Sermon 7/3/05
Have it Your Way - Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, Romans 7:15-25a
(view lectionary notes for this text)
If you watch TV, you’ve probably noticed that Burger King runs commercials where the new slogan is “have it your way.” You can order things the way you want them. If you want your hamburger without the meat, they can get it for you. If you want extra pickles, they’ll do it. Their slogan suggests that you, the customer, are in charge at their place. You can, and should, and are entitled to have it just the way you want it. In fact, if you exit a Burger King, you’ll notice the doors have the usual “push” and “pull” labels on them. But they also contain smaller print, reminding you that you can have it your way and push a door that you are supposed to pull if you want to – it just won’t work as well that way, but it will still be your way. Burger King isn’t alone in their marketing strategy. Many advertisers get to us by playing to our desires to have what we want, how and when we want it, all the time. It’s an easy strategy, because we’re willing to buy into it, figuratively and literally, because we believe that there is nothing we don’t deserve, nothing we can’t have, nothing that is too outrageous for our demands. We perhaps wouldn’t put it that way, but our actions speak louder than our words. We want to have it our way.
We want the same thing from Jesus – We want the Jesus we want, how we want him, when we want him. That’s his complaint in our gospel lesson today. “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 a drunkard, a friends of tax collectors and sinners!” He argues with the crowds: Look, you didn’t like John the Baptist because he stayed outside the community – he dressed strangely and ate weird things, and kept to himself. John was like a modern day monk, in some ways, separate from the community, but still calling people to accountability and repentance. You didn’t like John because of his packaging, Jesus says. But you didn’t like me for the exact opposite reasons. I’m always with the people – with all kinds of people, the tax collectors and the sinners. I eat and drink and have a good time with life and with friends. But you don’t like that either. You call me a glutton and a drunk! Will nothing please you? Eugene Peterson, in his translation of the Bible called The Message, puts Jesus words this way: “How can I account for this generation? The people have been like spoiled children whining to their parents . . . John came fasting and they called him crazy. I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riffraff. Opinion polls don’t count for much, do they?” Jesus is frustrated because people rejected him for not coming in the package they expected. He didn’t come as a king to take over. He didn’t come as a prim and proper person, like the Pharisees, who would obey even the traditional, long-established religious laws. He was a trouble-maker, a radical. He turned traditions upside-down. Who wants a savior like that?
Because on top of it all, on top of his penchant for making a scene and hanging out with the most questionable people, Jesus has the audacity to make some huge demands of us. We make some pretty good excuses for ignoring Jesus. Sometimes, he cramps our lifestyle. We do want it all, but Jesus is always talking about how less is more, how the last will be first and the first will be last, how we get life by giving up our lives. We want to follow Jesus – we just wish he wouldn’t always try to lead us into such weird places, such shady surroundings, such uncomfortable situations.
Still, included in our desire to have it all is our desire to be good people and do good and right things. We want to be disciples – we want to follow Jesus, and love God. We just don’t want to give up anything else either, or make changes in our lives that will really affect us, or make us change behaviors that are comfortable. And yet, we can’t get rid of a sense of guilt, or a sense of unworthiness, or that secret knowledge inside of us that we’re not doing what we should, that we really aren’t doing enough, that we’re really just trying to slide by. We know what we want. But we’re also afraid that we know what is right, and that what we’re doing isn’t it.
This is exactly the dilemma that Paul addresses in his letter to the Romans. He says, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do that good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.” Paul’s words sound part confusing – a tongue-twister of sorts. But his words are also some of my favorite in the Bible, because I can so relate to his predicament.
Our human predicament is our usual situation – we want everything that is good, and we’re willing to try anything to get it – anything that seems easy, or quick, or cheap. We want it all without any effort. And we are always disappointed with the results. It’s never as good as we’d hoped it would be, and it always costs more – more emotionally, more spiritually, more materially than we were expecting. As Paul says, we don’t understand our own actions. We don’t do what we really want to be doing, but wind up in exactly the situations and circumstances that we least want to be in – feeling an emptiness that won’t go away, a guilt that is every present, and a distance from God that we can’t seem to bridge with our own actions.
What is the solution? Jesus, as always, is ready to give us an alternative to our own misguided attempts to make ourselves happy. “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 you souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Again, Eugene Peterson puts Jesus’ words in crisp, contemporary language: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to find genuine rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
We hear this offer from Jesus, and it sounds pretty good. Jesus is offering rest, comfort, grace, gentleness. Maybe we can get on board with him after all! But before we sign up for this life that Jesus offers too quickly, let’s make sure we are aware of what we’re getting into. Jesus doesn’t promise to make us burden free, and he doesn’t promise to carry everything for us, and he doesn’t promise to let us have our own way. In those verses about rest and comfort, Jesus also says that his “yoke is easy and [his] burden is light.” The imagery that Jesus uses of a yoke and a burden is an image that brings to mind a farming culture – not the kind of farming that happens today in the US with modern machinery, but farming that was done with animals yoked together, guided by a farmer through the fields. The farm animals worked hard – they had to carry loads, and they had to follow the farmer’s direction and submit to the yoke. But the work wasn’t more than they could bear, and they were cared for by the farmer, and guided by the farmer in their work.
This is the relationship that Jesus wants to offer us – not a “have it your way” life where we can do whatever we want and have whatever we want. That isn’t a life that is good for us or pleasing to God. But Jesus offers a relationship where we are cared for and loved and comforted and offered rest and grace from what troubles us. Burger King may have it right – we can have it our way – it just turns out that our way is not nearly as good as God’s way, and it is not nearly as fulfilling and rewarding. Our way might be less challenging, less demanding. But our way is lonelier, and God’s way is full of love. Our way leaves us wanting more, and God’s way leaves us overflowing, with love and grace to spare and to share.
We can have it our way – what will you order?