Month: July 2014

A Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 12, Sunday, July 27, 2014

Eleanor Lee Wellford,  Associate Rector

Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.” Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with me.” So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her.

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.” So Laban gathered together all the people of the place, and made a feast. But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.) When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?” Laban said, “This is not done in our country– giving the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.” Jacob did so, and completed her week; then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife. – Genesis 29:15-28

Have you noticed that there’s a common thread running throughout many of the stories in the Bible, and that the common thread has to do with the character of the people whom God calls and presses into service?  Be they patriarchs, prophets, priests, kings or disciples, not one of them is perfect.

Far from it, in fact; and the reason for that is that they are all human.   So at the very least, if any of us believes that we have to be perfect to do God’s work, we can think again and be thankful that that’s not the case.

This morning’s story about Jacob and Laban is a study of flawed characters if there ever was one.   The story, though, begins with Abraham.  As you might remember, God promised that “a multitude of nations” would be populated through Abraham  – not because he was so perfect, but because Abraham trusted that God always had his best interest at heart.

So in fulfillment of God’s promise, Abraham and his wife, Sarah, gave birth to son Isaac, who grew up and married Rebekah; and the two of them gave birth to twin sons Esau and Jacob.  Now here’s where the story gets interesting.

Esau was born first and loved the outdoors and grew up to be all brawn while his quiet, indoor-type brother, Jacob, who resented being born second, grew up to be all brain.   One day when Esau came in from a long day of hunting, Jacob knew how famished he would be and took advantage of the situation.  He got Esau to make a bargain with him.  Esau could have all the bread and lentil stew that he wanted if he would just give Jacob a little something in return.  And that something was his birthright – something which gave the holder favored status in the family as well as a double portion of inheritance.  Because Esau was that hungry and the stew smelled that good, he made that exchange.

Years later, when their father, Isaac, was old and feeble and needed to give his deathbed blessing which, by custom, was given to the first born son, it was Jacob who once again used trickery to deceive his father into giving the blessing to him instead.  That blessing effectively gave Jacob authority over his older brother Esau and included the promise of divine protection.  When Esau found out what had happened, he was furious and vowed to kill his brother.

When their mother, Rebekah, heard what Esau was planning to do, she knew she had to get Jacob out of the house.  So she sent him to her brother Laban’s estate in Haran.   And that’s where we find him in today’s reading from Genesis.  But wait…the tables have been turned.  For all the tricking Jacob had done, it was now his turn to be tricked.

Jacob fell in love with his uncle Laban’s second daughter, Rachel – finding her to be “graceful and beautiful” (Genesis 29:17).  So Laban and Jacob worked out a deal in which Jacob could have Rachel’s hand in marriage but only after he had labored for his uncle for 7 years.

As it happened, Laban had another daughter whose name was Leah.  She may not have been as graceful and beautiful as Rachel, but we are told that at least she had “lovely eyes” (Genesis 29:17).  Leah was older than Rachel and, as was the custom, had to be given in marriage before her younger sister Rachel could be.

We don’t know if Jacob knew of this custom or not but he found out about it on his wedding night when he was expecting to be with Rachel, the woman he loved and thought he was marrying.   Imagine his surprise when he realized in the light of the morning that he had been with Leah instead!

Angry and confused, Jacob approached Laban who told him that  he could indeed marry Rachel but only after completing his bridal week with Leah and then for good measure Jacob would have to serve Laban for another 7 years.  But before feeling too sorry for Jacob, we need to remember that the practice of polygamy was alive and well.  So Jacob had both Leah and Rachel as his wives.

And that was a good thing because as fate would have it, Leah, not Rachel, was the wife who was extremely fertile and bore Jacob not one son but six of them.   Rachel was only able to conceive once and she gave birth to a son who was named Joseph.  And as you might remember, Joseph was the one whom his brothers sold into slavery and then convinced their father, Jacob, that Joseph had died.

