7th Sunday after Pentecost / July 3, 2005

Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:25-30

Rev. Gayle M. Highness

Rest for the Weary

“Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Those are comforting words, aren’t they? They are comforting because we understand what it means to be carrying a heavy burden, and what it means to be given rest.

Let’s think about this a little deeper: I’d like you to close your eyes and imagine yourself walking down a road. You are carrying a very heavy sack slung over your shoulder. It is so heavy you can barely stand under the weight.

You are bowed over and the road is going uphill and you are so very, very tired. But you are not giving up. This is your job – carrying this burden. It’s all up to you and you do not want to fail.

Now, think about it – what is in that sack? What is this thing that you are struggling so hard to carry? Open that sack and look in there – what do you see? Now hold that thought. Set it aside. We’ll come back to that burden.

But now let’s turn to the second reading we heard today from Paul’s letter to the Romans. See if you can hear the burden in Paul’s voice.

“I do not understand my own actions,” he writes. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate … for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

For Paul, the burden is that of being good – of doing the right thing according to God’s law.

Paul doesn’t understand why this should be such a struggle because, after all, he LOVES God’s law. He has studied it and invested himself deeply in learning all there is to know about God’s law and walking in God’s ways.

He believes in the letter of the law, but also in the spirit of the law – “to love the Lord my God with all my heart and soul and mind and strength and to love my neighbor as myself.” This is what Paul WANTS to do.

The fact that he DOES NOT do that shows him that he is NOT in control of his actions. Why wouldn’t it be easy to simply do what he thinks is right? Why is there a conflict?

The conflict is there because Paul is not free – and neither are we. Sin is in control. Paul is acknowledging the truth that sin has the upper hand in us. “If I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

This is like saying, “The devil made me do it.” That’s a poor excuse for doing wrong, isn’t it – saying, “Let’s just blame it on the devil. It’s not my fault; it’s the devil’s fault!”

Shouldn’t we be able to control ourselves? We know right from wrong. We have the power to choose right. We shouldn’t blame our own failures on the devil or the power of sin!

That’s the message of our culture, anyway – self-sufficiency. It sounds good that we should take responsibility for our actions. And in one sense, it is. But to think that we can save ourselves from sin is misleading – in fact, that kind of self-sufficiency leads to spiritual death.

See, it’s true that we can will ourselves to do good, and we can do good works in our own power. But when we do that, what is our motivation? Isn’t our motivation our own desire to be good and to be honored – to be found righteous – to be successful – to be the good mother or the good daughter or the good pastor and have everyone know it?

Doing good by our own power is hard work! It’s a burden and, no matter how “good” our goal is, the motive is still selfish and self-centered and ultimately, we will find ourselves falling short.

So, how frustrating is that? No matter how hard I try to be good and do the right thing – and even if I succeed at doing the right thing, I can still be doing it for the wrong reasons.

The truth is, we are completely corrupt and sinful. We are captive to the law of sin that dwells in our flesh. We are incapable of doing anything truly good under our own power because only God is good.

This is the point where Paul is at when he says, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” To which he answers himself, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

To come to that point of recognition about ourselves and our bondage – to look in the mirror and see the “wretched person that I am” – is to come to the point of repentance, which leads to blessed freedom in Christ. If we could do the right thing on our own, we would not need a SAVIOR.

Now, go back to your thoughts about whatever is in that sack you saw yourself carrying earlier. Whatever that burden is, if it feels very heavy on your shoulders – if you feel like it’s all up to you to carry it – then there is some sin there – some separation from the love and the power of God.

It’s hard to say that because some burdens don’t seem to have anything to do with sin – they seem to come to us completely out of our control.

Perhaps it’s a financial burden due to a set back in business or unexpected expenses. Perhaps it’s a burden due to health problems. Perhaps a burden of worry over our children and the decisions they are making, or over our parents and the care they need. Perhaps a burden of responsibility of things to do, or of leadership decisions to make.

These do not seem like the kind of burden Paul is talking about – where you want to do the right thing and end up doing the wrong thing, and they don’t seem like burdens due to sin.

But ANYTHING that feels like a burden – anything that causes worry or anxiety or un-rest in our lives – has something to do with sin – with our separation from God – with our falleness and our falling short of the glory of God and the unity God intends us to have with Himself.

When the burden is caused by something we have clearly done wrong – when it is a consequence of our own choices, it’s easier to understand the need for repentance (though it might not be any easier to repent).

But when the burden comes from outside ourselves, the sin often comes in how we decide to carry it, which can make the burden more difficult than it needs to be. We want to handle things ourselves. We don’t want to admit we need help. We don’t want to show weakness. We don’t want to burden anyone else.

We wear our burdens sometimes as a badge of honor. We actually kind of like them even though we complain about them, because we kind of like to complain.

Jesus says to us, “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.”

It is the burden of sin that is too heavy for us to carry. We need to let go of that burden. We need to acknowledge that we are wretched people in bondage to sin and unable to free ourselves. We need to repent and come along side Jesus, recognizing that he carried that yoke of sin to the cross for us.

When we recognize that we are powerless over sin – cannot free ourselves – we come to the realization that our freedom is in the cross of Christ. Because of our bondage to sin – our pride – it is hard to come to that point, but the Holy Spirit makes it possible.

As Martin Luther said in his explanation of the third article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Siprit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith.”

When we enter into relationship with Jesus – when we respond to his invitation to “come to me” and share in his cross, he shows us how to live in that freedom. “Learn from me,” he says, “For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”

Jesus humbled himself unto death. When we allow our souls to be joined with him in that death – the death of our egos – we find rest for our souls.

May you find that rest today, and tomorrow and again and again as you continually return to the Lord to receive his unbounded love and grace and forgiveness. Amen.