Pentecost 5

Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and blessed be God's kingdom now and forever.

Amen.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Lord be with you and also with you.

Let us pray.

O God, you've taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor.

Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart and united to one another with pure affection through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

A prayer for the power of the Spirit among the people of God.

God of all power and love, we give thanks for your unfailing presence and the hope you provide in times of uncertainty and loss.

Send your Holy Spirit to enkindle in us your holy fire, revive us to live as Christ's body in the world, a people who pray, worship, learn, break bread, share life, heal neighbors, bear good news, seek justice, rest and grow in the Spirit.

Wherever and however we gather, unite us in common prayer and send us in common mission, that we and the whole creation might be restored and renewed through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Finally, a prayer for Independence Day.

Lord God Almighty, in whose name the founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn.

Grant that we and all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties and righteousness and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever.

Amen.

Reading from Genesis.

The servant said to Laban, I am Abraham's servant.

The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become wealthy.

He has given him flocks and herds, silver and gold, male and female slaves, camels and donkeys.

And Sarah, my master's wife, bore a son to my master when she was old.

And he has given him all that he has.

My master may be swear, saying, You shall not take a wife from my son, from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live.

But you shall go to my father's house, to my kindred, and get a wife for my son.

I came today to the spring and said, O Lord, the God of my master Abraham, if now you will only make successful the way I'm going, I'm standing here by the spring of water.

Let the young woman who comes out to draw, to whom I shall say, Please give a little water to me from your jar to drink, and who will say to me, Drink, and I will draw for your camels also.

Let her be the woman whom the Lord has appointed for my master's son.

Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebecca coming out with her water jar on her shoulder, and she went down to the spring and drew.

I said to her, Please let me drink.

She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder and said, Drink, and I will water your camels also.

So I drank.

And she also watered the camels.

And I asked her, Whose daughter are you?

She said, The daughter of Bethuel, Naor's son, and Milka bore to him.

So I put the ring on her nose and the bracelets on her arms, and I bowed my head and worshiped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to obtain the daughter of my master's kinsman for his son.

Now then, if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, and tell me.

If not, tell me so that I may turn either to the right hand or to the left.

And they called Rebecca and said to her, Will you go with this man?

She said, I will.

So they sent away their sister Rebecca and her nurse, along with Abraham's servant and his men.

And they blessed Rebecca and said to her, May you, our sister, become thousands of myriads.

May your offspring gain possession of the gates of their foes.

And Rebecca and her maids rose up, mounted the camels, and followed the man.

Then the servant took Rebecca and went his way.

Now Isaac had come from Biral Haroi and was settled in the land of the Negat.

Isaac went out in the evening to walk in the field.

And looking up, he saw camels coming.

And Rebecca looked up.

And when she saw Isaac, she stepped up quickly from her camel and said to the servant, Who is the man over there walking in the field to meet us?

The servant said, It is my master.

So she took her veil and covered herself.

And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done.

And Isaac brought her into his mother's error's hand.

He took Rebecca, and she became his wife, and he loved her.

So Isaac was covered after his mother's death.

The word of the Lord.

I agree that the what is good.

It is no longer I that do it.

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 the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.

And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, the sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, the evil lies close at hand.

For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self.

But I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death.

Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ our Lord.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Jesus said, To what will I compare this generation?

It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, We played the flute for you and you did not dance.

We wailed and you did not mourn.

For 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 friend of tax collectors and sinners.

Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

At that time Jesus said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you've hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal the Father.

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.

The Gospel of the Lord.

In fact, um the last several months seem to have made my faith life and uh my decision and commitment to following Jesus faithfully, well, a little more difficult.

And so maybe it's worthwhile unpacking some of these words biblically and seeing if we can't come to a different notion of what it looks like to be yoked to Christ with one another and what rest might look like.

So uh first off, um the yoke.

It was a common symbol at the time of Jesus that the yoke was a way of following the Torah through the lens of a rabbi.

So a student would sit at a rabbi's feet and learn a method of applying the Torah.

Those are the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

We sometimes also call them the Pentateuch, but they're the first five books of the Hebrew Bible from which uh most rabbinic law was extrapolated.

And if you've you've probably heard this before, there are 617 uh do's and don'ts, 365 do's, one for every day of the year, 248 don'ts, one from every bone in your body.

