Sighs Too Deep for Words

July 30, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Sighs Too Deep for Words” Romans 8:26-39

Monica has given up on praying. She’s a single Mom with two young children. She works two jobs to try to cover the bills. She tends to little ones, including her own, at a local daycare during the week. She minds the register at the Quikmart on the weekends. Her ex plays games with his child support payments, so she is almost always on the verge of a financial crisis. Monica has prayed for better work. She has prayed that her ex would change. She has prayed that the landlord will be patient and that her children won’t know how stressed and worried she truly is. Monica believes in God. She just isn’t sure that God believes in her.

Fred isn’t sure what to pray for or how to pray these days. He lost his longtime job when the boss caught him drinking again. Then last month, he got pulled over for a DWI—and it wasn’t the first. The judge ruled that Fred could either spend some time in jail or try a residential treatment program for his alcoholism. It isn’t as if Fred hasn’t tried to quit drinking before. He has even had a few stretches of sobriety, but he always ends up right back where he started, defeated, ashamed, and drinking. His wife has had it and his friends are worried.

Lori and Phil used to pray together, but that was before Lori’s parents moved in. When Lori’s Dad broke his hip, the social worker at the hospital said that the two could no longer live on their own. Her Mom has Alzheimer’s disease. Her once sunny disposition is now often angry and confused. Lori left work to care for her parents. Each week brings a new round of doctor visits and healthcare expenses. Not long ago, her Mom wandered off while working in the garden and the police brought her home. Lori and Phil feel like they are failing as caregivers. They know things will only get worse, and they are too tired and overwhelmed to even know what to pray for.

We all have times when we feel that we are clean out of prayers. We have worried God for years about the same concern. We get overwhelmed by circumstances beyond our control. We are not our better selves and the burden of our bad behavior feels like a wedge between us and the holy. We wonder if God hears us. We question if God cares about us. We fear that God doesn’t love us.

Paul’s letter to the church in Rome suggests that those first Christians in the imperial city also found it hard to pray. We know that the Roman church found a start in the Jewish community there. The origin of the Jewish colony at Rome dated to the year 63 BCE, when General Pompei, after the capture of Jerusalem, brought back a large number of prisoners of war who were sold as slaves. Those who earned their freedom lived in the poorest quarters of the city where they served as peddlers, shopkeepers, domestic workers, and tradespeople. We know that when Christian teachers came to Rome, it split the Jewish community into two camps: traditionalists and those who believed that Jesus is Lord. The conflict between the two parties was so bitter that in the year 49 CE, Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from the city, just to keep the peace.

The circumstance of the Christian community certainly needed prayer: exile, poverty, infighting, and imperial persecution. Yet the Roman Christians, perhaps worn out and hopeless, struggled to pray. Paul, in the verses leading up to today’s reading, describes the Romans as groaning, as if with the terrible birth pangs of a woman in labor, as they waited, short on hope and long on fear, for the coming of God’s Kingdom.

The Apostle Paul assured his friends that even when they could not find the words to pray, God knew their circumstance. The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus had promised would be their advocate and comforter, was at work within them. With sighs too deep for words, the Spirit interceded, bridging the gap between heaven and earth, even when they could not. God knew and God cared. It might have felt impossible for them to imagine, but all things would work together for their good.

When our spiritual ancestor John Calvin read Paul’s words to the church in Rome, he made the connection between the suffering of the Roman Christians and the suffering of Christ. In the neighborly and imperial persecution that the Romans daily endured, they knew something of the experience of Jesus. They personally identified with a Savior who was condemned by powerful enemies and persecuted even to the point of death on the cross. As they identified with Christ in his suffering, Jesus was with them in theirs.

Calvin wrote, “There is then no reason for anyone to complain that the bearing of their cross is beyond their own strength, since we are sustained by a celestial power. . .. The Spirit takes on himself a part of the burden, by which our weakness is oppressed; so that he not only helps and [sustains] us, but lifts us up; as though he went under the burden with us.” Far from being separated from God, the Roman church was united with Christ, who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, shouldered their burdens with them and for them.

