Romans 17:15-25a and Saint Matthew 11:16-19; 25-30
Way back in the 1960's, in the land before time, there was an American Rock Band called the Loving Spoonful – not plural spoonfuls but singular, spoonful. They described themselves as having a “good time” sound designed to take some of the edginess of the music in the mid-60's.
My guess is that they wouldn’t have described their songs as being important but rather fun, foot-taping, and most of all singable. Their music also had a certain ear-worm quality about it as you will no doubt discover after I suggest that one of their songs made for a perfect introduction to today’s lessons.
I played it for Thursday’s online Bible study group, and it received a reaction that could only be described as tepid. But, undaunted, I still contend that the lyrics ask an important question:
Did you ever have to make up your mind?
You pick up on one and leave the other behind
It's not often easy and not often kind
Did you ever have to make up your mind?
Did you ever have to finally decide?
And say yes to one and let the other one ride
There's so many changes and tears you must hide
Did you ever have to finally decide?
Today’s gospel and our little peek into the indecisive mind of Saint Paul in our readings gives us a glimpse in the lives of communities and individuals who are having a hard time “finally deciding.”
Jesus is looking out at a people who are having a hard time deciding what they want. I love the way The Living Bible paraphrases Jesus observation by taking it out of the past and plopping it right down in our present.
“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!”1
Isn’t that us sometimes? We are inconsistent. We can’t make up our mind.
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. On a national level, the only thing we are certain of is that we don’t want a leader who calls us to sacrifice.
We say we want leaders who bring youthful energy, but they should have loads of experience. We say we want leaders who should be charismatic but not overbearing.
Sometimes we want a John the Baptist in our midst, calling people to account, reminding them of their sins and need to repent. We want that for other’s but for ourselves we want Jesus, we want grace, we want a word about a God who just loves us. Jesus was right we are absolutely brilliant in justifying our every inconsistency until it comes back to bite us, as it did for Saint Paul in today reading.
If Jesus is talking about communal inconsistencies Saint Paul is beating himself up over his own, personal inconsistencies.
“My own behaviour baffles me.”2 he says. “I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.”3
Saint Paul is talking to himself and not in a good way.
The best explanation of what is going on with the poor guy comes not from some great, heavy, deep, theological tome, but from W. Timothy Gallway’s book, The Inner Game of Tennis. 4
He calls it the conflict between Self 1 and Self 2. Self 1 is the thinker and Self 2 is doer.
So, in tennis Self 1 is saying “Keep eye on the ball. Hold your racket straight. Be ready to charge the net or stay back. Move your feet.” The ball comes over the net, looks easy, and you completely flub it. (Think of either the Cubs or White Sox at any point in almost any game.)
Then if Self 2 fails in what it is trying to do Self 2's judgmental self-talk begins. “You weren’t watching the ball. You weren’t moving your feet. You rolled your racket over again. Suddenly, one’s play gets effected. It is the judgmental, self getting into the mind of the doing self.
Muscles tighten. There is more thinking, less doing. Stokes suffer, points are lost. It’s “game, set, match” and you come away thinking that you're such a failure that you might as well give up tennis and try something else. Beanbag maybe?
Now if such havoc can be reeked on one’s emotions by a simple game of tennis, golf, or even pickle ball, think of how much more damaging such self-talk is to the life of faith. One might even conclude with Saint Paul: “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this?”
It is then that Saint Paul answers his own question by reminding himself who he belongs to. “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”5
What he is doing is reminding himself that he has been yoked to Christ. Paul is reminding , reminding us, that joined Christ and joined to each other we will be able to manage any load that is placed upon us. More important of all we are being told that Christ wants to share that load with us.
The wonder of the Gospel for me is not my desire to be yoked to Christ but his desire to be yoked to me.
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.”6
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 meagre 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.”7
I can’t guarantee that yoked to Jesus your tennis, game, or golf, or pickle ball game will improve but I can guarantee in those moments of confusion and chaos, when it it hard to make up your mind, you’ll know that through it all, no matter what, God is right next to you, by your side, yoked to you.
And for now, we have to make up our mind that this is just going to have to be enough.
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1. Saint Matthew 11:16-19. (TLB) [TLB= The Living Bible. Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 1971]
2. Romans 7:15. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (London, ENG: Bles, 1968).
3. Romans 7:17-20. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, in The Message: The New Testament Psalms and Proverbs (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1998).
4. W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis.(New York: Random House, 1974).
5. Romans 7: 24. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version]
6. William Barkley, The Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1957), p. 12.
7. Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996)
Sermon preached at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Luke, 9 July 2023.
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