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The Debt of Love

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “The Debt of Love” Romans 13:8-14

One of my first forays into volunteering as a young adult was with a community mental health association. I served as an advocate for a similarly aged woman whom I will call Kelly. As a small child, Kelly had caught measles and suffered an extremely high fever that left her with brain damage.  Kelly’s social worker hoped that I would be able to help Kelly learn some healthy habits like grooming, housekeeping, managing money, and having responsible relationships. I thought I was going to make a special friend and make a big difference in her life. I was wrong.

On my first visit to Kelly’s apartment, I was surprised to learn that she had a husband Glen, who was also developmentally disabled. Glen dreamed of being a radio DJ and my entire first visit to that very dirty and chaotic apartment was spent trying to talk over blaring music and Glen’s equally loud DJ patter and whoops. When I invited Kelly to take a walk so that we could hear one another, she said she didn’t like walking. This was just fine.

For my second visit, I arranged for us to go out for dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Glen was absent when I arrived, hanging out with some of his guy friends. “This is a big improvement!” I thought. But Tammy didn’t look ready to go. Her hair was greasy and tangled. Her blouse was covered in food stains. Her teeth were yellow with tartar. Her breath was very bad. Maybe this was my opportunity to talk about grooming and personal hygiene. But I didn’t get anywhere. Kelly didn’t like showers or toothbrushing and that was her favorite blouse, which perhaps explained why it was so filthy and smelly. We went out to dinner anyway, my confidence in my ability to be an advocate dropping by the minute.

I wish I could tell you that things got better. I tried gifting Kelly with little care packages of shampoos, shower gels, and toothbrushes. We tried a trip to the salon for a new hairstyle. We made a budget. None of this was well received. About six months into our friendship, Kelly split with Glen. At first, they lived together, but she insisted that they were no longer married. She brought new boyfriends home often. Then, one day Glen was gone. Kelly’s next longtime boyfriend Ralph wasn’t developmentally disabled, but he was old enough to be her grandpa. She began to insist that he come along on all our outings, and Ralph couldn’t keep his hands off of Kelly, even though her hygiene hadn’t improved one bit. When I called Kelly’s social worker to raise concerns about Ralph, I learned that I was being judgmental and that it really wasn’t any of my business. I limped along in my volunteering, trying to be a positive influence, but frankly I failed miserably. Whatever obligation I owed Kelly as her advocate never was truly fulfilled. I felt frustrated and disappointed, and I’m pretty sure that Kelly didn’t even like me.

In our epistle reading, the Apostle Paul described the most essential obligation that we owe to one another: love.  “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”  The Greek word here for owe, opheilo, means to have a moral or financial obligation to another person.  It is easy for us to imagine that we owe the repayment of a loan. It is equally easy for us to remember times that we have felt indebted to others for the kindness that they offered in our time of need.  It’s more difficult to accept the radical message that Paul suggests: we always owe a debt of love to everyone, everywhere, all the time. 

I have taught before that in Greek there are three words for love—eros is romantic love; phile is brotherly love; and agape is love based upon selfless, sincere appreciation and high regard for the other. Agape is a holy love that reverences the image of God imprinted within each of us.  Paul teaches that we owe one another agape, the pure and disinterested love that emerges from the awareness that we are all beloved children of a loving God. Paul is, of course, paraphrasing the essence of Jesus’s ethical teaching, that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength; and we must love our neighbors as we do ourselves.

If you are like me, your head spins with the magnitude of this basic Christian imperative to love.  I think I’ve got it when it comes to loving my family, my friends, and my church, but to owe a debt of pure love to all?  To do no wrong to anyone at any time?  To love the boss who took credit for our initiative, to love the former spouse who abused our trust, to love the neighbor who peddles conspiracy theories and blankets the lawn with political propaganda, to love the Russians, the North Koreans, the terrorists? The very thought is daunting, intimidating, mind blowing. Help us, Paul. Help us, Jesus.

The great Reformed theologian Karl Barth taught that agape is the spiritual relationship with neighbor that is born in our communion with God; agape is the relationship between people that is grounded in the sure and certain knowledge of a loving God.  In agape, we trust that God is at the center of our relationships with one another, and so all our relationships may be charged with the holy. Although we are, indeed, frail and short on love, God is not.  We become capable of selflessly loving one another because God first loves us.

For followers of Jesus, our capacity to love like this is grounded in Christ. God’s love for us is so boundless, so limitless, so deep and wide and wonderful that God would humble Godself to take the form of a simple Jewish tradesman, who was filled with a love so profound that he would suffer the humiliation and agony of death upon a cross to reconcile us with God and one another.  Our ability to love one another springs forth from God’s love for us, and the greatness of that love equips us to be more than we are—more open, more caring, more loving.  God’s love grows within us, summoning us to a loving engagement with the world. 

