July 06, 2008
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Dreams Revisited
Events in our collective history are worth commemorating, whether they are of
national/political significance such as our Independence Day on July 4th, or are
religious/faith related such as the sacrament of Holy Communion. These special days
mark triumphs and disappointments; victories and losses. Holidays, “holy” days,
encourage us to celebrate and to remember. We remember so that we can celebrate how
far we’ve come. We celebrate so that we remember how far we have to go. These days
are wake up calls that invite us out of our everyday routines and keep us pointed toward
our highest ideals. They are wake up calls that remind us to keep the maturation of
humanity directed toward realizing our collective best dreams.
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. shared his dream with America on the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. It was a dream of America – an America in
which,
one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We
hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
King dreamed that his,
four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by
the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Born August 4, 1961, just two years before King’s iconic speech, a toddler named Barack
was likely unaware of the speech or the events surrounding it. Next month, on August
28, 2008, exactly forty-five years to the day since Dr. King shared his dream, Senator
Barack Obama is scheduled to accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of
the United States. The dreamtime is breaking into human history.
In March of 1968, Dr. King addressed the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, with
the subject of his speech/sermon, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution
(Delivered at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., on 31 March 1968.
Congressional Record, 9 April 1968.) On this occasion he recalled Washington Irving’s
famous story about Rip Van Winkle. King pointed out that
the most striking thing about the story of Rip Van Winkle is not merely that Rip
slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution. While he was peacefully
snoring up in the mountain a revolution was taking place that at points would
change the course of history and Rip knew nothing about it. He was asleep. Yes,
he slept through a revolution. And one of the great liabilities of life is that all too
many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet
they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new
situation demands. They end up sleeping through a revolution.
King advised his listeners that to stay awake through the revolution that we needed to
first, “develop a world (global) perspective.” And secondly, we need to “eradicate the
last vestiges of racial injustice from our nation,” adding that, “racial injustice is still the
black mans burden and the white mans shame.”
We must face the sad fact that at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning when we
stand to sing "In Christ there is no East or West," we stand in the most segregated
hour of America.
The hour has come for everybody, for all institutions of the public sector and the
private sector to work to get rid of racism. And now if we are to do it we must
honestly admit certain things and get rid of certain myths that have constantly
been disseminated all over our nation.
One such myth King named is “the myth of time. It is the notion that only time can solve
the problem of racial injustice.” King argued that time is neutral, and that the “people on
the wrong side” of the issue “have used time more effectively than the forces of
goodwill.” King suggested that we would have to repent “for the appalling silence and
indifference of the good people who sit around and say, ‘Wait on time.’"
Somewhere we must come to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels
of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of
dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without
this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social
stagnation. So we must help time and realize that the time is always ripe to do
right.
King concluded his remarks encouraging his listeners that, “We shall overcome because
the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Command or Invitation?
From our Gospel lesson this morning we heard Jesus say,
Come to me, all you that are weary and 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 (Matt 11:28-30).
This passage could be interpreted to mean that we are expected to take on the control of
God/Jesus; surrendering our own will to be led, steered, driven as are a team of draft
animals. I struggle with consenting to that kind of blind obedience. I’ve always been a
bit of a rebel – if people expect me to “zig” I’ll almost certainly “zag.” Jesus mentioned
humility as part of this formula. Maybe I need to work on my own humility; work on my
getting my ego into God’s yoke. But there’s another kind of yoke. The kind that a
person might carry across her shoulders with a basket or bundle or bucket suspended from
each end thereby balancing the load. Is this passage a calling us to obligatory,
unquestioning obedience to authority? Is this passage calling for a voluntary response to
shoulder a different kind of burden than the one we’ve been hauling around? When
Jesus said, “Come,” was it a command or an invitation?
This particular passage is unique to Matthew’s Gospel. We don’t find it in Mark, Luke or
John. This quote may be from a collection of “sayings” attributed to Jesus that is referred
to as “Q.” A similar quote is found in Thomas’s Gospel, which is also a collection of
sayings attributed to Jesus. According to Thomas:
Jesus said, “Come to me, for my yoke is easy and my sovereignty is gentle, and
you will find rest for yourselves” (Logion 90).
