July 31, 2011
Generosity of spirit
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

By watching the recent news, it would be easy to conclude that scarcity rules the day. Not enough money to pay our national debt, Medicare, Social Security, and the wars we’re now waging all the time. Not enough food for the 10 million in East Africa who are becoming refugees or starving to death. Not enough tolerance for Muslim immigrants in Europe, leading to the horrific killings in Oslo. Not enough equality in America, where white families have 20 times the net worth of minority families.

It would be easy to conclude that we have come to an age of scarcity, and our best response would be to buckle down, slash spending, protect what’s mine, and bar the gates. Nobody cares about the greatest good for our common humanity, and even if they did, they couldn’t accomplish it. So the heart grows hard, self-protective, and suspicious.

And then we walk in this place and hear the readings for today. From Isaiah:
<em>Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.</em>

Part of today’s psalm that we didn’t sing goes like this:
<em>The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season.
You open wide your hand, and satisfy the needs of every living creature.</em>

And in the gospel, we hear the story of the feeding of the multitudes. There’s a crowd of 5,000 men, “besides women and children,” so maybe 4 times that. Fill the Isotopes ballpark twice over, you get the picture. They’re hungry, and the disciples who look out upon them feel the way we do when we watch the nightly news.

They see a needy, desperate mob that thinks that Jesus is going to rescue them from their misery. They could turn ugly at any moment. The disciples plead with Jesus - “They’re not our problem. Send them away so that they may go into the villages and buy food. You know how the world works. It’s every man for himself.”

But Jesus has compassion, and tells the disciples to soften their hardened hearts. “They need not go away. You give them something to eat.”  Right. Five loaves of bread and two pathetic fish for some 20,000 people.

But leading the way, wading into the crowd, Jesus heals the sick, hundreds of them. He forgives their many sins. There is bread and fish for all. God’s bountiful love becomes a feast.<em> Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; you that have no money, come, and eat!</em> The disciples, much to their astonishment, are now the ones who <em>open wide their hands, and satisfy the needs of every living creature. </em>

The miracle is not so much that bread and fish expanded exponentially. The crowd probably didn’t know what was happening. As far as they were concerned, somebody brought a bunch of food. The miracle is that in the face of obvious scarcity, the disciples set aside their fear, even their rationality, and overflowed with generosity of spirit. The miracle is that they became like Jesus, like God.

God gives generously by sending rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike. God casts seed everywhere, even on hard ground where it won’t grow. God does this even when the evidence shows that it is not deserved by the recipients, and it will not change us.

Jesus lived this way. He forgave and healed and accepted people before they had a chance to do shameful penance, like the father in the story of the Good Samaritan. His heart overflowed with generosity of spirit. And Jesus demonstrated to the disciples that day that they could be like this, too.

Now keep in mind, the miracle described in today’s gospel only lasted a day. Many millions of other needy human beings weren’t there, and they died hungry and sick. The Romans still destroyed Israel 30 years later, making refugees out of everyone Jesus ministered to, including the disciples.  

So are these stories from scripture just naïve utopianism? Were the Jews deluded for the1,200 years they lived in Israel, counting all the while on God’s protection and provision? Was Jesus just a charismatic local teacher who had visions of grandiosity? And are believers who follow Jesus gullible idealists?

I think that sometimes ideals are mistaken for idealism. If you encourage people to aspire to the ideal of generosity, they think you’re being idealistic. Today, any talk about social safety nets or ample funds for public education is considered nonsense that has been thoroughly discredited. We can’t afford this! Generosity of spirit is not possible in an age such as ours. Buckle down and get real.

That’s mistaking an ideal for idealism. We needn’t forsake our ideals just because they seem more difficult to attain today.

Jesus was not an idealist. He was a realist with ideals. He knew full well what he was up against – that worldly powers will always crush the most vulnerable, that many will always give in their meaner, smaller instincts, that he would probably come to a bad end. But he also knew that even so, we can live our ideals, and that’s all that matters.

He could only heal those in front of him, and yet he laid his hands on them. His words of love could only be heard by those with ears to hear them, and yet he spoke them. And still, his ancient witness to a holy and generous life can only inspire those who believe that God’s ideals are possible to live. And yet he continues to witness.

I’m realistic enough to know that I’m not going to sell everything I own and give the proceeds to charity. Even if I did, it would only be a drop in the bucket. I’m realistic enough to know that the necessity of political compromise will ensure that we will never be as generous as we should.<em> The poor you will always have with you</em>, as Jesus said.  

