Sermon: Praying in the Spirit (July 26, 2020)

Full service here.

Pentecost 7A

July 26, 2020

Romans 8:26-39

INTRODUCTION

           This is the last week we’ll be hearing from Matthew’s parable discourse, and, like the finale of a 4^th of July fireworks show, Jesus will give us one parable after another – bam, bam, bam! In this series of short parables, Jesus will use several everyday images to help us understand what the kingdom of God is like. Yet when he asks his disciples if they’ve understood these things, and they say, “Yes” – I call their bluff! Each short parable is so dense and complex to unpack, they couldn’t possibly have understood it all! That said, perhaps they can best be summarized in this way: God’s kingdom shows up even in small, ordinary, and often unexpected ways.

         Perhaps that is why this Gospel is paired with Solomon’s prayer for wisdom. King Solomon is best known for his surpassing wisdom, and today’s reading shows us when and why he was given this gift. A prayer for wisdom is one I think we all could stand to offer, during a time when so many unknowns make it near impossible to make wise choices! Thankfully, we will also hear today this beautiful portion of Romans 8, in which we are assured that whatever hardship comes our way, nothing can separate us from the love of God, and that the Spirit is praying with us and for us through it all, with “sighs too deep for words.”

         There’s a lot of good news in our texts today. So whatever burden or trouble you may be carrying today, I pray that these texts can bring some relief to it. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

            In her book, Souls Raised from the Dead, Christian author Doris Betts tells a story about driving down the highway in North Carolina. As she drove, she saw a bunch of highway patrol men on the side of the road. She could see that a chicken truck had run off the road and broken apart, and chickens were everywhere. The driver was running around trying to capture what chickens he could, some people were trying to steal the chickens, and there was chicken blood everywhere. You can imagine it was a scene as horrific as it was hilarious, as the patrolman was trying to bring some order to the chaos. Betts observes: That’s us. We are that patrolman. In the middle of life’s chaos and horror and humor, we try to bring order, meaning, and stability.

            There are many ways we try to do this, but one way we do, is through prayer – seeking peace in the midst of chaos, wisdom in the midst of confusion, and guidance in the midst of craziness. In my personal prayer life, I have felt a bit like that patrolman these past few months. Watching the virus continue to ravage parts of the country as numbers of cases and deaths shoot ever higher. Racism and white supremacy, and drastic tactics made to try to stifle people’s voices and concerns. The end of some benefits that have been helping people stay fed and keep their homes. The fear and anxiety of parents and educators, as we all anticipate how to hold school this year in a situation with no right answer. Ever-deepening partisanship. Not to mention the personal pains and losses – sick loved ones we cannot visit in the hospital, strained and broken relationships, addiction, mental illness, loss of connection, deaths of people we love.  

            As I have tried to pray for all of these things, I have felt like that patrolman, wanting so badly to help, to bring some sense of calm and order to a world that seems to have spun out of control. But even as I try to pray, whether while I’m driving, or in the quiet of the morning or before bed, I often find I am at a loss. No words are enough. And even if words were enough, I don’t always know what words to pray! Some of these situations are so complicated and have so many different sides, so even if I could be sure that whatever I pray will come to pass, I’m not always sure what outcome is the best!

            In times like this, when the words of prayer escape me, I am grateful for Paul’s words this morning in Romans. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness,” he says. “For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” I just love this image. I love that although I know God delights in my prayers, God also doesn’t let me just flounder around helplessly with no direction. I picture putting myself out there, vulnerable and in need, and the Spirit swooping in under me, holding, even cradling me securely, and saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this for you.”

            But I also love that even the Spirit doesn’t use real words, but rather “sighs too deep for words.” When you think about it, what better prayer is there than that? What better prayer of lament than someone’s gut-wrenching sob? What better prayer of thanksgiving than uncontrolled laughter? What better prayer of praise than a toddler’s squeal of delight? Mere utterances, with no verbal language behind them, are perhaps the most creaturely prayer of all – even as they are also the most divine.

Prayer is that way, too. When words escape us, our sighs and sounds are enough. That is how the Spirit prays on our behalf, and that is how we can pray in the Spirit. We are released from the demand we may put on ourselves to pray beautifully worded prayers, as if God will somehow hear and understand those better, and respond more readily. God doesn’t need those beautiful words – our breath, our deep sighs, are plenty to get the point across.

