Sermon by Alan McLellan
July 3, 2011
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
Audio - Download mp3 (length: 07:48) |
Homily for the Third Sunday after Pentecost - Sermon by Alan Mclellan, July 3, 2011 |
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45: 11-18
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Today's three readings affect me in three very different ways, but I think they speak to one another, and to you and me.
First we have the touching story of the encounter between Abraham's servant and Rebekah, the young woman at the well. It's like the plot of a great epic Hollywood movie of the 1940's – the camels moving slowly and gracefully across the desert, the music swelling, the flowing robes, the desert maiden.
Then there's the apostle Paul's "Wretched man that I am" speech. Wow, I don't know about you but I'm kind of overwhelmed by the the guilty feelings that brings. Who hasn't ever had the feelings he's expressing? "I don't do what I want to do, I do the things I don't want to do." He must have known how universal these feelings are, when he wrote it.
And then there's the Gospel. The children in the market place, playing their flutes, but we didn't dance. And then finally, "Come to me all you who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." This is quoted in the Comfortable Words so many of us heard every Sunday as part of the old communion service: Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith to all that truly turn to him ..." "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will refresh you."
So with these three readings I can be inspired, mortified and comforted, all in one sitting!
Young Rebekah had no idea what was ahead of her when she set out on her short trip to the well that evening. It was just something she did every day, in the afternoon, when the air was getting a bit cooler, and the breeze was blowing. Maybe she spent the day mending clothes or working in the fields, or tending animals. It must have been a bit of a relief to get out of the center of town, to sit by the well and visit with her friends, maybe share a little gossip.
But on this evening, there was a man at the well, a weary traveler with camels. And he asked her for a drink. She gave him one, and she watered his camels. And her life was changed forever. A few days later she found herself in a foreign land, married to a man she had never met before, the mother of two great nations, through Jacob and Essau.
So one day she was going through her regular routine: tending the animals, working in the fields ... fetching water from the well ... And the next day she was on her way to a distant country to be married to a man she did not know.
We have our daily routines too, don't we? Tending our email, gathering cups of coffee, slices of pizza. Making a weekly trip to Whole Foods or Trader Joes. The other day I was at Trader Joes, doing my weekly grocery run, and as usual I could hear snatches of other people's conversations as I went along. It's very interesting, isn't it? As I came around to the coffee section, right across from the spot where they sell all those soaps and cleansers I buy but I don't really need – right in that area, I heard a man speaking to a woman, who had her back turned to him. He was kind of following her around sheepishly as she shopped. He said: "I just can't help myself – I'm always doing that." I have no idea what it was he'd been doing. "I try to stop, but I can't," he said. Why did I do that?" Then she gave him a look. Such a look. And as I hurried away to the chips and snacks section, I heard her say, "You did it because you wanted to do it." Of course. So that little scene is played over and over in my mind now as we hear the words of Paul: "Wretched man that I am. Who can rescue me from this body of death?"
Now it's awfully hard to draw a parallel between Rebekah, the beautiful desert maiden of the 18th century B.C.E. and that self-absorbed man in the grocery store. Sure, like all of us, she must have had her own interior struggles. Maybe she did things she knew weren't right – some bit of gossip that she shouldn't have spread, or maybe she took something that wasn't hers. Maybe she came to the well that evening with all the weight of the world on her shoulders, depressed by the weight of all her troubles. And then she saw this strange man. And he asked her for water.
All we know is that in the end, when she was called, she went. And the result of her obedience? She was loved by Isaac, she was a comfort to him, and they became the parents of an entire nation.
So what is the answer for the man I overheard in Trader Joes? What's the answer for us?
In today's gospel, Jesus uses an image of children in the marketplace, playing the flute, but we didn't dance, singing a dirge, but we didn't mourn. Have you been to one of the services here at All Saints when the children sing, "I Saw Three Ships" or "Go Tell it on the Mountain"? How refreshing! I think that's what Jesus is talking about. I think that's the way forward from whatever troubles we bear.
Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will refresh you.
Rebecca's story is not our story, but Paul's struggles are certainly our struggles, and the response is the same. Come. And when he says "I will refresh you", it's really himself that he offers. His body broken. His blood shed, his sacrifice given.
Come where? How are we to be refreshed? It happens here, where the children sing, and where we receive the gift of God in Jesus Christ. Here is where we start our new life. Now.
And there's no Hollywood ending. Just the peace that passes understanding.
"Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord".