“An Oasis for the Soul”

Matthew 11:28-30

Hear these words from the Apostle Paul as they appear in The Message: “I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope.” Or as the more traditional translations put it, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Here too the words of an old anthem, “Why do I do the things I should not do, when in my heart I know these things are wrong?” Why do good people, including good Christians, fail to live up to their own professed standards of ethics and morality? Why are all of us frustrated again and again in our efforts to live righteous lives? Why isn’t our best ever good enough?

In his commentary on today’s text Lee Ramsey wrote, “… on our own we will never find a way to atone for our sins or bear the weight of human suffering. We cannot be smart enough or strong enough nor do enough time in the prison cells of our own lives to put everything right.” Just another way of saying, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of sin?”

But then comes Paul’s answer to his own despairing question, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The same Jesus Christ who issues this invitation: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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.”

What a wonderful thing for those first century Judeans to hear. They very were tired. Their burdens were heavy. Their lives were filled with extreme stress: physical and emotional. Many of them were carrying the crushing weight of poverty, never sure that there would be enough to eat. All of them lived under the oppressive rule of Roman occupation. Life was difficult: physically and emotionally.

And spiritually difficult as well. Many were burned out on the arbitrary legalisms of the Pharisees. The practice of their religion was just another obstacle course they were required to run. They were weighed down with rules. Their spirits were buried under a mountain of regulations, most of them petty and ridiculous. The Law of God intended as a gracious gift from their Lord, had been turned into a mind-numbing, spirit-killing system of excessively legalistic demands.

But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, there was a way out from under all that. Just as the cooling shade and thirst-quenching water of an oasis offer rest and refreshment to the desert traveler, Jesus had come offering them an oasis of a different sort. It was an oasis for the soul, a place of grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, and healing where, in the words of Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase they could recover their lives and learn from Jesus how to truly rest. Said Jesus, “Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn how to live freely and lightly.”

What an invitation. What a word of hope. Yoke yourself with Jesus and with him at your side walk in the ways of gentleness, freedom, and joy. Learn from him those unforced rhythms of grace. Let him touch you. Let him heal you. Let him save you. Stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to achieve righteousness on your own. Turn that wretched person you are over to Jesus. Walk with him in the way of life.

Referring back to Dr. Ramsey, “To all who are burdened, whether by the driving demands of should and ought or the unavoidable weight of human suffering, the final verses of today’s [text] fall like spring rain. There is One who exchanges the millstones of life for the yoke of grace. Awaiting us just around the corner is a place of rest prepared by Christ… There is nothing we can do to earn such a gift and there is nothing the world can press upon us to deny it. At the heart of God’s kingdom sits not a stern judge but a loving redeemer… Such lightness always comes as a gift, like an infant receiving the love and security of a gentle parent, we will know the ‘rest for our souls’ announced by Jesus.”

That’s a lesson the Apostle Paul learned, loved, and shared as he followed Jesus. He had been a Pharisee’s Pharisee. He was intimately acquainted with their legalistic system. He pursued righteousness with a grim and furious determination. Then he met Jesus and took upon himself the light yoke of the Lord. He began learning how to be gentle with himself. As Romans 7 shows he never perfected the giving of grace and gentleness to himself. He still wrestled with the Pharisaic perversion of the law as it joined with sin in an attempt to drive him further from rather than closer to righteousness. In his wretched despair he cried out to Jesus, accepting the reality that apart from God’s grace revealed in Jesus Christ there was no hope of righteousness – ever.

We cannot defeat sin or achieve righteousness alone. We cannot carry life’s burdens alone. We can’t create a gracious space for ourselves no matter how many laws we obey or regulations we keep. We can’t work hard enough or run fast enough to bring ourselves to a place of peace and joy. We can’t be good enough, holy enough, or religious enough. We can’t be driven enough or ambitious enough or rich enough or successful enough or pretty enough or thin enough or secure enough. And as for earning grace, forgiveness, and salvation, we need to accept the reality that “earned grace” is an oxymoron.

We who are Presbyterian Christians in America especially need to learn this. We proclaim salvation by grace through faith. This affirmation runs through all of our confessional documents. But we still have this sinfully pathetic knack for trying to legislate the Kingdom into existence, all the while trying to bring it in under budget. We spend hours in meetings after which when all is said and done there has been much more said than done. We love to create committees, commissions, and task forces. Our present Book of Order is four times thicker than the one in use when I was ordained almost 31 years ago – that’s not a guess, I actually measured them. The church is being torn apart by the modern day Pharisees on the left and the 20^th Century Pharisees on the right. We are weighed down by anger, partisanship, anxiety, and arrogance.

And I’m tired of it all, not to mention more than a little put out with folks on both sides of the issues pulling our church apart. Tuesday morning I received an e-mail from a colleague. He headed his note with: The PC (USA) R.I.P., rest in peace. I wrote back and told him to get over himself, that within the eternal context of God’s providence everything will eventually come out in the wash. Who knows? God has been known to bring good out of bigger messes than this.

Another colleague, an interim pastor from the L.A. area, wrote that she’s also tired, especially of the vitriol spewed by folks on both sides of the fight. In her note she also talked about the forest fires raging near the church she is serving. The smoke was putting her at risk of a severe allergic reaction. I wrote back that I was praying for those fires to stop burning, then added a line about hoping and praying that the fires erupting in the PC(USA) would die down. The smoke from them is choking us all. Such was the mood I was in when I started today’s sermon.

Things are what they are in the world and in the church. All those things that would burden us aren’t going away this side of eternity. But cutting through all the regulatory language of The Book of Order, the destructive fires resulting from our seemingly eternal Presbyterian battles over property and sex, and my own funk about it all were those precious words of Jesus in today’s text: “Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Then came the ah-hah moment: All I can do is go with Jesus to his oasis for the soul. There I can lay all my burdens down: my funky mood over the fires erupting around the PC(USA), my anxiety about the affect that all this may or may not have on Grace Church and my ministry, my sadness over my mother-in-law’s deteriorating health, and my pain for Sandy as she watches her mother slowly die. Yoked with Jesus I can know a peace that passes all understanding and that all things truly are in God’s hands.

I ask you now to join me at our Lord’s oasis of grace, symbolized so perfectly by his Table. Let us accept Jesus’ gracious invitation to his Supper, remembering that our seat at the Table isn’t something we can ever earn, knowing that we are invited to this Supper even though we in no way deserve to be there, realizing that Jesus has already picked up the tab, paying the price that we could never pay. Amen.