Whose Service Is
Perfect Freedom
Some Thoughts on
Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30
RCL Proper 14A
9 July 2017
Saint Faith’s
Anglican Church
Vancouver BC
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 9th.
Click here to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist on Sunday the 9th.
Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30
11.16 [Jesus said to the crowd,] “But to what will I
compare this generation? It is like
children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
17
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not
mourn.’
18
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; 19
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.”
25
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; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious
will. 27 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.
28
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will
give you rest. 29 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. 30
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
When I was growing
up in the Episcopal Church in the United States, it was common to alternate
between Morning Prayer and the Eucharist on Sundays. In my home parish of Saint Michael the
Archangel, we had Morning Prayer on the first and third Sundays of the month,
Eucharist on the second and fourth. If
there was a fifth Sunday, we had a service called ‘Ante-Communion’ where we
followed the eucharistic service up to the point when the priest would have had
to stop the service if he were the only person present for the service.
Among the prayers I
remember hearing every other Sunday in Morning Prayer was the Collect for
Peace.
O God, who are the author of peace and lover of concord, in
knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect
freedom: Defend us thy humble servants
in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may
not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
Even as I hear the prayer now, I know that I have always pondered a
particular phrase: ‘whose service is
perfect freedom’.
When you and I hear
the word ‘service’, the idea of ‘freedom’ does not immediately spring to
mind. We tend, I think, to consider
‘service’ as something that is done under the direction of a particular person
or as the consequence of particular set of rules or obligations. ‘Service’ is not about ‘freedom’; there is a
subtle sense of coercion.
Yet, when Jesus
speaks of his yoke as ‘easy’ and his burden as ‘light’, he does have in mind a
link between ‘service’ and ‘freedom’. In
the rabbinic tradition of his time, it was common to speak about following
Torah, God’s expectations of Israel, as putting on the ‘yoke’ of the Law. This was not a negative image; it was a way
of describing the gift that God’s Law was for the people of Israel.
Let me share an
image that Jesus and his contemporaries would understand well. Imagine you have a field you want to
plough. You know that your strength is
not enough to accomplish the task well enough to feed your family and pay your
taxes. But you have oxen, powerful
animals who do have the strength to do the work. But how shall you harness the natural
strength, the natural gifts I dare say, of the oxen? You yoke them together. The yoke transfers the oxen’s strength to the
blade of the plough. Furrows can be
made. Seeds can be planted. Crops can be harvested. Life can be sustained, even made easier for
you and your family.
To follow Jesus as
a disciple is to take on the yoke of the good news that he brings to us and to
all humanity. It means choosing to take
on the way of life God shows us in Jesus as the means of empowering our
God-given talents to participate in God’s mission in the world. God calls us to a life of disciplined freedom
rather than self-indulgent liberty. God’s
service is ‘perfect freedom’ because in God’s service we are freed from the delusions
and illusions of trying to be someone we are not. God holds before a picture of who we truly
are and challenges us to live into the reality.
Right now there is
a banner hanging over the front door of Saint Faith’s that declares we are a
place of ‘help, hope and home’. Why? Because we believe there three words describe
who we are when we are most faithful to God’s call to us in this time and in
this neighbourhood. It is a declaration
of the kind of community we are committed to becoming. But to be this kind of community requires
discipline. Christian discipline is the
yoke that transfers the power of our time, our talents and our treasure into
the ministry of ‘help, hope and home’ we strive to exercise. Our discipline takes shape
- in service that enriches the lives of our neighbours, near and far, known and unknown;
- in worship that gathers, transforms and sends us into ministry;
- in evangelism that dares to share the good news of God in Christ;
- in education that deepens our understanding of God; and
- in pastoral care that offers compassion and companionship in times of trouble.
Taking on this yoke
of service, worship, evangelism, education and pastoral care gives us the
freedom to use our knowledge, our skills and our experiences to be more fully
ourselves. It gives us the freedom to be
more fully the human beings that God intends all of us to be. It gives us the freedom to live in ‘the
already but not yet’ of God’s reign of justice and help others live in hope and
find a home.
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