Pastorkropa’s Sermons

(Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23)

Perhaps you saw the article in the AJC this past week.  A woman, who was pregnant at the time, recalled passing by the campus of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, years ago, while construction was under way, when her eyes suddenly fell upon a mound of red clay.  “My mouth watered,” she said.  In fact, she yearned to eat that clay, said the article; a craving she apparently had had since childhood.  Only now, during her pregnancy, she finally succumbed to it.  Not only that, but today – some 26 years later – she still consumes about 12 ounces of red clay every day!

This practice of eating clay, or dirt, while certainly not common, is not unheard of, however.  And while it most often affects children, women may also develop these unusual cravings during pregnancy.

In fact, the medical condition is called “pica” (pike-a), a term that comes from the Latin word for “magpie,” a type of bird known to eat almost anything.  And people with pica may eat everything from freezer frost to metal coins, said the article.  But the specific practice of eating clay or soil is called “geophagia” (jee-a-fay’-jee-a) or “earth eating.”

Most prevalent in rural, or preindustrial, societies, this craving or desire to eat “earthy” substances, such as clay, apparently develops as a way to augment a scanty or mineral-deficient diet.

Yet the practice endures to this day.

So at the Sweet Auburn Curb Market in downtown Atlanta, for instance, Ziploc bags filled with white chunks of “kaolin,” (Kale-in) that go for $1.49 a pound, are located behind the produce at one vendor, and next to the cigarettes and over-the-counter medications at another.

Kaolin, a type of clay found right here in Georgia, was also formerly the key ingredient in Kaopectate – the anti-diarrhea medicine.  And one of its side effects, apparently, is alleviating nausea; which, of course, is why it then might appeal to pregnant woman.

See – you can learn something new every day!  But eating dirt or clay?  Yechh!

On the other hand, it does remind me of the fact that, according to Genesis 2 at least, human beings were actually made from the earth.  “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)  In fact, the name “Adam” literally means “man of the red earth.”

And then on Ash Wednesday, of course, when we receive that smudge in the shape of a cross on our foreheads, we are reminded, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Or, even in everyday parlance, when someone is plain and practical and unpretentious in their approach to life, what do we say?  We call them “earthy,” or “down-to-earth.”

I guess what I’m saying here is that, biblically and otherwise, we have something of a symbiotic relationship with the earth and with the soil.  For tens of thousands of years, in fact, we (meaning human beings) have toiled in it.  We have plowed and planted the earth, and then cultivated and harvested the crops that grew from it for our food and sustenance.

If there was one thing, therefore, that people down through the ages could understand and identify with, it was the soil; the soil from which (it was believed) they literally came; and the soil in which they labored for their very survival.

And so if there was one thing Jesus’ audiences could also easily understand and identify with, it was the soil as well.  In fact, in today’s gospel reading Jesus actually tells them that they, themselves, are soil; at least in terms of God’s Word working in their lives.  And he does so, through a parable…

But first, I think, we need to set up the context for this parable.  Dale Allison, a professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, does an excellent job reminding us of the flow of Matthew’s gospel.

For instance, the first four chapters of Matthew, says Professor Allison, introduce us to the main character, Jesus.  “They tell us who he is… how he came into the world, how his ministry got started, etc.”

Then we have chapters 5-7, commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, which is a collection of Jesus’ ethical teachings.  Next come chapters 8-9 where the focus now shifts from “words” to “deeds” and we are introduced to Jesus’ acts of compassion and healing.  Following them is chapter 10, “the missionary discourse where Jesus commissions his disciples and instructs them to say what he has said and to do what he has done…”

Then these chapters on the words and deeds of Jesus (chapters 5-9) and the words and deeds of the disciples (chapter 10) lead up to chapters 11-12, which record primarily the response to both John the Baptist and Jesus.  “Unfortunately,” writes Professor Allison, “it all adds up to an indictment: many of the people, under the sway of their hard-hearted leaders, have decided not to join Jesus’ cause.”

This, then, finally leads us to chapter 13, and today’s gospel, where, according to Professor Allison, the burning question is:  “How is it that so many in Israel have rejected the Messiah?  That is, “How did his own (people) receive him not?”  And chapter 13, which opens with today’s gospel reading – the Parable of the Sower – then addresses this very issue.

