean different things, depending on who is hearing the parable. This parable of the farmer and the seeds spoke to me in a particularly strong way this week. And as we see the beginnings of our new sanctuary, I think it speaks to all of us in a powerful way. This word of the kingdom that Jesus first scattered 2,000 years ago has been scattered in the minds and hearts of all those who have heard it since, and so it shall be to the end of the ages. And precisely because these parables sound so strange, and don't have an obvious meaning, they will always have a fresh meaning to those who pay attention.

I wonder if hearing this parable is more scary than reassuring. There are four categories of seeds, and three-fourths of them become useless, withered and dead. Are you afraid of being in one of those categories. Is there someone you love, who seems to have never had the chance to receive the word because of circumstances that, like the birds, just swooped down and ate the word up before it had a chance to take root? Are there people you’ve known who were raised in such rocky soil that the word of the kingdom could never get deep enough in their hearts to pull them out of the hole they were in? Are you afraid that you that as sincere as you are in your faith, that there are just too many distractions and worries choking you for you to become the faithful disciple of Jesus Christ that you want to be?

Hear the words of hope that Jesus has for those hearing him in that section of the Gospel between the parable and its explanation: “Happy are your eyes because they see. Happy are your ears because they hear. I assure you that many prophets and righteous people wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.” Jesus’s disciples struggled to understand his parables. They asked him to explain them. But Jesus didn’t say to them as he said about the crowds, “You will hear but never understand; see but never recognize.”

You are here this morning, or perhaps you are reading this online, and you see and hear what prophets and righteous people before you wanted to see and hear, but didn’t. The seeds have been planted. And I have been privileged to see shoots coming up from each of you, in spite of predatory birds, rocky soil, and choking thorns. And where the seeds and shoots are, so will come the yield of a hundred to one, sixty to one, thirty to one.
And here’s the best news in today’s parable. It’s not even up to you to produce that much of a fruitful yield. A good yield in the Holy Land of Jesus’s time would have been ten to one. What Jesus promises would have astounded those who first heard him. Such a yield would have been impossible for them to produce. And that’s the point. It’s not they, or we, who will produce such an astounding return on the investment of the word of the kingdom placed in our hearts.

In the past, I confess, I’ve read this parable as a symbol of the preacher, and wondered how much of the seed I’ve scattered would really produce any fruit. Are my words not “straight” enough for my hearers to even understand, much less apply to their lives? Will my words lack sufficient credibility with some? Those are just some of the questions I’ve asked myself about my preaching over the years. But reading through this 13th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, I read all of the parables that Matthew placed in this chapter, and I came to this verse later in the chapter: “The one who plants the good seed is the Son of Man.” Jesus says this about another parable using seeds as a metaphor. But looking at today’s parable, I finally realized what an idiot I’ve been. I’m not the farmer scattering seed. Jesus is!

Jesus is scattering the seed all around us. I am an imperfect vessel through which that seed can be scattered. But thanks be to God, I’m not the only one. You can already see the preparations for the scattering of the seed right outside our windows. The orange lines have been drawn on the ground to mark where our new sanctuary will be. This week, the ground will be plowed. After that, the bricks of the foundation will be laid. Those bricks are the seeds of the kingdom of heaven, where we will meet our God, and be nourished by our Savior, and be blown back out into the world by the Spirit, so that through us, Jesus will scatter the seeds of compassion and truth.

In the weeks ahead, we will hear the other parables that Matthew collected and placed in this 13th chapter of his Gospel. We will hear strange stories about the kingdom of heaven. We will have the gift and the opportunity to put ourselves in these stories, and to imagine what new thing Jesus Christ might be doing through us, in this community, at this time of anxiety. Let us imagine what a yield of a hundred to one might look like in this community, in this time. And let us trust that what we imagine, Jesus is revealing to us.

"Reverence", Silence and Joy

A few years ago, I read the results of an extensive survey of Episcopal parishes that looked for connections between their various characteristics and their growth (or lack of). I was struck that the researcher actually found a negative correlation between parishes that described their worship as “reverent” and membership growth. The researcher, Kirk Hadaway, noted that worship described as “reverent” seemed to be perceived as the opposite of such descriptions as “joyful” and “exciting.”

“Reverence” appears to be another “church” word that needs to be saved, or at least translated so as the remove its unpleasant connotations. To me, reverent worship is joyful and exciting, if we understand just what an awesome thing we’re doing on Sunday morning. That said, I can understand how “reverence” can end up alienating us from God.

A search for the word, “reverence” in the King James Version, and the Greek words translated into the English “reverence,” makes that clear enough. In scripture, reverence is associated with fear, even shame, before God. I’ve heard plenty of stories in this area from disaffected people who were basically taught to be terrified of God. In other cases, some people may have come to associate “reverent” worship with what they considered somber or boring worship.

On the one hand, as Rich Mullins sang, “Our God is an awesome God.” How awesome? As Mullins also sang: And when the sky was starless in the void of the night (Our God is an awesome God), He spoke into the darkness and created the light (Our God is an awesome God).” Should we not be at least a little thoughtful of that when we enter the sanctuary on Sunday morning? The God we worship is truly transcendent. God is beyond all categories of human thought and comprehension. God’s power is infinite, God’s understanding is infinite, but God’s love is also infinite.