I got that number wrong, it's 613.

Um these laws were pulled out both from the Torah we've received and from something called the Oral Torah.

The story goes that when Moses was on top of Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb and God gave to Moses the Torah, Moses came and wrote that down, but that Moses also received a second Torah that he passed down orally to his children and their children and their children.

The rabbis were the ones who had received this oral Torah that went alongside the written Torah.

Um so the rabbis were able to provide this yoke, this way of um pulling the weight of the world.

And um it wasn't uh that every rabbi had radically different ways of practicing.

I mean, I think the best example we can think of is um the way in which you can go to any episcopal church you'd like, and on any given Sunday, you'll find a very similar liturgy, but you'll find also a very different congregational feel and possibly a different way uh of uh preaching or approaching the same liturgy.

And so that would be um similar to the way that we would hear this word yoke.

And Jesus is saying, look, my yoke is easy.

Now, my mentoring rector uh said something really interesting that Jesus, being a master carpenter, was capable of building a yoke that was not one size fits all, but was customized and fit every single person.

Because the biggest problem with a wooden yoke is that there's gaps or that it's too tight, and that can infringe, or it can rub, or it can create space and bowing so that there's not an even and steady pull.

So my mentoring rector approached this and said, Look, what Jesus is able to do is recognize the individuality of every person, affirm that, and affirm that within the individual there are, of course, challenges, but there's also gifts that will help them to meet those challenges.

I really like this idea, but I do want you to hear this is um at the root of the word yoke.

What's really interesting is that Isaac's wife, Rebecca, Rebecca means yoked, and she gives us, I think, some insight that we'll talk about in just a few minutes about what it's like to pull that yoke.

The other word is rest, which is really interesting because when I think of rest, I usually think of quiet, of stillness.

Quite honestly, my favorite way to rest is to be asleep.

Um, but I'm not convinced that that's what the Bible has in mind.

Um, the other time we see rest, um, God declares to the Israelites in the book of Numbers that because of their lack of faith, they'll never enter into God's rest.

I'm not sure that means heaven because the other time we see it is um in Genesis towards the end of chapter one, bleeding into chapter two, when God has created everything that is, and looks at it and says, it's very good.

And on the seventh day, God rests from all that God has made.

And um, supposedly the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, is the day in which we enter into God's rest.

We work six days a week, says the Torah, and then we rest.

But what's really interesting in Hebrew tradition to this day is that the Sabbath is not a day where you just sit and do nothing.

It begins on Friday night with a rather um often raucous, lively, um, really fun family dinner.

And the dishes are put off until later, the cooking has already been done, so that the family can just enjoy one another's presence.

And um, I've argued this before, but I think it's really uh helpful to say that according to Genesis chapter 1, the first thing God makes is time.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

It's not the sun and the moon, it's light and dark, so that God creates time itself.

And the rabbis say that in the seventh day God rests within the first thing God made.

God rests in time.

The rabbis say that the Sabbath is when we enjoy God's presence in time itself.

And my other image for this about God's rest is that uh I remember distinctly when I was about seven years old, my family moved a considerable distance from a sort of, we lived in a small town, but we moved outside the town into a more rural house.

And at that time, my parents chose to go ahead and make long-term furniture investments.

So they sold our single beds and they bought us queen beds.

And I remember still as an eight-year-old laying in that queen bed that absolutely dwarfed me and trying to stretch my body out and fill it up.

Was it comfortable?

I don't know if it was physically comfortable, but it was so incredibly restful to try to fill up that mattress.

And oddly enough, we bought a giant beanbag that supposedly sits three adults about four years ago, and it was amazing to see my children do this and to join them in it as well, that that beanbag was maybe most restful when there was nobody on it, and you tried to fill it up.

And I want to suggest to you that maybe God's rest isn't about doing nothing or sleeping or being idle, but stretching to fill up all of creation, stretching to fill up every single moment.

And so as a competing image to kind of balling up or getting in the fetal position, I'd like you to consider that entering God's rest is actually about reaching out and trying to fill all that God has made with your body, with your mind, with your spirit, with your soul, as the Bible would say.

Soul is a word, it's not something that you have, it's everything that you are.

So I wonder if Jesus isn't encouraging us this week to stretch out and fill time to fill our homes, to fill them with ourselves and to feel God's presence more and more fully.

