Latest / Belin Memorial UMC / Rev. Dr. Sandra Stevens Poirel - "The Magnitude of God's Mercy"
Transcript
- Belin Memorial UMC: The gospel lesson continues to come to us from the Gospel of Matthew. This morning we will move to the eleventh chapter, verses twenty-five through thirty. Would you please stand for the reading of the gospel? Jesus thanks his father. Jesus said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have 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 anyone to whom the Son All you who are weary and 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. This is the word of God for the people of God. You may be seated. Well, good morning and a continued celebration of the two hundred fiftieth birthday of this nation. I trust you all had a wonderful Fourth of July. I I know celebrated it in many different ways, and we're continuing to, and we pray for those who are still traveling, but we also want to say thank you. We had a wonderful celebration here Thursday evening. presented by our Chancel choir and thank you so much. Was that not a wonderful tribute to God and nation? Thank you. This text that we shared this morning is a prominent passage that may be found in many places. If you walk through cemeteries, you will find it etched on tombstones, you'll find it in needlepoint pieces, on stained glass, and so on. And one of the reasons that it is probably a favorite for many. Is it provides great consolation and it contains what is known as Jesus' famous invitation. You might recall for four Sundays we were in the longest speech that Jesus had made in his entire ministry up to that point. And it's recorded in Matthew chapter 10. It's known as the mission discourse or the little commission as opposed to the Great Commission, which comes at the end of Matthew. If you think back, Jesus had called, he had commissioned, and he sent disciples. Now, once again, Jesus is shifting direction from sending out. Now he's issuing an invitation to come in, but specifically to come in and come to him. And here's the thing. When we hear that invitation, he calls everybody. Everybody is included. Not just the rich and powerful, not just the brilliant and the highly educated, but everybody. Yes, everybody, with no prerequisites, no requirements, nothing has to be done first. He says just come on in. It seems almost too simple. Especially in the backdrop of the sending of the disciples. In this invitation at this moment, there's no being sent anywhere. There's no picking up your cross, no losing your life in order to find it. No, here are your traveling instructions. ⁓ and by the way, I'm sending you out with nothing. No provisions, no extra clothes, no cell phone, nothing. Just go. And now there's this shift. Just come, come to me, all ye who are already loaded down. But think about it over the course of Jesus' ministry as it's recorded in the gospels. Jesus calls some of the most unlikely people and characters to receive an invitation to just about anything. He calls people who would never expect to be invited to anything, much less call to come to him. He welcomes little children and In the first century that was unheard of. He called a random Samaritan outcast woman that he bent at a well in the middle of the day, which never happened and He called tax collectors who were despised. He called wealthy people. He called fishermen, Roman soldiers, people with awful and all kinds of diseases. He called people with questionable, well, bad reputations. And he even called a scholar who was a member of the Jewish council. Jesus preached in tiny villages the same way he preached in the capital city. As one scholar said it, this is a summary, not a direct quote, there is nobody so low that Jesus won't stop listening, care for them. And there is nobody so high that Jesus won't call on them and appeal for them to follow his direction instead of their own, because he loves all people that much. So the invitation is extended to all of you, all who are weary and carrying heavy burdens. That's the same theme of the hymn, there's a wideness in God's mercy. That hymn and the scripture today show God's dream of his called and gathered people and the broadness, the expanse of the Church of Jesus Christ. It celebrates the boundless, unconditional nature of God's love, mercy, and grace. Now I want to extend another thank you to the choir this morning because you may have noticed that there's a wideness in God's mercy was the anthem this morning. It's a hymn that I happen to love. It's actually on page 121 in the hymnal, but it has not made it. I'm going to make sure Jim Sellers agrees with this. You correct me if I'm wrong. It has not made it to the top 10 most requested hymn sing list. It's not the easiest hymn to sing, so from the choir we thank you for the anthem. The opening, the opening stanza. Conveys an expressive and moving message about the presence of God at all times, including times of sorrow, pain, and struggle. I think it's important enough that we hear stanza one sung. I am not singing, please do not leave. The choir has agreed to sing it for us, and I am very grateful. So on this day it is a requested hymn. Sing no seek. Stay. Thank you, choir. I thank you, and you have no idea how much the congregation thanks you. I had a friend, she is deceased now. She was a United Methodist pastor, very talented preacher, and had one of the most gorgeous singing