Suggested Hymns:

For the Wholeness of the Earth, ACS 1067

Abba, Abba, Hear Us ACS 1072

Come Seek the Ways of Wisdom ACS 971

Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee ELW 836

When the Morning Stars Sang*

(*unpublished hymn by the Rev. William Beckstrand)

We look to God for all our needs (or so we say) – but it is tempting and easy to turn that into expectations that God will satisfy all our wants. And we know they are not the same.  There is old wisdom that counsels people to discern between their needs and wants, and to understand the difference.  Many problems arise in a person’s life from a failure to recognize a want as just what it is, a desire and not a necessity.  When such a failure happens, individuals and groups can fall into unchecked greed, abuse, even addictions.  When want overrules wisdom, the spirit is bound up in a cycle of dissatisfaction.  Sadly enough, persistent dissatisfaction is a common ailment.  Indeed, it is an intentional by-product of our consumer culture.  Advertising always aims at making us think what we have is not enough or not good enough, that the newer product is always faster, bigger, can do more, looks better, etc.  The person-as-consumer is then afflicted with a desire to keep up, be fashionable, not miss out.  Marketing stimulates a hunger for more, when God has provided enough. It shapes a self that always perceives deficits, never feels contentment, and never experiences grace.

God in Jesus invites a troubled and impulsive species to “come to me” to find peace, meaning, and well-being.  Jesus quotes Proverbs to get us thinking. “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”  I take that to mean ‘the proof is in the pudding,’ or the evidence results in conviction or acquittal.  When Jesus says we are “heavy burdened,” I can feel a personal and corporate resonance with his assessment. I feel the burdens. It sounds and feels to me like the ‘chains of Marley,’ from the Dicken’s Christmas Story. Marley, as we know, was the friend and business partner of Scrooge who is traveling the ghostly after-life weighed down by all his misdeeds in life. Jesus’ assessment begs me to ask, what are the chains, what are the burdens we have forged?  What is weighing us down, crushing our spirits, dampening our dreams, blighting our hope?  We certainly can look at this personally and then begin to catalog those personal sins, decisions, and regrets that weigh us down. We can think of those things we have done or left undone, sins of commission or omission.  There are those decisions that keep people up at night, or plague moments of restlessness. We’ve all been there.

We could also view this from a corporate perspective and feel the weight of guilt or regret for going along with group or societal pressures, or for just failing to resist ancient sins of injustice.  The current abandonment of environmental protections is shackling future generations to come with burdens of lost habitat, loss of food security, loss of clean and healthy air and water.  In some ways, we as citizens share culpability for we have participated in this abandonment. We are part of the citizenry that voted in those who either militated for this abandonment or who were ineffective in preserving the protections.  The greatest burden is the shared guilt of participating in a polluting macro-economy, which is creating a worldwide climate catastrophe.  In addition to these ‘chains’, the current rollback of civil rights and civil protections in our country and in fact in many countries around the globe, is forging more and already inducing anxieties and distress among people of all ages.  We hear that climate anxiety is now a widely known mental anguish therapists are treating.  Right now there is a parallel political anxiety, as many people fear the loss of hard-won civil rights and freedoms they had come to believe were the mainstay of democracy. Yes, we can say we are heavy burdened, and Jesus invites us to a much-needed rest.

But I don’t think Jesus is saying “come to me” and I will forgive you and let you forget all your troubles.  Jesus is not offering us a dose of spiritual lidocaine for the soul for the troubled so we can ignore the hardships we encounter. Nor is he saying “I’ll fix everything, don’t worry about a thing, God’s got this.”  Nor is he saying “I release you from all responsibility.”  Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.  I believe Jesus is offering to each person and each generation a new yoke, a new path, a new day, and new deeds. I take it that the whole story of God-come-to-earth, Immanuel, doctrine of Incarnation, the great mystery of divine presence, divine becoming true human, Jesus of Nazareth being Christ the Lord, does not mean that grace is the cheap salve for the unwilling and stiff-necked generation that refuses to follow or change.  Grace is the unearned action of God, as we learned in Confirmation classes, but grace conveyed with teaching is like God leading Ephraim by the hand onto the path of life (Hosea 11).  Life together with Christ calls for allegiance, for re-alignment, for personal and collective transformation.  Paul refers to the person in Christ as a “new creation,” which does not conjure up an image of one who remains on the old path, following old truths after encountering the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  The story is one full of restoration and renewal.  It is a story full of the possibility of recovery and rest and release.  But we must seek freedom from the chains we have forged. And when we come to our senses, like all prodigals need to do, we find that Jesus already stands before us, open arms, offering an invitation, “Come to me.”

Today’s reading from Zechariah also points to the way of God among us.  Restoration is connected to the humility and servant leadership God ordains, contrasted to the authoritarian, exploitive, and abusive structures that humans devise, which lead to wars, desolations, and misery.  God’s restorative power remains.  It remains and is available in all ages, even though it seems but a fading memory when a person or a people are under the cloud of human repressive and rapacious events and systems.  Zechariah’s prophecy sees through the fog of despair, “Lo, your king comes.”  This was spoken to the discouraged and despairing millennia ago and is echoing today.  “Lo, your king comes” Each year in our liturgy and lectionary we rehearse and remind ourselves of this unstoppable truth and saving mystery during the Holy Week and in the liturgy of Palms and Passion Sunday.  Our hope and salvation comes through God in Christ revealed on cross and empty tomb.  “Lo, your king comes,” is a prophetic invitation for each hearer to come to hope, come to assurance, come close and experience the presence of God.

Within times of trouble, doubt, and confusion, in these years of increasing authoritarian actions and attitudes, I continue to hear “Come to me.”  It is an invitation that inspires resolve and courage to follow.  As Paul laments and expresses personal regrets for a life and actions he cannot take back, we can do the same. We can look at the personal and the collective and systemic culpability of our lives, lifestyles, and action, and the seeming inextricability of sin that infects our souls and our human systems– “wretched people that we are – who can save us, who can rescue and release us?”  We, like Paul, know the answer to that rhetorical question. God through Christ still invites – “Come to me.”

The salvific word in that invitation is “Me.” And we are certain who that is – God in Jesus who is open to our hearts.  Without God in Christ there is nothing (John 1). But the word of change, rest, restoration, renewal, and life, is “come.” It is a word of action, if only a minimal action at first.  It is a word of response.  It is not passive. This invitation is a command if you will hear it. It is an active demand that brings fuller life and deeper peace.  Jesus says to us “take my yoke,” “do likewise,” “do this in remembrance of me,” “love as I have loved you,” “go make disciples,” “teach.”  When you grow weary, when you fail, lose your way or your resolve, the invitation remains, the grace remains, “Come to me.” The invitation isn’t taken away because of our sin, or our failure: it is given to those who need it.  Christ came to save sinners, and we all qualify. The invitation always remains.  God’s restorative power always remains. Undergirding it all is the grace we had nothing to do with because it has always been – God – the One who invites “come to me” – the One who restores – the One whose love saves us.