And that's the goal of the yoke.

It's not to carry our own salvation, it's to stretch into God's stretch.

So I want to tell you that I've heard this verse a tough way for a while, which is that if we're ever anxious or worried or afraid, it's because we don't trust Jesus enough, which means we're being bad people and bad Christians.

And I don't think that's what the Lord has in mind.

I think what Jesus is saying is that the yoke that we're designed to pull, and we're not asked to pull this ourselves, and it's not some universalized yoke that doesn't fit us, is one that allows us to stretch out.

And the stretching begins right before that.

Jesus says, Listen, we have this incredible tendency to ball up when we see an opportunity to stretch.

Sometimes we get really confused about the difference between discomfort and pain.

And you know, I've got to tell you, stretching can be uncomfortable, but if we do it correctly, it allows more flexibility and motion and movement and enjoyment.

That's really different from pain.

Overstretching to the point of pain can actually really hurt us.

But sometimes we get the two things confused.

And so sometimes I think we see discomfort and we say, oh, that's so painful.

Instead of stretching, I'm going to ball up.

Sometimes we see somebody like John the Baptist saying, You've got to repent, you've got to refine yourself.

God knows that life is too short for us to live flat, balled up lives.

So let's do something about it.

And the people at Jesus' time heard that, just like we hear it today, whether from John the Baptist or social prophets talking about not just church repentance, but how we choose to live our lives naturally, and we say, Oh, there's something crazy about you.

Look, John, he's not even a regular person.

He lives in the desert, he wears camel hair backwards.

They look for a way to poison the well.

They look for a way to be prejudiced against the person so that they don't have to contend with the message.

They look for a way to take a message about stretching and turn it into a message about pain so that they can have a doctor's prescription not to do it.

Along comes Jesus who says, Listen, let's celebrate that God's presence is absolutely imminent.

It's at hand, which means we can reach out and grab it because God is reaching out and grabbing us.

He celebrated.

He drank wine, he ate food.

And people went the other way and said, Look at this guy.

He's a glutton and a drunkard.

Not only that, but they said, look at the kind of people he hangs out with.

He must be riffraff.

The same people that dismissed John as being too Spartan dismissed Jesus as being too libertine.

The same people who said John was over the edge with repentance said Jesus was over the edge with celebration.

And Jesus takes him the task and says, You were unmotivated like bored children who refuse to get up and engage with the world.

And instead of stretching yourselves and enjoying and experiencing more of God's presence, not only in time, but in your neighbor and in fellow human beings, you chose to ball up and stay inward.

And Jesus says, wisdom is proved correct.

Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

And I want you to hear another phrase of hearing that.

Wisdom is vindicated by two criteria.

Number one, whether or not other people gain life, and whether or not we actually enjoy other people.

Now remember, enjoyment is different from happiness because enjoyment doesn't cost other people anything.

And this I suggest is the way Jesus is encouraging us to pull a yoke.

Now that can sometimes feel extremely heavy, and I want to suggest to you that's evidence of some of the ways in which we struggle against powers that are greater than ourselves.

And Paul talks about this.

There's three kinds of powers that I think are worth naming.

And Paul does this really well.

Paul says, look, I know God has a bigger plan for my life than I'm choosing to live.

I'd like to do something about it, but I keep finding myself doing what I don't want to do.

One of the ways that happens is through active prejudice.

And we understand, I hopefully we understand what that is, through things like stereotyping.

We create rules based on our experience that help us kind of stay safe.

Again, one of those rules is that, hey, if something's uncomfortable, it's probably painful, let's quit it.

And Paul says, listen, I know that stretching is good for me, and sometimes I get stretching confused with pain, and I back off when I could have grown, and I don't like that I do that.

I have found myself doing that more than once.

There's another kind I think that Paul is naming, which is not just prejudice.

This is deeper and more insidious than prejudice.

This is almost any word that ends with the word ism, like racism or sexism or ageism or Protestantism.

You choose, but words with ism are generally a special kind of prejudice.

They're a prejudice that we don't even uh necessarily are aware of, but convey advantage on us.

And I see this all the time.

We recently read a book as a parish, uh, which was a great book.

Um it was called Deep Survival by Lorenzo Gonzalez.

I commend it to you, but I would tell you that the author chooses only male heroes and uses only male pronouns to describe survivors.