Something else happens when we so intentionally consider our breath to be our prayer: it connects us to one another. With a deadly virus floating around, spreading through our aerosols and breath, we’ve started thinking about sharing air as a bad thing – no singing together, no shouting, no playing wind instruments, nothing that requires sharing too much air with too many people. But in reality, there is no way to avoid sharing breath. The air we breathe, the air that makes us produce those sighing prayers, is truly a shared commodity, and in that way, it is unifying. It is common to all of us. And just as we say that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Breath, gathers us together and makes us one body, one Church, our deep breaths do this, too. In this way, every breath, every prayer, that we pray for ourselves, is for someone else, and every breath we pray for someone else, we pray for ourselves.

It reminds me of a Martin Luther King, Jr. quote I’ve seen a lot lately: that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” If any of us suffers injustice, none of us enjoy the peace and justice that God intends for us. If you’ve paid any attention to the protests happening in response to George Floyd’s murder, you’ve seen signs that say, “I can’t breathe.” These, of course, refer to Mr. Floyd’s last words, as the officer kneeled on his neck. I’ve been very moved to see these signs, because it reminds me that breath really does connect us – and if one can’t breathe, we all are with that person, even if it means that we must then use our breath, our prayers in the Spirit, to pray and stand up for those who have no breath. The Spirit’s breath connects us. For we all share the pains and sorrows of this world, though they may take different forms for each of us. With the Holy Spirit, we pray as one body, one breath, sighing deeply for all the earth.

And of course, when we pray in the Spirit, with deep, Spirit sighs, not only are we connected to one another, we are connected to Christ, who is our head and our life. At Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit came down on him like a dove, and that same Spirit came on each of us in our baptism, just as the Spirit will in a moment for Bobby. And so all of us – you, me, Bobby, Jesus – all of us are a part of each other: one Body, one Breath. It is because of that, as Paul so powerfully states at the end of today’s reading, that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor 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.”

That love promised to us through all things… is in every breath – every breath inhaled for life, every breath uttered as prayer for ourselves or another, every breath that contains the smell of this beautiful earth, every breath that produces laughter or weeping or song or stillness. Every breath is the breath of the Spirit, interceding on our behalf, sighing prayers for us and for this world that are too deep for words.

As we close in prayer, I invite you simply to breathe deeply. I don’t think we do enough of that. (And, in the absence of being together in the flesh, I want to be sure you are actively participating at home, so put down your cup of coffee and do this with me!) We are going to take some time this morning simply to breathe deeply, all the way to our toes, trusting that with each deep breath, each sigh, we are praying with and being filled by the Holy Spirit. While we breathe, think about something or someone in need of prayer, maybe even yourself, as you inhale and exhale. If you have others in your house with you, consider putting a hand on the back of the person next to you so you can feel their breath, or even breathe together. Our breath, and the Breath of the Spirit, shall be our closing prayer. Let us pray.

Several seconds of silent breathing… In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Evil, the Enemy, and God (July 19, 2020)

View the full service here. Sermon starts about 35:10.

Pentecost 7A
July 19, 2020

Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Romans 8:12-25

INTRODUCTION

         Today we continue through Matthew’s parabolic discourse, this series of parables. Remember last week I mentioned that Matthew has set up his Gospel with five discourses – the first is Sermon on the Mount (instructions for faith), the second is the missionary discourse (instructions for the apostles proclaiming the kingdom of God), and now we are into the parable discourse, which will teach us some truths about God. Today’s story is the parable of the wheat and the weeds, in which an enemy sows weeds among the good seed, and the farmer tells the workers not to pull the weeds, but to wait until the harvest, when all will be sorted out. This powerful parable, along with the other readings today, bring up some tough questions about evil – where it comes from and why it is among us. Each reading offers a directive that brings us both comfort and discomfort: wait. God’s got this under control. Evil and suffering will, finally, come to an end. “Hope for what you do not see,” Paul urges in our reading from Romans, “and wait for it with patience.”