If I were a young adult back in the DC area again, volunteering with that community mental health association, I’d like to think that I would handle things with Kelly differently. I would let go of the expectations that I should improve her grooming and impart some key lessons in personal hygiene. I might stop trying to bring order to an apartment that looked like a firetrap to me. I would quiet my disapproval of her promiscuity and her interesting choices in men. Instead, I would just try to love Kelly, to see in her the holy image of our infinitely loving God. If all I did was love, maybe Kelly would even like me, but there are no guarantees, and the choice for love is never predicated upon the strings that we might wish to attach.

Loving others selflessly as Paul suggested and Jesus required is hard work. It takes a singular commitment and the daily resolve to love others as God has loved us. Practitioners of mindfulness meditation teach that we can cultivate within ourselves the capacity to love. It takes daily practice, but it’s doable. Perhaps we could even try it right now. Shall we?

We start by acknowledging God’s love for us. Take a moment to bring to your awareness God’s holy love for you, and if anyone is struggling to feel beloved this morning, allow me to be Jesus for you and remind you that you are precious in God’s sight. Feel the love.

Next, we use our imaginations to extend God’s love to others. Look around, my friends, at your neighbors in the pews.  Share that holy love with one another. 

Next, we look beyond the walls of the church to our neighbors in Saranac Lake. Can we imagine love rolling out in waves from the sanctuary this morning as a blessing for the community? Send love forth.

Next, use your imagination to look far into the distance and see the citizens of our world groaning beneath the weight of earthquake in Morocco, or war in Ukraine, or tyranny in North Korea, or hunger in Afghanistan.  Let’s send our agape to the ends of the earth. Let it roll! Can we feel the love?

According to those prayer warriors everywhere, this simple daily discipline can help us to grow in agape. It’s worth a try. What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

The last time I saw Kelly, I had her over to my apartment for dinner. I insisted that Ralph stay home, and at first there was some bad attitude about that. I cooked all Kelly’s favorites: pork chops, green beans, sauerkraut, and stuffing. For dessert, I brought out baked apples, the simplest of sweets, cored and stuffed with brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins. Kelly smiled, showing her terrible teeth. “My Mom made these,” she said, attending to a private memory that lit her up from within. We were letting go of one another, but perhaps on this last visit I had done something right. Perhaps it was a little bit like love.

Resources

Karl Barth. The Epistle to the Romans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953.

David McCabe. “Commentary on Romans 13:8-14” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 10, 2023. Accessed online at workingpracher.org.

Mary Hinkle Shore. “Commentary on Romans 13:8-14” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 4, 2011. Accessed online at workingpracher.org.

Elizabeth Shively. “Commentary on Romans 13:8-14” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 7, 2014. Accessed online at workingpracher.org.

Romans 13:8-14

8Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

11Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

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Stumbling Blocks

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Stumbling Blocks” Matthew 16:21-28

What gets in the way of following Jesus? Faithful people have been debating that for years.

In his first miracle, Jesus may have changed the water into wine, but there are a number of Christian traditions that teach that alcohol and faith are incompatible. Mennonites, Amish, Seventh Day Adventists, Holiness Pentecostals, Wesleyans, the Church of the Nazarene, and a number of Baptist denominations expect their members to practice temperance. The Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr. was well-known as a teetotaler and banned student drinking when he founded Liberty College in the early 1970s. Falwell saw alcohol as a dangerous stumbling block to faithful living, perhaps because his father, Carey Falwell, had been a bootlegger who shot and killed his own brother during a drunken argument.

Some Christian traditions have seen dancing as incompatible with the life of faith. For the first five centuries of Christianity, the church opposed dancing. According to early church leaders and theologians, dance incited idolatry, lust, and damnation. Christians were expected to distinguish themselves from pagans and set an example of pious behavior amid a Greco-Roman culture where dancing was an important part of religious life. Augustine condemned pagan worship for “the rustling of dancers, the loud, immodest laughter of the theater; and voluptuous pleasures that maintained perpetual excitement.” Even Presbyterians took a long time to warm up to dancing. In 1649, the Scots Presbyterian Assembly voiced concern about the “scandall and abuse that arises thorow promiscuous dancing.” They recommended that Presbyteries exert care and diligence in disciplining dancers. Offenders could be fined or made to stand in the “place of repentance” at the front of the church, where they were rebuked during the sermon.

While Catholic churches are well-known for their Bingo and raffle fundraisers, Protestants have long seen gambling as a stumbling block. In the Protestant tradition, games of chance have historically been condemned as an abdication of responsible stewardship and an illicit opportunity for gain that comes at the expense and suffering of others, often the poor. Gambling can also be enslaving. Between 1% and 2% of the U.S. adult population, or 2 to 4 million adults, are compulsive gamblers who struggle with big losses and big debt. Another 3% to 5%, or 5 to 9 million people, will, at some point in their lives, report that their gambling has become problematic. As recently as 2000, the PCUSA reaffirmed its opposition to organized and institutional forms of gambling, and it called upon Presbyterians to refuse to participate in such gambling as a matter of faith and to join efforts to regulate, restrict, and eliminate it.