Thomas also quotes Jesus as saying:
Jesus said, “Let those who seek not stop seeking until they find, and when they
find they will be troubled, and when they have been troubled they will marvel and
reign over All (Thomas, Logion 2).
This imagery of taking on the yoke was not one that the other canonical Gospel writers
used. But recall that Matthew paints a very Jewish picture of Jesus the Messiah. These
words are reminiscent of verses in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the Book of Sirach, which,
like the Book of Proverbs, stresses wisdom teaching. Sirach didn’t make it into the
Christian canon, but is found in the apocrypha included in some versions of our Bible.
Speaking of Wisdom as personified, Sirach 6:18-32 offers this advice:
My daughters and sons, if you seek discipline early in life, you will find Wisdom
when your hair is gray. Cultivate Her like a farmer who plows and plants, and
enjoys the crop in anticipation of the harvest. Cultivating Her is a small matter
compared with the bounty to come. She is very hard on the undisciplined; fools
cannot submit to Her. She is like a boulder testing their stamina; they loose no
time in shaking Her off. Discipline describes her well; one must earn access to
Her. Pay attention daughters and sons and heed what I say; don’t reject my
advice; slip on Her shackles; put Her collar around your neck; lift Her yoke onto
your shoulders, and willingly accept Her reins. Draw close to Her with all your
heart, and keep to Her discipline at all costs; pursue Her, look for Her, seek Her
and you will find Her- and once you hold Her, never let go. Eventually you will
be two in one, and She will be your joy. Her shackles will become your strong
defense, Her collar a robe of honor; Her yoke will be a gold pendant, and Her
reins lavender ribbons; you will carry Her like a splendid gown topped with a
wreath of joy (translation from The Inclusive Bible).
Her shackles, Her collar, Her reins – the imagery here is clearly of the draft animal style of
yoke. After reading this, my inner rebel remained resistant to the call. So I turned to a
resource that I often find valuable when I am wrestling with the language of our faith
tradition, Frederick Buechner’s little book, Wishful Thinking, A Seeker’s ABC. I looked
up “obedience.” The entry read, “see FREEDOM.” As usual, Buechner was onto
something.
We have freedom to the degree that the master whom we obey grants it to us in
return for our obedience. We do well to choose a master in terms of how much
freedom we get for how much obedience.
To obey the law of the land leaves us our constitutional freedom but not the
freedom to follow our own consciences wherever they lead.
To obey the dictates of our own consciences leaves us freedom from the sense of
moral guilt but not the freedom to gratify our own strongest appetites.
To obey our strongest appetites for drink, sex, power, revenge, or whatever leaves
us the freedom of an animal to take what we want when we want it, but not the
freedom of a human being to be human.
The old prayer speaks of God “in whose service is perfect freedom.” The paradox
is not as opaque as it sounds. It means that to obey Love himself, who above all
else wishes us well, leaves us the freedom to be the best and gladdest that we
have it in us to become. The only freedom Love denies us is the freedom to
destroy ourselves ultimately.
Allow me to quote one more wisdom text that speaks to our choice of yoke and burden:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn
that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces
a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security. (US Declaration of Independence, 1776)
Recall for a moment what Dr. King said in the Washington Cathedral in 1968, “racial
injustice is still the black man’s burden and the white man’s shame.” No matter which
side of the color line you are on, as Americans, we all carry this burden. It’s time to put it
down and pick up something better.
It is not only time to move toward a better way of living in relationship with each other,
but if we are true to our Declaration of Independence then we must acknowledge that, as
Americans, it is our right, it is our duty to throw off the burden of racism.
Jesus said to his listeners, “Come.” He invited them to put down the burden that was
wearing them out and to try on the guidance of Wisdom instead. Jesus said, put on
gentleness and humility, it will lighten your load. And Jesus say’s the same to us today.
Gently Spoken
Because of United Church of Christ polity individual congregations within our
denomination do not have to bear the yoke of a hierarchical church structure. And so at
the General Synod (national convention) in 1993 the UCC issued a proclamation that
said, “Come.” Through that proclamation, local churches are invited to explore what it
would mean to be multiracial and multicultural. This gathering of church folk from all
over America said, “Come.” Let’s see if we can challenge and make obsolete King’s
1968 observation that, “at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning when we stand to sing ‘In
Christ there is no East or West,’ we stand in the most segregated hour of America.”
