The Easy Yoke (Proper 8)

 

The Easy Yoke 

Homily delivered Third Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 8; Year C RCL)
30 June 2019; 8:00 a.m. Said, 10:00 Sung Mass

The Very Rev. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.
Parish Church of Trinity Ashland

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

God, take away our hearts of stone

 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen. 

Jesus has hardened his face, set his jaw, and started on the final trip—the one to Jerusalem, where he knows he will die.  He goes the most direct route, through Samaria.   Local Samaritans, hearing that Jesus is headed for Jerusalem, the capital of their enemies, refuse to welcome him to stay overnight. “Why should we welcome one of our persecutors?  Why provide hospitality for this racist, this oppressor?”  The disciples get angry in their turn.  Jesus, after all, has been more welcoming and tolerant of the Samaritans than anyone else around. “Can we call down fire from heaven upon them?” they ask Jesus eagerly. 

The intersection of politics, ethnicity, and religion has always been a hot topic, fraught with deep emotion:  hope for the wellbeing of people we think deserve it, fear of the wicked triumphing, ready blame dished out to those who have persecuted our group in the past, and, on the other side, anger at being blamed for the wrong-doings of one’s ancestors, or of one’s co-religionists. 

We hear expressions of such tribe-driven emotion almost daily, from all corners of the political field:  “Reparations for slavery!  But no one alive is guilty of having held slaves!”  “You benefited, and still benefit from the system of white privilege founded in slavery and later nurtured by redlining and Jim Crow.”  “Rapists, murderers and thugs have created a crisis on our Southern Border.  Show them no mercy!”  “Those children at the borders are not OUR children!  Why do we owe them anything?”  “Godless welfare leeches! Don’t enable them!”  “The culture of rape comes from testosterone poisoning: all males bear a part of the guilt.”  “All Communists are evil; Socialists are wicked.”  “Republicans are racists; they are Fascists.”  “Democrats are thieving perverts.” “Priests are pedophiles.”  “Catholics are mindless sheep.”  “Protestants are fanatics.”  “Muslims are terrorists.”  “Jews are never going to stop riding that poor-me pony of the Holocaust.”  “Christians are all bloody Crusaders at heart.” 

In our normal, messed up, mixed state of doing things and ways of being, we deny the truth of our human existence by denying our universally shared brokenness.  Instead, we focus on tribal division, religious division, ethnic division, or political division. We assign blame to the others and only good motives to ourselves.

 There are, to be sure, legitimate grievances and complaints.  But what I am talking about here is our tendency to avoid honest, fair-minded addressing such hurt and pursue in its stead a default tribal loyalty where I and my group can do no harm, and they and their group can do no right. 

“Can we call down fire from heaven! Punish them!”    The disciples here want justice.  But they tar all Samaritans with the same brush, just as the villagers have tarred Jesus and his disciples as Jewish oppressors. “Burn them down Lord!”  They are begging Daenarys Targeryon to burn the whole city, good and bad alike.  They are trying to enlist God in their partisan battle.

“Call down fire from heaven!”  They have in mind the prophet Elijah, the star of today’s Hebrew Scripture.   Elijah not only stopped the rain for three years to bring people back to God, he also called down fire from heaven on the soldiers of Ahaziah, King of—where else?—Samaria, when he turned Elijah away and sought Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, instead (2 Kings 1).

Elijah overshadows much of Jesus’ life. When people in his hometown question his lack of local miracles, he says, “No prophet is honored in his home town… There were many widows in Israel then, but Elijah was sent only to the [foreigner] widow in Zarephath in Sidon.  There were many lepers in the time of Elisha, but none was cleansed  except Naaman the Syrian” (Luke 4:24-27).   Luke introduces John the Baptist as a forerunner of Jesus by saying that “he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17).   Herod reacts to stories about Jesus’ mighty acts by thinking Jesus is either John the Baptist or Elijah come back to life (Luke 9:7-8).  On the Mount of Transfiguration, it is Elijah, along with Moses, who appears and tells Jesus of his need to go Jerusalem to accomplish his “departure” (his “Exodus”) (Luke 9:31).  

