Jul 09, 2023 |
Sunday Sermon
| The Rev. Jeanne LeinbachSunday Sermon
Let’s go back for a moment to the day we commemorate as Palm Sunday. The last week of Jesus’ life was the week of Passover, a sacred week for the Jewish people when they celebrate their liberation by God from slavery in Egypt. In Jesus’ day, the Roman governors would come to Jerusalem for the major Jewish festivals to instill order. On that first Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt. The crowds gathered and they paved the road with palm branches and they praised God shouting, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” But, while Jesus was riding into Jerusalem from the east on a donkey, Pilate was riding into Jerusalem from the west on a war horse. Banners, drums, armor and weapons flanked Pilate and his soldiers. Pilate’s procession proclaimed imperial power and violence. Jesus’ procession proclaimed peace, the kingdom of God. Just picture the one entrance against the other. How clearer can the message be? With a peaceful certainty, Jesus is standing up to the power of the Roman empire with a message that turns their whole understanding of life upside down: man’s power and might and glory will always fall short of the peace of God.
Listen once again to what we heard from Zechariah this morning. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations.” Zechariah prophesied Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem: man’s power and might and glory juxtaposed with God’s peace.
Scripture describes God’s peace in these well-known, soothing words from this morning’s Gospel: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Most of Jesus’ listeners were farmers, or were well acquainted with farming, so time and again Jesus used farming language to explain the Gospel message, to describe God’s love. A yoke is the wooden beam across the shoulders of oxen, which distributes weight evenly to make it easier for the oxen to carry or pull heavy objects. Jesus says, “My yoke is easy.” A yoke-that is easy is well fitting. What is well-fitting for Jesus? God’s love. Jesus invites us in to God’s love. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke – take God’s love - upon you and you will find rest for your souls.”
Jesus seems most present to us in times of need. I know this is my experience – perhaps it is for you, also. Indeed, the consistent message of the Gospel is about caring for those in need. You might recall the story of Jesus in the synagogue in Nazareth, when he unrolls the scroll and reads, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, [and] to let the oppressed go free.” Jesus came so we would come to know this peace, so we would experience this peace, which emanates from God’s love. He came to give us the peace, which will sustain us through all of life’s challenges. We might be sad, disappointed, uncertain, weary. Jesus is saying, “Turn to me. I am the peace which comforts. “Take my yoke upon you and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus’ message goes further. Too many of us are powerless, marginalized, hungry, thirsty. God’s peace, which sustains us, also gives us the strength to care for others in need, to provide justice and righteousness for all.
I so enjoyed being at John Kennedy’s wedding a little over a week ago. John and Emma were beaming. The wedding was beautiful; they put so much thought into planning the service. John and Emma share a love for Thomas Merton, the great theologian and mystic. On the back of the service bulletin was an excerpt from the book Love and Living, a collection of Merton’s essays and meditations. Though on the back of a wedding bulletin, this meditation on love is about more than romantic love. It is about agape love, transcendent love, which unleashes the fullness of life. Merton writes, “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with one another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own isolated meditations. The meaning of our life is a secret that has to be revealed to us in love, by the ones we love. And if this love is unreal, the secret will not be found, the meaning will never reveal itself, the message will never be decoded.... We will never be fully real until we let ourselves fall in love—either with another human person or with God. Love is the revelation of our deepest personal meaning, value, and identity. But this revelation remains impossible as long as we are the prisoner of our own egoism. I cannot find myself in myself, but only in another. My true meaning and worth are shown to me not in my estimate of myself, but in the eyes of the ones who love me.”
Let us fall in love with God. God’s transcendent love will draw us to one another. We become most fully ourselves through loving others. We are-created to love, to want the best for one another, to want others to be their fullest selves. William Goettler, at Yale Divinity School, writes, “The saving word of the Gospel is best understood when it is located in the midst of the experience of the powerless and the disenfranchised” (Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, p. 214). Jesus told us and showed us over and over again: heal the sick, feed the hungry, deliver the oppressed. Let us turn to Jesus. Let us take up his yoke, find rest for our souls, and so find the strength to strive for justice and peace among all people. Amen.