Even though the title of this sermon comes from Katherine Lee Bates's poem America the Beautiful, I am not focusing my thoughts on the state of our nation, tempting as that may be. What I say may well have political overtones, but this is not a Fourth of July sermon in the traditional sense, if there is such a thing.
I am more interested in the juxtaposition of the two lessons we have heard, one from Matthew's Gospel and the other from Paul's Letter to the Romans. In the Matthew reading, Jesus expresses his frustration, his displeasure, at the lack of response to his message on the part of the religious establishment. The rich and powerful have repudiated him as they repudiated John the Baptizer. Jesus says to them, "John was too ascetic for you. He lived an austere life. He played funeral-type music and you did not wail with him. I have lived a more up-beat life, a more sensual life, eating well and drinking well. In effect, I have played wedding music for you, and you would not dance. You call me a drunkard. Why are you rejecting the good news I am bringing?" "What is it with the rich and powerful, the religious establishment of this generation?" Jesus asked two thousand years ago. The question is right-on today.
Having excoriated the religious elite of his time, Jesus issues an invitation, "Come to me." And note to whom the invitation is directed. "Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens—and I will give you rest..." refreshment, as the word can be translated. What came into my mind as I read and re-read those words this past week were lines from a familiar Christmas carol.
And ye, beneath life's crushing load, Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow,
Look now! For glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing.
The Christian gospel, the good news of God's inclusive, affirming love, has always found a more receptive welcome among the burdened and wounded than among the complacent—the rich and powerful. The Christian gospel, the truth of God's love for all people has always included a call to change personal priorities and social orders. And people who like things the way they are resist change—strenuously.
But Jesus is insistent. "Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens." Who were the people to whom Jesus reached out in his ministry? Everyone, to be sure. But he made a special connection with people bowed down in grief and loss. People wounded by prejudice. People paralyzed by fear and anxiety. People abused by systems of power and greed. People overwhelmed by the emptiness of materialism, people struggling to belong, to fit in.
Thank God our General Assembly re-affirmed its support of the aliens in our land, legal and illegal, who are among the weary and burdened of our society—the people who empty our trash containers, wash the dishes in our restaurants, sweep our streets, and pick the crops in our farms and orchards so that we can eat well and drink well. "Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens," said Jesus, "And my Church will care about you, weep with you, walk with you, and fight for your dignity as human beings made in the image of God." Because God cares about you. God cares for you, every bit as much as for the people in stretch limousines and on the cover of People magazine and Forbes Magazine. That's the gospel as I understand it. God is a God of love.
Some time ago a woman told me about reading a book on sailing. She discovered that boats with sails, just sails, are called burdened. And boats with motors, motors of any kind or size, are called privileged. She discovered that one of the rules of sailing is that motorized boats must yield the right of way to boats under sail—the privileged must always yield to the burdened. A good rule for sailing and not a bad rule for living either, especially for living according to God's design! The invitation to respond to God's love is extended to everyone, but it is extended especially to the weary and the burdened, who seem to have more readiness to hear it and accept it.
I find Jesus' self-description interesting as he issues his invitation to discipleship. "Come to me, all who are weary and carrying burdens, and I will give you refreshment. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart...." I wonder how that would play on the campaign trail. Gentle and humble in heart? Don't we want leaders who are strong and assertive? After all, "We're number one," we say in sports, and in international politics. Have we really heard Jesus, two thousand years later?
The reading from Matthew's Gospel combines well with the reading from Romans, chapter seven. There Paul helps us see the brokenness that lies at the heart of our humanity—at the heart of all humanity. He says of himself in frequently quoted lines, "I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Wretched one that I am! Who will deliver me from this condition of death?"
For Paul deliverance from the brokenness of our human condition lay in commitment to an ultimate reality, a higher power, a commitment to the God he knew in Jesus Christ. For Paul there was no freedom in the absence of commitment, or in commitment to anything less than an eternal reality. Secondary loyalties didn't cut it. Paul had been committed to a system of morality, to a code of laws. But it was only when he was grasped by the radical nature of God's love for the world that he found the power to live in the joyous freedom of gratitude. The truth of God's love transformed him, transformed his desires, and he could begin to move toward wholeness. Without that transformation of desire we are stuck in our brokenness, and spiritual health eludes us.
We seem to be created in such a way that we need an ultimate loyalty. Some people give the nation that status, others make family their highest value, while still others put comfort and status at the top of the list. All those things can be good, but they become idolatrous when we give them ultimate status.
One of the students in my polity class at Princeton Seminary this past week suggested I see the movie "Bigger, Stronger, Faster." It's a low-budget film, made by one of three brothers, all of whom have used anabolic steroids in their pursuit of excellence in sports and body-building. I was especially interested in the film because I have been on a very low dose of a steroid since being hospitalized in January—not an anabolic steroid, but a steroid nonetheless. I saw the film in a small theater on East Twelfth Street, and I didn't know what to expect.
In the movie there are people who argue that anabolic steroids are very dangerous, even lethal, and should be banned from almost all use. There are people who argue that anabolic steroids are relatively harmless, certainly no more harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and should not be banned from use by athletes and body-builders. What I came away from the movie with was a heightened understanding of our human need to be "special," "unique" as human beings—which can be good, but can be problematic as well, especially when it becomes the driving force of our life. It can cause us to act against what we want to do in our finer moments, to disregard what our understanding of faith and goodness tells us not to do.
One of the three brothers in the film is still using anabolic steroids even though he has told his wife he has stopped. He worked in finance for a time, and he was good at it. But he quit that and moved to California in hopes of becoming a professional wrestler. He wants to be someone special. He wants people on the street to recognize him and admire him, and that wasn't happening in his desk job. His mother agonizes about where she failed as a parent, wondering if she could have done more to help her son feel good enough about himself without being famous. I think she's discounting the power of the celebrity culture her sons were born into. It's all around us—on news stands, on television, and on the internet.
The really positive part of this past week for me was reading the spiritual autobiographies of the thirty-eight students in my class at Princeton Seminary, ranging in age from twenty-three to sixty. I require spiritual autobiographies every time I teach a course at the seminary. It's reassuring to hear stories of the way God takes the brokenness of human lives and redirects those lives toward wholeness. Seldom are there dramatic conversion experiences. Usually God works through the caring ways of a faith community, through the wisdom of teachers and youth leaders in churches, and in the love expressed through other people who in their own lives came to know God's amazing grace.
On this holiday weekend, when we are so aware of the brokenness of political systems and the burdens so many people are carrying, it's good to remember that as a church and as individuals we have good news to share, and we have personal stories to tell. We can tell our own experiences of God's affirming, accepting, unconditional love that moves us from all kinds of brokenness, moves us in the direction of the wholeness God intends for all of creation, for all people and nations. May we be people who are comfortable telling and hearing our stories of the ways God is leading us toward life in all its fullness.
Thanks be to God.