But one last point, before we take a look at the parable itself.  In the verses that are not included in today’s reading (that is, verses 10-17), the main issue is the question of why Jesus chose to speak in parables in the first place.  Which then leads into a conversation, as well, about the relative difficulty of understanding Jesus’ parables.

Tom Long, who is a professor of preaching at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, claims that Jesus used these often “confusing” parables in order to force people to think more deeply about the meaning of the gospel.  In others words, Jesus did not want to have people grab the gospel too quickly because such a “quick grab” almost invariably results in a shallow faith that does not last – one of the points that Jesus actually makes, of course, within the Parable of the Sower itself.

To support this claim, Long tells the following story.  The great preacher, George Buttrick, was once flying on an airplane.  And as he sat there, he had a legal pad in front of him on which he was furiously scribbling some notes for Sunday’s sermon.

The man sitting in the seat next to Buttrick noticed this and inquired, “Say, what are you working on there, sir.”  Buttrick answered, “My sermon for Sunday – I’m a Christian preacher.”

“Oh,” the man replied.  “Well, I don’t like to get caught up in the complexities of religion.  I like to keep it simple.  You know, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’  The Golden Rule; that’s my religion.”

“I see,” said Buttrick, “and may I ask what do you do for a living?”  And the man responded, “Why, I’m an astronomer.  I teach astrophysics at a university.”

“Ah, yes, astronomy,” Buttrick shot back.  “Well, I don’t like to get too caught up in the complexities of science, myself.  ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.’  That’s my astronomy.  Who would ever need any more than that, eh?”

Touché.  Point well taken.  Shallowness of any kind, whether in religion or science, or anything else for that matter, is not a good thing.  And so it behooves us, this morning, to give Jesus’ parable here something more than a “quick going over.”

Although actually, at first, it’s really not too hard to understand.

“A sower went out to sow,” said Jesus.  Pretty straightforward, and it doesn’t take too much brain power to figure out that God is the sower here.  And that the seed he’s sowing is his Word.

The first problem, however – especially for modern listeners – is the apparent wastefulness of the sowing.  By that, I mean the sower appears to be throwing his seed around rather indiscriminately, doesn’t he?

Scott Hoezee writes that, today, we might have the same reaction if we heard a story about a farmer who hooked up his planter to the back of his tractor, but then threw the switch to activate the planter even before he was out of his driveway!  “There he is putt-putting down the country lane with corn seed scattering everywhere he goes.  It bounces on the road, some flies into the ditch.  When he finally gets near his field, he first has to cut through a weedy and thorny patch with corn seed still flying out loosey-goosey from that planter that, by all rights, had been switched on way too early.”

Hoezee’s point here, of course, is that no farmer in his right mind would be so careless in the scattering of valuable seed.  It would be the kind of wastefulness that a “frugal and economically-minded farmer would never tolerate.”

Yet, this is exactly what God chooses to do with the seed of his Word.  Jesus says that God is just such a foolish farmer.  “He’s got (apparently) more than enough seed to go around, and so throws it anywhere and everywhere, the odds of success notwithstanding.”

Now the ability of the seed to do what it was intended to do, even under adverse conditions, is something I want to come back to

a little later.  But what I’d like for us to focus on at this point, instead, is the third key element in the story after the sower and the seed; that is, the soil.

Four types of soil, of course, are mentioned: hard-packed soil, rocky, shallow soil, soil filled with thorns, and finally good soil.  And as he sat there in that boat, looking at the crowds packed along the shoreline, it was as if (someone has noted) Jesus was able to “scan” their hearts with a kind of “spiritual MRI.”  In other words, he could see “the hard hearts, the shallow hearts, the thorny hearts, and the pure and unencumbered hearts.”  And so to such an audience he now tells his story…

The “hard-packed soil” on the path is those “hard-hearted” people, isn’t it?  People who have completely shut their hearts and minds to the possibility of God working in their midst.  In Jesus’ day these were undoubtedly the people who found it difficult, if not impossible, to conceive that God might be doing something new and wonderful in the world through his Son, Jesus Christ.

