Romans 7.15-25a, Matthew 11.16-19,25-30
The Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 9 July 2017, Corton Denham
'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.' Such gracious words tell us so much about the nature of the God who loves us, how he calls us to be restored in him.
This is not a God who makes hard demands on people - contrary to what we may have been told; this is a God who wants us to be free from burdens.
This is not a God who controls us by keeping us busy - contrary to what we might have been led to believe; this is a God who wants us to find rest for our souls.
This is not a God who imposes on us - this is a God who is gentle and humble in heart. His yoke is easy; his burden is light.
So if we are carrying heavy burdens, those burdens are coming from somewhere else; God invites us to come to him to find rest.
So, what burdens us? And what ways can we find to come to God for rest?
If we shared what burdens us at the moment, or what burdens others we know or have observed in our community and in the world today, we know that some are burdened by the constraints of failing health, which limits what we can do for ourselves and with others - and brings worries about what the future might hold; some are burdened by financial concerns, trying to make dwindling resources stretch further than they are able to go - worried about not being able to provide for one’s self and one’s dependants; others are burdened by fears, maybe of loss or loneliness; many are burdened by aspects of ourselves which we don't like because others in the past have told us they dislike them, habits we can't break, maybe, other obsessions.
And then there’s the Daytime TV burdens - the fears engendered in so many people by endlessly watching reruns of Crimewatch, Jeremy Kyle, Judge Rinder - fears of violent crime, burglary, credit card fraud, family breakdown - with all those adverts in between: filling us with anxieties for compensation lawyers, incontinence pads, private health and funeral insurance. Many of these fears are statistically unfounded, but real nevertheless. Some anxieties are very real - the fear of being let down by our increasingly under-resourced system of health and social care, is shared by young and old alike. [1]
We carry all sorts of heavy burdens, and a common theme in many of those burdens is the weight of other people's expectations on us. We can see this even in the oldest scripture stories.
In Genesis 24 Abraham makes clear his expectations that his son Isaac would marry someone from among his father's people, not someone from the land in which they were at that time living. And Isaac was burdened by Abraham's obsession. Whilst in Psalm 45, a song for a royal wedding, the Psalmist sings to the princess, 'O daughter, listen closely; forget your people and your family's house. The king ... is your master; therefore do him honour.'
In the middle of a celebration of marriage a bride is burdened by being pulled in two different directions - one way towards her beloved family, and the other way towards her beloved husband. A reminder that the expectations people put on us in relationships can cause us to feel torn: many of us know something of this sort of burden.
Then there is the burden of keeping up appearances. The cosmetic and health advertising industry is only the latest expression of this. In the Song of Solomon (2.9) the female lover sings out, 'My beloved is like a gazelle'. Her view of him as an athletic, vigorous, man, is wonderful, and must have been flattering to him at the time but imagine how such words of praise could also put pressure on the man: how long can I keep up that physique? - he might have thought. I'm not going to be a gazelle forever, and what will she think of me when I'm more like an old goat? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?
In Romans 7 we find Paul at war with himself. 'I do not understand my own actions,' he writes. 'For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.' Paul is torn between obeying the law of God as he sees it, and what he calls the body's law, ie, his thoughts, desires, and actions towards others. He is greatly burdened by the conflict between pleasing one (God), and pleasing others (which, he senses, causes him to sin). It’s rather like the way we often feel ourselves forced to do certain things - which we’re not entirely happy with - just to please others, to fit in with them; that sense of not being ‘true to ourselves’, and the unease that causes.
Our constant attention to what others think about us: that is what shapes and forms us into the people we are. And we are burdened when others' expectations of us are impossible to fulfil.
Which brings us back to our gospel reading, Matthew 11, which perfectly illustrates the sort of bind we are in... but then goes on to offer us another way.
'But to what will I compare this generation?' [Asks Jesus.] 'It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn." For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon"; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!”'
John the non-drinker, and Jesus the drinker - the crowd condemned them both: they couldn't fulfil the people's expectations because the people's expectations shifted according to their mood and to suit their interests at the time.
Our present generation also sounds like children in the marketplace calling to one another. They will say to us - ‘You shouldn't be going to church, we know the way that church people really live, church is for hypocrites’; and then in the next breath they will say - ‘You can't close down that old church, it's a vital part of our village community, it holds our history, you've got to keep it open’.
And we too, may be like children in the marketplace calling to one another. We say - ‘Let the young people come into the village, we long for more young families, let’s create affordable housing’; and when they come we tell them, ‘Keep the noise down, don't let those kids play ball games, you can’t park your car on this road’.
Just as we are burdened by people’s expectations so at times we burden others too. The good news is that Jesus wants to lift from us all those burdens, and in doing so, to give us the wisdom to live in such a way that we don’t burden others.
We take the ‘light load’ which Jesus offers, when we make our priority another set of relationships altogether: the completely loving, gracious, self-giving relationships between God the Father, Son and Spirit, which he wants us to share in. Jesus wants to reveal God to us, so that we can enjoy receiving and giving out our share of his gentle, humble, liberating love.
Now please understand that I'm not saying that we should sideline or neglect our other, human relationships for the sake of our relationship with God, that we should be so heavenly-minded that we're no earthly use; far from it. But I am suggesting that if we place the greatest importance on how God thinks of us, if our focus is in living in response to his love for us, then we will become so liberated in our hearts that all our other relationships will experience a liberation too.
Come to me... take my yoke.... learn from me... Jesus says.
You can do that, quite simply, in prayer. However you choose to pray. Whether you pray by pouring out in great detail the concerns you have, unburdening yourself to him; whether you pray by removing yourself from the business of the day to be quiet, and in that silence to allow God to speak to you his words of comfort, healing, peace; whether you pray by contemplating scripture, asking God to direct you to help you see your life in God through the stories or words of guidance there; or whether you pray by taking comfort, strength, inspiration from the prayers of others which you can read, digest, and use for yourself.
Let us practice meeting God in Jesus, where we are. Let us unburden ourselves to him there. And let us learn from the humble, gentle, teacher how to release others from their burdens, how to help and encourage others to find rest for their souls in God.
Let us pray for the fragile ecology of the heart and the mind. Let us commit to being careful. With others and with ourselves. [2]
Notes
A reworking of my sermon Come to me all you weary and burdened, preached at Bratton Clovelly, Germansweek, and Bridestowe, 2011.
[1] Paul Mason, Daytime TV’s theme is insecurity – and it’s driving voters to the right, Guardian, 3 July 2017
[2] Michael Leunig, ‘Let us pray for the fragile ecology of the heart and the mind’, in A Common Prayer.
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