And yet I still hold as an ideal the beautiful expressions of generosity I hear in scripture.<em> Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. They need not go away, bring them to me. We shall feed them.</em>  I still aim towards generosity of spirit. This is one of the central ideals of our faith. Each one of us is invited to embrace it, to keep looking to it as our guiding star as we travel through this life.

Generosity of spirit involves more than giving money to charity, to church. It is an attitude we can carry, a willingness to give others the benefit of the doubt, to look for the best in them, to be open to their struggle, their quiet suffering beneath the surface. It is a capacity to throw caution to the wind sometimes when there’s something we can do.

We can be generous of spirit even though it is no more than a ripple in the ocean. And what is the point? That by golly, if we all do it, added up together, we’ll create more good than evil in this world? No, I’m even realistic about that.

We live our ideals because it is all we can do. It is the only way to live. We do it without looking for results. We don’t even let the right hand know what the left hand is doing. We don’t have to save the world from itself. We only have to live as God intends us to live, within the limits that we have, despite all evidence that it may not do much good. The rest is not our business.

Our effort to be kind and good-hearted is the most precious gift we can offer to the world. That was Jesus’ lesson that day, and this lesson was given more for the disciples than the crowd. Only look to your own heart. Watch how it tends to harden, how it loses hope, and dare to soften it. And the miracle of that day long ago – that we can overflow with generosity of spirit, becoming like Jesus, like God - will happen again, in you.

July 24, 2011
God’s mysterious ways
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

As you’ve heard me say many times, Jesus taught more about the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of God) than anything else. Recently I’ve taken to calling this kingdom <em>the divine dimension</em>.

We all know what it is. Some call it <em>openness </em>– knowing that we’re intimately connected with everything and everyone. Or you might describe it as <em>transcendence </em>- when a greater wisdom and love moves through you. Others see this kingdom in <em>social and political terms </em>– wherever the lowly have been lifted up and treated with dignity and mercy.

However we might describe it, it is the reality that God intends for all creation. It is the reality that Jesus lived in. That is why so many were drawn to him. And it is available to us at any time.

We all probably like the idea of living more fully in the kingdom of God. But how do we do that?

First of all, I think about what Fr. Ken Clark used to say about pledging programs in church – nothing works, and everything works. So it is with faith. Just make the effort with a sincere heart. Those who seek will find. Those who ask will receive. For those who knock, the door will be opened.

But our gospel today does offer a helpful perspective. Today is the third week in a row that we have heard from the 13th chapter of Matthew, which is all about the kingdom of God. Jesus has been using agricultural similes: seeds sown on different kinds of soil, weeds and wheat growing together…

Today we’ve got a real cornucopia - shrubs, yeast, fields, treasures, pearls, and fish of the sea. There is a common theme, however, that emerges. Jesus seems to be saying that we find our way into this kingdom - or it finds its way into us - in a very unpredictable and paradoxical manner.

It’s a cliché to say that God works in mysterious ways, but it’s true. By contrast, think about a less mysterious process, how we usually move into any new endeavor - a career, a self-improvement program, a project at work. We set the vision, break it down into do-able chunks, apply ourselves, measure progress, and evaluate results. We know where we’re going, we’re in control of the process, and we know what tools to use along the way.  

Our movement into the divine dimension doesn’t work like that. We always have a blurry vision of the goal and mixed motivations for getting there. There’s no clear methodology. And along the way, we discover that we’re unable to apply ourselves consistently.

So first of all, Jesus says that God’s kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed. It seems negligible, easy to overlook. And yet it spreads, like the mustard plant, like a weed, all over the place, big shrubs you can’t get rid of.

Isn’t this true about faith? Of what consequence is a little prayer, ventured tentatively in trust? Of what significance is it that we eat a little bread and drink a sip of wine each Sunday? And what possible importance in public affairs can the gospel have, compared to corporate interests and the obsession with winning elections?  

Think for a moment about the world in which Jesus and his disciples lived. They were small-town, uneducated, powerless peasants. They were brutalized by Romans, oppressed by their own religious leaders, seemingly without hope for happiness, security, or freedom.

And yet, with Christ they became so much larger than their circumstances would suggest. They healed others and found spiritual freedom for themselves. Like weeds, they spread all over the Roman Empire until their vision of radical equality, mercy, and simplicity of life could be found everywhere.