In our own time, it’s perhaps a little different.  The hard-hearted people, in our day, are more likely to be the people who have completely ceased to believe in the possibility that God even exists, much less can actually make a difference in their lives.

Recent best-selling books, written by self-proclaimed atheists, who attempt to make the age-old claim that there simply is no God, are just one example.  But hardness of heart can also be found among those who reject God on intellectual grounds, as well; those who mistakenly believe that a commitment to knowledge or to science somehow precludes any kind of faith.  And, sadly, it can also be found among those people who have been hurt deeply in life, sometimes by the church itself, and now they wonder – even if there is a God – how such a God could have allowed these things to have happened to them in the first place…

Next there’s the “rocky, shallow” soil.  Then, as now, people can often get “side-tracked” by the superficial things in life.  Two items in the news in recent days caught my attention.  One is that the latest statistics show that while serious skin cancer has decreased among young men, it has actually increased among young women.  The reasons aren’t completely clear yet, but the greater likelihood for young women to want to be tan in the first place, even frequenting tanning salons during the winter in order to keep their tans year round, has been cited as one of the possibilities.  The other news item are the reports that people were lining up all over the country, even waiting for days in some cases, in order to buy the new iPhone that has just hit the market.

At a time when global warming, the risk of terrorism, the horror of genocide on the African continent, the AIDS pandemic, rapidly rising gas and food prices, the collapse of the housing and now the banking industries in our own country, all threaten the world and life as we know it, it never ceases to amaze me just how silly and shallow and superficial we can be, at times, as a society.  That is, staying tan and having the latest techno-toy are apparently more important, for many of us, than any of these above-mentioned threats to our planet and to our existence.  Furthermore, there was actually more press coverage, it seemed, of Christie Brinkley’s nasty celebrity divorce than there was over the travesty of justice and threat to democracy and self-rule perpetrated by Robert Mugabe’s regime over in Zimbabwe.

Shallowness, or the lack of real depth in one’s life, is a serious issue, of course, when the tough times come.  Edward Markquart, a Lutheran pastor who grew up in Minnesota, tells the story of working as a canoe guide during his college summers.  And among those they would take on these canoe trips were reform-school kids who had gotten in trouble with the law.  Tough and worldly on the outside, they, nevertheless, had very little experience when it came to the outdoors.

Markquart relates that they would often camp beneath tall pine trees, some reaching 65 feet in height.  But when storms would come and the winds would blow, they would hurriedly get the tents and canoes away from these tall trees.

The reform-school kids would naturally ask why.  And Markquart would tell them, “Because it’s dangerous.  Underneath all this ground is solid granite; and the top soil is only a few inches deep, which means that when the wind comes, it blows these 65 foot tall pine trees right over because they don’t have any roots.

It’s the same with some people, says Markquart.  Inside they’re just as shallow, they don’t have any deep roots, and so when the hard times come – and they will, for all of us – they simply can’t stand up to them.

The third kind of soil is filled with thorns and weeds.  Scott Hoezee says these people “are just plain busy and crowded.” He writes, “These hearts are neither calloused nor shallow.  In fact, there is some real depth to them.  Lots of stuff grows here.  But in the end, it’s too much.  The seed of the gospel comes in and sprouts just fine, but faces stiff competition for light and warmth and nutrients.”

Hoezee goes on to suggest that concerns about 401k retirement plans, Roth IRAs, the kid’s college fund, and their stock market portfolios “absorb a lot of nutrients from the soil of their hearts.”  In addition, youth sports, community involvement, the PTA at school, politics, neighborhood associations and socializing with friends – and it’s mostly all good stuff – still makes people busy, often too busy, he contends.  And so the seed of the gospel simply gets choked out…

Finally, of course, there’s the “good” soil, the soil in which God’s Word can sprout and grow and produce the kind of “fruit” Jesus hoped his followers would always produce.  But these aren’t very good odds, are they?  One out of four; only one soil out of four soils (according to Jesus’ story) produces the kind of growth God is looking for.  Remember, just a little less than one out of four at the plate got Jeff Francoeur sent down to the minors.  And the truth is: it’s not such a hot batting average for Christians either…

And then, of course, we have the inevitable question, don’t we?  Which is simply: What kind of soil am I?  Am I the kind of person who’s become so jaded, or has been hurt so deeply at some point that my heart has been completely “hardened” against the possibility of God working in my life?  Or am I a “shallow” sort of person who jumps at every latest fad, and takes my cues in life from celebrities and whatever else is the most popular thing going at the moment?  Or is my life just so busy, even with good things sometimes, that faith doesn’t even have a chance to grow?  Or is it somehow possible that I am basically “good soil”; that the seed of God’s Word has actually found a place in my heart and, even as we speak, is growing in my life?