         In the midst of so many unknowns in our world, that “wait and see” message can be a difficult one to hear. But friends, do hear it today. And try to find in it some comfort and solace for the uncertainty before us, as we wait with patience “for the glory about to be revealed to us.” Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         On this day, July 19, 2020, the economic recession and high unemployment is still an issue. Racism is still an issue. How the US is dealing (or not) with the rapidly rising numbers of Covid-19 cases is still very much an issue. But the issue that I have heard more about this week than any of those is the question of what to do about opening schools in the fall. Guidelines from the NY Department of Health came out on Monday. All week (and for the past few weeks) I have seen roughly a zillion posts on social media about the myriad concerns at play: health of students, teachers and staff; the particular needs of at-risk students who lack resources, or who depend upon in some cases life-saving services the school provides; for parents the balance of work and childcare. On Tuesday I received a survey from our school district asking about our hopes, needs, and preferences for the fall. When I opened it the first time, I could feel my chest tighten as anxiety crept into my heart. The realization hit so hard that: there is no right or just answer here. Each solution brings up another problem. Every possibility puts someone at risk, and most often the ones who lose the most are those who started at greater risk, namely, the poor and those with special needs. Every bad weed we try to pull out of this mess, we inevitably pull up some good wheat with it.

         The wheat and the weeds. I have a real love-hate relationship with this parable. On the one hand, it seems straightforward enough: leave the judgment to God. You do you, and let God do God. Everything will work out. Nice enough message. But on the other hand, it makes me feel very stuck and helpless, because it clearly names that evil is real and it is among us, but also tells us, “Don’t do anything about it right now.” Paired with the Romans text, a beautiful text that I love about waiting in hope and patience, this message about waiting is an especially difficult one to hear right now.

         Because friends: I’m tired of waiting! I’m done being in limbo. I’m done not knowing what to expect out of school this year, and it hasn’t even started! I’m done waiting for racial justice just to magically happen. I’m done waiting to see how bad (or how long) this pandemic will really be. I’m done waiting to see if the economy will recover, if people will be able to make rent, if we will ever travel again, if I’ll have to wait yet another year to see my parents or my brother’s family. I’m done “waiting for what I do not see with patience,” as Paul says, because I already do see some things, I’ll tell ya what, I do not like it! I don’t want a parable today about waiting for God. I want a parable that says, “Okay, Johanna, here’s what you have to do next. Here’s how you can safely get some of the bad stuff out and leave only the good stuff.” Where is that parable?

         Of course, that is first of all not the purpose of parables. That was what Jesus was doing in the first two discourses: he gave instructions for living a life of faith. Now, Jesus has turned to teaching us about who God is and how God works. And it turns out, black and white certainty about every situation is not how God or faith work. If we could peg God and know exactly everything, if our human minds could comprehend that, what kind of God would that be? One with enough limits to fit inside the human mind? No instead, ours is a faith full of paradox: God is one in three, and three in one; Jesus is fully human and fully divine; we are justified by grace through faith alone, and also faith without works is dead; we are simultaneously saint and sinner, at once freed from sin and captive to sin. It’s a wonder any of us can sleep at night with all this uncertainty!

         I find some relief in recognizing that it is not the purpose of this parable to provide certainty, nor to tell us what, specifically, to do about evil. If I can put aside that expectation, I can instead focus on what this parable can show us – about faith even as we struggle, and about God’s faithfulness in the face of evil.

         So with that focus, what can we learn from the wheat and the weeds? The first thing I hear from this parable is this important truth: Yes, there is evil in the world, but no, God did not put it there. We must acknowledge that there is evil about, and it is a real force whose goal is to turn us away from the God of life. There is an enemy, as Jesus calls it. Did you notice that line? The workers say, “Didn’t you sow good seed? Where’d the weeds come from?” and the master’s ominous response is, “An enemy has done this.” In other words, this evil is not of God. God never wills evil. Despite many common platitudes, such as, “God has a plan…” or, “God will reveal his purpose…”, evil is not a part of God’s plan. It never was – remember, God created all things good.

That said, God can and does always use the evil we face to bring about God’s purpose. God is always powerful enough to overcome the evil and use it for good. Let me tell you a real-life example: we have been praying each week in worship for Chelsea Ellis, who is the 30-year-old niece of Tim and Linda Jackson. Chelsea is a vibrant young woman who works with refugees, has done missions in 13 different countries, leads Bible studies out of her home, and whose dearest hope in life is to bring people to Christ. On April 15, she was walking down the sidewalk and was struck by a police car responding to what turned out to be a phony call. She was thrown 58 feet and sustained injuries generally incompatible with life – including what appeared to be a severely damaged brain stem. Yet God spared her life. She is currently unable to move anything below her neck, is on a ventilator, and has had several setbacks in the past three months, but she keeps recovering, and each day God brings about more miracles in her healing. She is now in rehab, learning to talk, swallow, stand, and move her wheelchair around with her eyes. She intends to play her guitar again soon, and has every intention of walking, singing, and dancing once again. More importantly, you cannot believe the number of people who have expressed that, through their encounters and interactions with her and her story during her recovery, they have come to see and know God in ways they never had before. People are coming to Jesus through her story. No matter what roadblocks “the enemy” throws in her way, God is finding ways to overcome them – and not just barely, but in huge, miraculous ways!