So the broken promises, fractured covenants and deceit continued into the next generation of God’s chosen people. Chosen for what reason, though?  Certainly not for their upstanding character!  At least that’s what we conclude with our limited vision and understanding of God’s ways.  We should all know by now, though, that it’s not always easy to tell what God is up to or just whom God will choose to fulfill His will.

In this morning’s story, who would have known that Leah, the less desirable of Jacob’s wives, and the object of her father’s deceit, would be the one through whom more of the tribes of Israel would be populated than through her beautiful sister, Rachel – the one whom Jacob loved the most.  Or who would have thought that Jacob, who tricked his brother out of his birthright would have been tripped up by a marriage custom favoring first-born versus second-born daughters?  We would probably call it ironic.  But it’s also God’s redeeming nature at work – making the best of a messy family situation.

And it’s as alive today as it was in Jacob’s day, especially when it comes to families.  The names and faces may be different, but the behavior is still the same.  Yet God seems willing to stand ready to redeem our worst behavior – to take our weaknesses and turn them into strengths; to take our failures and turn them into blessings for one simple reason.  And that is that God loves us.

And as Kris said in his Children’s sermon, that love is super strong.  And as we heard this morning in Paul’s letter to the Romans, nothing can separate us from the love of God.   All we have to do, in return, is have faith in that love – have faith that God has our best interest at heart.  That’s the hard part.   But why?

In his book called Addiction and Grace (New York: Harper Collins, 1988, pp. 125-126) author Gerald May talks about God’s love as a mystery.  “It’s not earned” he writes.  “It is not accomplished or achieved.  It is not extracted through manipulation or seduction.  It is just given.  Nothing in our conditioning (our upbringing, our experience) prepares us for this radical reality.”

In other words, it doesn’t compute!  When have we been given something for nothing?  When have we been taught that something unearned is worth anything?  When have we not manipulated circumstances to get what we want?  Isn’t that why it’s so hard for us to imagine that God would have such faith in us to use us, as highly flawed as we are, to fulfill His will?

Yet God does.  History has shown that to be true time and time again.  This morning’s story is just one example of that, but an important example because it describes how God uses ordinary people like Jacob and Laban to bring about something as significant as the birth of Israel as a community of faith.

And it didn’t occur in a peaceful way among successful people of upstanding character, but rather “within a context of conflict, human love and service and God’s ongoing blessing in the midst of failure” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume I, Nashville: Abingdon, 1994,  p 560).

And that’s the good news for us today.  What a relief that should be for all of us to know that because God’s love for us is so strong, God will continue to work with us, and through our failures and foibles, to bring about a favorable outcome.  That’s called redemption.  It’s God’s speciality.  And thank God it is.

A Sermon for the 6^th Sunday after Pentecost

Year A – July 20, 2014

David Hathaway Knight,  Priest Associate

Send your spirit, God, to open our hearts and our minds to your Word,
and strengthen us to live according to your will, in Jesus Name. Amen.

Life is such a mixture of the good and the not so good, a mixture of the good and the evil.  You and I awaken each day to things that can bring us joy and satisfaction, yet sometimes we awaken to face things that bring us despair and disappointment. Some nights we sleep soundly with little care on our minds. Other nights we lie awake with burdens on our mind. In the daily news we become acutely aware of the good and evil that is ever present in our world.  Life indeed is a mixture.  Today’s gospel passage from Matthew’s Gospel reminds us that in the midst of all things there is a way for us to navigate through the good and the bad so that we can live each day with hope.

