"What Do We Really Want?" - Pentecost 5A

Saint Matthew 11:16–19 & 25–30

John Adams, who really believed that July 2nd was the day when colonial independence should have been celebrated.

He firmly believed that formal separation from England took place when “the Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia voted to approve a motion for independence put forth by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia” on July 2nd 1776.

  It was not until July 4 that the “actual Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress.”

Interesting enough the “city of Philadelphia, where the Declaration was signed, waited until July 8 to celebrate, with a parade and the firing of guns. The Continental Army under the leadership of George Washington didn’t learn about it until July 9.”1

Adams not only had strong feelings about when the celebration should take place but how independence should be celebrated. He wanted more than just the firing of a few rounds into the air. 

Writing to his wife Abigail on July 3 he outlined what became the formula for our celebrations.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.2

And so it was until this year.  This year there are no grand gatherings of hundreds of thousands of people along Chicago’s lakefront or the Charles River in Boston to watch massive firework displays.  (Although I believe that all of those extra fireworks were bought up by the people in my neighborhood who have been firing them off over the entire extent of Adam’s proposed celebration with glee.) This year there are no symphony orchestras or community bands blasting out Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” accompanied by cannons and carillons.  This years’ parades in communities large and small have been scaled back if not outright cancelled.

On this rare, quiet, celebration of Independence – without the boom and bang of fireworks, without the floats and flotillas of parades, without the hot dogs, hamburgers, brats, and beers of barbeques – maybe we can take a moment to think about one sentence from John Adam’s great statement and thinks about how we can commemorate . . . [this] as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.  

United Methodist Pastor James Howell wondered once:

When did the  . . .  nation the Founding Fathers, who were highly educated, philosophically wise, and respectful people, conceived become a battleground of ideologies, ignorance in constant combat with ignorance, where the loudest, shrillest rancor wins the day? When did patriotism get whittled down to nothing more than anger, heady feelings about wars and weapons, and an edgy bias against people who are different?3

When did this generation become like the generation that exasperated Jesus?

I love the way The Living Bible paraphrases Jesus’ words:

“What shall I say about this nation? These people are like children playing, who say to their little friends,  ‘We played a wedding and you weren’t happy, so we played a funeral but you weren’t sad.’ For John the Baptist doesn’t even drink wine and often goes without food, and you say, ‘He’s crazy.’  And I, the Messiah, feast and drink, and you complain that I am ‘a glutton and a drinking man, and hang around with the worst sort of sinners!’ But brilliant men like you can justify your every inconsistency!”4

Every inconsistency comes from not knowing what you really want.  

I am currently reading and recommending a book, The Hardest Job in the World, by John Dickerson about the American Presidency. In it he points our inconsistencies. 

We say we want strong leaders but not too strong.  We say we want leaders who will protect our rights but not infringe on them.  We say we want leaders who will give us direction but only if that is in the way we think we want to go.  The only thing we are certain of is that we don’t want a leader who calls us to sacrifice.  

We want a leader who is a success, a Bill Gates or a Sam Walton. 

Jesus would not have made a good presidential candidate he didn’t tell the people what they wanted to hear but what they needed to hear.  He summoned them to follow their better angels.

You probably don’t know this but our Independence Day celebrations occur in the midst of two other major events in United States history.  The first shows us how far we can fall and the second shows us how good we can be.

The first was the Battle of Gettysburg which began on July 1 and lasted until the evening of July 4, 1863 when General Robert E. Lee, of statue fame, withdrew. The Army of the Potomac was too weak to pursue the Confederates, and Lee led his army out of the North, never to invade it again.”  Even though the Battle of Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War it had no real winner.  And it came at great cost with “23,000 union soldiers killed, wounded, or missing in action. The Confederates suffered some 25,000 casualties.”5  

Even though it inspired one of the greatest speeches ever given by any President the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the darkest days in American history.

A brighter day came on “July 2, 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House.” It “prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education and outlawed racial segregation in public places such as schools, buses, parks and swimming pools.” 6

It was a bright day when the nation began the struggle that continues to this day to end our divisions.

As you know, as a part of the ceremony Presidents traditionally give away pens that they use to sign their names.  Johnson gave one pen to Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, the Democrat who shepherded the bill through the Senate and another to Everett McKinley Dirksen, the Senate minority leader, a Republican from Illinois without whose help passage would not have been possible.

See what can happen when we dance together!

Jesus invites us to remember that we are inextricably connected to each other.

We can continue to do our own thing, live the way we want, and hope for the best. The rising rate of the Covid virus shows us what a terrible idea that turned out to be.  But we can also see what happens when we pull together, share the load and sustain each other. 

Jesus says that joined to him and joined to each other we will be able to manage  the latest load that is placed upon us.  More important of all we are being told that he wants to share that load with us.  

We are the invited ones today as we continue to struggle with the exile experience of the corona virus.  In a time when social distancing tells us to keep six feet away from each other Jesus is still finding ways to bring us together.

Some of us are back together in worship for the first time since March 29th. Since that time Jesus has been holding us together through Zoom meetings and YouTube worship.  In our confusion, despair, impatience, and distractions he has been with us, yoked to us.

According to William Barclay in one of his famous bible commentaries, "there is a legend that Jesus made the best ox-yokes in all Galilee, and that from all over the country men came to his carpenter's shop to buy the best yokes that skill could make.”7

If that legend isn’t true it should be.

While we are dancing around trying to figure out what it is that we want Jesus is telling us that joined to him we may not always get what we want but we will get what we need.  

Yoked to him we can be united not divided from one another.

Yoked to Jesus our meager efforts at unity are redeemed.  

Yoked to Jesus our struggles bring us closer to him and closer to each other.

Yoked to Jesus our smallest efforts become part of God’s new creation.

Yoked to Jesus we see each other as equals. We see each other as  sisters and brothers.

Yoked to Jesus we discover that there is someone by our side, tethered to us to help us bear our burdens and carry our loads.

Yoked to Jesus we will hear no less than Almighty God say, “become my yoke mate, and learn how to pull the load by working beside me and watching how I do it. The heavy labor will seem lighter if you let me help you with it.”8

Yoked to Jesus we discover what freedom really is.  It is knowing that through everything God is right next to us, by our side, yoked to us.

Isn’t that what we really want?

__________

1. Valerie  Strauss, “Why July 2nd Is Really America's Independence Day,” July 7, 2015, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/john-adams-was-right-2-july-is-really-americas-independence-day-10361356.html.

2. Jessie Kratz, “Pieces of History,” Pieces of History (blog) (The National Archives, July 2, 2014), https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2014/07/02/john-adams-vision-of-july-4-was-july-2/#:~:text=The%20Second%20Day%20of%20July,of%20Devotion%20to%20God%20Almighty.

3. James C. Howell, “What Can We Say July 5? 5th after Pentecost.” (blog) (Myers Park United Methodist Church, July 3, 2010), http://revjameshowell.blogspot.com/2010/07/jesus-and-july-4.html.

4. Saint Matthew 11:16-19. (TLB) [TLB= The Living Bible Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 1971]

5. “Battle of Gettysburg Ends,” History.com (A&;E Television Networks, November 24, 2009),https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/battle-of-gettysburg-ends?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2020-0703-07032020.

6. “Civil Rights Act of 1964 Signed,” History.com (A&E Television Networks, November 24, 2009), https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/johnson-signs-civil-rights-act?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2020-0702-07022020.

7.     William Barkley, The Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1957), p. 12.

8. Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996).