What gets in the way of following Jesus Christ? Drinking, dancing, gambling? Stumbling blocks abound. Just ask the disciple Peter.

In the verses leading up to today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel, Peter affirmed Jesus as the Messiah and Son of the living God.  For Peter, the title Messiah was packed with promise.  The Messiah was a charismatic leader and military strategist like David, who united the tribes of Israel and defeated the Philistines.  The Messiah was a king like Solomon, who ruled with wisdom and amassed untold wealth and countless concubines.  The Messiah was someone like Judas Maccabeus, who defeated Israel’s Greek occupiers, cleansed the Temple, and purged the nation of foreign influence.  When Peter affirmed Jesus as Messiah, Peter anticipated big changes for Israel.  Peter dreamed of a nation where Jesus ruled instead of Herod.  The yoke of the Roman Empire would be broken, and the purity of religious leadership would be restored.

With expectations like that, it’s little wonder that when Jesus warned his friends of the betrayal, suffering, and death that awaited the Messiah, Peter refused to believe it.  Peter pulled Jesus aside and tried to change his mind.  “Come on, man. A life lived in fidelity to God’s word could never bring such pain!  Surely, God would never allow his Messiah to suffer!  The cross? What’s wrong with you, Lord.” 

But Jesus refused to listen. Indeed, Jesus’ response to Peter’s well-intended counsel was harsh, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”   Peter, who moments earlier had been lauded as the rock upon which a church would be built, learned that his expectations of worldly power, wealth, and military might were a stumbling block.

When it comes to discipleship, the Christian tradition has devoted much energy and enthusiasm to decrying those moral stumbling blocks that keep us from following Jesus, like drinking, dancing, gambling, and more. At its best, that focus on moral stumbling blocks has prized holiness and a life lived in devotion to God.  At its worst, our preoccupation with moral stumbling blocks has made us judge, jury, and executioner of our neighbors. Our attention to the sins of others may even give us feelings of moral superiority and self-righteousness. We imagine that our purity earns us a seat at the table and place in the kingdom to come.  Without question, drinking, dancing, and gambling, when they preoccupy our lives and capture our hearts, are a danger. But I don’t think they are what Jesus had in mind when he brought Peter up short and called him a stumbling block.

Instead, Jesus characterized our stumbling-blocks as a failure to follow.  Peter’s words were a stumbling block because they exhorted Jesus to not follow God’s will for the Messiah. In Matthew’s gospel, discipleship is following. After all, Jesus called his friends with the words, opiso mou, “Follow me.”  Discipleship, following God’s will for humanity, found a blueprint in the life of Jesus. He associated with society’s outcasts. He healed those who were deemed unclean, untouchable, and unwelcome. He cared deeply about feeding hungry people. He spoke uncomfortable truths to power. He taught women and cherished children. If anyone wanted to be a disciple, all they had to do was follow Jesus, even though the cost to prosperity or social standing might be steep, even though it might take people like Peter to the cross.

I suspect that for most of us, our drinking, dancing, and gambling are not what gets in the way of following Jesus. Nor do we share Peter’s assumption that following the Messiah should lead to wealth, influence, political powerful, or military might, although there are plenty of adherents to a prosperity gospel that continues to teach that lie. Instead, our stumbling blocks are mundane and prevalent. We fail to follow because we are busy. We live over-committed, mile-a-minute lives that leave little time for the essentials of discipleship like prayer, worship, and service. If we aren’t too busy, we may think we are ill-equipped or insignificant. We think we don’t have the right words for prayer, we don’t have the right gifts to serve, or the Lord doesn’t need us or want what we have to offer. If we aren’t swept up in busyness or convinced that we don’t matter, we may be frightened about what following entails. It could change our values. It could threaten our priorities. It would get us out of our comfort zone. It might put us face-to-face with people whom we would prefer to keep at a distance. What gets in the way of following Jesus? What keeps us from living discipled lives?

As tough as this scripture lesson may be, there is good news for us this morning. First of all, although Jesus was bound for the cross and most of his disciples would face crucifixion or execution, no one worshipping here today is going to be crucified. That’s something to be celebrated in a world where Christians continue to face persecution and even death for their belief. Next, when we follow Jesus in a life of discipleship, we can trust that he is on the road with us. He is out there ahead of us, showing us what is needed and making a way. Following brings us closer to Jesus, now and forever. A last point, when we follow Jesus in his Way of welcoming, helping, healing, speaking truth, and living in love, we begin to embody his Kingdom, and we make it come alive, here and now. We are transformed, and so is the world around us. We begin to see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom, just as Jesus promised his disciples all those years ago when he invited them to pick up a cross and follow him. The coming Kingdom, that’s something I’d like to see. How about you?

