Freedom In Christ

Matthew 11. 16-19, 25-end 

Romans 7. 15-25a

 

Is it football or is it tennis?

It's hard to escape the sport at this time of year. Whether it's the excitement of the World Cup or the tradition of Wimbledon, millions of people are watching every pass, every serve and every mistake.

And of course everyone has an opinion. If England win, people ask why they didn't win more comfortably. If they lose, everyone suddenly knows what the manager should have done. At Wimbledon, one brilliant match can make someone a hero, and one poor performance can bring criticism from every direction. However well you do, someone always thinks you should have done something different.

That isn't just a problem of today, what about those words of Jesus that we have just heard.

Whatever God did people always found a reason to reject it.

All four gospels tell of numerous occasions when the people, (often the Pharisees, criticised Jesus) However, despite all that Jesus offers grace. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Before those verses of grace we actually see Jesus confronting a difficult situation.

If we look at the verses leading up to today’s reading we will see that Jesus has been speaking to the crowds about the ministry of John the Baptist, Jesus was fond of John and had great praise for his ministry. We see how passionate Jesus is about John when he says in verse 11 ‘Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist. He really holds John in high acclaim and gives praise where it is due.

 Then as we come into today’s verses I sense a frustrated Jesus who throws his arms in the air and say ‘you can’t win’ John came neither eating or drinking and they say ‘He has a demon’, The Son of Man (interesting that he uses this title) came eating and drinking and they say ‘He is a glutton and drunkard’

Interestingly I was at a service on Thursday and the scripture passage was Jesus healing a paralytic. The preacher used those exact words, Jesus just could not win. When he healed the paralysed man the Pharisees accused him of blaspheming, if he hadn’t healed the man they would have said I thought you were the Son of God yet you didn’t heal this man.

I wonder how many times have we said those self same words, I just can’t win! When you can’t please no matter what you do.

Jesus’ answer to this is that wisdom is proved right by her actions. I think that is a difficult verse to unpack, but I think it means those who are really seeking the truth will welcome whatever is right and holy in whatever form it comes, so it doesn’t matter whether the truth is delivered by a John (a recluse) or by Jesus (a partygoer) what matters is  that what they do is real and true to God’s word and there is no doubting that, both John and Jesus both preached the gospel, they both pursued the wisdom of God.

So it makes it clear that the ministry of Jesus can be shared by all people, including those on the margins, the vulnerable and the weak. I think that when we come to verses 25 & 26 this is what Jesus means when he says ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

So there are times when we in leadership can learn so much from an unlikely person, my son says the most profound spiritual things to me at times and I think wow he may not come to church but he has an insight that I need to learn from. He’s more of a John the Baptist than a Jesus, a bit of a loner, not interested in material worth but he certainly stops me in my tracks on occasions and makes me reassess my lifestyle and thinking.

This is clearly what Jesus is saying that There are some things that have been hidden from us and revealed to others and not just others but those we would least expect God to speak through. In our verses Jesus uses the imagery of infants, the little children.

It is so easy to see why Jesus was speaking in terms of children when we look at the crowd at the time he was contrasting the people to the innocence of the child. The Jewish people  were so burdened with formalities of their faith, strict obedience to the Jewish law they were weighted down as with a yoke around their neck constantly trying to achieve what was expected.  Their relationship with God was defined by how you followed the rules.

We have to be so very careful today that we don’t let meetings, buildings, our own agenda etc. be a yoke around our necks and it easily done as we gradually let these things become more important than following our faith.

Jesus says They, the teachers of the law, lacked the innocence of children sitting in the market place and calling out to each other.

Then Jesus comes along and he says his yoke comes from his mercy and love, rather than strict obedience to the law. If we think of the heavy yoke the oxen wore around their shoulder, how restrictive that would be the contrast Jesus makes is so immense, by offering his yoke to the people placing on their shoulders the yoke of Christ and in doing that giving a profound freedom. Jesus wanted to give these followers freedom from the burden of religion that was so weighing them down.

When Jesus addressed the crowds that day he could see that the wise and learned  were getting nowhere because of this heavy yoke, yet the ordinary people, in fact the less than ordinary: sinners, tax collectors, were discovering God simply by following Him.

 

As followers of Jesus we should be working together, sharing words of encouragement and relying on the strength of God, resting in God’s love that he offers when he says ‘for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

These words should be an encouragement to us in our faith

they should encourage us to offer all we do to God a time to rest in Him and to allow Him to work, through each one of us remembering God chooses to speak to all and it is often those without a yoke around their necks that hear the word.

We may be tempted to think that the crowds in today's Gospel were simply stubborn people but if we are honest with ourselves we can so easily resist God's call because it doesn't arrive in the form we expected. And like Paul, we know the painful experience of wanting to do what is right yet finding ourselves pulled in another direction.

That is why Jesus' invitation is such good news. He does not say, "Sort yourselves out, and then come to me." He says, "Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens." Paul describes this burden in Romans, the struggle with sin, the good intentions and repeated failure but this is precisely the burden Christ invites us to lay down.

In a world that demands constant performance, Jesus offers grace. In a world full of pressure, he offers peace. And in a world where we are always trying to prove ourselves, he invites us simply to come to him.

We find rest because the One who calls us also carries us.

 

Revd Irene