Before all this, we should, at the very least, be most respectful of the reality of this awesome God. And even more, we owe God our respect, or reverence, precisely because this transcendent, awesome God, humbled himself to become like us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The very fact of the Incarnation, that God took shape in a human body, brings this awesome God into close contact with us. And I believe that there are tangible ways in which this incarnate God continues to touch us in our worship. Understood in this way, reverence before God should fill us with excitement and joy.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll talk about some of the ways that we come into contact with God in our holy place. But for now, I suggest that the first point of contact is very simple, and very anxious: silence. We are so busy, with our work, our hobbies, our vacations that leave us needing a vacation; that we end up defining ourselves by our activity. It’s not easy to be silent and still when we’re so used to doing things. It leaves a hole that we’re anxious to fill. But God can’t fill us if we keep trying to fill ourselves.

There’s now a sign on the doors to Founders Hall. Before the service, talk to God: During the service, listen to God: After the service, talk to each other. Outside those doors, be in fellowship with each other. At those doors, and inside the hall, let’s practice that discipline of stillness and silence as we stand, bow and kneel before our Awesome God.

The Light Yoke: 9th Sunday of Ordinary Time

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, Common English Bible)

What beautiful words Jesus speaks to us today. But how exactly is taking on one more burden on top of all our other burdens going to make those loads feel lighter? And what yoke could Jesus be talking about other than the yoke he would later carry to Calvary? What could possibly be easy to bear about the cross of Jesus?

And O the heavy loads, the pains physical, mental and spiritual we carry every day. There are the emotional scars of having been hurt by those we loved and to whom we were the most vulnerable. There are the griefs we carry in our hearts, that however lightened by the passage of years, will not go away. There is the aching we feel for those we love and are powerless to help. There is the aching in our own bodies, which we know will only grow worse the older we get, however much we protest against it. There is the heavy load of anxiety over the future wealth and security of this country that we all love. And there is the heavy load of anger at the ways in which our homes have been changed, in ways that we never agreed to.

And also there is the pain of those who are personally acquainted with every one of these heavy loads; who have been called to listen, and to speak whatever words of comfort they can hear from God. They pray for all those heavy loads surrounding them. And yet, they know that at some time, they will disappoint every single person who entrusts their heavy loads to those who have been called to listen and speak whatever words of comfort they can hear from God.

So again, how will taking the yoke of Jesus make any of our heavy loads any lighter? Are we supposed to see our burdens as a cross, which we must bear as Jesus bore his cross. Are we supposed to die as Jesus did? Well, sometimes we have burdens which are inescapable. And at those points, we need to know that Jesus has made our yoke his yoke: that he has come along beside us and will accompany us to wherever we are heading. Sometimes, there are burdens which we have no choice but to bear in the hope of Resurrection.

But of the many things I learned at the Cooperative College for Congregational Development, this one statement stood out for me: Jesus already died for you. Too often, we think of the Christian life as just one more good work, one more sacrifice, one more load to carry. But Jesus has carried the only loads that matter; those loads of guilt and anger and alienation from other people. Those loads were buried with him, never to be carried again. Be careful of those loads which other human beings would place on your back and tell you it’s for your own good. Once again, Jesus promises that his yoke is easy and light and gives you rest.

But how do we recognize that light, easy and restful yoke? I recognized it on a Thursday evening when a man named Oscar knocked on the door of our church at 6 in the evening. He is from Cuba. A “labor services” company recruited him to work in one of the industrial plants here in Albertville. They got him his green card. And so he worked here, until he got tendinitis and filed for workers’ compensation. Whereupon the people running the plant fired him. The “labor services” company that had put him up in an apartment served him with an eviction notice and had his power cut off.

So there he was at our church’s doorstep, on a Thursday evening when I was trying to talk to Mark about his sermon, and hadn’t eaten since breakfast. But there was Oscar, barely able to speak English, not having showered in days, with no money. And he was the light yoke. It suddenly didn’t matter to me that it had been a long day, and that I wanted dinner. Nothing mattered more to Mark and me at that moment than making sure that Oscar at least had a place to sleep for that night, could take a bath and eat. We did what we could. I put him up at the King’s Inn for the night. I drove him by the Downtown Rescue Mission, so that he could check with them the next day about getting a ride to their shelter in Huntsville.

That was as much as I could do for him that night. I couldn’t take his heavy load away from him. But for that one night, I could give him a hand and then hand him along with a prayer that Jesus would come alongside him and share his yoke. For a short time, I took that light yoke and found rest from my heavy loads.

So the light yoke is that moment when you have the opportunity to ease someone else’s burden. You don’t have to take it all from them. You don’t have to transfer their burden to you. You just have to do what you can, and feel the ease and the rest within yourself. And as we try to help carry each others’ loads, there will be times when we drop them, when we fail to ease their burdens of hurt, and grief, and aching, and anxiety and anger. But Jesus will be there, to pick up the pieces. Where we are wrong, Jesus will make it right. What we cannot complete, Jesus will fulfill.

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.”