As we go forth into this week, there will be stumbling blocks—drinking, dancing, games of chance, busyness, inadequacy, fear. May we dare follow Jesus. Amen.

Resources:

Bob Smietana. “Report: Jerry Falwell injured in fall while drinking according to 911 call” in Religion News Service, September 17, 2020. Accessed online at https://religionnews.com/2020/09/17/report-jerry-falwell-injured-in-fall-while-drinking-according-to-911-call-libertyuniversity/

Kathryn Dickason. “Why Christianity put away its dancing shoes – only to find them again centuries later” in The Conversation. Accessed online at https://theconversation.com/why-christianity-put-away-its-dancing-shoes-only-to-find-them-again-centuries-later-156369

“Why don’t we dance?” in Christianity, Stack Exchange Network, May 2012. Accessed online at https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/7061/why-dont-we-dance

Presbyterian Mission Agency. “Gambling” in What We Believe: Social Issues. Accessed online at https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/social-issues/gambling/

Richard Ward. “Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28” in Preaching This Week, Sept. 2, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Audrey West. “Commentary on Matthew 16:21-28” in Preaching This Week, August, 30, 2020. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org

Matthew 16:21-28

21From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” 23But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

24Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 27“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. 28Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

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Resist!

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Resist!” Exodus 1:8-2:10

The world needs advocates, people who will dare to resist the powers and work for change.

In 1978, Lois Gibbs was a Niagara Falls housewife. She had two young children with unusual health problems. As Lois talked to neighbors, she learned that many of them were similarly plagued with chronic health issues, including reproductive problems, birth defects, chromosome abnormalities, and leukemia. The land on which their community had been built was the site of an old canal, Love Canal, which the Hooker Chemical Company had used as a dumping ground for chemicals. After the site was filled in, Hooker Chemical gave it to the growing city of Niagara Falls, which allowed housing to be built there. When state officials detected the leakage of toxic underground chemicals into the basements of local homes, Lois Gibbs wondered, Could the illness plaguing her daughters be linked to the leaking chemicals? In need of answers, Lois soon found that no one wanted to admit the truth and there were no watchdog agencies or consumer resources that she could turn to for help.

On May 3, 1980, 13-year-old Cari Lightner was walking to church along a quiet road. She was meeting friends for a carnival but never made it. A car swerved out of control and struck and killed the girl. Police later arrested Clarence Busch in connection with the death. Busch had a long record of arrests for intoxication. In fact, he had been arrested on another hit-and-run drunk-driving charge less than a week earlier. Cari’s grieving mother, Candy Lightner, learned from police that drunk driving was rarely prosecuted harshly, and that the man who killed her daughter was unlikely to spend significant time behind bars. The infuriated Mom decided to take action against what she later called “the only socially accepted form of homicide.”

In 2008, when Malala Yousufzai was eleven years old, the Taliban took control of her town in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The Islamic extremists banned many things: television, music, and education for girls. Malala kept a diary which recorded the events and spoke out against the terrorist regime. When her diary was published by the BBC, the Taliban soon responded with death threats. In 2009, a Taliban gunman boarded the bus that Malala was riding and shot her in the head. She survived and was evacuated to Birmingham England for months of surgeries and rehabilitation. Malala and her family had a new home and a new life in the UK with unlimited educational opportunity. But Malala kept thinking about those other girls, her friends back in the Swat Valley—and in countless places around the world—where education for girls and women was outlawed.

The world needs advocates who will resist the powers and work for change.

Our reading from Exodus grants us a glimpse of two humble women who would outsmart their king and head off genocide. They faced a formidable opponent: Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the Ancient Near East. He ruled over a Mediterranean empire that stretched from Libya to Sudan to Syria at a time when Egypt was at the pinnacle of its economic, military, and cultural power. Pharoah made laws, waged wars, collected taxes, oversaw the land, and dispensed justice. As the Empire’s religious leader, Pharaoh was the divine intermediary between the pantheon of Egyptian gods and the people, a living god on earth who, upon his death, would become fully divine.

When Shiphrah and Puah were summoned to an audience with Pharoah, they knelt before a man who never heard “no.” Even though their calling as midwives made them guardians of life, Pharaoh demanded that they become agents of death. When attending the birth of Hebrew women, the midwives were ordered to murder every boy baby.

Can we imagine the fear, powerlessness, and terror that the midwives must have felt? They had no Midwives’ Union, no ACLU, no powerful political allies who could help them speak back to power. If change was going to happen, they would have to do it themselves.

