The Declaration of Dependence
8 Pentecost 2008
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30
The Declaration of Dependence
Pastor Chris Enstad
Brothers and sisters, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
We are a people who love our burdens. Oh yes we do. Our nation was founded upon the myth of the rugged individual, we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and if we can’t well then there must be something wrong with us and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Ask for help? Not in America. What if we were to fail at life? What would other people think about us?
This kind of thinking leads us down two roads, one is the road of success… because you know what, you can succeed at all of the things that you set up as your goals or that others tell you mean that you are successful. You can! And when you do you will find yourself at the top of the hill looking down on everyone else struggling under his or her own burdens. And you can take pride in knowing that you got to where you were on your own… and if you can do it why should you help anyone else with their burdens? Do you see what I mean? The American way can indeed be a successful way if you define success in material possessions, status, reputation... you know the rest.
The other road that thinking leads us down is the road of shame, anger or frustration. Why don’t I have a car like that? I’m never going to amount to anything in anyone’s eyes, why should I even keep trying? These cycles become self-fulfilling as well don’t they? The successful work hard to make sure that their kids are set up to succeed too, and guess what, that becomes one more burden for their children to carry around… my dad or mom is successful, I better be too. The unsuccessful, those are the ones we ignore or stereotype or shun because they don’t fit in or they are not with the program.
And you know what, we take that same kind of thinking with us when we stop to consider God. We go down one of two roads there too, either we are going to figure out this God with our minds and intellect and yes our hearts too, and once we “get it” we can look down on our neighbors or revel in our complete and total understanding of our Creator. And so we can go around pronouncing judgments on our neighbors because we are in and they are out. We can put God into a little box and stick him in our pocket and take him out when we need him to do something for us or smite someone for us.
People like that used to drive me bonkers because you couldn’t talk to them or ask questions about God to them because if you were asking questions then you hadn’t figured it out yet. And thank goodness that this was one place in my life where my oppositional defiance came in handy because they were so sure about themselves that it made me sure that God must work in another way and so I went back to the source and do you know what I found out? That to be right one has to admit that they might be wrong. Do you know what else I learned? That God reveals God’s self to infants, not to the wise or the intelligent.
And that other road? That is the road of deciding that we could not ever believe as strongly as that successful, happy Christian next door and so what’s the use in believing? It’s the person who comes to believe that they are so dirty that the water of baptism could not even begin to touch them or the person who believes that they are so on the outside that not even the blood of Christ could return them to the fold. They are the person that has been made to think that church is for the perfect and sinners need not apply for membership. They are the people who are made to believe that unless one acts a certain way, talks a certain way, dresses a certain way that they just won’t fit in here… they are the ones who are made to believe that a church like this is a country club and not what it really is… a hospital for the sick.
We take that line of independence thinking when we think about our sins. If we just try harder we can stop sinning we tell each other and ourselves. If I take one more class or sign up for one more accountability session, or read one more Oprah book maybe just maybe I can become a better person.
And finally we take that same kind of independence thinking with us when we consider Jesus. Today we hear Jesus calling us children, and not in a good way. You are like children in the marketplace razzing you. We played music and you didn’t dance, we wailed and you did not mourn. We expect Jesus to act the way we expect him to act… like the president of our club.
This morning Jesus shakes his head. You children… John the Baptist came living this austere life where he did not eat or drink and you thought he was crazy. Who would live like that by choice! And I come along, Jesus says, and I eats and drinks and you say, “Look a glutton and a drunkard”. Oh yes, Jesus says, you don’t get me, you don’t get God, and even if you did get it you would try to find another reason not to believe or get with the program or submit to an idea bigger than yourself.
Brothers and sisters, today you have heard not a declaration of independence but a declaration of dependence. At the end of his diatribe Jesus issues this invitation, “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.
Jesus is inviting us today to set down all of these burdens we carry in our lives, he is calling us to STOP whatever it is we are doing in our name and to come under his lordship. That image of the yoke is so powerful, taking this man’s commands and placing them around our necks to do his will in the world and not our own, to make way for his word and not someone else’s, to finally stop trying to get God and standing in front of God’s throne as an infant knowing one thing and one thing only, that he is God and we are not.
How might that affect your lives? You know, the one thing that one has to do when taking on a yoke is to stick your neck out and I’m afraid that we all like to look at each other and compare and contrast faith and success and if our neighbor hasn’t really stuck out their neck to be under Jesus’ yoke then why should we? But thank goodness that we are not as smart as we think we are and that we truly come here today as infants because God has revealed God’s self to you and to me in God’s son Jesus Christ who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, has taken your burdens on himself and put them to death once and for all.
The other day I was sweeping out my garage and Liv insisted on grabbing the broom and lower down on the handle and pushing it with me. “I’m sweeping!” she exclaimed in a very proud voice… of course I was doing the heavy pushing and she merely had her hands on the broom stick.
Jesus is calling us to live our lives like that. Yes, at times we might feel like we are going to break, but Jesus has already been broken. At times we might feel exposed and lonely and as though our very lives are at risk, but Jesus, he has already stuck out his neck, he has taken away your burdens and mine in his death and resurrection. At times we might feel like everything in life is coming down on our shoulders, but listen, Jesus has already taken everything on his shoulders and lifted them to the cross. Thanks be to God that all of the burdens of life and even the fear of death are gone. Today I stand in front of this cross not as an adult, and not even as a child but as an infant because for all of the books I have read, all of the classes I have taken, all of the conversations I have had, in the end all I know is that I don’t know and all I can do is be found here... in this Church... listening to these words with you, "I have made you a prisoner of hope. My yoke is easy... my burden is light."
May your lives, even at their hardest, be made easy in Christ who has already been to those places and sanctified them with his blood.
Amen.
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