Jesus tells the story of the farmer who sowed good seed in his field expecting a good and healthy crop to result.  But along came evil ones who sowed weeds among the wheat.  When those working in the fields saw the weeds growing among the wheat, they asked the master, “Do you want us to pull up the weeds?” The master instructed them, “No, because if you do that you will uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” Again, his advice,

“Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”

I have great memories of growing up not far from a beautiful dairy farm in Western Massachusetts.  I had a friend whose father managed the farm for the owner.  Often in the summer I would spend time riding on the wagon during the harvesting of the hay being gathered to feed the cows for the winter. Being out in the fields where crops were growing was a great place to be on a New England summer day. Farmers must know how and when to cultivate crops so that the good seed is not overtaken by bad seed.  Driving by that same farm last week while in the Berkshires on our vacation brought back great memories.  I also remember how my mother who was an expert gardener who could make anything grow.  Her flower beds on our property were a sight to behold.  She seemed to know when to leave the weeds alone and when to dig them up, when to let the good plants and the troublesome plants grow together and when to separate them.

There is a very helpful parallel between this parable in today’s gospel and life. We, like the one who planted good seeds, find ourselves dealing with troublesome weeds that crop up in our path. These weeds occupy our attention and draw us away from the good plants in our path along the way. Sometimes you and I will do best if we let the wheat and the weeds in our own lives coexist—at least for the present.   When you and I are dealing with the wheat and the weeds in our own lives we do best to recognize both for what they are, yet not lose sight of the fact that when the weeds seem to be taking over that the wheat, the good plants, are still there.  Inevitably we tend to focus on the weeds.  It’s a natural thing for us to do when we are overwhelmed, that we seem unable to see the blessings that are in our midst as well.  Those negative thoughts have a way of crowding out good thoughts.  Feelings even of hopelessness can crowd out what may well be rays of hope.  When we concentrate only on those troublesome weeds, wishing we could pull them up yet can’t, we run the risk of losing sight of the good.  When these feelings of despair take over you and I would do well to pause, take a breath, or even several, and begin to count our blessings.  You and I have all known of someone somewhere who has faced what has seemed like insurmountable obstacles yet who has not only persevered but has continued to thrive in spite of all. Somehow, this person has been able to let the wheat and the weeds in their lives coexist.  They have been able to navigate along the path in their journey in life despite all obstacles.  It is by God’s grace that this has been possible.

There are those times when you and I look for perfection.  We look for it, in ourselves, in our marriages, in our children, in relationships, and in our jobs, even in the church.  We look for the perfect vacation, yet we come to realize that in all of these settings and relationships, perfection is never fully attained.  Your spouse isn’t perfect you come to realize, your marriage has its stresses, your child is having a rough time and is causing worry, and your job has its frustrations. The church is not providing all that you are looking for.  We let the weeds take over and grow so tall and so thick that they blind our view of the blessing that are to be found in our relationships and in our midst.  But we remember the words of the master to those working in the fields,

 “Let both the wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest.” 

Where, right now for you, might the weeds along your path be choking the wheat?  Let us remember and find hope in the fact that even in some of the most trying circumstances we must face, there are blessings to be found among the greatest difficulties and challenges that we must face until such time as we find a way to navigate through them.  By God’s grace, may you be able to savor that which brings joy and hope into your life even as you are facing difficulties.  Ultimately, the worries that you and I may have are balanced by our blessings.  All of these things are ultimately in the hands of God.  Among the hidden treasures in the Prayer Book are the Daily Devotion for Individuals and Families.  I commend these to you.  In the collect for devotions in the morning on page 137, we pray, “Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day.  Preserve us with our mighty power, that we might not fall into sin, nor (and this speaks to those nasty weeds) be overcome by any adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose…”

When the weeds seem to loom large and tall, and the wheat is less visible along our path, the words of Julian of Norwich are as timely now as they were when she said them back in the 14th century, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  Even in the most trying of times, and especially in such times as these, Julian’s words of wisdom give us hope.  Yes, the time will come when all will be sorted out.  When that day will come is beyond our control, but for now, may we have the grace and the patience to live with both the wheat and the weeds and not lose sight of our blessings.

“Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all joy,
Whose trust ever childlike, no cares could destroy,
Be there at our waking, and give us we pray,
Your bliss in our hearts, Lord, at the break of (each) day.”

