Take it Easy

This sermon was written for our Zoom service on Sunday 5th July, the day after lockdown restrictions were eased in the UK, allowing visits to pubs, bars and restaurants for the first time in over three months. The Gospel was Matthew 11:16-19,25-30.

I’ve read and re-read today’s Gospel many times in the past few weeks. You have to when you’re called to preach on a passage, but, perhaps even more so than normal, this week, I’ve been stuck for what aspect of this passage on which to focus.

I think it’s because it seems such a mish-mash. The more I read our Gospel today, the less I see how it all ties together. It reads more like a collection of sayings than a process of thought – and, even allowing for the fact that the gospel-writer may well have brought these separate sayings together to form one speech, it’s hard to see what point either Christ, or Matthew (as the writer) is trying to make, especially now 2000 years later.

Let me start by paraphrasing the gospel: it starts with Christ comparing the people around him to children, arguing in the market-place, then moves onto Christ making a point about how those same people accepted neither John the Baptist nor Jesus. At that point, we skip a few verses where Christ compares the cities around him to ancient Biblical cities of disrepute, stating that they are more blind to God’s work than those cities ever were, and then, back to our reading, we come onto another piece about children. But this time, it is not a negative comparison due to the similarity in quarrelsomeness, but instead, Christ says that children are closer to understanding God than wise and intelligent adults are. Finally, we hear once again the rightly famous passage – “come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke 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”.

It’s hard to find the thread that ties this all together. Maybe it’s best to take it a section at a time?

The first two points I can link quite easily. The thread is there quite clearly. “Play with us!”, the children demand. “We are making music – dance!” But the person to whom they are calling does not. “Well then!”, comes the response, “If you won’t celebrate, let’s play at mourning! Weep with us instead!” But the listener is not at their beck-and-call. He does not dance to their tune or weep on demand. Who are the children? Christ says they are us – “this generation”. And he makes it clear who it is they are calling to in his next statement. When he moves on to talk about how the people accept neither John nor Jesus, it is clear, he is talking about our relationship with God.

John came, Christ says, not eating or drinking – like a proper old testament prophet; with that ‘old time’ religion. But he was too much. “He has a demon!”, the people called. “How can you listen to a man like that? He surely cannot be a messenger of God”. And so, John was beheaded, and everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief, no longer having to listen to that poor, troubled man.

You’d think, then, that the people would be happy with Jesus instead. He wasn’t all doom and gloom; he didn’t fast publicly and he didn’t make people feel guilty about their relationship with God. But, no – this prophet was also not good enough for the people. “He’s not Godly enough!”, the people responded. “He’s a glutton, and a drunk! He’s only pretending at being religious – give us the Real Thing instead!”.

Neither John nor Jesus were what the people wanted. They would not dance on demand, or weep when the people thought they should. John’s message of repentance was great – for others – but as soon as it applies to us, well – he must be mistaken. And Christ’s Good News of forgiveness and acceptance is lovely – as long as he doesn’t take it too far, you know? No. Give us a God who loves who we love, and who condemns who we condemn, and we’ll be fine.

Except, we won’t will we? Because, as Christ was pointing out, we’re so childish. We don’t really care what people are doing, so long as we can be outraged and offended by them… and as long as we can judge and condemn. We see it all the time, especially now as tensions are heightened under this global pandemic. We judge people travelling to work on packed busses and trains, but we also judge those employers who have closed their offices and laid off staff. We judge people for meeting to protest or going to the beach, but find there’s an exception when we want to meet up with friends in the park. And we judge those people who this very weekend went to pubs and restaurants as soon as they could, but at the same time, we know that, were we really able to, we’d be in church together this morning, rather than meeting by Zoom. We may be wise and intelligent people, but I think we know that we really can be a very foolish generation. In this way, children really are better than us – they are so much quicker to forgive us than we are ourselves. They can move from mourning to dancing within a matter of minutes – would that we all could do likewise!

I think Christ in this passage is very simply just calling us to be more kind; to judge less and to forgive more.

But it’s not just others whom we judge and condemn. It’s ourselves. And, to be honest, we can often be our own worst critics. I don’t know about you, but I still replay occurrences in my head hours, days and even months later – again, especially now in these coronavirus times. Did I really need to go to the shops the other evening? Did I pass by too close to that person on my walk before? Did I waste this time of lockdown, or could I have done something different with it? The majority of the guilt I feel is self-imposed.

But that call to kindness applies to ourselves too. As Christ says; if you are weary and burdened; if you are heavy with self-judgement, rest is found in him. Give yourselves a break – just as you’re called to forgive others, forgive yourself. As much as we sometimes might want our God to condemn others, he does not. And he does not condemn us either – there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ – his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

So, be like Christ – be like the God who cares so much about being with people that he was assumed to be a drunk rather than a typical religious person. Be like Christ. Be kind. Be kind to others. Be kind to yourself.

Amen