Sermon at The Church of
the Holy Apostles, New York City
July 6, 2008, The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
The Reverend William A. Greenlaw, PhD, Rector
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
“Hear what comfortable words our Lord Jesus Christ saith to all
who truly turn to him. ‘Come unto me, all ye that travail and
are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.’”
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So began the so-called “comfortable words” after the
confession and absolution in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and
most of the editions before it all the way back to the very
first English Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Those words were
heard at every single eucharist, since the confession,
absolution, and comfortable words were mandated without
exception. They “comforted” generations of Anglicans, and were
among the best known and best loved words of the prayer
book—with its decidedly more penitential cast than our current
book. They do survive in somewhat modified form as an option in
the Rite I traditional language eucharistic rite in our current
prayer book—but they remain unheard in any parish that uses the
modern language Rite II exclusively—as we do here.
The words are, of course, taken from our gospel lesson
of today: “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.” One of the most wonderful choruses of
Handel’s Messiah is the paraphrase of these words which
concludes Part One, “His yoke is easy, and his burden is light.”
Our gospel passage for today also includes,
interestingly, these words which occur just before the familiar
comfortable words: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and
the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father,
for such was your gracious will.”
What are “these things” to which Jesus refers? In
Matthew’s context, Jesus has just dealt with the followers of
John the Baptist who have come asking him if he is the one to
come, or are they to wait for another.
Jesus answers them somewhat rhetorically, “go and
tell John what you see and hear: the blind receive their sight,
the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are
raised, and the poor have good news preached to them. And
blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”
What is it that is hidden from the wise and the
intelligent, that, however paradoxically, is revealed to infants
and readily available to all? It is, I think, not simply
what Jesus is doing openly, preaching and teaching and healing,
for anyone could presumably see that. It is, rather, the source
and significance of what he is doing—and understanding the
admittedly elliptical meaning and significance of many of Jesus’
sayings. Most importantly, is the question of just who
Jesus is. And understanding all of “these things” is a matter
of faith, far more than either simple observation or
intellectual discernment.
The religious scholars and teachers and intellectuals
of Jesus’ day are the ones who, according to Matthew, do not
comprehend what they “hear and see.” But neither, he might have
added, did the intellectual leaders of the Hellenistic world.
Surely Paul must have had something like this in mind when he
wrote in First Corinthians that “God chose what is foolish in
the world to shame the wise.” Jesus’ person and witness and
ministry remained a “stumblingblock” to Jews, and “foolishness”
to Gentiles, even as he becomes nothing less than the wisdom and
power of God to those who were called.
God’s “gracious will” was involved in bypassing
those in authority, those who had it together, who knew and
understood the ways of the world. And so it is the almost
childlike (as distinguished from childish) faith of the
disciples, who put their whole trust and faith in Jesus, that
enables them to act on his behalf, to see in him something
wonderfully gracious and compelling that they can say “yes” to.
In the disciples’ encounter with Jesus, they are quite
simply transformed. They see the world and themselves
differently. They have a different and altogether more glorious
destiny. As do we.
I think that it is in this context that we can
best understand the words in the middle of this passage which
might otherwise seem somewhat troubling: “All things have been
handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except
the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and
anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”
In this passage which sounds like it came straight out
of John, rather than Matthew, the point is not to put up
negative exclusions about who might know anything of God. I
think the point is to say that God is seen in Jesus in a
quite new and different way, and that it takes something to
discern this—actually, it takes less rather than more, at least
in terms of conventional wisdom and understanding, and that
was what was utterly confounding to both the religious
authorities and the Roman occupiers back then, and most of the
rest of the world ever since. And yet, isn’t it strange, or
paradoxical, that those in authority and the wise, become so
fearful of him? For they, along with demons and spirits do
in time sense that he is a very real threat to them, and
that, ultimately, he will have to be done away with. And yet
looking through the eyes of faith, it is this Jesus who reveals
God most fully.
And now, we get to the crux of the passage: “Come
to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest.” “Come.” “Come to me.” Who is it
who comes? Who hears, who is able to hear this most gracious
invitation imaginable?
Isn't it perfectly clear? It is not those
who have no need of coming, those who know, those who have it
together, those who have their own agenda, those for whom things
are going very well, thank you very much. No, this invitation
is for infants and children, the old, the sick, the lame, the
broken, the weary, the burdened--all those who are under a yoke
that is crushing them unto death.