People of true faith are still all over, like weeds. Their conscience and compassion helped society move through child labor, slavery and civil rights. I like to think that the Episcopal Church’s open affirmation of gay and lesbian people helped New York embrace marriage equality. People who know God have always influenced social policy.

So it is with the faith you and I carry in our hearts, however insignificant it may seem. Never underestimate its potential. It can lift you up from suffering. It can set you free in the direst circumstances, as it has for countless people in prison or in poverty.

Secondly, Jesus says that the kingdom of God always works within an inseparable mixture of good and bad. Like desirable and undesirable fish caught up in the same net, there is no such thing as a pure heart or pure religion. And yet the good somehow endures.

Christians have done many things we are ashamed of: inquisitions, moralism, pedophilia, and much more. And yet at the very same time, the saints have shined with God’s light, consoling the grieving, building up faith, drawing in the marginalized.

Our church today, our congregation, even our own hearts, are mixtures of good and bad. We have the worst and the best motivations competing side by side. But this is not a war we have to win. The point is not purity. For the light shines in the darkness, not in the absence of darkness. And the darkness will never overcome it. The good in you, the good in the church, the church’s good in the world, will make its way forward and have its effect. Nothing can stop God’s Spirit.

Finally, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is sneaky. A man is out walking in someone else’s field, and kicks what he thinks is a rock, which turns out to be buried treasure. He goes to the owner, being careful not to mention the treasure chest, and offers to buy the field for a price that is slightly above market value. He’s a con man.

Or to put it another way, into dough we put some fermented starter  – which was the only kind of yeast the ancient world had. In the night, the microbiological culture then contaminates the dough until it rises.

In both examples, God’s work is sneaky, hidden, bubbling up from within, something we cannot see at work. You know what this is like.

On Sunday, you hear something in scripture, and it starts to work on you, coming out into the open later on, offering comfort or confrontation. You ask for transformation and things begin to stir within, and you find yourself being changed in ways you hadn’t counted on. Or you turn around one day and notice that when you weren’t looking, you became more centered, more loving, less afraid. God snuck up on you. The kingdom of God spread within you like a bacteria.

Similarly, people of faith are a kind of benign contamination in the world. Our insistence on good stewardship of the earth works its way into the hearts of some of those in power. Our quiet witness to a life of kindness, simplicity and peace affects others around us.

We can’t achieve the kingdom of God by some sure-fire method. We’ll always wonder whether all this faith business is of any consequence at all. We’ll never be pure. And the working of the Spirit within us will always remain hidden.  

And yet it somehow works, doesn’t it? If we ask, God will always be active in us, through us, like a weed, like a fisherman who gathers everything up and sorts it all out, like a sneaky con man, like a contaminating yeast.

What a relief it is to know that God is so clever and persistent, to know that it isn’t all up to us.

We're sorry, the text for this sermon is not available at this time.

July 10, 2011
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
The Sower

My yard is like the parable we just heard, with every kind of soil. And I’m the sower who has tried to plant in each of them. I’ve put in trees in those hard deposits of clay we call caliche. Having to use a pick instead of a shovel should have given me a clue. I created what I thought was a large enough hole, filled it with improved dirt, planted, and watered. And then I wondered why, after a year or two, the tree just stopped growing – it turns out that the roots hit the cement wall of caliche around it.

In other places there’s rocky riverbed soil, probably brought in by a previous owner as fill. Only goat-heads and red ants like it there. There’s extremely sandy soil where water drains away from the plant immediately. Those plants are stunted, too. And there are a few places where we’ve taken the time to add nutrients annually and water frequently, coaxing the plant to a verdancy that is, of course, unnatural in the desert.

So I understand that the quality of the soil determines the success of the plant. Jesus uses this metaphor to talk about what kind of inner environment we’re trying to grow our faith in.  

It’s tempting to see this parable as if it is about entirely different types of people, each of whom is like just one of those different types of soil. Some are resistant in matters of faith, some are fair-weather friends to God, some are distracted. A few hear and understand, and bear much fruit.

Or we think that we’re supposed to progress from one type of soil to the next: “I used to be like that hard-packed pathway, skimming along the surface, not caring a bit about religious things. Then I approached God superficially, just going in far enough to say I’d been there; but my pious platitudes did no good when trouble came. I’m in a dense thorn-patch right now, pretty preoccupied with worry and stress. But I hope to get to the point where my soil is finally deep and rich. Then I’ll bear lots of good fruit.”

