Being double yoked with Christ

When you look around this city and at its people, what do you see? When you look at this congregation, what do you see? Can you see them as children of God? Can you see how and why God is coming near them?  The Gospel this week (Matthew 11.16-19,25-30) helps to shift the focus from the preachers, John (the Baptist) and Jesus (of Nazareth) to those who are responding and not responding to the message that is being preached concerning the presence and the coming of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus uses a parable to point out the differences between the preachers (John and Jesus) and those who active oppose the message and the things that the preachers are teachings. John came to play the “Funeral Game” – he sang a dirge and the religious people refused to mourn their sins and repent of them.  Jesus came to them, eating and drinking with outcasts and public sinners. They labeled Jesus a glutton and a drunk because the Messiah would be about the things that the religious people cared about and achieve the political goals to usher in the neo-Davidic period where Israel is totally free.

The thing that most folks don’t seem to understand about Jesus, is that he ushers in a new life with a new way of living that does necessarily or always conform to the social thinking and norms of the religious and political elite – we just like to think God thinks like us. The things, the miracles and acts of grace and kindness that have been done by Jesus in his Father’s name, point to who he really is: the Messiah, the Christ. We know who he is by what he does, not just about the declared goals and objects of a few people in power. Christ’s presence among the people means that there is a new way of living that is different and is life giving because it is lived in friendship with God.

Most people in this city and maybe even in this congregation want to believe that they are in control and that they are capable of saying to God, “You’re not the boss of me! You cannot tell me what to do”. It might help to remind ourselves that being heralds of the Gospel in this poet enlightened society is not an easy thing. People are more interested in what they can get out of something so long as it cost them as little as possible than in actually committing to something or someone beyond themselves because it is scary and they could get hurt. It has not changed that we, as communicators of the Good News still have to earn the opportunity to be heard before we will be heard by others.

What gets us through this? Notice what Jesus calls God? Father, right? Father and Lord of heaven and Earth. God is always God and Jesus submits himself to the Father. The difference come with the changes in the relationship that there are with and within Christ: Father with the Son and Christ with his Church. Because there are these relationships, there are two things above all else that we possess because of these relationships: Intimacy and authority.

God the “Father” or in Greek, “Abba”, is all that for Jesus and for us. We have the Daddy-Father. He loves us and he sent Jesus we might know him and have life in is kingdom with him. We are the Daddy-Father’s children just as Jesus is the Son of the Father. We are adopted into the family. This gives us the love and intimacy that we need in order to know what genuine love is and then to be able to share that love with others.

We also have authority to do ministry because we have been given it by Christ who receive all power and authority in heaven and on earth from the Father (Mt.28.16-20). We are competent to minister because we have been and are with Christ in his world in the world. We are competent not because of degrees and knowledge, or because people think we are. As we abide in Christ we are competent to minister with him and for him. Through us, Christ is building his Church and drawing people into the new life and the new creation.

That’s why Jesus came to us and played the “Wedding Game”. But the people he called, many would not come and dance and play. The religious could not, would rejoice in everything that was going on – that the poor and the needy were coming into the kingdom. Instead, the religious and the politically minded attack the personal character of the preacher without addressing the message.

Interestingly enough, Jesus has a surprise response to the ‘haters’: in that hour, he rejoices and he gives thanks to God, praising and confessing the greatness of God in making himself known to ‘simple and insignificant’ and ‘unenlightened’ people instead of the rich, the wise and the powerful. This is why even in this day and age, there the Church still struggles in actively proclaiming Christ to contemporary people. The Church has always struggled to reach out and to make Christ known, no matter what the date is. Yet those who have been with Jesus are recognized as such are participating in what Christ is still doing. They are ministering in the presence of Christ to the people who, in whatever estate we find them, the children of God.

I was asked recently who was responsible for reconciliation ministry in this parish. Answer: we all are! We’re all ministers of the Gospel and we are all ministers of the covenant (treaty) that we have with God. We are all ll children of the Father and the Lord of heaven and earth. Each and all of us are responsible for participating in making each other and other people whole again. Therefore we must first be reconciled to God and to each other so that we can go with Christ and work to see others reconciled to the kingdom, even when it is hard and the people are being all negative.  We are called of Christ to come and be refreshed by him, again and again in order that we would go and comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, that they too might come to Christ.

We are double yoked with Christ, so that we can learn and work because the burden is easy and light. So what does the city and the world see when they look at us? Do they see people who care and are reaching out in love for them and out of compassion for what we see? Or do they see people more worried about the future and hoping they can return to the good old days to escape what’s next? It is a challenge that we must face and live thought it. 

Jason+