5th Sunday after Pentecost
Zechariah 9:9-12 Psalm 45:8-14 Romans 7:15-25 Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who lightens our burdens. Amen Being human is hard. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate too much on that statement, you’re all human, you understand the difficulty. In his letter to the Romans today Paul addresses one part, perhaps the essential part of the human struggle, the conflict that arises between expectations and reality particularly the expectations God has for us as given to us by the law. Often the law is portrayed as a negative thing, a burden that God placed on us but Remember the law is a gift from God, initially given to help the newly freed slaves from Egypt form life giving community with each other, relationships that were ordered by personal expectations rather than forced on them by another power. the people recognized that the law was good, and a gift and they also learned pretty early on that because of the presence of sin in the world keeping the law was really hard, over and over again they broke God’s expectations for them as well as their own expectations for themselves. The whole arc of the story of God and the people of God turns on the continual struggle of people to live in abundant life giving relationship with God and one another and the suffering and alienation that occur when the law is ignored, the expectations are broken. And most of the time, the people knew what they were doing, in the beginning of each phase of the story when the words of the prophet have finally gotten through they lament their actions, they realize that to live according to the law leads to a good life and yet inevitably they break the law and the relationships it protects. Being human is hard, Paul expresses the frustration in our reading from Romans today exclaiming “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate...For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. “ We all have situations in our lives where we know, without a doubt what the right course of action is and yet we continue to do the opposite, whether it is something small like knowing that fresh veggies are the healthiest, best option yet choosing french fries or something more serious like knowing that for a relationship to be healthy open communication is necessary yet choosing to avoid conflict. And it’s really annoying isn’t it? To know even as we’re doing it that what we’re doing is wrong and we wonder why is this happening? It it a lack of will power, a flaw in our character? or is something else going on? As Christians this is when we start using the language of sin and temptation, sin being the insidious force that works its way into a perfectly reasonable and ordered world and offers options that bring pleasure in the short term but death in the end. On the one hand it is a matter of free will, we make choices, on the other hand there a power at work that draws us away from God and in on ourselves, a power that makes choosing the good, following the law that much harder in our free will. So with Paul we ask “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” And Paul of course answers his own question “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” and he goes on to explain, (now this is dipping a little into the reading for next week so don’t be surprised if it sounds familiar but it’s really the point that Paul is setting up in our reading for today), that “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.” God’s response to sin is Jesus. Basically, When it comes to sin, we need help. It is beyond our humanity to live up to the expectations set, even lovingly set, by God. So God sent Jesus who in the gospel calls out to us “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.” the yoke is a traditional rabbinical image for the law, Jesus came to take a load off our shoulders, to teach us the law of gentleness and humility, earlier in Matthew Jesus tells the disciples that he has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill the law and to do this, Jesus boils it all down to one word, some might say the essence of God; love. Love that is first lived out in the relationship between the father and the son, that is then shared with the world This is love that points out that God’s will is made known in many different ways for different people, for some the will of God was made known in John who fasted and lived an ascetic lifestyle, for some the will of God was made known in Jesus who ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners The law of love allows room for God to be revealed in both ways and other ways as well in the relationship that Jesus has with each of us. And this was not what people expected so they didn’t see God. How often do the differences between our expectations for God and reality prevent us from seeing God in the world? We keep falling into the old trap of trying to dictate how or how not God’s will is make known to those around us, and all this trying to keep track of what is God’s business is a heavy load Jesus says to us ‘here, let me take that off your shoulders, I’ll take care of worrying about my relationship with everyone else, you just focus on our relationship and remember it’s one of love and forgiveness, learn how to do it with me and it will be easier to be in loving, gentle, humble relationships with others, which is all God has wanted for you all along.’ And that is the gospel, that in Christ we are freed to live the abundant life that God expects of us. That with Christ we are able to do what we were unable to do under the law. As I was thinking about all of this this week I experienced an example of the struggle between the law and the gospel in my own life. I hadn’t given blood for a while, it wasn’t like I didn’t know that giving blood is a fundamentally good thing, or that blood of my type was urgently needed, the red cross kept calling to tell me that, so much so that I learned which number they used so that I could ignore their calls and then when I ignored enough of their calls and they switched numbers on me I learned that number too, you see where I am going with that. I knew I should give blood Yet I persisted in not giving because the last couple of times when I’ve given blood I’ve gotten dizzy and almost passed out and then have kind of wanted my blood back for the next couple of days because I’ve missed it and