I find myself more like my yard. At any given time, there are patches that are as hard-packed as caliche. But right alongside that is something rich and healthy. Worries like weeds sometimes choke out faith and keep me up at night. But the next morning as I sit on my back portal, all I can see is how beautiful the shadows look as they play upon the grass, and I know that in God, all is well.

We’re not just one thing, and whatever progress we make in the spiritual journey is not entirely linear. We’re patchy and inconsistent, moving forward in age and wisdom by fits and starts. If we look at ourselves honestly, we can probably see every type of soil that Jesus talks about, all at once.

But there’s one part of this parable that usually gets neglected, and that’s the sower. The sower goes out and he casts seed everywhere, indiscriminately. This week, I read something about this figure by a commentator from somewhere in the Midwest –

God, the sower, is like a farmer who hooked up his planter to the back of his John Deere, started up the tractor, but then threw the switch to activate the planter even before he was out of his driveway.  

There he is putt-putting down the country lane with corn seed scattering everywhere as he goes.  It bounces on the road, some flies into the ditch.   When he finally gets near his field, he first has to cut through a weedy and thorny patch with corn seed still flying out loosey-goosey from that planter that, by all rights, had been switched on way too early.

In truth, no farmer would be so careless, so profligate in the scattering of valuable seed.  It would not even make sense to do this.  It would be a waste, a spectacle of great prodigality that a frugal and economically minded farmer would never tolerate.

God, it seems, casts the same amount of precious seed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as around a monastery on a sacred mountaintop. God casts the same amount of seed among the junkies and prostitutes on Central Avenue as around this altar. God casts the same amount of seed in prisons, meditation halls, hospital beds, and your kitchen. Every day. All the time.

What is this seed that God is casting all around, all the time? It is the self-manifestation of God’s love and truth, reaching out to all being. God’s seed is those who try to do good in this world, to set things right where there’s injustice, to reach the lost, to mend what’s broken. It is everything in creation that makes itself so lavishly available to us through our senses. God’s seed is planted within us as our conscience, our frustration at our own inconstancy, and our need for God. It is the people that surround us - the pain and the quiet dignity they carry, and the way they sometimes break open a wisdom and clarity we cannot find on our own.

God is casting this seed everywhere, all the time, not just in individuals, but in society, in the nations of the world. In ravaged neighborhoods of our cities, there is always the possibility that some little child, or community organizer, or teacher, or political movement will cultivate those seeds and encourage God’s life to flourish.

Just yesterday in South Sudan they celebrated freedom and security after 50 years of horrific violence and a million lives lost, partly because Christians, including many Anglicans and Episcopalians, doggedly cultivated seeds of peace over a period of decades.

God also casts seed with the same recklessness in your own patchy soul-yard. When you open your heart and pray, we all know that God’s seeds will surely sprout. But God is also casting seed on the caliche, the patches of your life that you are still defended about, your self-justifications and hardness of heart. God is trying to grow something in that part of you that foolishly insists on trying to control outcomes with worry.

Divine seeds are cast everywhere. The only question is whether we are ready to cultivate what God sows. How do we do this? In many ways – by bringing awareness to that part of our life; by turning the soil over and exposing it; by asking for help; by admitting we don’t know what to do next; by watering it with prayer.

For the seeker, I think there is such as thing as progress. It may be spiral, not linear, but we can grow in wisdom, self-awareness, and love. And so, piece by piece, more and more of the little plot of our life is cultivated. Every time we bring awareness to another part of ourselves, every time we surrender it to the One who can help us, it is fertilized with God’s love, made richer and full of life.

By this process, it all becomes fruitful. Nothing is wasted. And the very patches that are the hardest – the most resistant, most addicted, most fearful – those, by grace, become the very places that bear the most fruit, with lush greenery, and colorful flowers.

This is what St. Paul meant, I think, when he said a thorn was given me in the flesh... Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness…whenever I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, not in our strengths, our gifts, or in the things we can do well naturally. Our caliche soil is the very place where the tree of life will grow. For it is the place of our greatest need for God, the place where we must finally get out of the way and allow God to cause the growth. And that growth is more beautiful, more useful for God’s purposes than anything we might have cultivated on our own.

God will never give up on any part of you that still needs to be redeemed. The One who made us in glorious potential will bring us, every part of us, to fulfillment -  if not in this life, then in the next.

For all things shall be brought to perfection by the One who made us and who loves us into abundant life.