Shiphrah and Puah were afraid of Pharaoh, but they feared God. Their reverence and devotion to Yahweh gave them the courage to resist.  The two midwives engaged in what Dennis Olson of Princeton Seminary has called “the Bible’s first act of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance.” They went about their work. They coached those laboring mothers through painful contractions, tiresome transitions, and big pushes. They caught those newborn infants, cleared their airways, wiped them clean, and pressed them into their mother’s arms. They welcomed life. And when Pharaoh called them out on the ongoing baby boom among the Hebrew slaves, Shiphrah and Puah covered their tracks by appealing to Pharaoh’s prejudice. “Those Hebrew women aren’t like you refined Egyptians. They’re like animals. They push out their babies long before we arrive to do your bidding.” Those midwives resisted, creating the space for Moses to be born, Moses, who would one day oppose Pharaoh and lead the Israelites out of Egypt to freedom.

The world needs advocates who will dare to resist the powers and work for change.

Back in 1978, Lois Gibbs organized her neighbors to form the Love Canal Homeowners Association. She led her community in a lengthy battle against the local, state, and federal governments. After years of struggle, more than 800 families were eventually evacuated, and cleanup of Love Canal began. Her efforts led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s “Superfund,” used to locate and clean up toxic sites throughout the US. In response to her success at Love Canal, Gibbs received over 3,000 letters from Americans everywhere, requesting information on how they could solve toxic waste problems in their area. Lois founded the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, a grassroots environmental crisis center that has trained thousands of community groups around the nation to protect neighborhoods from exposure to hazardous wastes. Lois Gibbs was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1990 which honors grassroots environmental heroes who take significant action for our planet. 45 years after Love Canal, Lois is still resisting.

Candy Lightner, the bereaved mother of that 13-year-old child killed by a drunk driver, stood up to the injustice of a world that turned a blind eye to drunk driving. She founded MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. She began lobbying California’s governor, Jerry Brown, to set up a state investigative task force. In 1981, California passed a law imposing minimum fines of $375 for drunk drivers and mandatory imprisonment of up to four years for repeat offenders. President Ronald Reagan later asked Candy to serve on the National Commission on Drunk Driving. In July 1984, she stood next to Reagan as he signed a law reducing federal highway grants to any state that failed to raise its drinking age to 21. By the following year, all 50 states had tightened their drunk-driving laws. By 2000, the 20th anniversary of MADD’s founding, alcohol-related fatalities had dropped nationally by some 40 percent, and states with the toughest drunk-driving laws were beginning to treat alcohol-related fatalities as murder.

On Malala Yousufzai’s 16th birthday in 2013, she spoke in support of education for girls at the United Nations. Later that year, she published her first book, an autobiography entitled I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. In 2014, through her non-profit Malala Fund, she began traveling the world and advocating for girls in Jordan, Syria, Kenya, Nigeria and beyond. At age 17, she became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance speech, Malala said, “This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education. It is for those frightened children who want peace. It is for those voiceless children who want change.” Time Magazine has named her one of the 100 most influential voices in the world. She remains a staunch advocate for the power of education and for girls to become agents of change in their communities.

The world needs advocates who will resist the powers, get into good trouble, and work for change, holy change, change that will nudge this hurting world a little closer to God’s Kingdom. Could it be you?

Resources:

Kimberly D. Russaw. “Commentary on Exodus 1:8-2:10” in Preaching This Week, August 27, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Karla Suomala. “Commentary on Exodus 1:8-2:10” in Preaching This Week, August 27, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Dennis Olson. “Commentary on Exodus 1:8-2:10” in Preaching This Week, August 24, 2008. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Christopher Eames. “Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?” in Let the Stones Speak, March-April 2023. Accessed online at https://armstronginstitute.org/882-who-was-the-pharaoh-of-the-exodus

History editors. “MADD founder’s daughter killed by drunk driver,” in History, April 30, 2021. Accessed online at https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/madd-founders-daughter-killed-by-drunk-driver

The Goldman Environmental Prize. “Lois Gibbs, 1990.” Accessed online at  https://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/lois-gibbs/#recipient-bio

–. Malala Yousafzai – Biographical. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Sat. 26 Aug 2023. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2014/yousafzai/biographical/&gt;

Exodus 1:8-2:10

8Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. 12But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, 14and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.

15The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16“When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” 17But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 19The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. 21And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”

2Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.

5The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. 7Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

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Battered by the Waves

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Battered by the Waves” Matthew 14:22-33

Researchers from the American Enterprise Institute, the University of Chicago, and the Pew Research Center have been studying the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on churches. They have found that Americans are now going to church less. 20% of church folks say they are now less likely to show up on Sunday mornings. Indeed, in most congregations, those who are “infrequent attenders,” only coming to church a few times each year, are the largest membership group.  Those numbers are highest for mainline Protestant churches, where 51% of members are what we affectionately call C & E (Christmas and Easter) people. Americans who are least likely to attend church are young adults under thirty. 72% of them say that they have not attended church, either online or in-person, since the onset of the pandemic.