frankly I selfishly did not want to feel like that again. That’s a classic struggle with the law I knew what was the right thing to do but I chose not to do it out of selfish reasons. But then I went and visited Jacque in the hospital, and while I was there she was being given a blood transfusion, with blood that someone had freely given, that was giving life and it was experiencing that free gift that called me to give blood once again, and I’ve got to say it was easier time because I was giving not out of a sense of obligation or righteousness but in response to a gift already given. And that’s how the gospel works in our lives, it, Jesus, frees us from the requirements and obligations that make choices of living seem like personal self sacrifice and transforms the choices of living into a grateful response to a gift already given to us, a gift of life with a light burden, filled with love and a relationship with the creator of the universe. “Come to me” Jesus calls out “ 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.” Amen
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4th Sunday After Pentecost
Jeremiah 28:5-9 Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18 Romans 6:12-23 Matthew 10:40-42 Pentecost 4 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who brought us from death to life. Amen You have been brought from death to life, This is what Christ does for us when we are joined to him at our baptisms, he brings us from death to life. In our reading from Romans we join Paul as he tries to unpack what it means to say that we have died to sin and risen to Christ both on the cosmic scale and in our day to day lives. On the cosmic scale Paul paints with broad brush strokes and absolute statements. “Sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the law but under grace.” “You..have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching which you were entrusted” “You have been freed from sin” And we say alleluia because this is good news, to be freed from sin, that’s amazing! And to be freed from sin means to be freed from death And yet even as we shout alleluias, we witness death in our daily lives, whether it is death with a capital D, of loved ones or innocent ones or whether it is death with a lower case d, the ending of a relationship, a time of sickness, a transition from one way of being to another way of being, all times when it seems like sin and death still reign and we wonder what difference does the cosmic make if all this suffering still exists. It makes all the difference in the world. because just as God brought us from death to life on a cosmic scale God brings us from death to life daily. When someone goes from isolation to being a member of a community they are brought from death to life. When you hear “I love you” after you thought you’d never hear those words again you are brought from death to life. When we go from fearing the future to being at peace with what life will bring we are brought from death to life. To belong to Christ means that life always has the last say, even though death has been defeated it hasn’t given up. but no matter how many times death tries to enter in life will be the result. As Christians we confess that we are in the middle, the already and not yet, Already Jesus has defeated death and not yet has this come to full fruition throughout the world. And as those who have been brought from death to life, God calls us to serve life, to resist the powerful temptation of sin and death and to bring life with us wherever we go moving the world a little closer to perfection as we do so Paul, writing to a first century audience puts our service in the stark terms of slavery, even as he realizes that the imagery is a little ridiculous Paul knows that his audience lives in a reality where all relationships are understood in terms of power over or power under and that perhaps with the exception of the emperor everyone was under the power of someone else. In Paul’s terms, before Christ we had no choice in who we served, we were under the power of sin, after Christ, because of Christ we are under the power of God and have a choice whether or not to serve sin or God and why Paul wonders would you serve sin when the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. You have been brought from death to life, Serve life Jesus in the gospel puts it a little more simply, The way to serve life, God, is through welcome “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me” This teaching comes right after Jesus has explained to his disciples the cost of discipleship, saying “those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Essentially putting yourself before God is serving sin and leads to death while putting God before yourself leads to life God is served through welcome all kinds of welcome, it could be as simple as giving someone a cold cup of water or a wandering disciple a place to stay for the night, in the first century middle-east where there were no hotel chains or fast food restaurants for travelers, especially travelers like the disciples who Jesus instructed to travel light welcome was a matter of life or death Welcome is still a matter of life and death though we tend not to see it that way, in our own lives we are seduced into thinking that we can care for ourselves and that since we can others should be able to as well, but frankly all of us at some time will not be able to care for ourselves and this has nothing to do with our own abilities and everything to do with what it means to be human in a world where sin and death are still a reality and when those times come the matter of welcome is still a matter of life and death For babies, children, welcome, how they are cared for is a matter of life and death for refugees fleeing violence whether they are welcomed is a matter of life and death, for lqbtq people especially teens whose suicide rate is astronomically higher than the rest of the population welcome is a matter of life and death, for those seeking treatment and help with addiction and mental illness welcome is a matter of life and death. You have been brought from death to life now it is our turn to share the gift of life with all we encounter in ways large or small for the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Alleluia, Amen |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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