Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
July 3, 2005

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

A fine pastor I know once told me that every preacher has one great sermon that she or he preaches again and again. I’d don’t know about that, but I do know that as I preach here Sunday after Sunday certain themes, and even certain phrases, recur. One theme that I know recurs in my preaching is that being a faithful disciple of Christ isn’t easy. I suppose that theme reflects my own continuing struggle to be faithful to the One I claim to follow. Whatever the reason for it, one phrase that I’ve used here more than once is: "No one ever said it was easy"; and every time I’ve said that there has been this little voice nagging at me saying: "Oh yes they did. He did! Jesus did!" And he did. He said it at Matthew 11:30: "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." And here that line shows up in today’s lectionary readings. So I guess I’d better address it.

It is a puzzling statement. Yes, when we come to Jesus and cast our care upon him we can indeed find peace for our souls, as this morning’s reading also says; but this is the man who said, in the lectionary readings for two weeks ago, "whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me." Matthew 10:38 Take up the cross? He’s saying that to follow him you have to be willing to get yourself crucified! That, after all, is what happened to him. It has long seemed to me that that is one of the central teachings of the foundational story of the Christian faith. If you truly follow Christ, if you’re truly faithful to him, the world will likely kill you. And here that same man who told us to be willing to die to follow him tells us his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Frankly, I don’t think I’d find getting crucified either easy or light. So what in heaven’s name is going on here? Can both of these statements of Matthew’s Jesus be true?

Somewhat surprisingly perhaps, I think that they can. To get at how they can both be true we need to look at why it is that we find taking up the cross and following Jesus difficult in the first place. There is, I think, one primary reason why we, why I, find following Jesus so difficult. I find following Jesus so difficult because I am afraid. I’m afraid to get myself crucified. I’m afraid to get myself killed. I’m afraid of the pain. I’m afraid of death. I’m afraid even of things a lot less extreme than pain and death. I’m afraid of being persecuted or even just prosecuted. I’m afraid of losing my job. I’m afraid people won’t like me, that they’ll, that you’ll, think badly of me. And so I act timidly. I preach timidly. I don’t do or say everything that I think Jesus is calling me to do or say. I am a timid disciple of Christ because I am a fearful disciple of Christ.

So if taking on the yoke of Jesus is so scary-and Jesus certainly knew it is scary-how could he call it easy? Well, I of course can’t speak for him. Here’s why I think he could say it: He could say it was easy because for those who truly have faith, it is. Last week we talked about faith as trust. If I truly had faith, if I truly trusted God, I would find taking up the cross and following Jesus a lot easier. Last week I told you that having faith means trusting that come what may, even though we die, we are safe with God. Taking up the cross and following Jesus is easy when we really believe that, when we don’t have to think about it but feel it in the marrow of our bones, when we know it not with our minds only but in the depths of our souls.

And I have to admit that I don’t, not as much as I want to. I trusted God enough to leave the practice of law and go into professional ministry, but only when I had gotten so burned out on the law that I really had no choice. I, and we, have trusted God enough to take an Open and Affirming position that we know to be faithful to the Gospel but which is not popular in this conservative community; but we haven’t even addressed other issues of justice and peace as a congregation. I haven’t pushed you to do it. I haven’t pushed you to do it because I don’t have the nerve. I don’t have the faith.

So is taking up the cross, the yoke and burden of Jesus Christ, easy? That depends. It depends on how much faith we have. The yoke of Jesus is easy to the extent that we truly have faith. If we truly trust God we can do it. If we don’t do it, if I don’t do it-and I don’t-it’s because I lack the faith. With faith it’s easy. Without faith it’s impossible; and for all of us, I suspect, it’s harder than it should be. I know it is for me.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that God’s grace doesn’t depend on us. God loves us no matter what. God keeps reaching out to us no matter what. That peace for our souls that Jesus talks about is ours to have no matter what. The life of a disciple of Christ is hard because we don’t really trust God, but God is always there loving us, seeking us, reaching out to us, trying to make it easier, not by lessening the demands but by increasing our faith, by keeping faith with us even when we do not keep faith with God, by proving God’s trustworthiness every time we rely on God’s grace. Let us open ourselves more fully to that grace. Let us trust more. If we do, that yoke that we, that I, find so heavy will get at least a little bit lighter. Thanks be to God. Amen.