The overall decline in attendance comes at a time when many congregations were already struggling. According to a study by Faith Communities Today, even before the pandemic, the median congregation size in the United States had dropped from 137 people in 2000 to 65 people in 2020. That study also found that Americans who attend worship services are more likely to attend large congregations, leaving smaller local churches in difficult straits. Even churches that remained vital through that twenty-year pre-pandemic decline are now reporting that COVID brought a big drop in volunteerism that has yet to rebound. 40% of church attendees volunteered before the pandemic. Nowadays, those who share their time and talents have fallen to a meager 15%.

Author, speaker, and America’s most trusted commentator on religion and contemporary spirituality, Diana Butler Bass believes that the decline in church attendance and service is part of a larger societal shift. Bass says that even before the pandemic, Americans were experiencing a loneliness crisis, with fewer spending time with friends or participating in social, civic, or religious activities. Whether prompted by the rise of social media, or our mile-a-minute culture, or the polarization of American society along lines of politics, race, and economics, many have lost the habits and skills of being social, like making friends and creating community.

That may sound like a perfect opportunity for churches, but Bass reports that, “Churches haven’t really figured that out.” We think and say we are friendly, but we aren’t really. We don’t see the cultivation of friendships and congregational fellowship as vital to our spiritual life and an essential part of our calling as followers of Jesus, who called his disciples his friends.  That must be why when we observe a “Bring a Friend to Church Sunday,” no one does.

One thing is clear. Churches are feeling battered by the waves of this post-pandemic world. Some congregations are bailing like crazy and hunkering down against the strong winds of change. Even so, it feels like disaster looms on the horizon. It’s just a matter of time before the boat is swamped and the waters roll in.

Our gospel lesson reminds us that the disciples knew how it felt to battle the elements in a small boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus fed the 5,000 and then sent his disciples on ahead of him, across the water, while he went up the mountain to pray. As the disciples headed out to sea, their smooth sailing gave way to troubled waters.  Adverse winds blew in and whipped the waves high. Soon the disciples, even the seasoned mariners, were struggling to keep afloat. The last time they were in this predicament, Jesus was on board to still the storm. But now, Jesus was far behind on the shore and the disciples faced the storm alone. 

They must have been near exhaustion in the early morning hours when they noticed a hazy shape on the horizon, emerging from the weather and dark.  Matthew says that the disciples were terrified by the specter. The Greek word here – etaraxthaesan – means to experience very great mental distress and physical anguish: hearts thumping, guts churning, minds racing, a full-blown panic.  Not one of the frightened crew thought beyond disaster to possibility. Not one reassured his companions that this could be Jesus and not a ghost.

The trouble with all those scary numbers and polls is that they can leave us as frightened and overwhelmed as the disciples were. We forget the skills we have, skills that have kept the church afloat for two millennia, through disaster, hardship, plague, Inquisition, Reformation, and persecution. We lose our ability to think creatively, so we cling fiercely to what feels familiar and comfortable. We don’t take risks and try new things like sending home-made cookies and garden-grown flowers out to a lonely world that hungers for connection and love. All our attention ends up focused on the storm instead of on the one who walked upon the water. We see only the problem and not the possibility.

I like to imagine that when Jesus came down the mountain after his time of prayer, he stood on the lakeshore. He felt the wind tugging at his robe. He saw the water whipped into whitecaps. On the horizon, many stadia away, he saw the little boat, and he knew that his friends were in trouble. So, Jesus did the impossible. He tapped into that holy and almighty power that formed a world out of watery chaos and he stepped out upon the water. He made a bee-line for his struggling friends. Within hailing distance of the boat, Jesus shouted words of encouragement, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

It is I, ego eimi, is better translated as “I am.”  Jesus stood in the midst of the wind and the waves and invoked the great and ancient name that God used when speaking to Moses from the burning bush: I AM.  “Take heart!” Jesus told his panicky friends, “The great I AM is here, now.”

I suspect that, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid,” is precisely the message that the post-pandemic church most needs to hear. Those surveys and statistics about declining numbers and fewer volunteers are a lot like rising winds. Those findings about growing isolation and alienation in our post-modern society can feel like stormy weather. It’s hard not to feel daunted by what worries and scares us. But obsessing about the numbers or despairing over changing social realities is a little like the anxious disciples despairing in the boat.