But, now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus departs from the example of Elijah.   He scolds the disciples for wanting to burn down the Samaritans.   His calling is to proclaim God’s liberation, not to punish those who reject him.   Earlier, sending his disciples out, he tells them to react to rejection by simply moving on: “dust off your shoes and be on your way” (Luke 9:5).  Then when a disciple wants Jesus to silence a healer who uses Jesus’ name in exorcisms but is not one of his followers, Jesus says simply, “Let him do as he wishes.  If he’s not against us, he’s with us” (Luke 9:50).   No fire from heaven for Jesus. 

For him on the way of the cross, the model prophet is not Elijah or even Moses.  It’s Jonah.  The Book of Jonah is read in its entirety in synagogue on the Day of Atonement, and was clearly important for Jesus.  Though the prophet at first runs away because he just can’t bear bringing repentance and salvation to people who hate him, and is brought to accept his call only by miraculously surviving being swallowed by a great fish, though even near the end of the story he whines about the burning sun, the dead gourd bush, and having to preach at great personal risk in the great city, Jonah ultimately finds compassion for its inhabitants and follows through.   He offers with boldness God’s grace to the people of Nineveh, and they turn to God.  When people ask Jesus for a sign, he says he can give no sign to them at all, other than the sign of Jonah.    Suffering in love even for those who despise him, Jonah brings them to God.  He is a sign of hope:  after three days in the belly of the Great Fish, he comes to life again. 

Jesus does not call down fire from heaven like Elijah.  He does not, like Elisha, send she-bears to kill rude teenagers mocking his bald pate (2 Kings 2:15, 23-4).   Like Jonah, he proclaims the gracious forgiveness and love of God, even if it means his death.  He proclaims it to those who reject him:  the sign of Jonah indeed.   On the cross, Jesus prays, “forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” 

Jesus calls his followers to follow his way of self-sacrificing compassion, the ultimate escape from tribe and party.  Earlier in this same chapter of Luke, after Peter affirms his faith that Jesus is Messiah, Jesus tells him that being Messiah means suffering and dying.   And he says that all who follow him must also take up their own cross as well.  

That’s why in today’s reading, Jesus seems so harsh to the would-be follower who begs for a day or so to bury his father.  That’s why he won’t let another even say farewell to his loved ones.   Elijah gives Elisha time to say farewell and settle things.  But Jesus knows the way of suffering and compassion is so hard that you must set your face toward your goal, and not look back: “Let the dead bury their dead; keep your hand on the plow.” 

Jesus is saying we must replace our particular loves and obligations to larger ones.  We must be willing to put aside tribe, family, nation, and all other special obligations to look for serving all, and welcoming all. With your eye on the prize and hand on the plow, you eventually shed petty tribalism and party.

As part of Morning Prayer last week, I sang an old favorite of mine that I had not heard in a long while.  It is a Shaker hymn that speaks of the spiritual practice of simplicity and its liberating effect: 

“I will bow and be simple,
I will bow and be free,
I will bow and be humble,
Yea, bow like the willow tree.

“I will bow, this is the token:
I will wear the easy yoke;
I will bow and will be broken,
Yea, I'll fall upon the rock.

The rock and the yoke here are, of course, Jesus.  It is not our true self that is broken on the rock, but rather, our false self, our ego-driven self, our tribal self, the self that turns from God, and says, “No.  This much, at least. is not yours, God.  It’s MINE.”    Taking Jesus’ yoke upon us means making him our true family, our true ethnicity, our true nation and our true party.  Not that any of these other divisions cease, just that living in Jesus means honesty, compassion, and forgiveness are foremost.  Just as the resurrection of Jesus takes away the sting of death, so bearing the yoke of Jesus frees us from partisan preference, tribal warfare, and holy war.  Don't go for flash and doom.  Don’t aim at Elijah calling fire down from heaven.  Go for compassion and love, following Jesus in showing the sign of Jonah to all.  Lose division and privilege at the door.  Enter with one weight, one burden, on your shoulders:   “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I and humble and gentle of heart.  My yoke is easy, and my burden, light.” 

In the name of God, Amen.