I’m sure that Paul’s words sounded every bit as comforting and reassuring to the church in Rome as they do to us. In all our times of careworn sorrow, in all our places of overwhelming need, in all our frailty and failure, we are not alone. The Spirit is here, praying within us. Jesus is alongside us, bearing the load.

Paul assures us this morning that nothing can separate us from the love of God, a love that was most fully expressed in the suffering of Christ. Not hardship or distress or persecution; not famine or indigence or peril or sword. Not single parenthood or low-paying jobs. Not deadbeat dads or having more month than money. Not alcohol or meth or opiates. Not lost jobs or strained marriages. Not DWIs or court-mandated rehab. Not growing years and declining health. Not broken hips or Alzheimer’s. Not the mounting costs of doctors or the inadequacy of senior care in the Adirondacks. Nothing. That’s right nothing can separate us from the love of God. In all these things, in all these everyday challenges that can leave us feeling at a loss for words, at a loss for prayer, we are more than conquerors through Jesus, whose Spirit prays within us. Thanks be to God.

I like to think that Paul’s words encouraged the people in Rome. In Paul’s reassurance of the work of the Holy Spirit and the love of God, their groans became language. The Romans found the courage to pray for themselves and pray for one another. How else could the Roman church transform within a few centuries from a frightened and persecuted sect of Judaism to the most powerful religious center in the empire?

As we go forth into this week, we will be certain to meet others who do not have the wherewithal to pray. They are stressed-out parents and over-worked professionals. They struggle with addiction or mental illness. They just got a tough diagnosis. They are reeling with grief. They feel alone and separated from God. Perhaps this morning, we could take our leading from the Holy Spirit. We could pray with them and for them, even if we simply draw near with the love of Christ and our sighs too deep for words. May it be so.

Resources

Anna Bowden. “Commentary on Romans 8:26-39” in Preaching This Week, July 30, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Israel Kumundzandu. “Commentary on Romans 8:26-39” in Preaching This Week, July 30, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Mary Hinkle Shore. “Commentary on Romans 8:26-39” in Preaching This Week, July 26, 2020. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

George Edmundson. “The Church in Rome in the First Century,” Lecture 1 of The Bampton Lectures, Oxford University. London: Longmans, Green and Company, 2013.

John Calvin. Commentary on Romans. Accessed online at https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/.

Romans 8:26-39

²⁶Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. ²⁷And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. ²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

²⁹For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. ³⁰And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.

³¹What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³²He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? ³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. ³⁵Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Friendship Days at Akwesasne

July 25, 2023July 25, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Poem for a Tuesday — “Friendship Days at Akwesasne”

by Maurice Kenny

For Francis

Humid afternoon by the St. Lawrence,

women canoe-races paddle the river;

full of fry-bread, soda and hot

strawberry-rhubarb pie

I stumble under the cedar arbor

to listen to the drum and singing.

Outfitted Mohawks circle a “stomp dance.”

I take a place on a bench near

an elder woman who asks in Mohawk,

what do I do? Tote bag slung over my

left shoulder I figure I should own up.

“I’m a writer”. . . in smiles.

“What kind?” she asked, really curious.

“A poet,” I replied proudly . . .

to which she offered a grunt,

got up from the bench and huffed off.

Well, maybe she was right.

in Maurice Kenny. Humors and/or Not So Humorous, Buffalo: Swift Kick #7/8, 1988.