The tendency – and the temptation – of course, is to assume that it has to be one of these four possibilities; that we’re either hard-packed, shallow, thorn-infested, or good soil, and that’s it.  One of the above, and nothing else.

But what I would suggest to you this morning is that you and I have been all of the above at one time or another.  That there have indeed been times when our heart was hardened, or times when we have been shallow and superficial, and other times when we were just too busy for God, and yet also times when we were prepared for and even receptive to God’s Word – and that it, therefore, found a home in our hearts.

So the real question then, for me, is not simply “What kind of soil am I?” but rather “What kind of soil am I… today?”  The realization and acceptance of the fact that we are not always good soil for God’s Word, that we actually fall victim to those soil conditions that make it next to impossible for God’s Word to take root.  But also that the soil of our hearts changes as we change, and as we face the various challenges and temptations and difficulties of life.  Which takes us back to the ability of the seed to do what it’s intended to do; a topic I said we’d get back around to… eventually.

I once came across a story about some archeologists who were excavating, a number of years ago, in the courtyard of a medieval monastery.  And during the period of time while they were digging, some seeds that had been dormant for over 400 years had actually begun to grow.  King Henry VIII had closed this particular monastery back in 1539, and the herbs tended by the monks had died.  But now they had sprouted to life again after the archeologists has disturbed the earth in which they were buried.

The point is this: if seeds in nature can do it, why can’t the seed of God’s Word?  In other words, if we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit that sometimes we’re not very good soil for God’s Word to take root in and grow.  Maybe even for a long time, we aren’t.  But then something happens, something to change our heart and our mind, and the seed that has lied dormant in our lives suddenly, and finally, begins to sprout.  When that happens, it’s called grace.

Fred Craddock, another well-known preacher, tells a story about the time he got a phone call from a woman whose father had just died.  She had been a teenager in one of the churches he had served as pastor some 20 years before, and he would have sworn that if there ever was a person who never heard a word he said – it was that teenage girl!  She was always giggling with her friends in the balcony, passing notes to boys, and drawing pictures on her bulletins.

But yet when her father died, she had looked up her old pastor and gave him a call.  “I don’t know if you remember me,” she began.  “Oh, yes, I remember,” thought Craddock.  “When my daddy died, I thought I was going to come apart,” she continued.  “I cried

and cried and cried.  I didn’t know what to do.  But then – I remembered something you said in one of your sermons…”

And, at this, Craddock was simply stunned.  She had actually remembered something he had said in one of his sermons?  It was proof enough to him that you can never tell how the seed will fall, or where it might even take root.

Maybe it’s also a reminder of why the farmer in Jesus’ parable kept lobbing seeds at even the unlikeliest of targets.  As Scott Hoezee writes, “It’s not that the farmer doesn’t understand the long odds.  It’s just that when you’re talking about salvation by grace, it’s not finally about the odds, but about the persistence of the Holy One who won’t stop (trying).  Ever.”  Amen

(Matthew 11:16-30)

Expectations…  Everybody’s got ‘em.  But sometimes dealing with them can be difficult.  Just ask the Braves’ Jeff Francouer, the former Parkview phenom, who just got sent down to the minor leagues because he’s mired in a terrible batting slump.

Expectations can also get in the way…  A man once asked his good friend why that friend had never married.  The friend sighed, and said, “Well, I guess I just never met the right woman…  I guess I was always looking for the perfect girl.”

“Oh, come on now,” said his buddy.  “Surely you met at least one girl over the years that you wanted to marry.”

“Yes, there was this one girl,” he finally admitted. “I guess she was the perfect girl…  The only perfect girl I ever really met.  She was perfect in every way…  I really thought that she was the perfect girl for me.”