God did not put Chelsea in the path of the police car. That was the enemy. God does not cause the various infections she’s endured. That is the enemy. What God does is show Chelsea, and the thousands of people around the world who are following her story, that evil is not more powerful than God. (See Chelsea's Go Fund Me page here to participate in her recovery.)

No more profoundly do we see this than in the very central story of our faith, the story of the cross. Evil put Jesus on a cross. Evil mocked him and flogged him and left him for dead. But God did not let that be the end. God turned even that horrific evil into the promise of and the gateway to new life. The cross is testimony that evil is real, but that it is not powerful enough to overcome God. God always wins. That is who God is. For all the uncertainty in the world, and all the paradox, and all the gray area, this is sure: that in the end, God will always win over evil.

I do still wish I had a parable to instruct us about how exactly to address the pandemic, and racism, and recession, and what on earth to do about school in the fall. But that is not the role of this parable. The role of this parable is to assure us that God has got all of this under control. It urges us to name evil for what it is and to acknowledge its presence among us. It does not grant us the power to decide for ourselves who or what is wheat and weed (that’s God’s job), but it does encourage us to live our lives knowing what is expected in a life of faith – to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God – to live that life trusting always that whatever ways we try and fail to live the faithful life to which we are called, God will win in the end. God will sort out the evil from the good, burn it in the fire, and welcome us into eternal light and life.

Let us pray… Victorious God, we get discouraged when it seems that evil is overcoming good, and we long for the time of waiting to end. Grant us patience and hope, and the assurance that whatever evil crosses our path, it will never be more powerful than you. Help us remember that you will win, every time. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: Reckless Sower (July 12, 2020)

Full service is here. Sermon starts around 34:30.

Pentecost 6A

July 12, 2020

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

INTRODUCTION

         Of the four Gospel, the Gospel of Matthew is the most meticulously organized. One feature of his Gospel is that during this middle part of the Gospel, Matthew sets up five distinct discourses. The first is one of the best-known and often-quoted parts of the New Testament, the Sermon on the Mount, which outlines the basic tenets of Christian faith. Then we get what we’ve been hearing the past few weeks: the missionary discourse, instructions for the twelve apostles as they are sent out to proclaim the good news of the kingdom. Today we begin the third discourse, the “parabolic discourse” – for the next few weeks, we’ll be hearing a lot of parables.

         So to set this up, let me ask you: what is a parable? Parables in the Bible are stories that teach us something about God. The word in Greek literally means, “throw alongside,” so often what you’ll see is something very common thrown alongside something else to help us understand that latter thing better. Today’s parable, for example, is the parable of the sower – an everyday image of planting, used to show us how the Word of God takes root for us. As you listen to it, think about which aspect of the story resonates with you – is it the sower, the seed, the birds, or one or more of the four types of soil?

         Our first reading and Psalm are chosen to echo the planting image. Isaiah offers a poetic vision for a people in exile. He describes how all of creation praises and celebrates God for the ways God’s word waters and nourishes its growth. As you listen to that one, just hear the hope in it. Hear the joy. Let it be in this fearful times a word of hope, joy and peace for you, one that replenishes your soul.

Finally, in Romans, Paul will talk about what brings life, and what brings death. Listen for where you might find life these days. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

         The other day, my sweet family and I were sitting around the dinner table, sharing with each other things that we love about each other. I love Isaac’s kindness. Isaac loves that Daddy plays cars with him. Daddy loves Grace’s creativity. When it came time for Grace to say what she loves about me, she said, “I love that Mommy teaches me about planting things.”

         It’s true: during this quarantine, I decided to take the gift of time stuck at home together, and teach the kids about growing things. We read some books, we got some seeds and soil and celebrated when each little sprout poked through the dirt, we planted flowers from seed, and some flowers that were already blooming… but friends, I have to confess something. Despite Grace’s affirmation, I’m actually terrible at planting. The vegetable seeds we planted never got further than sprouting. That bucket of dirt you saw for the children’s sermon last week? Yeah, that was supposed to be peas, and you saw how well it’s doing! The flower seeds we planted never sprouted, the blooming ones mostly died, I have even managed to kill hostas and mint (yes, it IS possible), and this I’ve done on multiple occasions. I am just not a good gardener.