And most of the female examples he picks, with the exception of one, are counterexamples of how to survive.

I'm not sure the author was even aware he was doing that.

And that's the interesting thing about these isms, is we don't have to be aware about them, but they give us advantage.

And Paul, I think, is saying, I don't want to be an ageist or an ableist, but I find myself participating in these systems against my own will.

And that I think is remarkably accurate as we think about, given current events, how we respond to things like, again, racism or sexism or heterosexism or ableism or ageism.

Um, we can actively, cognitively be opposed to them, but be swept up in currents that support them, and how we disentangle and dismantle those powers is a challenge, and I think Paul is naming them.

There's a third type I want to suggest to you that causes us often to ball up.

But maybe one more word about those isms.

Sometimes we say, geez, it's so deep, I don't even know what to do, so I shouldn't even try, and we ball up instead of just saying, Oh my gosh, I know this is wrong, I don't know what to do, and it's really uncomfortable, and I'm just going to stay uncomfortable.

And I've shared this before.

One of my favorite anthropologists, Paul Farmer, suggests we don't have to solve every problem, but it is important that we remember something's a problem and that we network solutions together.

Some problems are frankly too big for any one of us as a person, as a parish, as a city, as a diocese.

Some problems are too big for us to solve on our own, but that doesn't mean we can just wash our hands and bowl back up.

Instead, there's something to be said about remaining open to that discomfort so that God can stretch us.

The truth is, when we stretch into that, we allow other people who are really experiencing the grit of that problem to find a home with us.

That is to say, we join with them as they carry their load, and we hop next to them in the yoke.

Third one I want to mention to you, and this is maybe going to seem really silly, but um every time I visit my uh my family, I I find myself doing this that there are some family imprints that were given to us, and they can be wonderful things.

And there were also these things that um maybe this isn't true for you, but for me, especially as a middle schooler, they were things I saw my parents do, and I thought, I am never going to do that when I grow up.

That is so frustrating.

And if I take even just half an inch step back from the way I live now, I see I am exactly doing that.

They're not always bad things.

Like I have parents who are very, very focused on being productive.

And one of my parents, who honestly is a model for me in about everything I do, if I ever call that parent, it doesn't matter what they were doing, they love to stop and make time to talk.

They absolutely have that commitment.

But sitting still and being on the phone feels a little unproductive.

So I'll hear water running in the sink to wash the dishes, or I'll hear the broom sweeping, and that's so that the person can be productive while talking on the phone.

And um, I've got to tell you, sometimes I just want to say, listen, why don't you just sit down and let's talk, or I'll call later.

And I'm one of those people who can't sit still on the phone.

I need to be up walking around my house, or I need to be walking my dog.

Um sitting still on the phone, I find myself going into this sort of state of panic because I'm not being duly productive.

And um by no means am I blaming my parents.

What I want to say is it's an imprint.

And it can bother me when my parents do it to me, but I notice I'm doing it as well.

And I want to suggest to you, Paul is, I think, saying this as well.

He's talking about prejudice, he's talking about the isms, and he's talking about these imprints that sometimes drive us crazy, and yet they're so imprinted at our deep level we find ourselves being wrapped up with them.

And I think Paul's trying to say, look, we don't have to ball up.

God's asking us to stretch, to stretch, and not to inflict pain on us, but so that we can do what God is doing, stretch into time itself, and stretch into the universe, and help people who are gasping for breath in their yokes find some relief as we find increasing life.

And I think the toughest thing, by the way, about this is, or maybe an example about this, is to look at what happens in Genesis this week.

So the servant is looking for somebody who is not only going to draw water, I mean, that would be the southern hospitality thing to do, but to draw water for camels.

Now, I've read some commentaries that say either that was very radical or that that was absolutely not expected because ten camels can drink maybe 20 gallons of water apiece, and that's a whole lot of well bucket hauling that Rebecca's gonna do.

The interesting thing about this is that Abraham has sent his servant to find Isaac a wife, and the servant apparently doesn't worship Abraham's God, but makes a deal.

Hey, look, you're the God of my master, God, so uh here is how I want to serve my master and do this right, and I'm asking you to bless my master with my service, and you're not my God, but you're his God.

Um, so bless me by blessing him.

And the deal is I want to find somebody who not only offers me a drink, but goes over the edge, stretches themselves to make room for the stranger, to make room for somebody with possibly even different gods from a foreign land who looks different.