Maurice Kenny drew on the lifeways and perspectives of his Mohawk tribal heritage. Kenny understood animal and natural life as part of an essential continuum of consciousness in which we are embedded. He lived for years in Brooklyn where he worked as an editor, publisher, and poet. During the 1970s and early 1980s, Kenny was increasingly active in Native American activism, having undergone an awakening to the extent and significance of his own Mohawk identity in the wake of the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969. He eventually returned to his Mohawk homeland, settling in Saranac Lake. He taught at North Country Community College, Paul Smiths College, and SUNY Potsdam. Kenny once wrote, “Let it be known I love this America on Turtle’s back…the mountains and skies and all between. I have crossed its beauty hundreds of times and celebrate all happiness and greenness.” In 2002, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas.

Weeds among the Wheat

July 23, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Weeds among the Wheat” Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Christians have an image problem. 87% of young people (aged 16-29) say that we are judgmental. 85% believe that we are hypocrites. A survey undertaken last year, “Jesus in America,” determined that while Christians describe themselves as giving, compassionate, loving, respectful, and friendly, non-Christians disagree. They say we are hypocritical, judgmental, self-righteous, and arrogant.

While it is tempting to blame those sentiments on the latest televangelist scandal, I suspect that there are hurtful and hateful everyday experiences behind those conclusions. Like the neighbor who insists we’ll burn in Hell if Jesus isn’t our Lord and savior. Like the working woman who was told that Jesus says her rightful place is in the home. Like the kid with the blue hair, tattoo, and the nose ring who is called an abomination. There is nothing like the self-righteous judgment of others to make us feel unwelcome and unworthy.

In today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus shares a parable of judgment that draws upon everyday agricultural images that would have been familiar to his listeners. Jesus described a problem with a wealthy landowner’s field. An enemy had sown weeds amid the wheat. This weed, darnel, sure looked a lot like wheat, but it bore dark seeds that, if ingested, could cause hallucinations, torpor, and even death. The darnel was typically weeded, but this crazy landowner surprised his fieldworkers by instructing them to allow the weeds to grow. At harvest time, everything would get sorted out – weeds bound into bundles and burned, wheat gathered into the barn.

Later, as Jesus explained his confusing story to his friends, they learned that it is an allegory. The darnel represents sinners and evil doers. The disciples are the field hands. Jesus is both the landowner and the judge who, with the help of the heavenly host, will sort it all out on Judgment Day. As an agricultural practice, Jesus’ parable doesn’t make sense. What landowner would allow weeds to multiply in his fields? The absurdity of this is heightened because while wheat becomes the bread of life, the darnel may be the kiss of death. No wonder Jesus’s friends needed a private explanation.

Behind Jesus’ agricultural parable was a world of judgment. Insiders, like the scribes and Pharisees scrupulously observed the requirements of the Torah and then condemned outsiders, like sinners, tax collectors, the sick, demoniacs, the disabled, and foreigners. They labeled them unholy, separated from God, and best to be avoided. Jesus was an outsider. After all, he sought out sinners and was labeled a glutton and drunkard. The disciples were outsiders, too. They had the bad sense to follow Jesus, they ate with unwashed hands, and they gleaned wheat on the sabbath. Given the dualistic reality of this first century world, Jesus’ parable is an instruction to suspend judgment. Labeling people as “weeds” or sinners denies their full humanity and ignores the image of God that they bear. Judgment creates a harsh world of us and them, insiders and outsiders.

Don’t judge. It all sounds good on paper, but living in a morally complex and sometimes ambiguous world isn’t easy. We like things to be black and white, right and wrong. Come on, Jesus. Do you really expect us to not judge the brother-in-law who cheats on our sister? How about the addict who betrays her parent’s trust and robs them blind? And then there is the neighbor who is so sweet to our face but slanders us with malicious gossip behind our back. Don’t even get us started on the teacher who shames and belittles our child. Can’t we just let justice roll down like mighty waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream? It feels pretty good to judge and holding off on the weeding feels like we are enabling deeply sinful people in some very bad behaviors. That can’t be right. Can it?