         Though I have to say, for all my lack of success with gardening, at least I seem to know more about it than the sower in today’s parable. Because even I know that before you plant, you have make sure you have proper place for the seeds you have, proper light and water, and of course, that you have to prepare the soil. This guy, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to get any of that, least of all about preparing the soil. Instead, he walks about throwing seed willy-nilly, even though he must know that it is a waste to throw seed into thorns, or onto what amounts to a cement parking lot. He is reckless and wasteful, no model to follow for any aspiring farmer or gardener!

         And I have to say, I find his method very irritating. You see, I have always been someone who carefully counts the cost. Just ask my husband about how long it takes me to order in a restaurant, as I carefully consider price, my mood, how hungry I am, and how good the leftovers will keep. I remember for one birthday when I was kid, a friend gave me a package of clay that came with instructions for how to make pottery based on Native American designs. It even came with some black paint so I could paint the designs on the side. Such a cool gift! I was delighted. But every time I looked at the package of clay in my closet, I thought, “No, not today. I might mess up, and then I will have wasted it. I should save it for a time when I am sure I will be able to make something beautiful with it. If I use it now, then I won’t have it anymore, and then I’ll be sad later that I was so reckless to use this before I was really ready to get everything out of it that I could.” See – I was careful, thoughtful, and I thought ahead. Nothing like this sower in the parable.

            Well, I’d love to say my thoughtfulness, care and foresight paid off. But guess what happened to that clay, that lovely, interesting gift from my friend? I kept it – for years, until I was too old to really enjoy it anymore, and then a little longer in case my interest might return… until the clay dried up and became worthless to me. I ended up throwing it in the garbage one day many years later. I never did get to enjoy it.

            How much of life passes us by like that? How many opportunities do we miss because we are afraid of not doing it right, because we are waiting for the timing to be perfect, because we want to make sure we are absolutely prepared and so we know things will go well? How many of us need to make sure the proverbial soil is perfectly tilled before we take any risks and try to make anything grow?

There are many ways to enter this parable. We can think of ourselves as the sower, being sent out to spread the good news to others. We can think of ourselves as the seed that is being spread upon the world. But my favorite way to understand this well-known parable is to think of ourselves as the soil, and God as the sower. But – we’re not always the good soil, are we? At least I’m not. Just as I sometimes miss opportunities to share the good news with others, I have also missed opportunities to receive the good news. My guess is I’m not alone in this. Sometimes it is hard to hear and receive God’s Word, because our hearts have been hardened and burned too many times before, and we’re not in a place to receive the good news of God’s grace. “Well that can’t possibly be for me,” we think. “That might work for someone else, or at a different time, but not me, and not now.” Or sometimes we hear God’s Word, but quickly let it be choked out by other things that seem more important in the moment, or by our own preferences or fears. Or we hear it, but ignore it and let it be overcome by the elements and the ways of the world.

It’s a good thing, then, that the sower is so reckless, spreading seed even on the bad, unprepared soil – so that if we miss it the first time, we will still have another chance. This parable, you see – it is a parable of abundance. It is a story about a God who throws seed out to all different kinds of soil – not because God is a bad gardener who doesn’t understand about tilling and fertilizer, but because God knows that all of that seed will do some good. The seed that gets eaten up by birds – well, at least it is feeding the birds! The seed that gets thrown among thorns – it is fertilizing the soil for future harvest.

And the seed that lands on good soil – that not only grows and thrives, but is an abundance beyond our understanding! A good harvest is one that yields between seven- and ten-fold. Jesus tells his disciples that the seed that fell on good soil yielded 30 times, 60 times, even 100 times! Surely the farmers in the audience were laughing at his absurdity – it is impossible! But God’s grace IS absurd. It often makes little sense, is not at all the way we would do things, and certainly is not, in any reasonable mind, the “best” or most efficient way to do something.

But you see, what is impossible and unreasonable with humans is possible and effective with God. Because our God is one of abundance – who throws seeds everywhere without counting the cost, who doesn’t worry that some of those seeds may not do a bit of good, and some will do good that we didn’t expect; a God who knows that some of those seeds will yield a crop that is lavishly beyond human comprehension. With God, there is always enough. There is always more than enough.