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church   
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sunday July 3, 2011  Proper 9A
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30
Preacher: Christopher McLaren
Sermon: The Great Invitation: Come find rest for your souls


In the night prayers of Compline, one of the most beautiful services in our Book of Common Prayer there is a place to choose from among four different readings. One of them, a real crowd pleaser, comes from today’s reading.

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.   - Matthew 11:28-30.

In contrast one of the other readings is this show stopper:

Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in the faith.  I Peter 5:8-9a.

For some reason one of these readings is chosen over and over again to the almost total neglect and exclusion of the other.  Is it because we don’t want to think about the world and ourselves being contested ground in a cosmic battle? Or is it that beautiful invitations are much preferred to dire warnings? Certainly for Compline’s tuck-you-into-bed moment, one is more helpful in the sweet dreams and slumber department.

The Gospel writer in today’s lesson is struggling to capture the spiritual struggle of his generation.  Human nature is described as children in a market place. “Come on lets play weddings today.” But the other group says, “No we don’t feel like celebrating.”
“Ok then lets play funeral, you can be the priest and you the undertaker” only to hear “No we don’t feel like being sad either.” No matter what is offered the children cannot seem to engage and enjoy the game.

Jesus likens all of this to his ministry and that of his cousin Johnny B.  Johnny B. retreated to the desert, fasted, exposed the hypocrisy of governors and clergy alike, ate from the wild and prophesied from the margins and they called him a madman.  Jesus came, telling stories, mixing with all sorts of people, showing up to parties, forgiving people, including outsiders, rubbing shoulders with all manner of dangerous and disreputable people, and touching people who were unclean and they called him a glutton and drunkard and a man with not enough sense to avoid questionable sorts. So, John’s asceticism was madness and Jesus’ sociability was moral bankruptcy.  

It is as if God gave people two wildly different but beautiful ways to embrace and respond to the divine longing, but we can be like spoiled children who refuse to play no matter what the game. We are masters of the spiritual stiff-arm and the unholy nay-saying, living and breathing a hermeneutic of suspicion and punch drunk on criticism. Recently The Rev. Tom Brackett who visited St. Michael’s invited us into a hermeneutic of curiosity, an embracing of God through deep listening to one another, to the action of the Spirit in our midst and to the God-breathed happenings in our community.

Jesus says at the end of his parable of the children, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” The proof is in the pudding as we say. John may have been an isolated and wild-man-prophet with a gift for offending people but he also was amazing when it came to moving men and women’s hearts toward God through intense truth-telling and rigorous self-examination that both amazed and healed people.  Jesus may have been a socialite unafraid of mixing with riff-raff but in him people found new courage to embrace life, new goodness to share, and a new freedom to be who God was calling them to be.  

The lesson of the parable seems to be that responsiveness to God is everything. God can move us into a deeper spiritual life in a myriad of ways, through madmen or party-animals. The most important thing is to resist our almost automatic critical posture while fostering our willingness to trust that God is at work in us.  All of a sudden the warning to be watchful of the evil one prowling around like a hungry lion seeking someone to devour is not so silly. We are surrounded by a culture that would convince us that God is not at work, that spiritual intimacy is a waste of time, that things are more important than people, and that drifting off into a place of isolation or learned powerlessness is inevitable. Who needs a community of faith and the spiritual journey?

Jesus was deeply concerned about the spiritual well-being of ordinary people. He knew that even the beauty of his own Jewish tradition, the way of Torah, could became spiritually oppressive. Some of us understand religion becoming oppressive. I remember growing up in the warmth and energy of the Pentecostal Charismatic tradition and being sent off to church summer camp.  One of the tenants of this tradition was that the gift of speaking tongues was considered evidence of salvation so there was a great deal of pressure to actually have this experience. I remember attending endless church camp worship services that seemed to have as their primary goal helping children to “get saved” or to have this validating experience of the Spirit. No pressure right? Kids struggled, ached, yearned, despaired and tried like hell to have this experience and in the end it was a terrible spiritual burden that many simply relieved by inventing the movement of the Spirit. It was of course disastrous to any sort of authentic spiritual life and withering to one’s trust in the faith experience. If faith meant being a fake, a fraud, who really needed it? And then there was the expectation that when you came back from camp you would get up in front of the congregation and testify of your experience. Talk about heavy-laden.  This was the kind of burden Jesus was teaching about in our passage today.  The religious elites of his day had taken the beautiful way of Torah and over time, without I think intending to, made it into an oppressive and joyless system.  There was so little room to succeed in one’s faith, there were far too many rules to get it all right, and there was a certain cynicism that set in quite naturally when the bar is just too high. Rather like you or I trying to learn cello from YoYo Ma or play one-on-one with Dwyane Wade.