I think it wasn’t any easier for Jesus than it is for us. The Lord had harsh words for pious insiders who exploited their religious standing to lord it over others. He called scribes and Pharisees whitewashed tombs and hypocrites. Yet Jesus also knew that even the most loyal and trusted of friends could speak for the devil. Just ask Peter, who earned the name Satan for trying to talk Jesus out of the cross. This world isn’t black and white. It’s more one big mixed bag in which we can sometimes be wheaty and sometimes be weedy.

Instead of judging enemies, Jesus reminded his followers that God causes the sun to rise on the good and evil alike (5:45). He taught that enemies are to be loved and prayed for (5:43-44). Even a thief, condemned by this world to death on a cross, could find his way to paradise with Jesus’s help. The bad thing about judgment is that it makes any sort of meaningful relationship virtually impossible. Just ask those sinners and tax collectors who would always be alienated outsiders in a world run by Pharisees. Just ask those 87% of young people who think we are judgmental. Over and against judgment, the willingness to love, to listen, to break bread, to be in relationship, makes change possible.

This is the hard stuff, my friends. The choice to love instead of judge confronts us with our hurt and vulnerability, our moral outrage. In the wealthy landowner’s field, in our Father’s world, there are weeds among the wheat. When we face that fact head on and learn to live with the love and mercy of Jesus, we grow, and we hold out to others the possibility for growth and change.

Many of us are familiar with the story of Cornelia Arnolda Johanna ten Boom. Corrie’s memoir The Hiding Place tells the story of her efforts to shelter Jews from the Nazis during the occupation of Holland in World War II. Corrie was ultimately arrested and sent with her sister Betsie to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, a women’s work camp in Germany. There the sisters encouraged others with prayer and worship after the long, hard days of work, using a Bible that they had smuggled into the camp. Betsie died in Ravensbrück from disease and starvation. Twelve days later, Corrie was released, thanks to a clerical error, right before all the women of her age group were gassed. It’s an inspiring and well-known story of love and mercy amid the world’s overwhelming evil.

We are less familiar with a later story that Corrie told in 1972. It took place after the war as Corrie spoke at a local church in Munich. After her presentation, she spotted him, standing in the back, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat with a brown felt hat clutched in his hands. Corrie wrote, “It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin.” He had been a guard at Ravensbrück, where Betsie had died. If anyone deserved her judgment, this man did.

Perhaps we can imagine how Corrie felt when this man approached her, asking for her forgiveness. It was impossible. She pondered what Jesus had said about mercy and woodenly stuck out her hand to shake, knowing it was what the Lord required of her. As she did, something remarkable happened. In Corrie’s own words, “The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.”

We are never so near to the Lord as we are when we follow him in the way of love and mercy for this sinful and broken world, for these sinful and broken people, for these “evil ones” who sow hate, do harm, and seem to bear little consequence for their bad, bad behavior. God is there in the clasped hand and the willingness to do, for Jesus’s sake, what we cannot do for ourselves. Sinner and saint are so deeply entangled by the circumstances of our daily living. We can work one another terrible harm, yet in the choice to forego judgment, in the choice for grace, there is the abundance of God’s love and the possibility for change.

Undoubtedly this week there will be the temptation to judge. A loved one will make some poor decisions, and we’ll just know that the consequences will not be good. We’ll catch a colleague cutting ethical corners. Another indictment will be handed down. There will always be weeds among the wheat, my friends. May the love and mercy we practice create the graced space where change happens. And if we are very, very diligent, we may even begin to change people’s opinions, like that 87% of young adults who say we are judgmental.

Resources:

Corrie ten Boom. “Corrie ten Boom on Forgiveness” in Guideposts, 1972. Accessed online at https://guideposts.org/positive-living/guideposts-classics-corrie-ten-boom-forgiveness/

Adelle M. Banks. “Study Views Christians as Judgmental” in The Oklahoman, Oct. 27, 2007. Accessed online at oklahoman.com.

