The Adventurous Lectionary – July 9, 2017 – Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Bruce G. Epperly
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Psalm 45:10-17
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
“Come to me all who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” These authoritative words from Jesus serve as God’s response to Paul’s, and our own, inner turmoil and ethical and spiritual angst. Jesus speaks out of his unique relationship with God to provide us with wisdom and guidance as we seek to follow God’s path in our lives despite our faithlessness and ambivalence. Opening to God opens us to synchronous encounters as witnessed in the Genesis story of Rebekah’s calling to be Isaac’s life partner. Grace abounds even if our lives remain unresolved and the future uncertain.
The Apostle Paul’s words could be spoken by virtually any of us: “I do not understand my own actions. 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.” Paul’s confession can be connected to the obvious inner struggles many of us have with substance abuse, food addictions, workaholic behaviors, and personal ambivalence. We are all the victims of our compulsions and addictions, and irrational powers greater than ourselves. In everyday life, we struggle to stay on the right track and often fail miserably to be the disciples we hope to be. No one fully knows our worries and cares and sense of struggle, but they matter to us, and often leave us feeling impotent and spiritually weak. Like Paul, we seek assistance and assurance, and cry out “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”
While we may not share Paul’s understanding of sin as a force that possesses us, warring in us contrary to our highest desires, we recognize the reality of sin, embodied in the interplay of family of origin, genetics, environment, economics, gender and sexuality, and personal decision-making. The heaviness of the past, confirmed by thousands of habitual responses, can seem to overcome our best intentions. We want to lose weight, but we can’t help ourselves from enjoying a coffee roll or piece of cake. We want to exercise, but we can’t motivate ourselves to get up a half hour earlier each morning. We want to stay sober or virtuous, but the lure of alcohol or pornography or illicit relationships is overwhelming. We want to spend time with our children or spouse, but the lure of work entraps us, and we immerse ourselves in email correspondence to the neglect of the ones who need us most. We want to reach out to the poor and vulnerable, but we worry about the time or money it may entail. And the list goes on; we are a bundle of ambivalent feelings. We feel trapped by ourselves and only grace can save us, only grace, the surprising transforming unexpected love of God that frees us to claim our imperfections and ambivalence as vehicles of God’s grace.
Healing of mind, body, or spirit, is never an individualistic enterprise. We need a beloved community of friends and family and the unmerited grace of God. Paul cries out, “Who will save me?” And, then, responds doxologically, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We might also add, “Thanks be to God who places us in the body of Christ and among friends and loved ones who accept and challenge us!”
Today’s New Testament scriptures proclaim God’s life transforming grace. Grace does not diminish our agency but enables us to be active partners in healing the world. We may still experience inner conflict, fear of failure, and fall short of God’s vision for our lives, but we can take solace that God is here to deliver us from evils stronger than our personal will and set us on a right path to wholeness and mission.
Infants understand the realities of grace better than self-made individuals. The “wise” and “productive” believe they can make it on their own and don’t need anyone’s help to change their lives. Infants have no such illusions: they survive on mother’s milk, loving touch, gentle swabs, and caring arms that cuddle, carry, and comfort. Preaching about God’s grace and the importance of a power greater than ours to get us through is not intended to encourage passivity. In fact, the opposite is the case: lived and graceful interdependence invites us to a world of giving and receiving. Out of the bountiful grace we receive from God and beloved companions, we gain the wisdom and ability to give gracefully to others and work for justice for the marginalized and forgotten. Grace invites us to become God’s active companions in the work of salvation. Liberated from the paralyzing impact of ambivalence and inner turmoil, we can gracefully reach out to others. The inner angst may never cease but we now have the resources to live with ambiguity, trusting that even our ambiguity can be used for God’s greater good.
Abraham’s servant experiences the grace of encountering his future master’s wife-to-be. In the midst of his prayers, Rebekah appears. She is an answer to prayer. Her coming is a synchronous encounter that changes Isaac’s life. When we pray, we open to unexpected divine synchronicities that we might miss if we depended solely on our own wisdom, and not the greater wisdom of a higher power.
Today’s passages reflect our everyday experiences as fallible and broken people. While we progressives focus on action and responsibility, we need to remember that the spiritual journey is a constant process of falling down and getting back up again in the context of a grace that constantly embraces us. Recognizing the need for grace enables us to accept the brokenness of others and do what is in our power to be grace-givers and healers in companionship with our Graceful God.
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