The Great Invitation.
How many of you were disappointed by what went on during the Queens Jubilee a month ago? I have to confess here that I was, yes, in spite of all the money spent on them, the parties in the park, the extensive live coverage by the BBC and the fireworks afterwards, I was still disappointed. How could this be, you might be saying, isn’t anything enough to satisfy him? The main reason for my disappointment came when I was sat watching the party at Buckingham Palace on the evening. Some of my favourite musicians and bands were playing at that party, Sting, Queen, and many others. And repeatedly during the television coverage, they kept saying that this party in Buckingham Palace was by invitation only. It was impossible to buy tickets for it. But nobody invited me, there I was having to sit at home watching and listening to all this wonderful music and the firework show afterwards, and nobody sent me an invitation for it. So yes, I was greatly disappointed by it because I could not be there.
Well I may have been disappointed because I did not receive an invitation for the Jubilee party, but I am very grateful that I have received an invitation for a greater party. For in our gospel reading today, we read the passage that includes Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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." This is known as the Great Invitation and it is one that is offered to everybody who lives on our earth. There is no limit to the numbers of people who could take up this invitation. Nobody is going to say, ‘I am sorry, we couldn’t send you one because there were no more places left.’
Yet sadly, there are many who hear this invitation yet do not accept it. Others never hear the invitation as Jesus gave it because people fail to pass it along. And there are even more who hear the invitation given, but only answer it partially. We are going to look at all of these this morning as we study this Great Invitation.
We begin with the first three words ‘Come unto me’. What would have happened if I or someone else had been issued with an invitation to the concert at the Palace, only instead of it being written, it was spoken. One of the Queen’s aids phones and says “Dear Mr Gladwell, you have an invitation to the Queen’s Party, you are to attend at Balmoral Palace at such and such a time on such and such a day.” Believe me, I would have mortgaged or pawned anything I could to have got the money for a rail or bus ticket up to Balmoral on that day at that time. And what would I have found when I got there, absolutely nothing. Everybody else was down at the Queens other house but I had been given the wrong information and was all on my own at Balmoral – unless there really is a Loch Ness Monster.
Of course, this would not have happened with such an important invitation would it? But it does happen with the Great Invitation that Jesus gave out. Look at what many Churches are involved in and you can see this happening every day. Think of the groups we have meeting here, Toddlers groups, Women’s Fellowship groups, and others such as this. And we ask people to come along to them offering them fellowship, good coffee and biscuits and everything else. But how many people meet Jesus in these groups? Could we be guilty of giving out the wrong invitation and saying ‘Come to Church’, instead of saying ‘Come to Jesus’?
And even when we do say ‘come to church’, what are the chances of them meeting the one who issued the Great Invitation here? I have to admit that there are few services at my own Church where I would be happy to invite a non-Christian. The vast majority of services there are directed at Christians. Just imagine what it would be like to be invited to a service here if you have never been to church before. You sing songs that you don’t know, you hear a reading from a book that you don’t understand, you hear someone talk about that reading for twenty minutes and you still don’t understand it. And you pray to a God whom you have never met. It is hardly the best way to introduce people to Jesus Christ. And I have to admit that my own services are some of the ones that I would not invite a non-Christian too. I don’t believe I have the gift, or at least I haven’t practiced it often enough for taking services directed at the un-Churched.
Thankfully, there are many groups of Christians who are now beginning to hold special services where you can invite non-Christians, and where they will be comfortable and will understand what is going on. The Northumbria Community and Willow Creek are two such groups. But I believe that it is time that we all began to recognise that we need to make changes to our Churches so that we can invite people to ‘Come to Jesus’ instead of inviting them to ‘Come to Church’.
Let’s move on to the second part of this invitation. It is this part that states who this invitation is made out to. “All you who are weary and burdened”. Do you think there is anybody in this world that these words do not apply to? It does not matter whether you are young or old, rich or poor, living in Africa or America. At some point or more likely, several points in everybody’s life, these words will apply. As I prepared this sermon on Monday evening, I took a break to watch the end of Tim Henman’s match. Believe me, after five sets and over four hours of tennis, he definitely looked weary. And given the way he was playing for much of that time, he would have been burdened as well.
Can we honestly say that the Church is trying to reach ‘all who are weary’ in order to pass on this invitation though. For a number of years now, one of the main evangelical projects most Churches have used is the Alpha Course. This is a wonderful course and it has had lots of success in bringing people into contact with the Christ who issued this invitation. And many who encounter Him go on to accept the invitation. The problem is that this has almost become the only form of evangelistic work that churches are now involved in, and for all the successes of this course, it has one serious drawback. It seems to be aimed at middle-class Britain. I have heard of few successes from it amongst uneducated people, amongst the unwaged and amongst manual workers.