A Sermon for the 5^th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 10 – Year A – 13 July 2014

John Edward Miller, Rector

Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. And he told them many things in parables, saying: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”

“Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

         – Matthew 13:1-9,18-23

The Collect

O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Jesus attracted crowds of curious and suspicious onlookers. Mixed with them were people who were longing for a word of hope in hard times. There were rumors that he might be the one, God’s long-expected Messiah. So wherever he went, they gathered in throngs, and pressed in on him. Everyone wanted to know what he had to say. On this occasion Jesus boarded a boat near the seaside, and pushed off, giving himself a little cushion of space, as well as a natural sound system for speaking. He knew his voice would carry well over water.

Jesus looked at the people pushing together near the shoreline.  And then he exclaimed, “Listen! A sower went out to sow.” And I believe that he had his listeners’ attention from the outset. They knew that he was going to tell them a story, and they were all ears.

People were getting used to Jesus’ main method of communicating. He was not a lofty lecturer or a spouter of rules. Jesus spoke mostly in parables, stories about God’s nature and about living in God’s kingdom. To depict those things Jesus had to rely on the language of metaphor. That’s because God surpasses our understanding; we can’t speak about God without reaching for analogies and symbols that point beyond themselves to a higher reality – one that cannot be tangibly grasped, but can only be painted as an impression. The real thing always eludes us. Nevertheless we continue to try, because we sense the immense magnitude of the subject.

Jesus had intimate knowledge of the subject. Plus, he was a master storyteller, mixing the familiar with the contradictory, challenging the mind to move past the mundane and to walk the way of the divine. His parables challenged people to tune in, and open up to new ways of understanding.

Thomas Long, who teaches seminarians the art of preaching[1], is convinced that another name for parable is “riddle.” According to Matthew, Jesus’ rationale for using parables was to “utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”[2] These eternal meanings are difficult to decipher because they are expressed in riddles, which are puzzles to be solved, stories with mysterious depths to be plumbed. Another commentator said that a parable is a story that employs a figure of speech drawn from everyday life that is at once so vivid and so strange that it causes you to doubt its meaning. It irritates the imagination into thought. The hearer gets personally involved, and tries to work out the parable’s point. Figuring it out comes through wrestling rather than reasoning.

Jesus tossed them the riddle of the sower like a curveball. They had to concentrate to connect with it. The story at first sounds familiar, but it soon reveals its mind-bending twist. So we must pay attention, keep our eye on the ball, and be ready for a pitch that is new and full of possibilities.

If you’ve ever tried to grow anything from seed, whether it’s a lawn, or flowers, or a garden of vegetables, then you can relate to the notion of the sower. It’s part of your experience. In that same way those who listened to Jesus by the sea knew what he was talking about, because Judea’s culture was largely agricultural. But once he spins out the story, everyone who knows about seeds and sowing knows that this is not the way to plant seeds, and that this is no ordinary sower.

Jesus’ sower does not mark out a field, prepare the soil, carefully plant the seeds, water and fertilize them, and then watch out for pests, and weeds, and birds that might destroy his efforts. On the contrary, the parable tells us that the sower simply broadcast the seeds, threw them willy-nilly, and let be what was to be. Some seed fell on the path, and they were snatched up by birds; other seed fell on rocky soil, and they sprang up only to die quickly in the withering heat of the day; others fell among brambles, and were choked out and died; and a certain portion of seeds fell into good soil, where they grew robustly, sending roots deep into the earth for nourishment. These seeds produced much grain, and the crop was abundant. Jesus topped off the parable by adding, “Let those who have ears hear.”

That must have left them shrugging their shoulders and scratching their heads. Huh? What in the world . . . ? At first hearing that is a common reaction. The image is clear but it is also bizarre. Jesus has left all of his hearers (including us) with a real riddle. What was his point in doing that? Well, it was like everything else he did or said. He leaves us with a question, drawing out of all who truly listen an answer that may be life-changing.