“Well, why didn’t you marry her, then?”

The friend paused, and then sadly replied, “Apparently… she was also looking for the perfect guy.”

And what’s true for us individually is also true, many times, for us collectively as well. For instance, congregations are notorious for wanting, indeed expecting, the perfect pastor.

In fact, I once came across the following list of expectations of the perfect pastor:

• He preaches exactly 15 minutes, never a second more, and then promptly sits down.
• He condemns sin… but never steps on anyone’s toes.
• He works from 8 in the morning until 10 at night doing everything from writing sermons to sweeping the floors; and he’s on call 24/7, fifty two weeks out of the year, yet he leads a balanced life and still has time to be with his family.
• He earns only 400 dollars a week (and gives half of it back as offering), drives a late model car, buys a lot of books, is always well-dressed, and provides for his family’s every need.
• He’s 36 years old, but has 40 years of experience.
• He is tall on the short-side, heavy-set in a thin sort of way, and handsome, but not too handsome to be a temptation.
• He has eyes of blue… or brown, to fit the occasion, and wears his hair parted in the middle – the left side is dark and straight, the right side, brown and wavy.
• He has a burning desire to work with the youth, and yet is always visiting the elderly.
• He smiles all the time, while keeping a straight face; he has a keen sense of humor but is always very serious.
• He makes 15 pastoral visits a day on church members, spends all of his time out in the community evangelizing non-members, and yet is also in his office whenever he’s needed.

I gotta tell you.  If you find that guy – hire him on the spot!  But

I also gotta tell you – that pastor doesn’t exist!  Because when we look for perfection, of course, we’re always going to be disappointed, aren’t we?  For there is no perfect pastor, just as there is no perfect congregation.

A few years ago there was a piece circulating in Lutheran church newsletters with some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for church members unhappy with their pastor.  “Simply send a copy of this letter to six other churches who are also tired of their ministers,” it said.  “Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church on the top of the list, while at the same time adding your church name to the bottom of the list.  In one week’s time, you will receive 16,436 ministers, and at least one of them should be a dandy.  Have faith, and remember don’t forget to follow these instructions to the letter.  One church broke the chain… and they got their old minister back!”

The truth of the matter is – there is no perfection to be found in this life, at least among human beings.

In the novel Eminence, written by Morris West, the main character, a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, is, at one point, being interviewed by a journalist who asks him, “What’s wrong with the church?”  And the cardinal replies, “The same things that have been wrong with it for two thousand years – people!”

The other day I was looking up a church online at the ELCA website when I came across another congregation in the very same town.  So, out of curiosity, I clicked on this congregation’s report, as well, and discovered that it was only organized back in 1994, when it reported an average of 229 worshipers per Sunday.  But just thirteen years later, in 2007, they reported 4,948 worshipers each weekend!

Of course, now I was really intrigued.  So I clicked on the link to their website and browsed for a few minutes until I saw that you could actually listen to their pastors’ sermons.  So I went to that page, and randomly picked out a sermon by their senior pastor to listen to.  And in this sermon, their pastor was talking about the reasons why so many people outside the church have absolutely no interest in becoming involved in the church.  One man, in particular, had recently said to this pastor, “The biggest stumbling block for me isn’t Christ… its Christians.”  The man then went on to talk a little about the hateful, unforgiving, condescending, and judgmental things that Christians have said and done at times.

Well, after relating this encounter, and the man’s feeling that Christians, not Christ, are the problem, this pastor then did something surprising.  He asked everyone in the congregation that morning to turn to the person next to them and say, “You’re the problem!”

Now if I had only known that it was this easy to grow a mega-church, I would have told you folks that you were the problem a long time ago!  (Just kidding.)

But my point is simply this, often times we are the problem; pastors and congregations alike.  And a big part of the problem is, again, our expectations.

There was a cartoon once that showed a young boy standing toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose with his teacher.  Behind them was a blackboard covered with unsolved math problems; presumably ones that the boy had been unable to finish, or do correctly.  And in the caption, the boy is saying to his teacher, “I’m not an underachiever… you’re just an over-expecter!”