That story I told about my clay… I think I got that for my 7^th birthday, and it has stuck with me for 30 years since, probably because in some ways I am still that cautious little girl who wants to be sure she has what she needs when she needs it. But I wonder: what if I received God’s abundant grace the same way I received that gift of clay? Admiring God’s grace in its package – water in a font, bread and wine, a word proclaimed, a baby in a manger, a man on a cross – and I understood what a great gift it is… but I was never willing to actually delve into it and experience the joy it brings. What if I was unwilling to take it and touch it and use it, lest I use it up and then not have it when I need or want it. Concerned that I might mess it up if I get too invested in it, and so content simply to admire it from afar. What if all that was how we viewed God’s grace?

Thanks be to God, that is not how grace works. Our God, the Sower, is a reckless God of abundance, lavishly spreading grace and love upon the world. Some will receive it with joy, and bear fruit in absurd amounts. Some will not be ready to receive it – yet. But the seed keeps coming. The grace keeps coming. It never runs out, and it is never wasted. It may not make sense to us, but that is the way of our abundant God of grace.

Let us pray… Reckless Sower, thank you for throwing more and more grace our way, until we are ready to receive it. When we do, help us to bear fruit 100-fold.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon: Freedom for our neighbor (July 5, 2020)

Full service can be viewed here.

Pentecost 5A

July 5, 2020

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

INTRODUCTION

         Maybe it is a consequence of this being 4^th of July weekend, but as I approached these texts, I approached them with an eye toward freedom: what it looks like in a time of Covid, when we are still somewhat captive in our own homes; what it looks like as we hear more and more about Americans who have not always enjoyed the same freedoms that we have, and in some ways still don't; what it looks like for Lutheran Christians who starts worship each week declaring not our freedom, but rather, that we are “captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” With this lens, I noticed a few things, and want to ask you some questions to ponder for each reading while you listen (maybe you want to jot them down on your bulletin):

         Zechariah speaks to “prisoners of hope.” What sort of prisoner might that be? What does it mean to be a prisoner of hope, and where do we find that hope?

         In Romans, Paul talks frankly about his captivity to his own bad decisions and judgment. “What’s wrong with me?” he asks. “I do not do the good I want, but the very evil I do not want is what I do.” Oh buddy, I can relate! Why, oh, why do we struggle so to get out from the burden of our poor choices?

         And finally in the Gospel, Jesus will use that same image of a yoke, which last week worked in Jeremiah as a symbol for Babylonia captivity, but turn it into an image of comfort, as he calls upon us to take on his yoke, which is “easy” or light. How does it feel to celebrate freedom, even as we are yoked to Jesus?

         Maybe you’ll hear other echoes of freedom in these texts. Listen carefully, to what God is saying to you this day.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

         I wonder how many Americans learned for the very first time this year about what Juneteenth is. Twenty-one years in school, and while I had heard the word “Juneteenth” before, I admit I had no idea what it was, nor did I have any motivation to find out. But this year, I think, and hope, things are different. I hope this year many more Americans know that Juneteenth is the day in 1865 that slaves in Galveston, Texas learned that they were free – two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by Abraham Lincoln. Why it took so long for them to find out they were free is up for debate, but once they found out, of course, there was much celebration, and Juneteenth remains an important holiday, especially for those who can trace their lineage back to slaves in America.

         Of course, even after they were “free” they weren’t really free. They were free, but not welcomed or trusted. They had their freedom, but no property, possessions or money. They remained enslaved, no longer by shackles, but by poverty and need. They had no generational wealth to pass on to their descendants, and so the cycle continued, and continues even today in different forms.

         I’m grateful to know about Juneteenth, and I admit, it has dramatically changed the way I viewed the 4^th of July this year. I still love my country, I still donned my red, white and blue, and I even facilitated a little neighborhood parade on my street (properly distanced) and helped my kids decorate their bikes and wagon for the event. But my thinking about freedom was much changed. What is American freedom, when I am now increasingly aware of how different freedom looks for my fellow citizens who are people of color?

         As I said in my introduction, I find in today’s texts many points that draw me into thinking about freedom – not American freedom, but our Christian freedom. While the two are sometimes conflated, they are really quite different. American freedom allows us to do, say, and believe whatever we want (with the understanding that some restrictions apply). There is a sense of autonomy about it, of individualism, of personal work ethic: if you want to succeed, and you work hard, you will succeed!

