“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is
light.” (Matthew 11:30)
On hot and muggy July day 244 years ago, a
colonial officer, Colonel John Nixon, stood in front of the Pennsylvania State
House in Philadelphia and, with his booming stentorian voice, read aloud the
text of a long document which declared that the American colonists were fed up
with the crap they were taking from the British Crown and, since no redress of grievances
seemed to be forthcoming, they just weren’t going to take it anymore. When the
good colonel had finished his announcement, the bell in the State House was enthusiastically
rung, proclaiming to all within earshot—and all the rest of us down through
these 244 years—Americans[i] would henceforth be a free
and sovereign people.
But what did “freedom” mean? What does it
mean for us? Those enthusiastic colonists had to fight a bloody revolution to
get free, and, when they’d achieved victory and thrown off the yoke of monarchial
tyranny, they had to put the country back together again. The question would be
how “free” is free? We still debate this. How much control should a government
have? When a yoke is thrown off, what do we put back on? Some will always say government
needs to get off our backs. “Don’t tell me how to live my life,” they say. “Government
is doing too much!” Others will answer, “Government isn’t doing enough! We have
a problem here, so why don’t they DO something about it..?!”
Yup. We Americans are typically human. That
means we’re a pretty fickle bunch of folks. We’re just like the folks Jesus is
dishing it out to in the Gospel lesson for Pentecost 5, Year A (Matthew 11:16-19,
25-30). I guess it’s hard to be a Savior when you’re dealing with folks who don’t
seem to know what they want or what’s good for them. The people in Jesus’ day complained
John the Baptist was too austere. Then they whined that Jesus was too liberal!
As wise or smart as we think we are, we
sure seem to have a real hard time figuring out who we are or who we should be.
Just look at our situation today. Every night on the TV news you see people
with their shorts bunched up because they don’t want government in their face. They
don’t want to be told they must wear
a face covering in public. They don’t want government to shut down their
business, or keep them from their gym, or tell them they can’t get a drink in a
bar. On the other hand, they don’t want to catch or spread a potentially deadly
viral infection either. Freedom can be a really puzzling paradox, can’t it?
You know who loved a good paradox? Martin Luther[ii]. In The Freedom of a Christian (1520), Luther wrote:
“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of
all, subject to none.”
That is, you are in charge of your own soul.
No one can tell you how to worship God or how to believe—not priest, pastor,
pope, or prince. You’re not even a slave to the Law, because obedience to the Law
did not earn you Christ’s love. Christ gave
you that love of his own free will. When you realized this, you were set free
from sin, shame, and doubt. Of course, in the very next sentence Luther wrote:
“A Christian is a perfectly dutiful
servant of all, subject to all.”
So what’s up with this? Yeah, your soul is
free, but free for what? You are free
to choose of your own true and honest will to accept the bondage of the Law
which pushes you to love God and love everyone else. If you love them, you will
be their servant.
Sometimes this bondage and servitude may
seem too heavy to bear. Nevertheless, Jesus promises us in the Gospel that his
yoke is easy and his burden is light, and, should we choose to take his yoke upon us, he will give us rest.
When we are finally released form the bondage of COVID-19, there will be more
burdens to bear. Our congregation will be different. We’ll have to do the work
of recreating a community that has been through an ordeal. We’ll have to hire a
new Music Director and rebuild our worship program. When I look at what will
need to be done, it seems exhausting.
The road ahead looks like the challenges
faced by our colonial forebears who had set aside one yoke but needed to
figure out what the next yoke should be. It’s also like the people of Judah in
our Hebrew scripture lesson from Zechariah (Zechariah 9:9-12). They have been
freed from bondage in Babylon, but now they have to figure out how to rebuild a
nation in ruins. It looks like a tough job, and I have to wonder if they
started to ask themselves if freedom was worth it.
But God always offers a word of hope.
Zechariah tells them they’re on the road to a new kingdom. In this kingdom, the
King won’t come busting in on a chariot or a war horse. He’ll ride humbly on a
baby donkey, gently proclaiming peace. “Come,” he says, “all you who are weary
and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” It’s a word of hope, and
it reminds me that, however tough the road ahead looks, a day will come when I’ll
look back and say, “You know, that wasn’t really so hard after all.”
I can only ask God to make me that dutiful
servant and prisoner. Like the folks in Zechariah’s day, we are politically set
free, but we must always be prisoners of hope. Some say we can’t live on hope,
but I maintain we can’t live without it.
Hope on, fellow servant, and enjoy the
freedom of your bondage to Christ!
PS-For a shortened video version of this sermonette, click here.
PS-For a shortened video version of this sermonette, click here.
[i]
That is, Americans who were both white and debt-free. If you didn’t fall into
those categories, you were still pretty much screwed.
[ii]
Of course you knew that!
No comments:
Post a Comment