"Love bade me welcome": 6th July 2008: St Mary's Welwyn: Revd. Diane Whittaker

Zechariah 9: 9-12: Romans 7: 15-25a: Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-end

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and redeemer.

In the passage we had from Zechariah this morning, we heard one of the well known prophecies of the coming of the Messiah….one we normally hear on Palm Sunday:

Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Zechariah predicts the coming of a King who will be peaceful – unlike the conquerors the Israelis were used to in 500 BC when this book was written. He will be someone who will introduce a new Kingdom of peace and justice which will spread over the known world. As we remember on Palm Sunday, the King did come in the person of Jesus – who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey – deliberately fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy.

But although the people of Jesus’ time were expecting a Messiah – they had forgotten the peace and gentleness part and wanted someone to defeat the Romans and establish them in a new Kingdom. They also expected their Messiah to be strict and obey all the rules – he certainly would not be dealing with sinners and tax collectors.

They did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah – or indeed John the Baptist as his for runner. This is evident in the passage we heard from Matthew today. In fact, just before this passage, Matthew records John the Baptist as having doubts and sending his disciples to ask Jesus whether he really was the Messiah – Jesus was not what John was expecting either!

Jesus sends the disciples back with a report to John –

"Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."

He then praises John to the crowds, confirming that he was the messenger who was to foretell the Messiah’s coming.

Jesus then has some harsh words to say about those who would not accept either John or him – John was complained about because he was too austere, Jesus because he welcomed the riff raff –

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." 'But wisdom is proved right by her actions."

In other words – you will see eventually by the outcome of our actions whether you are right to criticize John and myself or not!

Then Jesus proceeds to outline positively and clearly exactly how he sees himself to be in relation to God and the people.

Listen again to his words as recorded by Matthew –

"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

So Jesus claims he is the Son of God, come to show people the way back to God. You are left having to believe this and accepting him wholesale or backing off completely – there is no middle ground.

He then offers a wonderful invitation:

"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."

The religion of Jesus’ time could be heavy and burdensome, if every little part of the Law as interpreted by the scholars was to be followed – there seemed to be so many rules to follow to stay on the right side of God. Jesus provides an alternative to his listeners. Take my yoke instead of the yoke of the law (young Jewish boys actually undertook to take on the yoke of the law at their Bar Mitzvah). My way is easy for you to follow.

And what is Jesus’ way? It is one of love and commitment to God and each other. Jesus summed up the Law and the Prophets very simply - love God with all of yourself and your neighbour as your self – all else comes from that.

Jesus still extends that invitation to us today –

"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."

There are many ways in which as Christians we can burden ourselves today. It seems to me to be human nature to make up all sorts of rules and regulations for ourselves….and then punish ourselves when we fail to meet the mark – or even worse, ostracize others because they don’t match up to our view of orthodox Christianity..

The history of the Christian church is riddled with factions and splits all arising from differences of opinion as to how the bible or the articles of faith are to be interpreted, and today we are in the midst of more arguments and threatened splits as the Anglican church feels its way into a new interpretation of God’s mission for the 21st century.

It is easy to descend into firing isolated verses of scripture and insults over the battlements at those you do not agree with, not so easy to commit to working together to discern God’s will for his people in this age. One of the abiding memories I will take from Cambridge is the way in which all students preparing for ministry in God’s church – no matter what denomination or sector of Anglicanism – were enabled to study, pray and learn from one another in true Christian fellowship. I learned that it was perfectly possible to love someone for their faith in the same triune God that I believe in, pray and worship with them, and have good humoured discussions over our often considerable differences in interpretation of that faith – even sometimes pull each others legs over those differences – in other words – live alongside other Christians who differed from me in a good degree of harmony.

One of those students, who did not support the ordination of women at all, was present at the ordination last Sunday to support all of those who were being ordained who he had met during training – that is true fellowship in the love of Christ.

I’ll also remember a sermon given by the retired Bishop of Coventry, Simon Barrington-Ward, to the gathered student body of the Cambridge Theological Federation, in which he described how a group of missionaries, with deep seated divisions between them came together in a renewed fellowship after praying and eating together on retreat for a day. Also, Archbishop Rowan Williams, in answering questions about the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, saying that the whole thing had to be grounded in prayer and worship together – it was the only way of discerning God’s will for the future.

So when we get too attached to our own interpretations of God’s word, or despair at the infighting going on in the Anglican church at present, we need to remember first and foremost that Jesus came to set us free and allow us to live life to the full – to develop into the people and worshipping community that God wills us to be. The only requirement he has is that we love God before anything else.

So let us today take up Jesus’ invitation to come to him and take up his yoke.

"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."

George Herbert was a priest who had only a short ministry during the 17th Century, but had a great influence on the development of what we would now regard as traditional parish ministry through his writings. I want to finish with one of George Herbert’s poems - Love bade me welcome. For me it sums up Jesus invitation to just be with him, and all else will follow:

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack'd any thing.

A guest, I answer'd, worth to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love. And taste my meat
So I did sit and eat