[Propertalk] Fwd: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 9A: “Give All Your Problems to God- He’ll Be Up All Night Anyway!”

[joeparrish]

Forwarded: 


Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
-------- Original message --------From: Judy <judy_boli at ecunet.org> Date: 7/8/17  5:58 PM  (GMT-05:00) To: Propertalk <propertalk.topic at ecunet.org> Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Proper 9A: “Give All Your Problems to God- He’ll Be Up All Night Anyway!” 


Dear
Friends,

 

This
Sunday’s sermon is entitled “Give All Your Problems to God- He’ll Be Up All
Night Anyway!” and deals with the Gospel (Matthew 11: 25-30).  Here it is:

 

Are you tired?  Are you on overload?  Do you sometimes feel like one more thing
will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back- and you’re the camel?  If you are, you know you’re not alone.  From the advertisements on television and the
spam I get in my email on my computer, half the population must be tired and
the rest must have heartburn or bad breath or need Viagra (but maybe that’s
just a symptom of being tired!).  If
you’re tired, or maybe sick and tired, the Serta counting sheep won’t cut it,
but this Gospel lesson will- it’s for you! 


 

Did you hear Jesus
proclaim, “If you’re tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I’ll
give you rest.  Take the yoke I give
you.  Put it on your shoulders and learn
from me.  I’m gentle and humble, and you
will find rest.  This yoke is easy to
bear and this burden is light” (Matthew 11: 28-30).  What burdens are simply too much right
now?  I’d bet something on this list will
touch you.  How about money- not enough
of it, or too much work, or endless responsibilities?  How about a job you hate or no job at
all?  Maybe it’s sin- a habit you simply
haven’t been able to break or friends who lead you down the wrong path.  Maybe friends or family have been disloyal-
walked out on you or chosen someone else. 
Maybe people you love are ensnared in some of the things I’ve mentioned,
and it’s breaking your heart.  Maybe some
mistake you made years ago is still haunting you, making your life miserable.  Perhaps it’s illness- yours or the illness of
someone you love.  Maybe you’ve lost
someone very dear to you. Those burdens can really get to you!  They can get to me!  If this is your situation this morning, Jesus
has relief!  It’s called his yoke.  His what? 
You heard me right- his yoke!  Let
me tell you about it.

 

A yoke is that solid
harness, usually made of wood.  It
fastens over the shoulders of two oxen or other working animals, so together
they can pull a heavy load better than either could separately.  Joseph probably taught Jesus how to make
yokes in their carpenter shop at Nazareth. 
Making them takes a lot of skill- not just anyone can do it.  The animal must be measured, and the yoke
must fit exactly correctly.  Just like a
shoe that fits wrong will wear a blister on your foot and even sometimes cause
an infection, the same is true of a yoke. 
It can’t rub or have a sharp piece jutting out even just a bit.

 

Why did farmers in Jesus
time hook up animals using a yoke?  The
benefit of yoking is that it shares the load. 
Two animals yoked together pull evenly, so they can manage a much
heavier load than both could just in a harness. 
Another benefit- you can yoke a strong animal with a weaker animal to
help out the weaker animal and still allow the load to be pulled.  Sometimes farmers would yoke a wise old
animal with a young, untrained animal so the inexperienced one could learn from
his or her elder.  Now that you know a
little more about yokes and how they were used, especially in Jesus’ day, you
can see what Jesus is offering.

 

When Jesus said to take
his yoke, what he is offering is to be your yoke-mate; to shoulder the load
with you.  And now that you know how
yokes were used, you can see the wonderful blessings this yoking offers.  When we have a heavy load, yoked with Jesus-
he’ll carry the heaviest part.  When we
are in a confusing situation, yoked with Jesus, he’ll be the wiser one to teach
us.  When Paul said, “I can do all things
through Christ, who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13), this is what he meant.

 

The nice thing about
yoking is: we are not only yoked with Jesus; we are also yoked with each
other.  Remember how Paul says (1st
Corinthians 12) “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”  Yoking is a technique used, not only by
farmers in Jesus’ day, but used by God today. 
Look how God teaches us to support each other.  Look how often God arranges a stronger
person’s life to interact with a weaker person- just at the perfect time- the
time when that weaker person most needs a friend.  Have you noticed how often the weaker person
gets stronger, and before you know it- God has that person befriending someone
else?  That’s what Jesus meant when he
said, “Learn from me.”  The Aramaic word
“learn” really means “be apprenticed” to me. 
The purpose of being an apprentice is so the inexperienced person can
eventually do the same job as the master. 
An apprentice plumber doesn’t just learn about plumbing; he or she
learns to be a plumber.  When we are
yoked to Jesus, often through a stronger, more experienced Christian friend, we
don’t just learn about Christianity; we learn how to be a Christian.

 

Finally, this
stole.  Do you know what it
represents?  It stands for the yoke of
Christ.  As your priest when I put on my
stole- I am representing you; and we are all putting on the yoke of
Christ.  My friends- we’re all in this
Christian walk together, but yoked to Christ and each other- we shall
overcome!  Amen.

 

For anyone who is interested, this sermon and updated
African-American wisdom statements are posted on our parish’s web site under
“Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: http://www.stpaulsepisag.org
.

 

Blessed
preaching,

Judy
Boli

St.
Paul's Episcopal Church

Saginaw,
Michigan





-- 

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Propertalk" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to propertalk.topic+unsubscribe at ecunet.org.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20170708/06819598/attachment.htm>