Rest

Scriptures:     Jeremiah 2:9-13         Psalm 145:8-14

Romans 7:15-25         Matthew 11:16-30

I’ll begin today’s sermon with a story – an old story, likely many of you have heard it at one time or another, maybe in another sermon by another pastor in another church.  And no, it’s not a true story – think of it as a sort of modern-day parable.  It seems there was a ship captain navigating a US Navy ship through thick fog.   Suddenly, on the ship’s radio, the captain hears a voice:  “Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collision.”  The captain is miffed.  Nobody’s going to tell him what to do.  So he responds: “No.  We’re maintaining course.  You divert your course 15 degrees north to avoid a collision.   The voice comes again, more urgently this time:  “No, I say again, you divert your course 15 degrees to the north to avoid a collison.”  The captain, really peeved now, says, “I am the captain of a United States Naval Vessel.  We are accompanied by three destroyers, along with support vessels.  I demand that you divert your course, or we will take all necessary countermeasures to assure the safety of this ship.”   The voice on the radio comes a third time.  “This is a lighthouse.  Your call.”

Today we encounter Jesus after he has sent his disciples off on their first mission, and after he has also been preaching and healing.  His reception has been a mixed bag.  The crowds like the miracles, but when he starts preaching about repentance, they tune out.  And it’s important that we understand what is meant by repentance.  We commonly think of repentance as pulling a long face and saying we’re sorry for what we’ve done.  And that is a part of it, but not the most important part.  The Greek word translated as repentance is metanoia, which literally means to change one’s mind.  And so the major part of repentance is changing our minds, changing direction, not just being sorry for having gone in the wrong direction in the past, but actually changing direction so that we’re headed in the right direction going forward. Like the lighthouse captain, Jesus is telling his listeners that they’re headed in the wrong direction, they’re headed for the rocks, but they maintain their course, full speed ahead.   And Jesus is frustrated, and that frustration comes through in our reading today.

First Jesus expresses frustration that, instead of acting on his message, the people are quibbling about the messenger.  Jesus compares them to children calling to their friends, “We played funeral and you wouldn’t cry, so we played wedding and you wouldn’t dance.  What will it take to make you happy?”  And Jesus makes the application – John the Baptist came, and the crowds said, “He’s such a gloomy Gus.  He’s been out in the sun too long and gone bonkers, full-on barking at the moon crazy! Why waste your time with him?”  So Jesus came, and the crowds said, “This guy’s a party animal, letting the good times roll.  It’s a wonder he can stop feeding his face or get his nose out of his wine cup long enough to catch his breath.  And look at the scum and riff-raff he hangs out with!  What can we learn from him?”

The people are quibbling about the messenger, but if your ship is headed for the rocks, it’s the message that’s important.  The same applies to us as well.  We tend to put God’s truth into a little box called “Sunday morning”, and expect God’s messengers to show up only in the pulpit.  But all truth is God’s truth, and God may speak through people in church and outside church. Perhaps, for example, God may be speaking through the ones telling us that our planet’s ecosystem is on the verge of collapse and we need to repent of our heavy use of fossil fuel – a literal message of “turn or burn” -  or perhaps God is speaking through people of goodwill, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or some other tradition, or no faith tradition at all, who urge us to work together for the common good.  Not all of God’s messengers wear clerical collars, and lots of folks wearing clerical collars weren’t sent by God – as the saying goes, “some are sent, and some just went.”

Jesus then goes on to condemn, by name, some of the towns to whom he ministered.  “Woe to you Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida!  And especially woe to you, Capernaum.  You think you’re all that, but your day of reckoning is coming.”  Capernaum especially might have felt a connection to Jesus – he moved there to begin his earthly ministry, and if Capernaum had been doing tourism at the time, there are plenty of places where they could have hung a sign saying “Jesus slept here” or “Jesus ate here.”  In fact, I visited Capernaum two years ago when I was in the Holy Land, and they do indeed have places marked where Jesus might have taught or lived.  They felt complacent, entitled, thinking that because Jesus spent time with them and did miracles among them, it was because he approved of them.  They felt they were headed in the right direction.  But instead, the intent of Jesus’ work among them was to get them to repent, to change direction, to steer away from the rocks and back into safe waters.