Jesus shows us a sower who is as extravagant, careless, and wasteful. He sows copious amounts of seed, but most of it is lost. The sower does not take aim; he lets fly in every direction, seemingly unmindful of the conditions onto which the seed will land. No planter on earth acts like that. And that’s exactly right. This sower, this giver of life, is not earthbound; he is divine, and his capacity to give for love’s sake excels everything that we know and depend on.

Reinhold Niebuhr, the 20^th century’s best known ethicist, once preached a sermon entitled, “The Providence of God.”[3] His message focused on the impartial nature of God’s love. Niebuhr stressed that God’s gracious impartiality is the reason for loving not only your neighbor, but also and your enemy, and praying for those who persecute you. Niebuhr’s text was from the Sermon on the Mount, wherein Jesus justified such indiscriminate love by saying that God is like that. Jesus said that any authentic child of God should be like that too, “for [God] makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”[4]

Niebuhr affirmed this metaphor from nature as good news – as the Gospel of God – over against any misguided notion that God grants special providence to particular people or groups. He declared:

It is not true that God gives special favors . . . Though Jesus is concerned about the whole dimension of the gospel, it is not so much whether these things are true or not upon their own levels, but whether they would be right. God’s love would not be right if it were this kind of a love. This is the point that Christ makes in the Sermon on the Mount, that God’s love would not be right. The Christian faith believes that within and beyond the tragedies and contradictions of history we have laid hold upon a loving heart, the proof of whose love is first impartiality toward all of his children, and secondly a mercy which transcends good and evil.[5]

That impartial love is the sower’s seed, the grace of God, broadcast at all times, in all places, and upon all people who on earth do dwell. The sower does not discriminate according to race, gender, social class, political affiliation, gender, citizenship, or sexual orientation. As the sun rises on the evil and the good, and the rain falls on both the just and the unjust, God plays no favorites. God simply and magnanimously loves.

Jesus illustrates this basic truth over and over again in his parables.

God loves like the father who embraces both of his sons, the prodigal who came home after living a riotous life and wasting his father’s resources, as well as the grumbling older brother who begrudges his father’s generous welcome of the son who was lost.[6]

God loves like the Samaritan who surprisingly stopped and showed mercy to his natural adversary, a Jewish man who was beaten and robbed and left for dead not only by the muggers but also by priests of his own religious tradition who refused to get involved.[7]

God loves like the vineyard owner who pays the same wage to those laborers hired an hour before quitting time as he pays to those hired to work at the beginning of the day.[8]

The gospel message is the same throughout. God doesn’t reckon as we reckon; God doesn’t judge as we judge; God doesn’t give only to the worthy, as we tend to do, but gives equally, extravagantly, unconditionally to everyone.

That’s who God is, and that is good news for us all.

The sower’s seed is freely given to the world, which is God’s own field. The love broadcast is continuous. It is showered upon us by the God who provides, sustains, and encourages; however, our loving God does not force outcomes. He allows and awaits in hope.

That brings us to the second part of the parable. The seed lands on soils of all sorts and conditions. For Jesus the spectrum of soils and circumstances is the diversity of reception and response to the love of God. We are made in God’s image. That is to say, we are endowed with creative freedom – freedom to choose what is right and good, as well as freedom to reject it. Built into our character is a trait called responsibility. When the love of God is given and received, it comes with an invitation to respond in kind. In other words, the sower’s seed contains an RSVP. God expects a favorable response, a loving response that shows no partiality.

God may not get one. We have the capacity to decline, and to our shame, we do that all too often. Nevertheless, God will not abandon us. The Creator, the one who is love, abides with us. The sower keeps sowing the seed. That is our hope, and that is our eternal opportunity. Today we have baptized Thomas Ellstrom Whitlock, welcoming him as “sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” That means, in the words of another child, “God loves him no matter what.” Our task as a Christian family is to assure Thomas that God’s acceptance will support him all the days of his life. In response to that unconditional grace, we pray that he will permit God’s love to take root and blossom in him, and that he will join us in a ministry of gratitude.

