A Word for the Struggling

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
July 3, 2011
Rev. Mark R. Miller
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
“A Word for the Struggling”
Communion Meditation

“…you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants.” This passage could be taken out of context and used to justify religious fanaticism and anti-intellectualism. Misunderstanding the passage this way could lead us to believe that Jesus does not want us to be educated and that we should distrust those who are. Unfortunately, there are plenty of followers of Jesus who believe this to be true. The only problem is that interpreting this passage in that way is not only dishonest, it is a misuse of the sacred scripture.
In order not to make this mistake we have to ask some critical questions. First, we have to understand who were the “wise and intelligent” of which Jesus speaks? Jesus lived in a non-literate society. In other words, only a very few people had the ability to read. The vast majority did not have access to formal education. When you add the limited access to information to the power of the Roman imperial myths of power, it becomes easy for those with education to control and manipulate the population. So when Jesus challenges the wise and intelligent he is challenging those who used their knowledge to manipulate and control.
However, to disparage education in our own time through passages like this one is to turn Jesus’ message on its head. In fact, the key to understanding is not the warnings against the “wise and intelligent,” but instead to focus on who Jesus understood to be the “infants.” It seems to be a strange and almost condescending term. And the use of the word infants denotes those who are often labeled as collateral damage today. Women, children, immigrants, and the elderly, are often unaccounted for by our empires, but they are precious in God’s sight. Jesus was concerned with those most vulnerable in society. Jesus’ prayer is a reminder to those who are left out in society that they matter to God. So, if anyone would use this passage in our own society it could not faithfully be co-opted by anyone who has social status or political power. Instead, if Jesus lived in a time when education was more readily available, like it is today, there is no conceivable way that he would encourage sustaining ignorance.
“John came neither eating nor drinking and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and drunkard, a friend to tax collectors and sinners!” It is a very old tactic. When you do not what to deal with the content of your opposition, simply attack their character. Jesus and John represent a significant challenge to the status quo. Anyone who is advocating real substantive change is often met first with character assassination and ultimately death. Both John and Jesus challenged the authenticity of the political and religious leadership. John called people to greater honesty and integrity of their faith. And Jesus had such an inclusive vision that the religious leadership did not know what to do. When Jesus and John stand together you end up with a message of rigorous discipleship and radical inclusivity.
This was not a message that could be tolerated by the religious and political leadership. If the people followed this pattern of rigorous discipleship and radical inclusivity it would have caused problems for the political leadership that practiced convenient discipleship and the religious leadership who practiced radical exclusion. Jesus encouraged those who would seek to follow in this way by saying wisdom would be vindicated by her deeds. It means that despite the character assassination and literal assassination, the work and ways of wisdom will always live on.
It is honestly hard to hear all of this as good news. “Take my yoke…” No matter how easy or light a yoke is, it is still a yoke. For us, as a people weaned on the idea that freedom means freedom from anything and everything, it is hard to imagine a yoke as a welcome idea, let alone good news. But if we are truly honest, none of us are completely free, each of us answers to someone else. And for those who are really struggling, for the widow who has no food, for the family whose money has run out before the end of the month, for the mother who struggles to put food on the table, giving up the current yoke for another may sound like true liberation. Rigorous discipleship and radical inclusion is not a way out but a way to survive and thrive, particularly in hard times.
The yoke Jesus refers to is the challenge to live the message of John and Jesus. Living out those works, making sure our actions are true is a difficult thing. It requires of us a desire to follow John’s call to authentic discipleship. We move from merely being interested in the Bible and move to living out what it teaches. As well it requires a humility that leads to an inclusivity which may get us labeled accomodationist. “Glutton,” “drunkard,” “friend of tax collectors and sinners,” were terms used for Jesus by the religiously faithful. Placing these two teachings side-by-side provides a reminder that both are needed: rigorous discipleship and radical inclusivity. That is a yoke, a burden, because it requires something more of us. It moves us from saying that everyone is welcome to saying everyone is welcome and I will commit my life to rigorous discipleship as well. Radical inclusivity cannot be maintained over the long haul if one is not rigorous in discipleship.
When things are difficult and uncertain and when the struggles of the day are pushing in, the message of the passage is a call to more rigorous discipleship. But this is not something that leads to fundamentalism. Instead, a more rigorous discipleship that leads to greater understanding of the scriptures, will, if we are listening to Jesus, lead to a radical inclusivity. A word for the struggling in this passage is a call to focus on the most important things in our faith. Doing so will not make the problems magically disappear but will equip us for any struggle that might lay ahead. Amen? Amen!