Ipsos. “Episcopal Church Jesus in America Public Poll” in Ipsos News and Events, March 10, 2022. Accessed online at https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/episcopal-church-jesus-america-public-poll

Warren Carter. “Commentary on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43” in Preaching This Week, July 20, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Holly Hearon. “Commentary on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43” in Preaching This Week, July 19, 2020. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

John T. Carroll. “Commentary on Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43” in Preaching This Week, July 23, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Carey Nieuwhof. “5 Ways Judgmental Christians Are Killing Your Church,” in Carey Nieuwhof Blog. Accessed online at careynieuwhof.com.

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

²⁴He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. ²⁶So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. ²⁷And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ²⁸He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ²⁹But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. ³⁰Let 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.’” ³⁶Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” ³⁷He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, ³⁹and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. ⁴⁰Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, ⁴²and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ⁴³Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

I Am a Firefly

July 14, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Poem for a Tuesday — “I Am a Firefly” by Masao Handa

I am a firefly

with a tiny lantern lighted.

In search of my other self,

In the darkness of night

I fly. Tired I bathe myself

In the falling dew.

The night speaks to me,

But alas! I do not understand;

Through the vastness of obscurity

I fly, in search of my other self.

I am a firefly

With a tiny lantern lighted.

— In Quiet Fire: A Historical Anthology of Asian American Poetry 1892-1970. New York: The Asian-American Writers’ Fund, 1996.

Easy and Light

July 9, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / 3 Comments

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Easy and Light” Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Three years ago, when I last preached on this scripture passage, we were in the middle of a global health crisis. COVID-19 had swept around the world and into New York state. Down in New York City, the scale of sickness and death was horrific. Even in the North Country, we felt the effects. Restaurants were closed and businesses were offering curbside service. We were working from home and meeting by Zoom. We worshipped online. A trip to the grocery store felt like a strange and dangerous safari. We lived in our masks and applied hand sanitizer at the slightest provocation. We were scared and we were stressed.

Three years later, it feels like we have turned the page on COVID. Thank, goodness! But surprisingly, although our pandemic worries have eased, we are still stressed. The most recent Harris Poll of the American Psychological Association found that 72% of Americans report that stress has a daily negative impact on their lives. We are feeling overwhelmed and worried. We are having trouble sleeping. We may be turning to alcohol, recreational drugs, or prescription sleep aids to find rest.

COVID may no longer top the list of our anxieties, but other concerns have risen to take its place. 76% of us are worried about the future of our nation. 62% of us believe that our children will not inherit a better world. That may be because 70% have drawn the conclusion that the government does not care about the interests of people like us. We are worried about inflation. 83% of us believe it is a significant problem. In the past month, more than half of us have had to make difficult household decisions about what we could or could not buy. We are also worried about violence. The epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence in this country is deeply troubling and stressful for 75% of us. And perhaps because most of us have concluded that the government doesn’t care, we feel powerless to create change. 34% of all adults report that their stress is completely overwhelming on most days, affecting our mental health, eating habits, physical health, and our relationships with others. How is your stress level these days?

Jesus and his friends knew all about stress. Israel had been an occupied nation for more than seventy years, with the soldiers of Rome stationed in fortresses and garrisons throughout the land, all the way from Jesus’ home base in Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee to the Antonia Fortress, right next door to the Temple in the heart of Jerusalem. The cost of foreign occupation was borne by the people through exorbitant taxes. All those taxes meant economic hardship. While we have supports in our society to help neighbors in financial crisis, a first century family might have to resort to debt slavery, selling a family member into slavery to avoid financial catastrophe.

Beyond occupation and economics, Jesus’ friends coped with a spiritual stress that might sound completely alien to us. From his first sermon in Nazareth, Jesus faced harsh criticism and opposition from the powerful religious forces of his day, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Chief Priests, and scribes. Jesus’ opponents insisted that all 613 commandments of the Torah should be carefully observed. This included 365 negative commands that demanded that the people abstain from behaviors like eating unclean foods or associating with sinners and Gentiles. The Torah also included 248 positive commandments, things we must do, like offering first fruits of the harvest, circumcising male infants, and resting the land during the seventh year. 613 laws of the Torah. That’s a lot of dos and don’ts.