Can we do any less than to say, “Yes!” to our Lord?

In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, may it be so. Amen

[1] Dr. Thomas G. Long is the Bandy Professor of Preaching at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

[2] Matthew 13:34 quotes Psalm 78:2.

[3] Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Providence of God,” a sermon delivered at Union Theological Seminary, New York, February 3, 1952,  in Justice and Mercy, edited by Ursula M. Niebuhr (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974), pp. 14-22.

[4] Matthew 5:45b.

[5] Op.cit., Niebuhr, p. 20.

[6] Luke 15:11-32.

[7]Luke 10:25-37.

[8]Matthew 20:1-16.

A Sermon for the 4^th Sunday after Pentecost

Proper 9 – Year A – July 6, 2014

Kim Baker Glenn, Master of Divinity, Union Presbyterian Seminary

 Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Jesus said to the crowd, “To what will I compare this generation? 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!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

At that time Jesus said, “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. 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.

“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.”

 Open our ears, Lord, that we might hear your word for us. By your grace, open our minds and our hearts to receive it. By your mercy, open our eyes that we might perceive your presence among us, today and all days. Amen.

 It was not long ago that I sat right there in the pews where you are today listening to preaching from the voice of our beloved rector, John Miller, or our beloved then associate rector, Christopher Brookfield. I didn’t know it then but I was learning from the best how to do what I am doing here today. Thank you, John, for the opportunity to come home to preach. I treasure this time to be with you.

I learned a lot from both John and Christopher, but something John taught me without even knowing he was teaching me is about connections between Holy Scripture and our seemingly unholy culture. He is a master at connecting experiences of today to experiences of the ancient world. He is especially adept at film references. I am not sure how he is able to know so much and keep it right there at his fingertips! But he does, and we are grateful.

My style is not the same as John’s or anyone else’s for that matter. Our job is to learn from our teachers and then make the learning our own. My own approach is to connect music and songs to scripture. Can you guess what song from our modern culture jumped out at me when I read this morning’s gospel text? No, it wasn’t Teach Your Children from Crosby, Stills and Nash– though that ran a close second. Instead, what jumped out at me was a song from Loggins and Messina, Your Mama Don’t Dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll. Remember that one? Well, if you aren’t familiar with that song let me say it again – your mama don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll.

The question is not whether they can dance. Anyone can dance, right? I mean, you can be as goofy as a marionette on strings or as skillful as a ballerina but anyone can move to music. Presumably, they are capable of it. The question is why they are choosing not to dance. In the gospel text this morning, children are inviting other children to dance. No one is accepting the invitation.

In the Gospel reading, we hear Matthew craftily describing the people in his audience as children playing in the market. Don’t be diverted by the idea of children playing in the marketplace, it was a safe and normal place for children to play. The market was, and still is, the place where society met and mingled in ancient Israel. Focus instead on the game they were playing. The scripture reads, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.” Each group of children was attempting to lure the other group into a game of role-play – one was using mournful, sad tunes and the other was using joyful, glad tunes.

There is much scholarly debate over precisely who the two groups of children represent. They basically agree that what is represented is John the Baptist’s style of preaching and Jesus’ style of ministry. John preached the mournful message of repentance and Jesus spoke the joyful message of acceptance and inclusion. Neither the message nor those who delivered them were popular. John the Baptist came wearing animal skins and eating locusts. Mind you, that was NOT the fashion of the day. Frankly, he just looked and acted weird. His message of repentance seemed like the pot calling the kettle black. Jesus, on the other hand, came looking like everyone else. He fit in, by all appearances. But he crossed all kinds of social boundaries by hanging out with sinners and eating in the homes of tax collectors.

