Sermon 9a 2017: Freedom in the Yoke of Jesus our Lord Introduction: Freedom and Boundaries We re coming to the end of our theme for the year, Living Like Jesus; And like all the themes we focus on to help us be more faithful, loving Christians; To help us live into our mission of knowing God in Jesus Christ And making Christ known to others; This theme has generated some mixed results. Oh, I think a lot more of us are paying attention to the pattern of our lives; Looking to Jesus to see how He is always in a balance between prayer and action; Between spending time in direct communion with God And offering God s grace and forgiveness and healing and power to others Through His teachings and through His deeds. More of us are paying attention to the pattern of our lives And the result has been more peace in God s presence; A better idea of God s intentions for our lives and a deeper following; That has enabled and empowered us to do some amazing deeds in God s name; To live in such a way that others notice God s presence in our hearts and in our actions. Last week, when I was with some of our youth and adults helping to feed hungry people; We set up a pattern of praying together before bed, using the service of Compline; And in the morning, reading the daily devotion and Jesus Sermon on the Mount. One never knows what kind of result you re going to get when you introduce regular prayer; But one evening I was pretty tired and was thinking of skipping our evening prayer; When one of the youth came in and asked if I wanted her to get the others; So that we could pray together. She said it was really helping her. 1
On the other hand, a lot of us struggled with the fact that Jesus may have had an advantage In living His life in this prayerful-active balance, because He is both God and human; And except for those days when we re really full of ourselves; And think that we re all that, we are not God; And so this seeming advantage was a struggle for some of us; To try and live more like Jesus over this past year; And live this more balanced life. I had several people in my office over this past year admitting that they were struggling With our theme and asking if there was some other way we could talk about the Christian life; Living like Jesus was just too high an aspiration and they wanted to continue as they were In the hope that that would be enough. I know my responses varied with the person before me, But essentially, I reminded them that they did not have to be Jesus, but only like Him; I suggested that if you wanted to live the life that is really life the life with God; Then we all need to try to strike that balance of prayer and action; Because that s where God has room to move in our hearts To empower us to become our best selves and to be lights of Christ in the world. Well whether we caught a glimpse of the gifts that come when we try to live like Jesus; Or we struggled with the possibility of even trying; All of us struggled with the boundary this kind of life brings; Boundaries of balance in regular prayer and action; We re not big on boundaries, we humans; We like to go our own way; Most of us do not like someone or something crimping our lifestyle; We want to be free to do what we want to do when we want to do it. 2
I was thinking about this on Tuesday, on Independence Day; And how we as a people gathered together to throw of the yoke of British rule; And no longer answer to a king, but to set up our own laws and boundaries So that we could govern ourselves, so that we could live free; And our forbearers fought and died for this right. We re a nation who celebrates freedom and the rights of individuals To pursue life, liberty and happiness on our own terms; As the New Hampshire flag says, Live Free or Die. Oh, there are laws and norms we re expected to abide by; But even agreed upon laws and norms for living as a community; Get in the way of our freedoms and we have been known to run a stop sign; To speed when we re running late, to grumble about paying our taxes. And even to infringe on the rights of others When they get in the way of what we want to do, when we want to do it. And we re not the only people through time who have struggled to live within boundaries; The history of the world and the Biblical record reveal that from the very beginning; We humans struggle with living with boundaries. The people that Jesus is talking to in this morning s Gospel Wanted neither John s strict rules for living a Godly life Or Jesus freer lifestyle offering the fullest of lives; Those 613 laws in the first five books of the Bible come down to us As both gifts from God for living a good life and a burden to try to follow; And even the first humans, with only one law to follow, free to do anything But eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil couldn t resist crossing the boundary. 3
St. Paul says that it s sin living in us; That there s some force beyond ourselves that keeps us from living and acting rightly; And you and I know this is true; Sometimes we do things so out of character that we wonder how this can be; But it is also true that part of being human is a desire to live freely And to throw off any yoke or boundary, real or imagined That directs us away from our desire to be free; And the results of our overarching desire to be free of yokes or boundaries; More often lead to a life that is not free at all, But messy, confusing, difficult, sometimes broken. Freedom with Boundaries The reality is that there is no freedom without boundaries; There is no true freedom or life without some limits, some margins, some borders; Some standard in which we can live and move and have our being. I was first introduced to the gift of boundaries when I was in 8 th grade in the 1970 s, Our social studies teacher was a man named Sandy Donaldson We thought he was a communist, all of us did; Not only was he a card carrying member of the railroad workers union; That had stopped the trains running in Nebraska for three days in the 1960 s But he was also teaching us about the Soviet Union when the Cold War was pretty hot. One day he announced that there was no freedom without boundaries; We were stunned and argued that that was nonsense and that as Americans we were free; We can say and do and live as we please. That s so, he said, but even as Americans there are boundaries to your freedom And if you really want to experience true freedom, you ll live within those boundaries. 4
We sparred with him on this idea for several weeks as he showed us the boundaries That were all around us that actually helped our lives; One day he started dropping things on the floor books, erasers, even 80 lbs Roger Andres; Okay, we agreed that gravity was a boundary that we were not free from. Just as the bell rang one morning, he blocked the door and we reminded him That we had to get to Mr. Bennett s English class on the other side of campus; He laughed and reminded us that our class schedules were another example Of the limits to our freedom and if we didn t abide by them, we would fail. We all stopped, stumped again, when Jim Bass piped up and said, We don t have to go to English class, we want to go! We could hear his laughter down the hall as we rushed to our next class. We kept our futile argument going for another week, but he had us and we knew it; Gradually, we came to understand that real freedom and real life; That good results and happiness come when we live within boundaries; And that when we step out of the boundaries, the results can be diminishing. The Boundaries of the Christian Life The Christian life has boundaries, edges, responsibilities, patterns, Even a yoke according to Jesus image this morning; And when we seek to live within these boundaries and patterns, with God s help; We will become our best selves and live lives that are more and more like Jesus; In a life of true freedom. And though we Christians intend to live our lives like Jesus and follow God s commands; Though we try to live freely within God s boundaries, we cannot do it on our own. 5
And so Jesus invites us in this morning s Gospel and every day of our lives To come to Him; To lay aside our burdens, our mistakes, our sins, our struggles; Our misunderstanding of what true freedom means And to have a companion throughout our lives. The Son of God, who became as we are, tempted in every way to live outside the boundaries; Willing to suffer and die for our sins and be raised; So that we and all might be freed from the bonds of sin and death; This same Jesus offers us a yoke that is easy, a yoke that is light; Jesus offers us freedom within the boundaries of God s will And a companion and leader along the path of life as we seek to live like Him. We don t see too many oxen yoked together these days unless you travel to Lancaster County; And so Jesus imagery of the yoke may be a little mysterious for our modern ears; But to understand Jesus offer fully; We need to understand that the yoke is fitted precisely to each oxen; So that it doesn t chafe or injure the oxen; And that oxen work best in pairs where one of the oxen is a lead oxen; And the other follows within the bounds of the yoke, side by side; Jesus and you; Jesus and me. Jesus and us as the church. So as we draw to a close on our year of living like Jesus; Let me invite you to come to Him, to lay your burdens down; To set aside our misunderstanding of true freedom; And allow Jesus to walk with us and lead us into the life that is truly life; The lived like and with Jesus. Amen. 6