Jesus certainly knew his Torah, but he believed that this rigid interpretation of scripture had become a harsh burden for the people, a burden that defeated the Torah’s intent to bring people closer to God. Jesus argued that a single great commandment fulfilled the heart of the Torah: to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus chose love over law and hoped his friends would, too. Yet Jesus’ critics took one look at his loving choice to break bread with sinners, touch lepers, heal on the Sabbath, and show mercy to tax collectors, prostitutes, and even Gentiles, and they saw only violations of the letter of the law. They labeled Jesus a sinner, drunkard, and glutton. They wanted him, and anyone who followed him, silenced.

I think we can imagine how good it sounded to Jesus’ stressed-out friends when he said to them, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest…. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light and you will find rest for your soul.” We might not be familiar with yokes, but every first century farmer knew that a yoke was an essential tool in managing heavy loads. A yoke is a wooden beam used between a pair of oxen, allowing them to pull together on a load when working as a team.

A carpenter like Jesus would have made yokes regularly. The best yokes were made from a single piece of wood that was light and strong. Roughing out a yoke from a log in those days before bandsaws and power sanders would take a carpenter two days of steady, hard labor. Yokes were custom made and fitted to animals to ensure that the load could be borne across shoulders, chest, and neck without causing friction or harm. An ox, when yoked with a mate in a well-fitted harness, could readily pull loads much too heavy to shoulder alone.

Jesus’ metaphor of the easy yoke and the light burden would have reminded his friends that they were not alone as they contended with difficult experiences that stressed them out and made them feel powerless. In Jesus of Nazareth, God had chosen to enter a world where foreign powers oppress, economic hardship was widespread, and the religious critics were sharpening their knives. Jesus taught his friends that they could face life’s heavy burdens because they had help. In Jesus, they had a yokemate who bore the burden with them and for them. Jesus’ words did not change the difficulties that his friends faced. But all those burdens could be shouldered, just knowing that Jesus, with the power of God Almighty, was right there in the yoke with them.

Perhaps this morning, we who are feeling burdened and stressed by an indifferent government, escalating inflation, and daily horrific reports of gun violence can find comfort in Jesus’ words, too. “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest…. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light and you will find rest for your soul.” The Lord is with us when we are feeling burned out, stressed out, down and out. Jesus invites us to rest in him.

These days, I’m feeling the stress of being caught up in the healthcare system, an experience that many of us have shared. Biopsy results last month determined that I – the picture of health and wellness – have breast cancer. I’m fortunate that it looks like they have caught it early. With surgery and follow-up treatment I should make a full recovery. But it’s scary, feeling like I am at the mercy of health care providers who know nothing about me. It’s overwhelming to ponder the expense. It’s easy to allow my mind to probe the what ifs. What if things don’t go as hoped? Lately, this picture of health and wellness has been feeling more like a poster child for burden and stress. Praise the Lord that Jesus is in the yoke with me and I can count on him to bear the burden.

When a young ox is being trained to work with a yoke, the youngster is always teamed with an older, stronger, and more experienced yokemate. As they pull a heavy load, the younger ox may even lean into its partner, depending on their superior strength, firm footing, and experience. That’s me and Jesus these days. I’m leaning in.

I’ve got to tell you that sharing healthcare news like this isn’t something that I like to do. It’s a little like preaching naked (every pastor’s nightmare). It’s vulnerable and uncomfortable. It’s tempting to keep quiet and simply hope for the best. But I have gained a fresh perspective on today’s scripture reading as I have begun to share my news with others. When you are part of a Christian community like this, it isn’t just you and Jesus in the yoke. There are others who are willing to pull together, to be encouragement, strength, and support as we manage our stress and pull the heavy load. Thanks be to God. I know that you all will be pulling for me.