We all know someone, perhaps ourselves, who is in spiritual recovery from one form of spiritual trauma or another. Not to put too fine a point on it but the church that is supposed to be dedicated to bringing people closer to God seems at times to be incredibly creative at inventing ways to hinder people in the spiritual journey. There is something incredibly dark about any institution, turning its back on its primary purpose. Oh, I’m sure you’ve experienced it more than once. One cannot be nourished at the communion table for this reason or that. Your marriage cannot be blessed under those circumstances. We can’t baptize your child because of your lifestyle. Or the subtle ways we communicate, “Well you’re simply really not like us and I’m not sure you belong in our cozy monoculture we call the country club, oh, I mean the church.  Or shh..shhh, you really should keep your children absolutely still and quiet in church as it is ruining my worship experience. What are children doing in church anyway?  There are of course various lions prowling about seeking to devour one’s spiritual life and more.

That I believe is where “The Great Invitation” of this passage makes sense.
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. - Matthew 11: 28-30<

The invitation Jesus speaks is deeply attractive to us. We may hear it as a welcome relief from the struggle and demands of modern life. There is so much to do, our tasks are so many, our expectations always expanding. And while it may in fact be an invitation that will relieve some of our day-to-day struggles it is not an invitation to inactivity. This is an invitation into spiritual intimacy with Christ.  It is issued not to the work-burdened or the sin-burdened so much as it is to the spiritually-burdened. It is an invitation that is saying something like this in the words of Eugene Peterson’s The Message (Matthew 11: 28-30)

<em>Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn the live freely and lightly.</em>

Jesus is inviting each of us into a relationship that is meant to be life-giving, life-affirming, freeing and joyful. I wonder if that is how people would describe their life in Christ or the Christians they meet?  My sponsoring priest was fond of saying, “have enough Christianity to make you joyful and not just enough to make you miserable.” I do not believe that Jesus is saying anything goes, just be yourself and exercise your freedom and you will find the kingdom. Rather I believe that Jesus is saying something more like don’t try to make everything so hard on yourself, don’t keep making up reasons you can’t be joyful, start trying to forgive yourself, hear the allure of my beautiful invitation to you. I love you and I want to walk with you through life: the tough things, the losses, the joys, the victories, the tensions, the challenges, the ambiguities, the passionate actions, the cold anger of injustice. I want to be your partner in it all and so does God. You are invited to follow me, to work with me, to be yoked to me, like two oxen working the field together.

The rest that is possible in life is found in the quality of the yoke one accepts. Jesus’ yoke is called easy which is another way of saying kind.  A good yoke or harness is something that is carefully shaped so that there will be a minimum of chafing and discomfort in the work.  I believe that in saying “learn form me” Jesus means not only listen to my teaching but also join me, become yoked to me and learn how to pull your load differently by working beside me and watching how I do it. The heavy labor of your life will seem lighter, more possible when you allow me to help you with it.

For us Jesus is wisdom, the one who shows us the good way, where the restless can find rest for their souls. This good way is not devoid of hard work or obedience for that would not be life at all. John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness demonstrated the life to be had in honesty about one’s need of God and in exposing the powers that be in this world that work against justice and freedom. Jesus demonstrated in his teaching and life the joyful obedience to God rather than a slavish devotion to rules and the exclusion of others. It is the quality of the relationship with Christ that makes our life and work good, the rest for our souls possible, and a sense that one is alive and participating in the emerging way of God.  “Come to me,” is an invitation by a humble and gentle Jesus to follow him into the kingdom of God.

In following Jesus we become part of a people who know that it is not we ourselves who are in control but rather it is this gentle and humble Jesus who holds the future.  Knowing that Christ holds the future we can be patient in the midst of struggle and with ourselves. In the practice of knowing Christ we are drawn into a relationship that teaches us where true freedom lies, not in a nation or an economy or a career but in learning how to live and love, how to forgive and heal, how to give and nurture and how to grow and serve like Jesus who is with us in it all. It is not that the struggles of life, the dangers of the world or the roaring lions cease to exist or affect us, it is rather that we are not alone in the struggle, for we are yoked to the source of life itself in our acceptance of the Great Invitation.  

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.