Roger Ray, pastor
July 3, 2011 Proper 9
Matthew 11:16-19, 28-30
16"But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, 17'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.' 18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon'; 19the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds."
28"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
If you ever decide that you would like to learn how to fly and airplane, you will discover that what it takes to actually operate a small aircraft is not much more complicated than driving a manual transmission car.... With the important difference of not being able to pull off to the side of the road when something goes wrong.
What I was surprised to discover is that the actual operation of the airplane was nothing compared to the skill needed to navigate. In fact, before GPS guidance systems became affordable, most of we private pilots preferred to fly with two pilots... one to hold onto the controls and the other to stare endlessly at the navigation chart.
The first time you look at a navigation chart, it looks like a very important but totally possible to comprehend pile of colors, lines and numbers, many of which are detailing obstacles that could kill you if you don't get them right. Some numbers tell you the height of certain towers and mountains, others let you know what the radio frequency of a particular airport's tower or navigation point and some let you know the hours of operation of military fighter jets over huge expanses of land nearly everywhere you thought you wanted to go. You have to love a sport with so many colorful and intricate ways in which to kill yourself!
I suspect that for many of you, when Dr. Trobisch and I ask you to open the Bible with us, that what you see there looks a lot like what a new pilot sees when looking at a nav chart. Even when rendered in modern English, it presumes knowledge of an ancient culture and religious beliefs which are as foreign to us as how a navy pilot lands a jet on the moving target of an aircraft carrier at sea.... The chances of actually getting it right seem to be miniscule.
Before you can grasp all of the numbers and lines, first you have to see the big picture.... You have to see the road, rivers, towns and the tower field in Fordland that has several towers that go up to 2000 feet from the ground. Once you can see those things at a glance, the rest of it all starts to fall into place.
I would argue that there are similar things you have to be able to see when you start looking at our Bible. Specifically, when you look at the gospels.... When you look at these stories about Jesus, what are they really trying to tell us?
I am indebted to Jesus Seminar scholar and author, Marcus Borg, for so clearly pointing out the roads, rivers and towns in the wide angle view of the Jesus narrative. Borg asks his readers, "What is the primary theme of the gospels?" And he asks, "What is the central conflict around which the story revolves?"
Here are the two central points I would ask anyone to have in mind when they start reading the gospels. Number one is that Jesus was the teacher of radical compassion. Number two is that Jesus, as the teacher of compassion, is in constant tension with the prevailing religion of piety.
I've always known that somehow, when my Sunday School teachers, when my mother looked at the pages of the Bible, what they saw was the gospel against smoking, drinking, dancing and cussing.....and when you get up to about 10 years old, they added, oh, and don't think about sex either.
It's like trying to be a recruiter for the Catholic priesthood..... OK, there is no salary, no retirement, no days off and no sex and no family..... are there any reasons why someone might not want this job?
The conflict between compassion and piety is nowhere expressed more succinctly than in this gospel passage before us today. Jesus, just a few months into his life as a preacher, has discovered that there is no way to satisfy pious religious critics. He compared them to whinny children. Because, John the Baptist had come and he really was a very observant religious person..... he didn't drink wine, he didn't eat meat, he wouldn't even wear clothing made of cotton or wool. He lived in the wilderness wearing animal skins and eating bugs and they said that he, well.... They said that he had a demon but what they meant was that John was a tad crazy... off his rocker.... A few bricks short of a load... not playing with a full deck.... His elevator didn't go to the top floor.... He was, in our parlance, a bag of fries short of a happy meal..... which is where you could easily wind up if you took my Sunday School teachers too seriously.
But Jesus wasn't that way. Jesus wasn't always serious. He liked to go to parties. He liked to hang out with people who had bad reputations. He drank wine, enough that some people called him a drunk. He liked to eat so much that some people called him a glutton.
And yes, in all seriousness, there is a moral implication to leading a life of faith. We don't want to hurt other people or ourselves. We want to be healthy and to promote health in others and in society.... But the way of piety just never seems to get it right.
When I was in seminary our field education teachers warned us never to socialize with church members. They warned us against being too friendly or too available because when you become too familiar, people will criticize the house you live in, the car you drive, the length of your hair and how you raise your kids.
And it is true enough, some people just can't resist piously judging everyone from their children to their pastor as being either demonic or drunk. I just never would go along with the business of acting like a distant priest because that would mean that I would only socialize with other pastors and, frankly, pastors are a pretty dull crowd to hang out with.
You can never be good enough, or drive the right car or raise your kids in a way that really satisfies the pious but, as W. C. Fields said, "It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to that matters."
Jesus offers his followers an alternative to the religion of piety. There was a park bench near my home when I lived in Memphis, TN. And it said, in large letters, "come to me, all you who are weary, and I will give you rest." Obviously, the quote is from our gospel lesson today but what had made me remember that park bench now for 30 years is that when those words were written on a park bench, they were literally true, honest and sincere. But when you hear these words of Jesus being uttered in church.... Are they true?
Is the yoke of being a Christian light and easy? Is the burden of trying to live this life easy?
When you open the Bible to read from the gospels, ask yourself, "What is he really saying?" And when you see Jesus in conflict with others, ask yourself, "What are they really arguing about?" I think that when we experience the church as being full of guilt and fear, manipulation and judgment, rejection of joy and embracing somber piety then we are experiencing the religion that Jesus specifically rejected.
Radical compassion, at the very least, means that you stop passing judgment on other people. I can't resist buying bumper stickers by the dozen.... Sometimes I wish I could have one of those digital marquise running in the back window of my car because there are so many single sentence pithy things I want to say to the world, like, "I'm pretty sure that when Jesus said, 'love your enemies' he meant that we shouldn't kill them." There are parts of the Bible that really require a commentary and some parts ought to be allowed to stand alone.
Radical compassion is not necessarily easy because there are people that it is just easier to judge them than it is to love them. And I find that the world is populated with people who would be every so much happier if they would just let me change them a little bit......none of you, of course, but almost everyone who isn't here today.
The religion of Jesus is not the gospel of smoking, drinking, dancing and cussing we heard about when we were kids. The religion of piety which often wears his name, is a fraud.
If we are sincere followers of Jesus then we stand within a tradition of following the teacher of radical compassion and, from one guy sitting on the park bench to another, it shouldn't be that complicated and we really ought to enjoy the journey.
Søren Kierkegaard said, "It is so much easier to become a Christian when you aren't one than to become one when you assume you already are." I fear that millions of people have dismissed the Christian faith because they believe that it is the religion of piety that, in fact, Jesus explicitly rejected. The hard thing is to get someone who has already decided about institutional religion to open their minds again to the possibility that there is a better option.... One defined by justice and compassion rather than fear and guilt.
I often regret that we do not have more people here to hear Dr. Trobisch's lectures on scripture, but most people are pretty well convinced that they know what is in the Bible and they don't like it much. Probably, you don't know that much about what is in it and you are in for a pleasant surprise when we let the real Jesus stand up in its pages.
We have rejected the religion of piety, with all of its magic, superstition, anti-intellectualism and neurotic judgment. We have set that down in favor of being yoked with Jesus, who is gentle and humble in heart and who provides for us a respite from the insanity of the world and hope that we may be able to make it better.
