Independence Day

Bob Stillerman
Proper 9, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, 7/5/2020
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Independence Day Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30 7-5-2020

Caesar’s world teaches us to zig, when God’s world asks us to zag. Caesar’s world asks to grow up, to gain credentials, to be informed, and to stay on guard; God’s world asks us to have the curiosity and wonder of infants, tells us we’re already credentialed, reminds us we have plenty to keep learning, and tells us that God’s got us.

When we insist on zigging, when we insist on being grown, and credentialed, and informed, and guarded, the world is a heavy, heavy place. We climb to our mountaintops, often exerting more energy in remaining king of the mountain than in the climb itself. And such pursuits – those of protection and isolation – can be soul-emptying.

So Jesus offers an easy yoke and a light burden. This doesn’t mean discipleship is without effort, or without drama, or without hardship. But discipleship offers a rest and a purpose for the soul.

I’m not here to condemn capitalism, or democracy in their entirety – I’m too invested in both of them to authentically do so. But we do live in systems with finite rewards. I’ve yet to meet someone in my lifetime who has expressed a fullness and contentedness with profits and power. It seems to me that one can always be acquiring more money, more votes, more privilege, more status, and still be lacking contentedness. How much undo stress and trauma do we put on ourselves in order to procure a marginal return? I can tell you that I’ve had times in my own life where I sacrificed my physical and mental health for income that wasn’t worth the toll, and for gratitude that was not sufficient. And that’s to say nothing of the toll on my family.

Discipleship calls us to hard, but fruitful work. The process of restoring relationships will make you bone-tired, but soul-rested. Holding the hands of those who grieve; advocating for marginalized neighbors; deconstructing and self-reflecting on our own privileges; serving, and hosting, and feeding, and welcoming strangers and neighbors alike; searching and listening for truth; genuinely offering and receiving forgiveness for our trespasses; living with empathy and expressing compassion for others – building relationships is hard, tiring, exhausting, arghh-kind-of-work. But it is work that gives lasting rest.

One last Fourth of July thought to try and tie it all together. Jefferson wrote that he and the founders believed in certain truths, indisputable, unequivocal, lasting, self-evident truths…among these that all persons are created equal and endowed with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I think Caesar’s world teaches us to limit the “all” in that statement. And the burden of an exclusive all is too heavy to maintain, too unfulfilling to pursue.

Jesus tells us that the pursuit of an inclusive all is a worthy one. It won’t be without its difficulties. It starts with the difficulty of acknowledging that the founders who penned this document had no intention of authentic inclusion. And for many of us, the hard work of inclusion contains an admission that for too long we have been content with an exclusive all. And more than likely, we are gonna have to give up a whole lot of things that make us wise in this world. But I would argue that an easy yolk and a light burden are an independence worth celebrating. May God give us the courage, the strength, and the fortitude to be a nation that might rightly and authentically proclaim its independence by living into an inclusive all.

May it be so, and may it be soon! Amen.