It’s a little like Peter, fearing the wind instead of taking the holy hand held out to him.  I like to point out that when Jesus called to Peter, “Come,” the Lord didn’t still the storm. He didn’t rebuke the wind or quiet the water. Instead, Peter had to step out into the chaos. The waves churned beneath his feet. The wind swept his hair in front of his eyes. He felt the watery spray against his cheek. Even so, Peter did just fine as long as he kept his eyes on the prize. So can we.  Jesus is with us amid the post-pandemic chaos. The Lord is here to encourage and comfort us amid nationwide declining attendance and dwindling volunteerism. Jesus can speak peace to our trembling hearts and stretch out a strong hand to save when we are in over our heads and feeling overwhelmed.

If you are a church wonk like me, then you know that the central portion of the sanctuary, where you are seated in the pews, is called the church’s nave. That name is from the Latin word navis, which means ship. In the early days of Christianity, the most commonly used symbol for the church was the ship. In fact, in a number of languages, including Danish, Swedish, Dutch, and Spanish, the same word is used for a ship and the church nave—skib, skepp, schip, nave. If we were to worship in a Nordic or Baltic church this morning, we would even see a model ship hanging in the nave, a nod to that ancient symbol for the church.

If you take a look at the vaulted, wooden ceiling of this church, you’ll notice that it looks a lot like a boat. And if you consider the stained-glass windows, you’ll see that on one side of our nave someone had the forethought to give us an anchor, representing faith to steady us in rising seas.  And at the other end of the nave, they gave us a cross, the symbol of Christ our Lord, to guide us when the waves rise and the way seems dark. Here we are, all together in our little boat.

If we listen closely this morning, we might hear it above the winds that blow. Beyond the surveys and statistics, Jesus calls, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Look out to the horizon, beyond the problems. Look out to where the Lord waits. Look out for the possibilities are endless.  Amen.

Resources

Nicholas Schaser. “Commentary on Matthew 14:23-33” in Preaching This Week, August 13, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Carla Works. “Commentary on Matthew 14:23-33” in Preaching This Week, August 10, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Mar G.V. Hoffman. “Commentary on Matthew 14:23-33” in Preaching This Week, August 7, 2011. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Bob Smietana. “Church attendance declines as pandemic enters year three” in The Christian Century, Jan.  9, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.christiancentury.org/article/news/church-attendance-declines-pandemic-enters-year-three.

Justin Nortey and Michael Rotolo. “How the Pandemic Has Affected Attendance at U.S. Religious Services” a Report of the Pew Research Center, March 28, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2023/03/28/how-the-pandemic-has-affected-attendance-at-u-s-religious-services/

Adelle M. Banks. “New study examines how COVID has changed churches” in The Christian Century, Dec. 15, 2021. Accessed online at https://www.christiancentury.org/article/news/new-study-examines-how-covid-has-changed-churches

Matthew 14:22-33

22Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. 27But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” 28Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” 29He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. 30But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 32When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

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Come to the Table

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Come to the Table” Matthew 14:13-21

On July seventeenth, Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Deal, which safeguarded Ukraine’s export of wheat, corn, barley, and sunflower oil. The Russians have launched a series of subsequent attacks on grain supplies in key Ukrainian cities, like the July 21st bombing in Odessa that destroyed 60,000 tons of grain, enough to feed 270,000 people for a year. Ukrainian farmers grow 10% of the world’s wheat exports, 15% of the corn, 13% of the barley, and more than 50% of the world’s sunflower oil.  57% of those exports go to developing countries in Africa and Asia. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that Russia is doing something unconscionable: weaponizing food. Beyond the violence and politics, concern looms of a global food crisis spurred by the cut in exports and the consequent surge in grain prices.

Hunger is on the rise around the world after a decade of decline. There are 783 million hungry people in our world.  Between 2019 and 2022, the number of undernourished people grew by 150 million. 14 million children suffer from severe acute malnutrition. They experience stunted growth, cognitive impairment, and a host of other hunger-related crises. The hungriest place on the planet today is Afghanistan, where 90% of the people live in poverty and six million are starving.

Hunger is on the rise in our country. With the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, food supports like free school lunches for children and increased SNAP benefits for families have ended. Add to those diminished benefits the rapid inflation of food prices and the result is more hungry neighbors. The most recent Household Pulse Survey by the Census Department found that in June 26.5 million Americans were living in food-insecure households. That means that meals were skipped or skimpy because the cupboard was bare. That poll reflects a 12% increase from a year ago. Nationwide, use of food pantries is up 22%. If you talk to any of our Food Pantry volunteers, they’ll tell you that the number of local households needing emergency help is also on the rise.

Our reading from Matthew’s gospel is all about feeding hungry people. Jesus had retreated to a wilderness place to mourn the death of his cousin John the Baptist, but the crowds followed him. Moved with compassion by their need for his help, Jesus jettisoned his plans for quiet prayer time and spent the day healing his neighbors. As the day drew to a close, the disciples saw a looming crisis: hungry people. With only enough resources to barely feed themselves, the disciples resolved to send the crowd away. Let them go to the neighboring towns, they implored Jesus, so that they can find food.

