Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Every year at the beginning of Lent, our preschoolers and I
read Oh No, George! by Chris Haughton in chapel. If you’ll permit me, I’d
like to read a bit of this story about a dog to you this morning.
Harry is going out. “Will
you be good, George?” asks Harry. “Yes,” says George. “I’ll be very good.” I
hope I’ll be good, George thinks. George sees something in the kitchen. It’s
cake! I said I’d be good, George thinks,
but I LOVE cake. What will George do? (George eats the cake.) Oh no, George![1]
I think you can guess how the rest of the story goes. George
sees Cat, who he loves to chase. George sees dirt, which he loves to dig in. George
said he’d be good, but these temptations are just so tempting. And when Harry
returns, George has ruined the house. George is sorry. George resolves to do
better. George does do better, for a while, but the story ends with George,
tempted to dig in a trash can. We don’t know what George does in the end. The
book ends on a question: George?
We’ve all had moments in our lives that end with a similar
question, haven’t we. We can will what is right, but we cannot do it. We are
just like George the dog. This little children’s book is such a great
illustration of exactly what St. Paul is talking about! And I get that. I
understand exactly how St. Paul feels. Don’t you? Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Who
will save George the dog from digging in the trash can?
I like to imagine that the first time Paul’s letter to the
Romans was read in Rome, Pheobe, the deacon of the church in Cenchrae whom Paul
identifies as the end of the letter as is bearer, whom Paul would have trained
in how to read the letter, Pheobe paused at this point. Maybe she sat the
scroll down. And I like to think that the depth of this question penetrated
into the hearts of all of those who had gathered to hear this new letter from
Paul.
Who will save me from
this body of death? I ask myself this question on a regular basis. Don’t
you? Now, I don’t use quite these words, but I’m still asking the same
question. Sometimes I ask it without using words. One of those times occurred
when I was doing my hospital chaplain internship. I was paged to the Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit to sit with a mother as she took her newborn daughter off
life support. It was awful. When you’re in a situation like that, there are no
answers. The mother didn’t even ask me why God would let something like that
happen. She just cried. I held her hand and cried with her. As we sat there,
watching the heartbeats fade from the heart monitor, we were both crying out,
with sighs too deep for words, Paul’s cry: Who
will save me from this body of death?
That is the essential question of human life. Sometimes, it’s
tempting to jump right over to the answer: Thanks
be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! But that’s not the way life works.
And when we are confronted with our human frailty in a powerful way, the answer
isn’t as simple as skipping right ahead to the next verse. When we are grieving
as we are now over the death of John Burk, an answer is simple as “Jesus needed
another angel in heaven” doesn’t satisfy. There is a real existential angst in
that question, in our finite inability to do all the good we want, a finitude
revealed to us in death. We don’t need pat answers. We need Jesus.
We need to hear our Gospel reading. We need to be reminded
that we relate to God as children, not as adults. If we were adults, maybe we’d
have this life thing figured out. Maybe we’d know how to do the good we will. Maybe
we’d know the answers to give grieving people. But we aren’t, so we don’t. God
has revealed these things—the Good News of God in Jesus Christ—to children. And
we receive grace, the free gift of God, as children. We can’t run faster or
beat our arms harder and somehow arrive at salvation. We need to be given it. And
thank God, Jesus does give it to us.
Come to me, all you
that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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.
We find rest for our weary souls when we stop trying to do
it ourselves. That’s why Jesus’ yoke is easy, and his burden is light: he has
shouldered it for us. Somehow, in the midst of that awful hospital room where I
sat with that mother and her dying child, Jesus showed up. He showed up when I
stopped trying to make things right, stopped trying to find something to say to
the mother to make her feel better. I had nothing to do with Jesus showing up. He
didn’t show up because someone called for a chaplain. He showed up because everyone
in that room needed him, and we had stopped pretending otherwise. When that
happened, it was like all the air in the room changed. It grew lighter. The
mother sang “Jesus loves me” as she rocked her daughter for the last time. Somehow,
in a way that I do not understand, Jesus gave us rest and comfort. Jesus let us
set heavy burdens down. All there was left was a palpable sense of God’s love.
Who will save me from
this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
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