This week, it’s pretty much guaranteed that something is going to turn the dial way up on our stress. The latest news of climate change will prompt despair over the world we are leaving to our children. Those politicians in Washington will continue to play games at the expense of people like you and me. There will be more mass shootings, and all our thoughts, prayers, and protests won’t seem to outweigh the power of the gun lobby. I’ll have my surgery. The burden will feel heavy and our stress will be high. But we won’t be alone.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened,” Jesus says, “And I will give you rest…. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light and you will find rest for your soul.” May it be so.

Resources:

Sophie Bethune. “Stress in America 2022: Concern for the Future, Beset by Inflation” in the Journal of the American Psychological Association, October 2022. Accessed online at www.apa.org.

Dale Alison. “Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30” in Preaching This Week, July 6, 2008. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Stanley Saunders. “Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30” in Preaching This Week, July 6, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Colin Yuckman. “Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30” in Preaching This Week, July 9, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

International Society for Cow Protection. “How to Make a Yoke” in Ox Power Handbook. Accessed online at https://www.iscowp.org

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

¹⁶“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ¹⁷‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ ¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; ¹⁹the 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.”

²⁵At 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; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All 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. ²⁸“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

A Celebration of National Hymns

July 3, 2023 / reverendjoannwhite / Leave a comment

Sabbath Day Thoughts — “A Celebration of National Hymns” Psalm 100, Gal. 5:13-17, 22-25

On this Independence Day weekend, we share the music and stories of some of our most beloved national hymns. These songs remind us of God’s goodness to us and our calling to be a nation grounded in the holy purpose to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

We begin with “My Country “Tis of Thee,” perhaps the first patriotic hymn that many of us learned in grade school. In fact, it served as an unofficial national anthem for a century until the adoption of “The Star Spangled Banner” in 1931. “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” was written by the Rev. Samuel Francis Smith in 1831 for an Independence Day celebration at Boston’s Park Street Congregational Church.

Smith was a noted Baptist pastor, language professor, editor, and preacher. He was an enthusiast of world missions, serving the Baptist Missionary Union for more than fifteen years. His travels took him to visit missionary outposts in Europe, Turkey, India, Ceylon, and Burma. Smith never retired. At the age of 87, he died suddenly while on his way by train to preach in the Boston neighborhood of Readville. Let us sing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

“We Gather Together” is perhaps the quintessential Thanksgiving hymn. While we may associate it with the memory of pilgrims and Native Americans sharing a harvest meal, the hymn’s origin is quite different. Written by Adrianus Valerius in 1597, the words celebrate the victory of the Dutch in a war of national liberation against the Catholic King Philip II of Spain.

At the Battle of Turnhout (in modern-day Belgium) allied English and Dutch forces launched a surprise attack that routed the Spanish. The enormity of their victory is revealed in the casualties. Of 4,000 Spanish infantrymen, more than 2,000 were killed or wounded. The allies suffered losses of twelve killed and fifty wounded.

We might anticipate that a hymn written in the wake of such a momentous national event would tout the Dutch and English victory. Instead, the song rejoices in the freedom to worship. Under Spanish rule, Protestants had been forbidden to meet together. Freedom from King Philip II brought religious liberty. Let us sing “We Gather Together.”

The words to “This Is My Song” were written as a poem by American poet Lloyd Stone when he was a student at the University of Southern California. Upon graduation, Stone joined the circus and traveled to Hawaii. When the circus left, Stone stayed, making Hawaii his adopted home. He served as a composer and pianist for Kulamanu Studios, taught school, and wrote and illustrated many books of poetry.

In 1934, Ira B. Wilson of the Lorenz Publishing Company set Stone’s words to the hymn-like portion of “Finlandia” by Jean Sibelius. This arrangement was first published under the title “A Song of Peace.” Released in the period between World Wars when tensions were again mounting in Europe, the song struck a national chord of longing for an end to nation lifting up sword against nation.