Expectations.  Everybody’s got ‘em.  And they can really get in the way.  Sometimes… they can be really hard to deal with.  Just ask Jesus…

You see, expectations, especially unmet expectations, were a big problem for him as well.  Now you wouldn’t think so, being the Son of God and all that.  But they were.

For instance, in the verses just before today’s gospel reading, Jesus is having a conversation with the crowds about John the Baptist. He says to them: What were you expecting when you went out into the wilderness to hear him preach?  Did you go out into the desert looking for someone dressed in fine clothes, speaking messages that were uncritical and comforting; easy for everyone to hear, including the rich and those in power?

Or did you go out there to see and hear a prophet?  Someone who was going to challenge you with the hard and honest truth.  Let

me tell you folks, said Jesus, John was indeed a prophet of God.  “Truly I tell you, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist…”

And as our passage this morning opens, Jesus is saying to them: But you just don’t get it, do you?  What were you expecting?

You’re like immature children, he says.  And then he characterizes their expectations in this way: We played the flute for you, and yet you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and yet you did not mourn.  In other words, as Hubert Beck has described it, “We called the tune, and you wouldn’t dance to it; we sang the song that was supposed to move you, and you wouldn’t be moved!  What more can we do to make you do what we want you to do, to act like we want you to act…?”

“For John came neither eating nor drinking,” continues Jesus.  Remember John was the guy (says scripture) who wore camel’s hair clothing, and ate locusts and wild homey.  Not exactly the type looking for a life of leisure; not exactly the fun kind of guy you’d want to invite to your party.  And Jesus reminds them that they said of John, “He has a demon.”

While I “came eating and drinking,” said Jesus.  Someone who really enjoyed sitting down and sharing a good meal with people; who never turned down an invitation, no matter who it came from; that is, the kind of guy who was always at the top of everyone’s guest list.  And yet, says Jesus, you call me “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

In other words, John and Jesus were almost polar opposites.  John was austere and confrontational.  And the people didn’t like that.

Whereas Jesus was accessible and understanding.  And the people didn’t like that either!  It seemed that no matter who God sent, it was never right.  Neither John nor Jesus met their expectations…

And it’s at this point that the lectionary normally skips ahead to verse 25, completely omitting Jesus’ harsh words in verses 20 thru 24.  Here Jesus sounds a lot more like John the Baptist than he does himself.  And maybe that’s why the folks who decide on the lectionary chose to skip these verses.

But I wanted you to hear them this morning.  Because they reflect the degree of anger and frustration Jesus was feeling at that moment.  He began to “reproach” the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, says our reading; that is, to rebuke them and express his “disapproval.”

He did this, because if anyone should have understood what he was all about and what he was trying to do; if anyone should have “gotten it,” it was these cities.  If anyone should have repented in the face of, and in response to, his power and authority, it was them.

But it seems, given the conversation they’ve been having here with Jesus, that they hadn’t.  Obviously, they just didn’t get it.  Therefore, says Jesus, it will be more tolerable on the Day of Judgment for Tyre and Sidon, where he had not done any similar deeds of power; and it will even be more tolerable for the notoriously wicked city of Sodom – than it will be for you.

Expectations; unmet, unfulfilled, unrealistic expectations would apparently be their downfall…

Several years ago, you may recall, those bracelets with “WWJD” on them were all the rage in Christian circles.  The “WWJD,” of course, stood for “What would Jesus do?” and it was a reminder to the one wearing it that, when facing difficult decisions, they should stop and try to think about what Jesus himself might do in that very same situation.  And then let that conclusion inform and shape their decision-making.  Not a bad idea, I thought.

But, unfortunately, and even though such a bracelet doesn’t even exist, many Christians are much more likely to wear one that has the letters “WDWWJTD” on it.  That is “What do we want Jesus to do.”

You see, many times we’re far less interested in knowing, or thinking, about what we could do to reflect our walk with Christ (in other words, what we could do for Jesus), and much more interested, however, in knowing, or thinking, about what Jesus could do for us!  …Expectations again.

How often – rather than focusing on our daily walk with Jesus, and how that walk of discipleship could and should impact the things we do and the decisions we make; that is, the expectations we should have of ourselves – we focus, instead, on our expectations of Jesus.  What can Jesus do for me?  How can he help me?  How can he make my life better, or more fulfilling?  How can he give me the things I want out of life?