Christian freedom, on the other hand, looks beyond the self. It compels us to use our personal freedoms to serve one another. As Christians (who are also Americans), we believe not so much in the power of the individual, since we are all “captive to sin and cannot to free ourselves,” but rather, in the power of Christ, who has taken away the burden of sin, so that it no longer has such power over us. Because of Christ, our freedom looks instead like the ability to freely love and serve God and neighbor. That is: our freedom is not for us, but for our neighbor.

         Today’s text from Romans shows us that, while hopeful, this freedom business is also incredibly difficult – because even as we know what God desires from and for us us, it isn’t so easy to follow through. Paul has spent the first six chapters of Romans outlining the law and how good it is and how much he loves it, but now, in chapter seven, he offers this startling confession: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

         That is the difficulty with freedom, you see. As well-intentioned as we may be, and even as certain as we may be at any given time about the rightness of our decisions, it seems too often that we end up doing the wrong thing. How many times have you said something like, “I shouldn’t say this, or do this… but I’m going to anyway,” because, as Paul says, sin is constantly lurking at the door, just waiting for us in all our freedom to slip up a little bit so that sin can creep in there and take over our better judgment. “I know I shouldn’t, but…” is a constant refrain in our lives.

“I do not understand my own actions,” Paul writes. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” The first time I heard, really heard these words, I felt an immediate kinship with Paul. He suddenly became a real person to me, not just some writer and scholar from long ago. I realized: he struggled, too. This important man, with many churches named for him, including this one, who wrote so much of what we call the Holy Scriptures – even he struggled with sin, struggled to avoid doing things he knew were the wrong things to do. Turns out, we are all together in this human condition, where we mean well, but end up doing the very thing we know we shouldn’t.

Even as misery enjoys company, though, we cannot stay there – and Paul doesn’t. Just when we start to feel that there is no hope, that our Christian freedom will only get us into trouble because as willing as our hearts may be, our flesh is too darn weak to uphold God’s law… Paul looks outward. “Wretched man that I am!” he exclaims. “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We are not left on our own. We have the great gift of knowing that Jesus has our backs in this.

Anne Lamott, in her book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, reflects on the growth and wisdom she has experienced in her life. She goes on for some pages about everything she has learned and gained through the various trials and stages of her life. She also comments, however, that she is not thrilled with what age and gravity have done to her body. In her wry, raw way, she writes, “Left to my own devices, would I trade all [that I have gained] for firm thighs, fewer wrinkles, a better memory? You bet I would. That is why it’s such a blessing that I am not left to my own devices.” Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

         And this brings us to Jesus’ wonderful words of comfort in our Gospel lesson, which are an assurance that we will never be left to our own devices, left to fend for ourselves, left always to do the right thing with the freedom we have been given, even as sin is lurking close at hand. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you…” I used to think that taking Jesus’ yoke upon me was something like taking up Jesus’ cross – that is, taking on a burden, perhaps the burden of seeking justice in the world, with us pulling the load and Christ as the driver. But the thing about a yoke is that it is not for one animal. It is for two, two animals who are bound together to walk side-by-side and be a more powerful team than one can be alone. So when Christ bids us take his yoke upon us, he means that we should come and be yoked with him, bound together side-by-side – so that suddenly our personal burden no longer feels quite so heavy, because it is being borne with Christ. Our freedom, which so often leads us to sin, is no longer our downfall, because we make decisions with Christ by our side, bearing some of the weight.

It is not only our personal burdens that are carried in this way. Under Christ’s yoke, we are prepared to bear the burdens of the world, even those we feel so heavily right now. With our God-given freedom for service, and with the strength of Christ and his yoke on our team, we do the hard work that we are called to do: standing up to the oppressor, seeking justice for the needy, showing mercy and compassion to those who are suffering. These are what our Christian freedom compels us to do, and now we are given the promise that we need not bear the burden of those tasks alone.

         Freedom is a wonderful, beautiful thing, a gift that has come to us by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. It can also be a burden, as we don’t always use it wisely, for the building up of others, but rather, we use it for our own self-promotion or self-preservation. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord that we are not left to our own devices in this world, but rather are given the gift of Jesus’ own yoke, and the knowledge of God’s strength in carrying the burden of this world. May we use this gift for the benefit of our neighbor.

         Let us pray… We give you thanks, O Lord, for our freedom. But even more we give you thanks that even in that freedom, we are not left to our own devices, but are always accompanied by the gentle, humble yoke of your Son. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.