To put it most starkly, this invitation is for
all of us—that is to say, all of us in those moments when we
know, when we can acknowledge, that everything is not
under our control, is not going so smoothly, when the
“stuff” of life seems verging out of control. Remember,
Jesus did not come for those who have no need of a physician,
but rather for those who do.
The elites of any society cannot afford, cannot
risk, cannot admit they do not have it together, cannot admit
that they are weary, cannot admit that they are under a yoke
they cannot sustain. For those of a certain age, do you
remember President Jimmy Carter, when he dared speak of a
certain “malaise” in American society—post
Vietnam,
post Watergate, with hostages in
Iran
and very high inflation? He was mercilessly mocked and
perceived as weak. Presidents speak the truth to their peril.
We might also remember that Jimmy Carter lost the next election
by a landslide to an ah-sucks feel-good preacher of
optimism—something that, I might add, we have yet to recover
from.
For those of us who at least on occasion can
admit, can remember that we need help, we have his gracious
invitation: “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.”
Jesus speaks to people where they are, not where
they ought to be. They have only to “come,” to accept his yoke,
to be given a new start, a new beginning, a new life. To be
gentle and humble in heart is to find rest for the soul, yes,
but it is also to tap into a whole new source of spiritual
strength and vitality and power, where we are freed from the
need or even the desire or the compulsion to play the game in
the old way, in the way the world would seem to demand.
We don’t have to do it any longer, for we are
free. We do need to be reminded of it, again and again,
however, because all the world and all of our old predilections
conspire against us. That is one of the reasons why we need a
community of faith to which we can belong.
In so many ways, I think it is possible to see our
lesson from Romans in very much the same way. Some of the most
profound and, indeed, heavy words of Paul are before us this
morning, and, happily, our gospel gives us an entree into them.
The Paul who resists Jesus’ invitation is the wretched one, the
one enslaved to sin. The law of God that is in his mind knows
of Jesus’ gracious invitation. He wants to and he does say yes
to it, and knows and experiences the most profound deliverance.
And yet he also knows that the struggle is never completely won,
so long as he is in this life. How true that is for each one of
us.
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I believe that for Paul the “life of the flesh” is much
more a metaphor for life lived apart from God than it is a
condemnation of the flesh per se. And I do not believe that it
is doing violence to the ultimate spirit of Paul to say that
life in the spirit is having the possibility of knowing and
embracing and enjoying being enfleshed in a wholly new way.
This was the spirit of an adult education group at Holy
Apostles quite a few years back. It had as its rather
provocative title cast in Holy Apostles’ usual audaciousness,
“Sex in Lent.” And the subtitle was the question, “How to say
thank you to God for the gift of sexuality.”
I want to return to our gospel for one last word, and
then I will be done. There is real irony in Jesus’ “comfortable
words.” And that is simply that these comfortable words can so
easily make many of us uncomfortable. It is not always or even
very often easy to admit to being heavy laden and in travail,
being in need, and therefore, showing dependence on Jesus by
coming with hands open and outstretched. Nevertheless, the
reality is that each one of us must come to Jesus before we can
really follow. In another astonishing paradox, the comfortable
words enable us to hear and respond to the more challenging
words in a whole new way. In the gospels, coming to Jesus in
vulnerability always precedes going forth for Jesus in
strength. Or in Paul, it is simply giving in to the notion that
we are accepted in Christ by the free gift of our loving God.
And it is precisely accepting our acceptance which sets us free
to do and be more than we could possibly have imagined.
One of the places where the truths of today’s
gospel lesson are most evident is in church basements and
meeting rooms across this nation—as in every Monday and
Wednesday in our own Mission House I. Alcoholics Anonymous and
other 12-step programs have as their fundamental premise the
need to accept and ask for recovery, and to confess complete
dependence upon that higher power we call God--in the sure faith
that God is there for us. To hit bottom in whatever way, and to
know, to really know you can’t and won’t make it on your own, is
to know you need help, to know you must ask and allow God into
your life.
And the amazing discovery is that God is already
there and present, as is a whole community ready to aid in the
journey of recovery, a lifelong journey. All the 12-step
programs know something of the eternal truths of today's gospel
lesson. And we can all learn from them.
May all of us come to know and feel and
experience that eternal truth as well: “Come to me, all you that
are weary, 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.”
Amen.
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