Saint Michael’s Church
Serving God and Bishop’s Stortford since 673
Sermon 06 July 2008
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St Michael's Church 06 July 2008 Seventh Sunday after Trinity 8.00am, 10.00am Rev'd Toby Marchand |
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Gospel: Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30
This morning’s Gospel is a bit of a mixture. The first part of it sounds rather obscure. We don’t immediately grasp what Jesus is on about.
The second half is famous. We recognise the immortal words Come to me all you who are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.
Or in the old version known to lovers of Handel’s Messiah, and the Book of Common Prayer “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest”.
Let’s start with the first part.
We are always paying lip service to the perfection of Jesus. We believe that he could not behave in the same way that we behave; that he was somehow immune from some of the things that get us down.
But one of the emotions that he certainly shared with us was exasperation. There are many instances in the gospel when Jesus is exasperated with other people.
He gets exasperated with the general populace, as here.
He gets exasperated with the disciples. Do you remember how he reacted after stilling the storm on the lake? “Why are you so afraid? How is it that you have no faith?
And he said on the Emmaus road, (How slow you are to believe the scriptures……..
And he gets exasperated with the religious leaders. “Blind fools!” he called them on many occasions. Just read Chapter 25 of St Matthew’s gospel sometime and you will see what I mean.
But here he is exasperated with the present generation, with the society of his day.
He likens them to children who sulk. He pictures children playing games in the market-place. One lot want to play at weddings (we played the flute for you) but the other lot won’t play (but you did not dance).
So they change the game and play at funerals.
(We wailed for you) but the other lot wouldn’t play (but you did not mourn).
How contrary this generation is!
They see someone like John the Baptist, living an ascetic life, fasting and living in the desert, and eating locusts and wild honey. And they say “He has a demon”
But the Son of Man, that’s Jesus himself, comes eating and drinking and they say Look a glutton and a drunkard.
You can’t have it both ways! Are you never satisfied?
I’m reminded of much of the press coverage of our modern times. One minute someone like Princess Diana can do no right. She is criticised for the company she is keeping, for the money she is spending, for the cellulite on her legs when she goes to the gym, and the next minute she is being immortalised as a goddess who was “the people’s princess and the people’s friend”.
Then the exasperation subsides and Jesus says thank you to God that the things that belong to the kingdom, the new way of living, the living under God’s rule and God’s love is something that is attractive to the simple rather than the wise.
That’s why Jesus liked children so much, and used them as examples of what he was saying. Unless you become like a child you will never enter the
There is something direct and uncomplicated about a child’s appreciation of the world which Jesus affirmed and used.
A little boy was attending his first wedding. After the service his cousin asked him “How many women can a man marry?
“Sixteen” the boy responded.
His cousin was amazed he knew the answer so quickly. “How do you know that?”
”Easy” the little boy said: “All you have to do is to add it up, like the Bishop said: 4 better 4 worse 4 richer 4 poorer”
The truth is that the
Jesus had come to know his Father the way a son does: not by studying books about him, but by living in his presence, listening to his voice, and learning from him as an apprentice does from a master, by watching and imitating. And now he was discovering that the wise and learned were getting nowhere, and that the ‘little people’—the poor the sinners the tax-collectors, ordinary folk---were discovering more of God simply by following him, Jesus, than the learned specialists who declared that what he was doing didn’t fit with their complicated theories.
And so to the famous quote “Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens.”
The religion of Jesus made its claims. There was a yoke to be borne, but it was easy and light compared with what the Pharisees and scribes laid on people.
Yes the religion of Jesus makes its claims. Some of his hearers would probably have made yokes in the local carpenters’ shops. It was a wooden device that enabled the oxen to work side by side, sharing the burden of pulling the load or ploughing the field. Perhaps Jesus had actually made yokes himself, he had worked as a carpenter in all probability and no doubt made comfortable and well-fitting yokes. The people who lived in
Yoked to Jesus our burdens don’t seem so heavy. We pull together and share the task.
And if you want to know what was the yoke it is compressed in to one sentence of the sayings of Jesus: “Whatever you wish that others do to you do so for them; for this is the law and the prophets”
This was a call to positive goodness to our fellow men and women. This was the requirement to go out of our way to be a positive benefit to others.
Did Jesus’ hearers take it in? they saw the help he himself gave to the poor the blind the deaf the crippled, the diseased, and those whom society rejected like the tax-gatherers. He did for them what he would like them to do for him if the roles were reversed. And so the message “Come to me and learn of me”
How could following Jesus be that easy? Didn’t he himself say that people had to be prepared to leave behind families and possessions, even their own life? Yes he did. But the ease and the joy and the rest and the refreshment which he offered all spring from his own inner character, his gentleness and his warmth to all who turn to him weighed down by the burdens of this world.
He encourages us to believe that he isn’t going to stand over us like a policemen, isn’t go to be cross with us like an angry school teacher. And the welcome he offers for all who abandon themselves to his mercy is the welcome God offers through him. This is the invitation that pulls back the curtain and lets us see who the father really is, and encourages us to come in to his living welcoming presence.
Come to me and I will give you rest.
Toby Marchand
Office Address:
Saint Michael’s Church
Windhill
Bishops Stortford
Hertfordshire
CM23 2ND