Closer to home, the Vermont Conference of the United Church of Christ has also been
proactive in recognizing that Vermont is becoming more racially and culturally diverse
and anticipating what that could mean for our churches. In 1996 the Vermont
Conference passed a resolution to counter racism against indigenous people. And in 1999,
another resolution was approved that encouraged the usage of non-European worship
traditions in Vermont UCC churches. In 2002, our Conference Annual Meeting
delegates approved a resolution encouraging Vermont churches to prepare themselves to
seriously consider calling a candidate of color to fill a pastoral vacancy.
Of course, it is this last resolution that I have particular interest in as a recent seminary
graduate. I’m prepared to do my part to increase the number of UCC clergy of color in
Vermont from zero to one. How much of a percentage increase would that be, a
bazillion? The truth is I would love to serve a church here in Vermont. But I have to filter
my dream through a reality check. I don’t believe there are many churches actively doing
the work that this resolution invites them into. Still every month when I look at the
listing of pastoral vacancies on the UCC website I check the Vermont section first.
There are two communities in the Northeast Kingdom that have had African Americans
as pastors in the past. The Congregational church in Brownington was led by Alexander
Twilight in the 1820’s. Twilight was the first African American to graduate from
Middlebury College, was the headmaster of the graded school as well as pastor of the
church, and was later elected to the Vermont Legislature in 1836. The community of
Irasburg was served by an African American pastor more recently. Maybe you’ve read
Howard Frank Mosher’s book entitled “Stranger in the Kingdom,” which is based loosely
on what’s called the “Irasburg incident.” Back in 1968 not all the townsfolk appreciated
the new pastor’s presence and someone drove past his house one night and shot out the
windows. What? You thought drive by shootings only occurred in inner city
neighborhoods? We have a friend in Greensboro who once mentioned that he’d grown
up in Irasburg. So I asked him one day if he was there when the “incident” occurred. He
said, yes, that he had lived in town then, and in fact he’d been a suspect in the shooting.
This was not the response I had anticipated, which must’ve been evident from my
stunned silence. So he went on to explain that he owned a car that matched the
description of the vehicle seen at the crime scene. But he was quickly cleared and
released.
It’s been forty years since the “Irasburg incident.” But I have sometimes been greeted
with stunned silence when I’ve arrived at a Northeast Kingdom church on a Sunday
morning to provide pulpit supply. When the person with whom I’ve interacted on the
phone all week, meets me face to face for the first time, it can be an awkward moment. I
imagine that the person is trying to understand how she didn’t hear that I was black
during our phone conversations. Or I imagine that he is trying to determine if it is too late
to get out of the arrangement; not very likely since there are only thirty minutes until the
service starts. An hour and a half later, the congregation has not only survived, but we
have borne an awkward burden together. A lack of racial diversity in the area doesn’t
exclude one from having to deal with the legacy of racism that is ingrained in American
history and American culture. Once a congregation and I have walked together, carrying
this baggage balanced between us, I am often invited to come back and worship with
them again.
At its annual meeting in May 2008, the Vermont Conference passed another resolution,
the one you heard read aloud earlier this morning. In this next step towards complete
inclusion, the Conference declared itself a multiracial/multicultural Conference. It further
resolved to encourage UCC churches in Vermont to intentionally engage in a process of
discernment to explore how they might become more multiracial and multicultural as the
population of our state moves toward increased diversity. We would be putting on the
yoke of Wisdom to recognize that challenging the burden of racism will ultimately lead
all of us to freedom and joy.
For Jesus Will Never Say, “No”
Woza Nomthwalo is a traditional South African hymn. The lyrics translate, “Come bring
your burdens to God, for Jesus will never say no.”
Jesus bids us, “Come.” In a few minutes we will gather around the elements of a sacred
meal. It is a meal that is meant to be shared. It is a meal of remembrance. It is a meal of
celebration. As we gather to share this simple feast, our coming together reassembles,
reanimates the body of Christ. So let us bring our burdens to this reassembled body, to
lighten each of our loads. For Jesus will never say, “No.”
Let the people of God say, “Amen.”
Sermon 07/06/008