Might Jesus say the same about us here in America?  We say we are a Christian nation, and especially with Independence Day just past, we are tempted to pat ourselves on the back.  I wonder whether Jesus would agree.  Might Jesus tell us, as he told the religious leaders of his day, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice; real caring, not self-righteous certitude and conformity, not mindless consumerism.”  Might Jesus be calling us, as individuals and as a nation, to repent, to change direction, to steer away from the rocks and into safe waters.

Finally, Jesus expressed gratitude to God that even though so many, especially the learned and wise, turned away, yet God opened the hearts of children and people of childlike trust to Jesus.  Sometimes what we think we know can get in the way of new learning, and especially if we think we’ve got God all figured out, it’s likely a sign of how little we know, how much we yet have to learn.  And then he made the famous invitation:  “Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Rest?  Is that what Jesus calls it?  Last time I checked, Jesus ended up on a cross, not a Sealy Posturepedic mattress.  On the cross of Christ, there were no sleep-number settings.  Was Jesus nuts?  What was Jesus trying to tell the crowds that followed him?  What is Jesus trying to tell us?

We are all carrying burdens, of one kind or another.  We all have responsibilities.  We all do work of one kind or another, whether paid work, or the unpaid work of maintaining a household and raising a family.  Most of us have commitments of one kind or another – to a spouse or partner, to raising children, to church.   But our attitude will have a lot to do with whether we see these commitments and responsibilities as a burden or a blessing.  We can take them on grudgingly, resentfully, and then they will seem like a crushing burden, weighing us down at every step.  Or we can take them on in a spirit of love, and we’ll actually be energized by doing them.  In caring for small children or a disabled spouse or aging parents, we may do things for them out of love – cleaning them, feeding them – that we wouldn’t do for a million dollars for someone we didn’t care for.   And that applies to church commitments as well.  Before I became pastor here, I was a board member at another congregation, and so I had responsibilities. And sometimes contentious issues came up, usually over how to use church property or spend church money.  There were times that coming to the house of the Lord was such a joy, I couldn’t wait to get there.  And there were other times – when members were coming to me with questions and demands, when the board was tied up in endlessly long meetings and contentious discussions,  that I could hardly stand to set foot in the building, times it felt like tension among board members had made the air itself toxic and I couldn’t breathe, times that it felt like the building itself was on my shoulders.  Whether coming to church was a blessing or a burden all depended on where I was at emotionally and spiritually.  And so it is for many of the responsibilities and commitments we carry.

And then there are those burdens we impose on ourselves, false burdens we were never meant to carry.  We may feel crushed by guilt because of some past sin or failing or even crime.  Or we may feel compelled to live up to some standard others impose on us – being a straight A+ student, owning a big house, holding a prestigious job, having a picture-perfect family – and beat ourselves up because we fall short.  Jesus wants to take these heavy burdens off our backs, heavy because they weren’t ours to carry,  heavy because these are yokes we were never meant to carry.  Jesus tells us – lay them down! Lay them down! Let go of them!  Let go!   Let’s not try to force ourselves to live according to other peoples’ standards or to strive for other peoples’ dreams. Let’s not try to live other peoples’ lives.  Instead, let’s live our own lives, authentically, from a place of love.   In place of these false burdens, Jesus offers us the only yoke we were ever intended to carry: love of God and love of neighbor.  And when we are speaking and acting and living from a place of love, indeed, the yoke is easy and the burden light – light because when we are living from a place of love, we are carrying the yoke Jesus intended for us – and indeed, we are yoked together with Jesus, and Jesus is carrying most of the weight.

None of us can see clearly to the end of our lives.  We’re all navigating through fog, with just enough light for the next step.  And we surely don’t need to be weighed down on our life’s journey with excess baggage.  Let us look to Jesus to show us the way, and let us cast our cares on him.  Let us accept the rest he offers. Amen.