soprano voices. She would be preaching. I'm looking at Donna Watts. She has one of those beautiful soprano voices, too. She would be preaching and suddenly just burst into song. And people would just be captivated. Well, my mother knew that I was going to have this sung during the sermon. And she said, Are you singing it? I said, No, I have Jim Sellers in the choir. She said, Good. That's good. And she dropped it, just good. There's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea. There's a story of a little boy and his father who were walking down a road, a path, and they came to a place where there was this huge rock stone. It was a boulder. And the boy just confidently looked at his father and said, I think I can move that if I use all my strength. Now he was about five years old. The father looked at him and he agreed. He said, you know I think you can if you use all your strength. You can do it. Well, that was all the boy needed. He took off. He rushed over to the boulder and he started pushing with all his might. Beads of sweat dropping off his forehead, dripping off his nose, nothing. Not even a millimeter, not even a grain of sand was moving up underneath this boulder. After a while of this pushing and groaning and dripping, the boy sat down beside the rock, dropped his head. He was crestfallen and had a lump in his throat. And he finally looked up and looked across the path at his father and said, You were wrong. I can't do it. So his father went to him and he knelt down beside him and he put his arm around his shoulder and he said, You just didn't use all your strength. And the boy looked at him a little puzzled. He said, You didn't ask me to help. You see, there is the comforting promise in the passage, straight from Jesus Himself. It's a promise, it's a promise of hope that God is with us, knows our situation, sometimes better than we do, always better than we do. And not only will he help, but Jesus is standing right in front of us, right here, ready, willing, able, and desiring to help. Folks, that is good news. And it is striking, it's vivid, it's an evocative image reflected in stanza three. I'm not going to have them singing, but you it's 121. You could read it. For the love of God is broader than the measure of our mind. The love of God Is broader than the measure of our mind. Love of God is greater than the expanse of the sea. If you've ever stood on the shore and looked out toward the horizon, I can remember as a little girl looking in every direction, trying to see the other side of the ocean. And one time my beach ball got carried off by the ocean. I was four and I watched it just float and float until it was out of sight. But I knew there was more C out there. We can't imagine the vastness of God's mercy. And we have a way of loading ourselves down. Well, let me just speak for me. I'm not going to speak for you. I have a way of doing that. We feel and we convince ourselves we have to do more. Our to-do lists get longer and longer, and that requires more colors because they're divided into categories. We have to prove Ourselves. We have heavy yokes that we create that we carry for ourselves. And it has been called the most tiring work in the world, and it is never done. And here comes Jesus with this passage, with this major shift, and reminds us to stop. He invites us to pause with all of that. and take his yoke upon us, but not just a single yoke. He offers a shared yoke. Now yoke is not an image that is used a lot today, but in the first century Jesus' audience was very familiar with it. It was a scene of a wooden frame fitted to grow across the necks of two oxen, animals that did hard work. So that they could pull the load together. And if the yoke was well fitted to the animals, and they were a matched pair, one would pull, one would rest, one would pull, one would rest. Then when the work became very difficult, they could cover for each other. And at the end of the day, they were both tired, but not both completely wrung out and exhausted, because they functioned as a team. They shared the burden. Jesus is offering, take my yoke, this shared yoke. I'm going to help you carry this. And when you can't carry it, I'm going to carry it for you because my burden is easy. My burden is light. And then he issues the promise. This is not a suggestion. I will, not possibly, not maybe. Here's your list of requirements, and then I'll consider it. He says, I will give you rest. Learn from me. I am gentle in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Now the word there that is translated as soul may not mean exactly what you're thinking. When Jesus uses a word that is that specific, it means it's important. And the word there in the Koine or Biblical Greek for soul speaks of the deepest part of you. It is the part that bears your name. It is the part that God created. You were created. Rest from the deepest place that comes from being known. And from being yoked to Jesus, who knows you and knows the load and knows how heavy it is. This is the rest that Jesus offers. And here's the good news. Whatever you're carrying, and my guess is every person in this room is carrying something. regardless of age. Even children carry things around with them. Whatever it is, Jesus is right there, right in front of you, with a yoke, half on his shoulders, with a standing invitation to you. Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.