With two millennia of insight, it’s tempting for us to roll our eyes at those disciples, who never seem to truly understand what Jesus is trying to teach them. But the hunger of our local and global neighbors can feel as daunting for us as that hungry crowd was for Jesus’ friends. We read the headlines about Ukrainian grain stores bombed into oblivion and we feel shocked and powerless. We hear those statistics about growing world hunger and starving Afghanis, and we feel overwhelmed. We read about inflation and rising food prices and we say, “Tell me about it. Have you seen what has happened to our household budget?” World hunger is demoralizing. Our resources are too meager. Our vision is too limited. Wouldn’t it be easier to send everyone away? Or wouldn’t it be great if someone else stepped up to deal with this mess?

Jesus reminded his friends that the buck stopped there when it came to hungry people. After all, God was passionate about feeding the hungry. God had rained bread from heaven, brought forth water from the rock, and sent quails into the camp to sustain the hungry Israelites in the wilderness. Later, through the Prophet Ezekiel, God had condemned as bad shepherds the selfish leaders who live in abundance but failed to nurture and nourish their human flocks. According to God through the words of the Prophet Isaiah (58:7), sharing our bread with the hungry is an act of worship, a sign of our devotion to the Almighty. In feeding the hungry, those who dare to keep the faith are pursuing the passion of God, even as they anticipate the coming of God’s Kingdom.  “You feed them,” Jesus told his friends.

This church has long understood that to be a child of God and a follower of Jesus summons us to engage the hunger of our world head-on. When we bring monthly food contributions to the pack basket at the side entrance or share our spare change in the 2-cents-a-meal offering, we are pursuing God’s passion. When we grow healthy vegetables and beautiful flowers in the church garden and when we lace up our sneakers to walk and raise funds in the CROP Walk, we are engaging in acts of worship that are pleasing to God. When we open our church doors to provide a home for the Saranac Lake Interfaith Food Pantry, we are honoring Jesus’ command. We are living into those words that Jesus spoke to fearful and overwhelmed disciples in the wilderness, “You feed them.”

The disciples didn’t have enough. Five paltry barley loaves. Two small dried fish. It was a meager meal for one humble family at best.  It was against their better judgment—and in spite of their growling bellies—to place that inadequate fare in the hands of Jesus. I suspect that it took a leap of faith. It demanded the acknowledgment that although they couldn’t see the vision or imagine a changed future, Jesus could—and they could trust in that. Filled with questions and worry, they gave what they had to Jesus. Lo and behold! As the bread was blessed and broken and shared, the unimaginable happened. Truly and impossibly, everyone ate. There was more than enough.

I don’t have a solution for the broken Black Sea Grain Deal. I can’t end the war and drought in Ethiopia that have unleashed the specter of famine. I can’t oust the Taliban and reverse the economic catastrophe that is Afghanistan. But I trust that when we place our limited resources in the hands of Jesus, something improbable and life-changing happens. All our little bits make a big difference when they are blessed and shared in pursuit of God’s passion. The hungry are fed. There can be more than enough.

This morning, we share a simple meal together. We feast at the Lord’s Table. Bread will be broken. The cup will be blessed. This communion remembers the Lord who fed hungry people with a miracle of multiplied loaves and fish. This communion remembers the Lord who did not count the cost in giving of himself for the salvation of God’s people. This communion also looks ahead to that bountiful feast in the Kingdom of God, when all will be fed and satisfied. This communion is a call to action, here and now, so that the hungry and hungry of heart may be fed.

“You feed them,” the Lord instructs disciples who feel short on both resources and inspiration. May we have the courage to place ourselves in Jesus’ hands and go forth to be bread for this hungry world.

Resources

Jennifer Kaalund. “Commentary on Matthew 14:13-21” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 6, 2017. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18/commentary-on-matthew-1413-21-6

Warren Carter. “Commentary on Matthew 14:13-21” in Preaching This Week, Aug. 6, 2017. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18/commentary-on-matthew-1413-21-6

Jennifer Hansler. “Concerns Mount Over Potential for Food Crisis Amid Russian Moves to Cripple Ukrainian Grain Exports” in CNN Politics, July 27, 2023. Accessed online at www.cnn.com.

Leah Douglas. “US Hunger Rates Rise as Pandemic Aid Ends, Data Shows” in Reuters US News, June 28, 2023. Accessed online at ww.reuters.com/world/us.

World hunger facts are from Action Against Hunger. Accessed online, July 28, 2023 at actionagainsthunger.org.

Matthew 14:13-21

13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

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Sighs Too Deep for Words

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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.

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Friendship Days at Akwesasne

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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.

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Weeds among the Wheat

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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!

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I Am a Firefly

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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.

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Easy and Light

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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.”