The problem, here, is that it’s not supposed to be about our expectations, it’s not about what we want. Rather, it’s all about what we need.

Like any good parent, God is not really interested in, or swayed by, what his children want or desire. No, God, like any good parent, is much more concerned about what we need; about taking care of the basic needs of his people so that they can be healthy, happy, and well-adjusted.  And so that was what Jesus was all about as well.

Therefore, in the concluding verses of our gospel this morning, Jesus, in effect, puts down all the wise and intelligent people who think they’ve got it all figured out; the folks who are all caught up in the expectations they have of Jesus, instead of the expectations they should have of themselves in response to all that Jesus has done for them, and offers them.

“Thank you, Father,” says Jesus, that you’ve revealed these things, instead, to “infants.”  Now, however, he’s not referring to immature children. The Greek word here literally means “not speaking,” and therefore refers to that child before he or she can talk.

But it can also be used metaphorically to refer to those who, like infants, are completely dependent upon God.  Who, instead of having all these expectations and making demands of God, simply depend on God – like an infant – for everything they need in life.

Again… it’s not about what we want, it’s about what we need.  And to these so-called “infants” who trust and rely upon God, Jesus speaks the famous, and comforting, final words of our passage this morning.

Paul Tillich, one of the theological giants of the 20^th century (and also a Lutheran), once wrote, “When I was of the age to receive confirmation and full membership in the Church, I was told to choose a passage from the Bible as the expression of my personal approach to the Biblical message and to the Christian Church.  Every confirmee was obliged to do so, and to recite the passage before the congregation.  When I chose the words, ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,’ I was asked, with a kind of astonishment and even irony, why I had chosen that particular passage.  For I was living under happy circumstances, and, being only fifteen years old, was without any apparent labor and burden.  I could not answer at that time; I felt a little embarrassed, but basically right.  And I was right, indeed; every child is right in responding immediately to those words; every adult is right in responding to them in all periods of his life, and under all… conditions…  These words of Jesus are universal, and fit every human being and every human situation…”

What Tillich was saying here is that all of us, no matter who we are, or what age or station in life we find ourselves, have basic needs that only Jesus Christ can fulfill, and burdens that only Jesus Christ can help us carry…

On this 4^th of July holiday weekend, we have all probably stopped to think, at some point, about the freedom and independence we enjoy as Americans.  And what it means to live in this great nation; not a perfect nation, mind you, but a great one nonetheless.  And it occurred to me that we have a tendency, at times, to focus only on the good things this country has provided us, and all the wonderful aspects of being an American citizen.

But it also occurred to me that the greatness of this nation is, in the end, not really all about our wants and our desires, or our “personal expectations,” either.  In the end, the greatness of our country is not really about what we, or anyone else, wants, but what we actually need.

That’s what, I believe, this country was founded upon.  That’s what separates the United States, in my opinion, from virtually every other nation on the face of this earth.  And it’s probably no more beautifully expressed than in the words that are inscribed on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty; that historic landmark in New York harbor which has welcomed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of immigrants to these shores; including all four of my grandparents.  It’s a poem, entitled “The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus:

Not like the bronze giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips, “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Thus, even the Statue of Liberty, herself, does not represent what we, or anyone else, wants, but rather what we truly need.  And what Lady Liberty has so perfectly symbolized for more than a century now, is our need for a fresh start, a second chance, a new beginning, and a place to call home.

Well, as powerful as the symbol of the Statue of Liberty may be, and as poignant as that poem which adorns her pedestal may be, there is no more comforting or welcoming presence in this world than our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ; and no more comforting words, than the ones he spoke long before there even was a United States, or a Statue of Liberty, for that matter.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,” said Jesus, “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.”

Jesus knew full well, of course, about all the things we either want, or desire, in this life.  But he loved us so much, that he chose not to give us what we wanted; but, instead, to give us what we so desperately needed.

That is, someone who could take away those heavy burdens that we are always carrying around with us on our shoulders.  Someone who could give us the kind of peace and rest that we are forever seeking, but never seem to find.  Someone who loves and accepts us for who we are, and then tells us that, no matter who we are, we are always welcome in his Father’s house.

Amen