Pentecost Five

Pentecost 5 – Proper 9  July 5, 2020 | Romans 7.15-25a | Pastor Richard O. Johnson |

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7.15-25a NRSV)

Jesus said to the crowd, “To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the 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.”

At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“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 11.16-19, 25-30 (NRSV)

 

One of the miracles of the internet is the ability it gives us to be in conversation with other people in many different places around the country and around the world. There are any number of sites where pastors talk with each other about a wide variety of things. Some time ago in one of these cyberspace conversations a pastor who was taking a continuing education class shared a question posed by his teacher: What’s wrong with preaching today? It was fascinating to read the answers—and often among these Lutheran pastors the answer boiled down to a sense that many contemporary preachers have lost the ability or the desire to preach law and gospel.

Now that’s Lutheran pastor talk, and you perhaps don’t know what it means, so let me explain it simply. In the Lutheran tradition, it has always been thought important that a sermon hold two things in a kind of tension: one is to preach the law, which is to point out our human condition, that we are in bondage to sin and all that; and the other is to offer the gospel, the good news that God forgives and saves us sinners.

Our Scripture lessons this morning could hardly be better chosen to offer those two realities. Here we have Paul, in Romans 7, presenting in a powerfully personal way, his own spiritual condition. It is not a pretty sight, but it is one that forces us to admit that he’s pretty well got us pegged.

Law and Gospel in Paul

Paul has been talking about the Law, and how it shows us how to live, shows us what God wants us to be and do. Paul says that he loves the Law of God. Indeed, he wants more than anything else to live according to it. But then he bares his soul in front of us. He says that, as much as he wants to do right, he finds himself, over and over again, doing things that he knows are wrong. And he doesn’t understand why!

Let me paraphrase this magnificent passage: “I don’t understand myself!” he says. “I don’t do what I’d like to do, but I do just what I know is wrong. . . . Even though the desire to do good is in me, I’m not able to do it. I don’t do the good I want; instead, I do the evil that I don’t want to do. My inner self loves God’s law; but my outward behavior seems to be governed by some different law, a law that fights against God; and I am the prisoner of that law!”

Strong words from Paul! But I have to admit that this is also the way it is with me. And I know enough of human nature to suspect that it’s that way with you, too. All of us know pretty much how we ought to live, and all of us know, deep in the darkest reaches of our hearts, that we don’t live that way all the time; indeed, some days it seems that we don’t live that way at all.

 

Shame and guilt

Now perhaps you struggle with some big, crushing sense of shame and guilt over something in your life. Many of us know that feeling, at least occasionally. But even if that’s not the case for you at the moment, you are likely aware, as most thoughtful people are, that scarcely a day goes by that you don’t do something or say something for which you are later sorry—a thoughtless word, a neglected duty, an angry or resentful thought.

It’s not that we don’t know any better! We do. We know better, and we want to do better, but we just don’t seem to succeed. Sometimes when things become really unbearable, we feel just like Paul—like some unknown evil force has gotten control of our lives and is making us do things we really don’t want to do! “Wretched man that I am!” cries Paul. “Who will rescue me?” Who will save me from myself?

This is the primary purpose of God’s law, you see. It is to bring us to that point of recognizing how completely we fail to be the people God wants us to be, and the people e want to be.

 

Good news!

And it is only then, when we have come to that point, that we can hear the gospel, the “good news”; hear the clear and gentle voice of Jesus Christ breaking through to us in all its simplicity with words like those in the gospel lesson this morning: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Words of promise that touch my very soul when I realize they are spoken to me! Words that are irresistible when I see that the burdens are mine that he offers to relieve.

For what are those burdens but the despair and frustration I feel when I realize that I can’t keep from doing wrong when left to my own devices? And just when I feel the most helpless is when I discover that there is someone to help me, someone who says to me, “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

But then comes the paradox! For no sooner does he lift the burden from us than he gives us another to bear. “Take my yoke upon you,” he says, “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.” Many fail in the Christian life at just this point: they are willing, oh they are eager, for Christ to take their burden from them; but not so willing to take his yoke upon them. They are willing for Christ to forgive them, to accept them, to comfort them; but not so willing to learn from him. And if we are not willing to take on his yoke and learn from him, then we are certain to stumble back into our old ways, and gather up new burdens of guilt and unhappiness.

 

The easy yoke

What is the yoke of which he speaks? For many years this puzzled me, because it seemed as if Christ were just asking me to give up one burden and take on another. But then it occurred to me that a yoke is a device for yoking two animals together, in order to make them a more powerful team. What Jesus means when he says, “Take my yoke upon you,” is that we are called to yoked with him, to share his yoke, to do his task. But not alone, you see—we do it in concert with Christ himself. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” By joining ourselves to him, by working alongside him, we learn his way, the way of gentleness and humility.

And his yoke is easy. In ancient Palestine, an “easy yoke” was one that was well-fitted, that did not irritate the animal on whom it was placed; it was a yoke that made it possible to carry a very heavy burden—indeed, it made that burden seem light. When we are yoked with Christ, you see, the yoke is easy, the burden light.

So this is a most gracious invitation. Our friend Paul—who  struggles so hard to do what is right, who struggles until he can only cry out for help—Paul hears the offer clearly. We can be controlled by our human nature, or we can be controlled by the Spirit of God. We can struggle endlessly to do right by ourselves, by our own power, and keep on stumbling on our own failures and mistakes; or we can be joined with Christ, who will walk with us, right beside us, and teach us his way. To be controlled by that human nature, Paul says, means nothing but death; but to be joined to Christ means life and peace.

So we are confronted with the law, which shows us our sin, shows us the truth about ourselves, warts and all; and then, when we’ve seen it and acknowledged it, we are presented with the gospel of grace and mercy and peace. What a blessing it is to hear those words: Come unto him, ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and he will give you rest; take his yoke upon you, and learn from him; for he is gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.

 

Pastor Richard O. Johnson

Grass Valley, CA

roj@nccn.net