Matthew tells us that the people of the first century weren’t buying either of those messages. They didn’t want mournful music or merry melodies. They wanted to choose their own music, so to speak. They were choosing not to dance to the tunes that John and Jesus played – not because they didn’t like the songs but because they didn’t trust that the lyrics, the message, was from God. Well, Matthew wanted them to realize that God had specifically chosen these two to carry out His will. Matthew wanted his listeners to realize that the deeds done by John and Jesus in their midst had proven that God had called them. “Wisdom,” Matthew said, “is vindicated by her deeds.” God, who is all Wisdom and the ground of all that is, had empowered John and Jesus in their actions. He wanted them to join in the dance that was part of God’s unfolding drama.

Let’s return for a moment to the Loggins and Messina illustration. Maybe mama and daddy don’t dance and rock and roll because they don’t think they are invited to the party. Maybe it’s because they don’t like the music that is playing there. Or maybe they don’t dance because they are waiting to be invited to a better party. Could there be a better party than the one that God has created just for us?

Now imagine with me that it is we who are invited to the dance, invited to take part in the rhythmic movement that is the coming of God’s kingdom. Just being here today and participating in the life of St. Mary’s church is evidence that all of us are accepting or at least considering accepting God’s invitation. Indeed, we symbolically accept the invitation each time we affirm the baptismal covenant. We accept God’s invitation and do all we can to respond to God’s call on our lives until…

Until we realize that we are not as good as we could be; Until we recognize that there are others who dance better than we do; Until the burdens of just sustaining life in a crime ridden, disease ridden, dog-eat-dog world overwhelm us. Given the circumstances of human life, living out God’s invitation to us is incredibly hard work. God knows that and that is why God gave us a partner, someone to go through it all with us.

Oh I know, sometimes it is easier to work alone, at least we think it is. Sometimes our partners get in the way. They can step on our feet and trip us up, or cheat on us or make a decision we don’t agree with. But in Matthew’s understanding, this invitation that God is giving us requires a partner of a different type, a spiritual partner. In the text this morning, we get not one but two invitations, or maybe an invitation in two parts. The first is God’s invitation to join in the dance so we can listen and move in sync with God’s rhythm. The second is the invitation from Jesus who in his humanity understood how difficult it could be to take part in the dance and to keep on with it once we’ve started.

Jesus offers his yoke to us. His yoke is fitted for two, to lie right across his shoulder and ours to join us together as a team. The yoke keeps the team in line, moving in the same direction. Have you ever watched animals pull a wagon? Their steps are in sync, they seem to know what the other is doing. People imitate each other that way, too, like in rowing a boat. They are working efficiently together, it doesn’t really matter where they are going or what they are pulling. God’s work, no doubt about it, is not easy.

The work of bringing in God’s kingdom of justice, peace and love is hard work. It requires strength and focus, patience and perseverance. It is always a work in progress and will be until, one day as we pray, God’s kingdom will come. We need Jesus, our Christ, to help us get there. And we need each other. I looked up the original Greek text of those verses concerning Jesus’ yoke. My translation reads, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you relief. Pick up my yoke and put in on you.” The “you” is plural. That means all of us. Together. “Pick up my yoke and put it on you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in my inner most self, my heart. You will discover relief deep within you for my yoke brings ease and my burden (what I bring to our team) will not weigh us down.”

Christ’s yoke is light, it’s hardly a burden at all for us. The thing is, we realize that we should pick up that yoke but we know that when we join Jesus and others on that journey we can no longer be in control of our destinies. Taking up the yoke means turning the control of our lives over to our triune God. We have no choice but to give up ego and self-sufficiency to follow Jesus and learn his ways. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, “Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows where the path will lead. But we know it will be a path full of mercy beyond measure. Discipleship is joy.”[1]

Some of us have given over control of their lives to substances, some have given over control of their lives to their work. Jesus waits for them, ever patient, ever available whenever they are ready to see. And for others of us, by grace, Jesus is offering to take control, ease the burden of our life’s journey. Are you ready yet to take up Jesus’ yoke and learn to live by living his way? Are you ready to join in God’s rhythm and dance?

[1] Discipleship (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 4), p40