July 5, 2020
Hope Lutheran Church
Pastor Mary Erickson
Romans 7:15-25a; Matt. 11:16-19, 25-30
The Gift of Christ’s Freedom
Last week I came upon this prayer by Henri Nouwen. I share it now:
O Lord, who else or what else can I desire but you? You are my Lord, Lord of my heart, mind, and soul. You know me through and through. In and through you everything that is finds its origin and goal. You embrace all that exists and care for it with divine love and compassion. Why, then, do I keep expecting happiness and satisfaction outside of you? Why do I keep relating to you as one of my many relationships, instead of my only relationship, in which all other ones are grounded? Why do I keep looking for popularity, respect from others, success, acclaim, and sensual pleasures? Why, Lord, is it so hard for me to make you the only one? Why do I keep hesitating to surrender myself totally to you?
Help me, O Lord, to let my old self die, to let me die to the thousand big and small ways in which I am still building up my false self and trying to cling to my false desires. Let me be reborn in you and see through you the world in the right way, so that all my actions, words, and thoughts can become a hymn of praise to you. Amen.
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
Yesterday we celebrated our nation’s independence. So it’s ironic that on this Independence Day weekend our appointed epistle reading should address our lack of independence!
In the reading from Romans, St. Paul addresses the difference between what he wants to do and what he ends up doing instead. “I don’t get it,” he says, “I wind up doing the very things I don’t want to do. Why can’t I stop myself? It’s like somebody else is in charge and not me!”
This passage today from Romans is nothing short of a fishing lure for Lutheran preachers. How can we not bite on this passage? It’s so totally Lutheran!
Luther wrote about what he called “the bondage of the will.” We like think we have free will. And we do have free will when it comes to certain things. We can choose what to wear. We can opt what we’re going to eat for breakfast. We can select what books to read, TV shows to watch. We can choose if we want to marry or who we want to marry.
There are so many things we can choose. But these are external things. When it comes to our inner core, it’s a different situation. Here we’ve been chained to something. We’ve been bound to the force of sin. And because of that we’re incapable of doing the very things we want to do. We know what’s good and right, but can we do that? No!
Oh, we know what pushes our buttons. We say, “I’m not going to complain when my son leaves his dirty clothes on the floor. I want to live a day without nagging.” But then you see the offending garment and POP! You blow your top.
Or you earnestly want to lose those Covid 19 pounds. You’re trying to be good. But the ice cream calleth every night at 8:30. And shouldn’t you enjoy a tasty treat after your hard day? And every night you set your alarm a half hour early so you can get up sooner to exercise. But then morning comes and you hit Snooze four times when the alarm goes off.
You cannot help it. You want to do the good thing, but you end up doing the very thing you hate.
In his letter to Romans, Paul expresses his inner frustration. He wants to be a better person. He knows what is good. But he’s been rendered incapable of choosing the right path. Paul comes to the conclusion, “Nothing good dwells within me! Nothing!”
That is the bondage of our will. It’s like we’re driving a car with everything wrong. The engine is misfiring. The wheels are out of alignment and pull terribly to the right. The brakes are soft and barely work. The car backfires when you accelerate and belches a plume of dark, stinky smoke. Trying to drive this jalopy is near impossible. When you want to go, it won’t go. When you want to stop, it won’t stop. When you want to go straight, it veers sideways.
This is the power of sin as it rages within us. Jesus pointed it out, too, in our gospel reading. He remarked, “When John the Baptist came among you abstaining and fasting, you said he was crazy. But when I eat and drink, then I’m a glutton and a drunkard!”
Sin has thoroughly corrupted us. It makes us fickle, contrary people. Left to ourselves, we cannot and will not choose God.
We like to think that we’re free. But in reality, we live absolutely under the domination of sin. And the story will not end well. Sin’s dominance of us will continue until we take our last breath. There’s no escaping it.
St. Paul realizes the scope of the circumstance. In his letter to the Romans, Paul nails it. “Wretched man that I am!” he says, “Who will rescue me from this body of death!”
Paul realizes that there’s nothing he can do to free himself. Even before the game has ended, he knows that he’s lost. He has lost and there’s no possible way he can overcome sin’s grip.
No, if he’s going to be freed, if we’re going to be freed, then our redemption must come from a source other than ourselves. We must look to a redeemer, one who will free us from this trap we’re in.
Paul knows exactly who that is. Our great redeemer is none other than Christ Jesus our Lord. He entered our reality to do battle with sin. He came to overcome it. And overcome it he did.
Our Lord had a rendezvous with sin and evil on the cross. Sin held no dominion over him. Jesus was not bound to sin. But then, on the cross, he who was without sin bound sin unto himself! And thus lashed to him, Christ took it with him to the grave. Sin died with him that day.
It entered the grave with him on that Friday. But on Sunday, it didn’t rise with him. He left it there. Christ stepped from his grave victorious over sin and death. He overcame our chief enemies. And now he gives us life in his name. So we say with Paul, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
In our gospel reading, Jesus speaks of yokes. A yoke is an implement worn by animals to harness their power for service.
We like to believe that we are free and that we’re not beholden to anyone. But as people of faith, we know that’s just not true! There are forces that exert themselves on us, forces of sin. We wear their yoke upon us.
Elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters. For you will either hate the one and love the other, or vice versa.” We will be in the service of one master or another.
Friends, we come into this world wearing the yoke of sin. But Christ offers us another yoke. The yoke of sin is a heavy burden. It wearies us greatly. But Christ invites us to take on his yoke. His yoke leads us into his service. “Take my yoke upon you,” he says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
We’ve all heard those memorable sermons. Years later you can still remember the point the preacher made. One of those memorable sermon illustrations happened for me 35 years ago when I was in seminary. I still remember it vividly. One of my classmates preached during daily chapel.
He told the story of a friend of his who was a car mechanic. This guy was a real gear head. He knew engines backwards and forwards. If someone brought in a car, he listened to the engine run. He could detect the smallest of sounds and diagnose what was wrong. Any shimmy, any squeak, any rattle, he traced them down and fixed them.
When he was done tuning the engine, he let it run. He listened to the perfectly running engine. It purred. And then he announced, “Now that’s righteous!”
The engine was running the way it was designed to. It ran correctly. It was righteous.
Friends, this is what Christ offers us in his yoke. When we offer our lives in his service, when we take on his gentle yoke, his ways become our ways. We go where he wills. We move and act under his direction. At last, we can function according to God’s design. And that’s the way we were created to be!
