July 9th

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