That
American prophet Bob Dylan,
hero of
the counterculture of the 1960s,
went
through a born-again phase in the late 1970s,
and some
people insist that a biblical spirituality pervades almost all his music.
He wrote
the following verses,
which I am
not going to attempt to sing.
But maybe
you’ve heard the song:
You may be an ambassador
to England or France
You may like to gamble,
you might like to dance
You may be the
heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite
with a long string of pearls.
But you're gonna have to
serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to
serve somebody,
It may be the devil or
it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve
somebody.
Especially
on Fourth of July weekend.
We have
just shot off fireworks and waved the flag
in
celebration of freedom, of independence?
Of not
having to serve anyone?
Bob Dylan
tells us that we’re gonna have to serve somebody.
As an
American, that’s quite upsetting to me.
And yet
Bob Dylan is on to something.
We Americans
trumpet our freedom,
and yet
how often do we Americans complain
about high
taxes, the high cost of living,
high-handed
government officials,
the high
cost of war both in financial resources and in human life,
high
amounts of stress?
It would
seem that American freedom is not so free after all.
Of course
we are always free to complain.
Being
patriotic is not a matter of always agreeing with the way things are now.
But we are
not free because of the world we live in.
We are not
free because there are other powers in the world.
Gas prices
are so high because of the demand for fuel in China
and other
places in the quickly developing industrialized world
that has
taken the industry from Pittsburgh and Detroit.
They
themselves will reap both the benefits
and the
high costs of pollution that Pittsburgh used to know.
We are not
free of war because there are people out there
who want
to kill others to get what they want.
We are not
free of the constant pressure
to do more
with less money and less time.
We are not
free of the social issues and debates
that wrack
our nation,
whether
about gay marriage in the state and the Church
or about
the health care system or abortion.
We cannot
get free because we are born into a world
and into a
society which predates us
and shapes
us for good and for ill.
Boy, this
is depressing.
Maybe
today you should have gone to one of those churches
that have
the big flags on the screens up front.
And what
is even worse?
What we
said before the service.
‘Most
merciful God,
we confess
that we are in bondage to sin
and cannot
free ourselves.’
This was
Paul’s cry from the heart,
that even
though he wanted to do what was right in God’s sight,
he found
that there was always something twisting even his best intentions,
something
that kept him from doing what he wanted to do.
He called
himself ‘wretched,’
and he
wasn’t just talking about himself,
but he was
saying that the experience was common to all humanity.
This is
true whether in the political arena
or in the
personal arena.
Ugh. Yuck.
I’m even bringing myself down.
I often
quote Anthony Bloom’s Beginning to Pray,
and he
said this:
‘There is
a passage in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers
which is a
very good description of my life
and
probably also of your lives.
Pickwick
goes to the club.
He hires a
cab and on the way he asks innumerable questions.
(Here I
should interrupt and say that
of course
this cab is not an automobile,
but a
horse and a carriage.)
Among the
questions, he says ‘Tell me, how is it possible
that such
a mean and miserable horse
can drive
such a big and heavy cab?’
The cabbie
replies,
‘It’s not
a question of the horse, Sir,
it’s a
question of the wheels,’
and Mr
Pickwick says,
‘What do
you mean?’
The cabbie
answered,
‘You see,
we have an excellent pair of wheels
which are
so well-oiled
that it is
enough for the horse
to stir a
little for the wheels to begin to turn
and then
the poor horse must run for its life.’
Father
Anthony concludes,
‘Take the
way in which we live most of the time.
We are not
the horse that pulls,
we are the
horse that runs away from the cab
for fear
of its life.’
On the way
in here most of you saw the yoke in the narthex
which
normally hangs in the stairwell of the Christian Education building.
This yoke
is what a beast of burden wears.
It is a
symbol of servitude.
What in
many ways we have been saying
is that we
ourselves are burdened
with
burdens we don’t want,
burdens we
didn’t choose,
burdens we
have tried to throw off
but we
have only tightened the reins,
shifted
the weight.
The good
news that Jesus offers us is that
the
alternative to being burdened is to be burdened.
We think
the opposite of servitude is freedom,
but in
actuality the opposite of servitude is servitude.
Dylan
said, ‘It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord,
but you
gotta serve somebody.’
‘Come to
me, all you labor and who are heavy laden,
and I will
give you rest.
Take my
yoke upon you,
and learn
from me,
for I am
gentle and humble-hearted,
and you
will find rest for your souls;
for my
yoke is easy and my burden is light.’
In Jesus’
time,
the people
of Judea and Galilee,
the people
to whom he ministered,
were under
the thumb of Rome,
bearing
the yoke of an empire,
a yoke
which they could not throw off.
Is Jesus
calling them to a revolution,
to
substitute Caesar’s lordship for his?
No, he
will not set himself up as a rival to Caesar.
His
lordship is of a different character.
He will
not ride into Jerusalem on a horse,
poised to
go to war for the rightful throne,
but
instead on a donkey,
refusing
to use power against power.
And when
he urges us to take his yoke upon us,
his
lordship, his domination, is of a wholly different character
than the
domination of the world.
The
external circumstances of our lives do not change;
but they
are put in their place.
In a way,
it doesn’t matter who is in charge at the moment,
for God is
in charge in every moment in the only way that matters.
Maybe you
know people who get themselves worked up every day
over what
they see on Fox News or hear on NPR
or read in
the Post-Gazette.
I think
they are carrying heavy burdens,
heavy
burdens of worry for others and self and even for God,
as if the
events in the world around us
could mean
that God’s authority itself is not only challenged,
but even
in question.
It is not
that our concern for others is groundless,
but we are
too often afflicted with a burden we cannot move,
a
disappointment and a weariness with the world,
and we
have no rest.
To such as
these Jesus says,
‘Come to
me.’
Come and
find rest from the One
who
refused to allow himself
to despair
even when confronted with the sin of the whole world.
Maybe we
are driven by the urge to do more,
the urge
to do everything before we die
or to give
every opportunity to children and grandchildren
because we
are so worried that our happiness
depends on
how much we’ve done.
Those who
are working and those who are retired
both complain
about how busy they are
and take a
certain pride in that busy-ness.
We are
always on the go.
To such as
these Jesus says,
‘My yoke
is easy, and my burden is light.’
For these
people, hearing Jesus’ words about rest
can seem
like a fantastic dream.
And yet,
worshiping God
is not
another accomplishment we need to check off our to-do list,
but being
in God’s presence
helps us
to remember that what we accomplish
is less
important than we think it is.
And of
course there are those of us
who cannot
find rest
from illness,
pain, guilt, grief, or anxiety.
For us
Jesus calls us to exchange their overlordship
for his
gentle yoke,
and hear
his restful word that not even these
can
separate us from God’s love
and that
one day we will know God’s love alone,
which is
eternal.
May God
grant us to bear Christ’s gentle yoke,
so that in
his service we may know the perfect freedom
of life
with Christ our Lord.