Could it be that this says as much about the Church today as anything else, in that rather than reach out to those on the outskirts of society as Jesus did, we prefer to concentrate on those in the middle. Of course, there are good reasons for this, the Church needs to see middle class people coming in, these are the people who have money, and who have influence to reach others. However, we must never forget that when Jesus gave that invitation, He gave it to all not just to some. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that it is wonderful that we have the Alpha Course, but we need to be doing as much if not more to reach those who are outside the reach of these courses. When you read Luke’s gospel, it seems as though these people were the primary target for his invitation and message of new life, for that gospel more than any other speaks to the outcasts of society. We need to be very careful that we do not forget or ignore these people as we begin to pass on this Great Invitation.
Let’s move on to the wonderful promise that accompanies this invitation, “and I will give you rest.’ Maybe we need to remind our Ministers and Church Stewards of this promise as they move on to their third Church or Christian meeting of the week.
Why is this such a wonderful promise? It is because it had been promised for something like two thousand years by the time Jesus said these words, and finally God’s people would see this promise come true. When Moses was in the wilderness following the Exodus from Egypt we read in Exodus 33:14 that God told him, “"My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." The author of the Hebrews tells us that due to disobedience, God’s people never received that rest. Look in Hebrews 3:19 - 4:2, “So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.”
Have you received the rest that Jesus promised? So many Christians live as if they have not received it. Their lives are still hectic, they still run around trying to do everything in their own strength. They have not entered into this rest; they are still far from it. What a shame, Jesus has given them this invitation, and accompanied it with this amazing promise of God-given rest, yet they choose to refuse the rest that is offered. If you are one of these people, you need to stop all that you are doing, and return to that place where your Christian life began. Return to the cross, where all of our lives began, and give up all of your burdens, all of your busyness and the worries and the cares that you carry and leave them there. For it is only when you do that that you can go on to follow Christ’s advice that He gives in the remainder of this invitation.
“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." Whose yoke are you carrying today? Is it yours or Christ’s? Last time I was here I asked you to write down your greatest worry or fear and bring it forward to this cross and leave it there. I have done that in one form or another in several Churches now and over and over again I am discovering that one of people’s main worries and fears is that when they get to heaven they will discover that they have not done enough to get in. I want to tell you clearly now that this is not a part of the yoke that Christ asks us to carry. He does not want or expect us to carry the burden of this worry or fear.
How do we know this, simply because nothing but God’s grace is going to get us into heaven. In one sense, it does not matter what we do, for nothing that we do is going to get us in. We do not deserve to go to heaven it is that simple. We can never be in a position where we deserve to go to heaven it is that easy. It is God’s love and grace, shown primarily through Christ’s death and resurrection that will gain us this place.
The work which we can do after we become Christians is not something we do to gain a place in heaven. It is nothing more than a response to the gift of a place in heaven. More than this, it is not even our work anyway, or at least it should not be. ‘Take my yoke upon you’ Jesus said. This is His work, and through His Holy Spirit, He is the one who gives us the gifts we need to do it.
If you are finding it hard to do the Christian work that you are doing, then you need to ask whose work it is that you are doing. It does not matter whether this work is preaching, praying, leading or attending Bible study or anything else. Of course, it is entirely possible that the reason you are finding this hard is because Satan does not like you doing it and he is doing his best to make things difficult. If this is the case, you need to get a few people praying for you and the work Christ has given you and you should soon find that yoke becoming easy once more.
It is more often the case, however, that we are finding this work hard simply because it is not the work we should be doing. It is our own yoke on our backs and not Christ’s. If this is the case, we simply need to stop doing it. And take His yoke upon us, for this is what He has gifted us for.
It is the same with a Churches work. If your Ladies group has been running for the last few years and seeing no growth at all in either numbers or in its members spirituality, then you need to ask yourselves seriously whether this is Christ’s work, a part of His yoke, or our own. It is entirely possible that a number of years ago, it was a part of the yoke that Christ gave to this Church. But you know that there is a strange thing about yokes. It was never the inventor’s intention that a yoke should be put on two oxen, and then those oxen should just stand in the same place with the yoke on their backs. A yoke is designed to help movement and in the Church, that movement can sometimes involve the end of one thing and the start of another.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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." This is the Great Invitation, will we accept it for our own lives, and more than that, pass it on to others. It includes a great promise – I will give you rest, will we remain in the rest that is given to us. And it involves us laying down our own burdens and worries and fears, and taking up Christ’s yoke, which is easy, and His burden, which is light. Which of these would we prefer to have on our backs?
I pray that in all of our lives, and in the life of this Church we should begin to see the reality of these words more and more.
Amen.
