Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145:8-15; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19,25-30
The Rev. Drew Brislin
This past week I was with Allison in her hometown of Maryville, TN. While out running errands one day we visited the local mall. It dawned on me that it has been years since I have visited an actual mall. In my youth like many of you I visited our local mall the Selma Mall or at other times we would have to drive over here to Montgomery to visit the Eastdale or the Montgomery Mall. On rare occasions we would pilgrimage to Hoover and the Galleria. Before leaving, I asked Allison if we could just take a lap around the mall. I wanted to take in the sights and smells that harkened back to my childhood when the halls of the mall were the first place my friends and I could begin to wander off from our parents. The combination of Great American Cookie Co., Bath and Body, and various food vendors produced an aroma that stirred memories and one memory in particular. Some of you have heard Candice and I discuss that we met, as a result of our mutual participation on the YMCA swim team where we were called the Selma Greater Gators. As I look back, I can see these years as formative in my affinity for swag and t shirts. As Allison calls them, my love language. It was much harder to come by it seems in the 80’s but my dad had a friend who had moved back to town and started an airbrush business in the mall. This was just another benefit to these now aging facilities. If you could think of a business the mall was a good place to start it. Low overhead and a lot of foot traffic. One day while I was out with my dad, he decided to pay his friend a visit. I don’t know how it came up, but my dad decided to get me a visor from his friend who airbrushed a gator and my name on the hat. I loved it! I wore it to practice, to our swim meets, it was hard to find me not wearing it, especially during swim meet season during the summer. The hat was fun, but it also reflected the love and passion I had for being on the swim team. In our Gospel reading this morning we learn that while Jesus has a mission, he too likes to have fun. One of the podcasts I listen to while preparing for my sermons, said Jesus might be the tuxedo t-shirt of prophets. That you don’t have to be serious all the time when talking about Jesus. That Jesus was formal, but he liked to party too. In Jesus, God is seeking to make himself available to everyone.
Over the last few weeks, our Gospel readings have been instructing his disciples about their mission, about what their life will be like and about what will happen to them. This morning, he turns his attention to the crowd. It seems everyone has a question for Jesus, questions about who he is and what he is doing. John who often fasted and only drank water while proclaiming Jesus’ coming was a stark contrast to Jesus who ate and drank with tax collectors. People had questions understandably. I don’t’ think it was the questions though that bothered Jesus rather it was the presumptions made by people and especially those in authority who simply could not get out of their own way. Who could not open their hearts and minds to the possibility that what they wanted and what God wanted for them were the same things, yet the people could not comprehend what God was doing. Our reading this morning says the truth about God, about Jesus is hidden from the elite of society, from those in authority who are wise and intelligent and revealed to those who are newborn to the faith not because Jesus wishes to exclude them. The truth is hidden because their presumptions blind their views of reality.
All too often I have wondered why what I am doing is so hard. An old boss used to tell me to work smart not hard. I over think my situation trying to find a better way to do what I’m doing and sometimes that can be a good thing. Yet other times it can be a paralyzing exercise. When Jesus tells us this morning to take up his yoke and learn from him, that his yoke his easy and his burden is light, he is not freeing us from responsibility. He is not freeing us from our situations or our work but that we don’t do this work alone and that we are equipped for the work that we must do. In one of my banking jobs, I would sometimes lean over and tell a co-worker in the cubicle next to me “I know God only puts on us as much as he knows we can handle.” To which she replied, “But don’t you think he gives us too much credit sometimes?” And yes, even though it does feel that way sometimes, we can trust in his will and the assurance that his judgement is always made in grace. His yoke is easy because it is specifically made for us, and his burden is light because we are yoked to him. This particular imagery is fitting, in that when yokes were originally designed and specifically cut and fashioned to fit the particular animals to which they would be harnessed. They were made in such a way as to let the ox, or horse or mule get the maximum amount of work done with the least amount of distress applied to the particular animal. This sounded especially encouraging to me as I thought about the challenges and obstacles that so many of us face each day.
“Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Our Gospel reads this morning. Jesus is challenging us to see things differently. Those tuxedo t-shirts conjure for us images that bring us to throw up barriers. We want to see Jesus in proper attire and behavior saving our souls, yet Jesus calls us into friendship and community, to party. I don’t’ know if I would be willing to wear that airbrushed visor out today but I hope I would. It was given to me in love by my dad and I can’t think of any swag that could be worth more to me. That is the hope of Jesus that we all put on our Jesus swag and party with sinners like he does. A good friend once told me that “All good parties are foretaste of Heaven.” Man, I hope he’s right!