In 1951, the Hawaii legislature passed a special resolution bestowing upon Stone the honor and title of poet laureate of Hawaii (Ka Haku-Mele O Hawaii). Let us sing “This Is My Song.”

African American author and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson wrote the words to “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for a school assembly in 1990. Booker T. Washington was in attendance and spoke on the occasion of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The music was written by his younger brother, composer J. Rosamond Johnson.

James Weldon Johnson was the first African American admitted to the Florida Bar Exam since the Reconstruction era ended. He was also the first black in Duval County to seek admission to the state bar. In order to be accepted, Johnson had a two-hour oral examination before three attorneys and a judge. He later recalled that one of the examiners, not wanting to see a black man admitted, left the room.

Johnson became a leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917. Under his direction, the NAACP launched legal challenges to the Southern states’ disenfranchisement of African Americans by such legal devices as poll taxes, literacy tests, and white primaries. He also conducted a national campaign to raise public awareness about the widespread practice of lynching. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” became widely popular and has been called the “Negro National Anthem,” a title that the NAACP adopted and promoted. Let us sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

Originally entitled “God of Our Fathers,” our next hymn features words written by Daniel Crane Roberts in 1876. At the time, the thirty-five-year-old Roberts was serving as the rector of St. Thomas & Grace Episcopal churches in Brandon, Vermont. Rev. Roberts wanted a new song for his church to sing to celebrate the American Centennial.

Later, in 1892, Roberts anonymously sent the hymn to the Episcopal General Convention for consideration by the commission formed to revise the Episcopal hymnal. If approved, he promised to send his name. The commission approved it, printing it anonymously in its report. Rev. Dr. Tucker, who was the editor of the Episcopal Hymnal, and George W. Warren, an organist at St. Thomas Church in New York City, were commissioned to choose a hymn for the celebration of the centennial of the United States Constitution in 1892. They chose this text and Warren wrote a new tune for it, “National Hymn,” including the glorious trumpet fanfare at the beginning of the hymn. Let us sing “God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand.”

The “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was written in 1861 by Julia Ward Howe, a leader in women’s rights and an ardent abolitionist. With America plunged into the depths of Civil War, Howe traveled to Washington and toured a nearby Army camp on the Potomac. She heard soldiers singing a tribute to John Brown, hanged in 1859 for leading an insurrection to free the slaves.

Inspired by what she had seen and heard, Howe returned for the evening to her lodging at the Willard Hotel. She woke in the early dawn with the words of this hymn fully formed in her thoughts. She hastily scrawled them on a scrap of paper and returned to sleep, sensing that something of importance had happened.

Howe’s poem was published in February of 1862. Set to music, Howe’s work became the battle hymn of the Union Army’s efforts to again unite the country and put an end to slavery. Let us sing “Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory.”

Our final hymn “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” has been adopted as an anthem by the United States Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Space Force. It was written in 1860 by William Whiting, an Anglican churchman from Winchester, England. Whiting grew up near the ocean and at the age of thirty-five had felt his life spared by God when a violent storm nearly claimed the ship he was travelling on, instilling a belief in God’s command over the sea.

Years later, as headmaster of the Winchester College Choristers’ School, Whiting was approached by a student about to travel to the United States, who confided an overwhelming fear of the ocean voyage. Whiting shared his experiences of the sea and wrote this hymn to “anchor the faith” of his student. In writing it, Whiting was inspired by Jesus stilling the storm and Psalm 107, which describes the power of God to preserve us amid the fury of the sea. Let us sing “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”

Psalm 100

1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Serve the Lord with gladness;
come into his presence with singing.

3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;[a]
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him; bless his name.

5 For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever
and his faithfulness to all generations.

Joann White

writer, pastor, spiritual director, and enthusiast of wild places

Month: July 2023