I know that kind of person can stretch into Isaac because they're used to stretching when they're uncomfortable so that they can grow.

And sure enough, Rebecca does this.

Now the custom at the time goes, she gets a nose ring, and that means that she is going to be betrothed.

They go home.

The parents are very impressed by the money.

They say, thanks, we'll send her later.

A lot of scholars think that the parents would like to keep the money and keep Rebecca and send the servant on his way.

Curiously enough, the lady gets the choice.

She chooses to go into an unknown country, an unknown land, for the chance of this marriage.

And the text is really clear.

The parents say this as well.

God is somehow in this.

And so Rebecca is willing to stretch, just like Abraham did, into a country she's never seen towards a person she's never met, so that she can carry this yoke.

When she gets there, this is really interesting.

The reward she finds is that Isaac loves her.

And by the way, this is unique to the marriages in Genesis that Isaac loves her.

No other groom says this of a bride, that they love them.

So this is, I would suggest, a really happy ending, even though it requires Rebecca to do a lot of stretching.

And I want to say that we have this opportunity.

Instead of retreating and being defensive in the national climate, as we're around people with different politics from us, as we're around family members who drive us crazy.

As we have a lot of time in our homes right now, we have a lot of opportunity to recoil, to double down, to be defensive, that we also have an opportunity to say, God, help me to discern what's different, whether this is discomfort or pain.

Help me to stretch into discomfort so that I can stretch with you into creation, into Sabbath, into rest and into enjoyment.

And above all, God, help me to join my neighbor in stretching the structures of the world so that there is increasing room for all of your children.

Please join me as we reaffirm and reconsider our faith in the words of a Mossai Creed.

We believe in the one High God who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it.

God created humankind and wanted us to be happy in the world.

God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth.

We've known this high God in darkness, and now we know God in the light.

God promised in the books of God's Word, the Bible, that God would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made God's promise good by sending God's Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and humanity, showing the meaning of religion is love.

He was rejected by his own people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross and died.

He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day he rose from the grave.

He ascended to the skies.

He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Jesus.

All who have faith in Jesus must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again.

We are waiting for Jesus.

He is alive, he lives, and this we believe.

Amen.

That your name may be glorified by all people.

We pray for Michael, our presiding bishop, for Andy, Hector, Jeff and Kay, our bishops, for Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the priests in our community, Mike and Craig, and Bill and Lillian, and the diocese and Cycle of Prayer, St.

John the Center, St.

John's Tyler, St.

Lucas Lindale, and St.

Matthews and Henderson, and for all the bishops and priests and deacons that they may be faithful ministers of your word and sacraments.

We pray for all who govern and hold authority in the nations of the world.

For all the members of the armed forces, and for all who struggle for peace and justice, that they may act with prudence and vision, to plant the seeds of your kingdom everywhere.

That there may be justice and peace on the earth.

We pray for our parish and our veteran.

That our community may discern clearly and minister effectively.

We pray for St.

Thomas the Apostle School for those who teach and those who learn.

That we may be bearers of your grace to all who come through our doors.

Give us grace to do your will in all that we undertake.

That our works may find favor in your sight.

Have compassion on those who suffer from any grief or trouble, that they may be delivered from their distress.

Let light perpetual shine upon them.

We praise you for Saint Thomas the Apostle, and your saints who have entered into joy.

May we also come to share in your heavenly kingdom.

Let us give thanks for our blessings and pray for our own needs and those of others.

Larry, Jerry, John, Jerome, Susie.

And those of the congregation, which is the name of this time, silently or aloud.

Almighty God, your Holy Spirit, you have made us one with your saints in heaven and on earth.

Grab that in our earthly pilgrimage we may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know ourselves to be surrounded by their witness to your power and mercy.

We ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whom all our intercessions are acceptable through the Spirit, and who lives and reigns forever and ever.

Amen.

And now the peace of the Lord be always with you, and also with you.

And as our Saviour Christ has taught us, we are bold to pray.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever.

Amen.

May God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit calls those of many languages and world views to proclaim Jesus as Lord, strengthen your faith, and send you out to bear witness to God in word and deed.

And the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be with you this day and remain with you always.

Amen.

Alleluia, Alleluia, go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Alleluia, Alleluia.