6th Sunday after Pentecost
A couple of years ago, I came across an article by the Associated Press with the following headline: Poll: Americans are the unhappiest they've been in 50 years. The first two paragraphs read as follows:
It’s been a rough year for the American psyche. Folks in the U.S. are more unhappy today than they’ve been in nearly 50 years.
This bold — yet unsurprising — conclusion comes from the COVID Response Tracking Study, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. It finds that just 14% of American adults say they’re very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they’d often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, 50% say that.
The survey, conducted in late May, draws on nearly a half-century of research from the General Social Survey, which has collected data on American attitudes and behaviors at least every other year since 1972. No less than 29% of Americans have ever called themselves very happy in that survey… Most of the new survey’s interviews were completed before the death of George Floyd touched off nationwide protests…
Towards the end of the article there was this interesting snippet from one of the interviews conducted for the study: Jonathan Berney, of Austin, Texas, said that the pandemic — and his resulting layoff as a digital marketing manager for a law firm — caused him to reevaluate everything in his life. While he admits that he’s not exactly happy now, that’s led to another uncomfortable question: Was he truly happy before the pandemic?
“2020 just fast forwarded a spiritual decay. When things are good, you don’t tend to look inwards,” he said, adding that he was living and working in the Miami area before the pandemic hit. As Florida dealt with the virus, his girlfriend left him and he decided to leave for Austin. “I probably just wasn’t a nice guy to be around from all the stress and anxiety. But this forced an existential crisis.”
Berney, who is looking for work, said things have improved from those early, dark days of the pandemic. He’s still job hunting but has a little savings to live on. He said he’s trying to kayak more and center himself so he’s better prepared to deal with any future downturn in events.
As a follow-up, it should be noted that Americans’ level of self-reported happiness has rebounded somewhat since the lifting of COVID restrictions.
Nevertheless, there’s no shortage of books offering variations of a formula that will bring happiness and fulfillment to the privileged initiate. I remember when we were in our first call and it took the form of a book called “The Prayer of Jabez”. It was particularly popular with Christians because it was based on a prayer in the Bible. Granted, an obscure prayer from an obscure person in the Bible (The only two mentions of him are in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10.) “9 Jabez was honored more than his brothers; and his mother named him Jabez, saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ 10 Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, ‘Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!’ And God granted what he asked.” I’m pretty sure that the only other person to benefit from the prayer of Jabez was the guy who turned it into a multi-million selling book, which promised to teach you how to break through to the blessed life. All you need is the right prayer. And the right book. Also available in Kindle and Audiobook formats.
And a few years later there was yet another popular book, called The Secret, which promised to the one who holds the key, who knows the secret...to the wise and intelligent, life's oyster opens itself and all manner of treasures await. But, again, you can only find out how it really works by buying the book. Sounds attractive? Evidently, 30 million people would agree. And at $13.99 in hardcover, it’s a bargain!
Turning to our story for today, we find a twist on the usual formula. In today's Gospel reading, Jesus gives thanks to his heavenly Father, remarking that God "has hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them to infants." Ah! A hidden truth. That sounds good, par for the course, but what is it? And why would it be hidden from the wise and intelligent? Aren’t they usually the ones who uncover it and then write a book about it?
In order to understand Jesus, we need to take a few steps back and look at what immediately precedes this scene. "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.'" Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Nothing I do is ever enough! Ever felt that yourself? It doesn't matter how much you do, how much you say, how much you pay, how much you save, how much you exercise--it just never... seems... to be... enough! Jesus acknowledges this reality, and then offers a somewhat murky word of hope about true wisdom being "vindicated by her deeds," and then adding as an addendum his thanks that God has hidden these things from the wise and intelligent.
It’s a typical Jesus-style reversal. While we continue to enmesh ourselves more completely in an ever-tightening web of clever ways and means to please ourselves and others, Jesus suggests that we have it all backwards. It is, as he bluntly puts it elsewhere in the same Gospel, an impossible task. There is no magic key. There is no secret formula, tincture, or prayer to take the pressure off of us. Indeed, trying so hard to find these kinds of Holy Grails only adds to the pressure. Buy this product, use this tool, visit this establishment, meet this person, and then you will be okay. But we will never be good enough, clever enough, attractive enough, anything enough...not to the world around us, not even to ourselves. John the Baptist lived a sparse, ascetic life and was criticized. Then Jesus himself came and ate and drank with others and was criticized for that! We can't win.
I’m dating myself, here, but how many of you remember the 1983 movie, WarGames, starring a very young Matthew Broderick. He plays a young hacker who inadvertently initiates a nuclear strike, and then helps a group of military leaders and the national defense program's supercomputer learn the sobering truth that nuclear war is a deadly game that cannot be won. The supercomputer concludes in the end that nuclear war is "a strange game" in which "the only winning move is not to play." It takes a kid too young to drive to see what a roomful of so-called experts otherwise missed.
The apostle Paul spent much of his adult life acting just like those cocky experts. When it came to faith and religion, he was unbeatable. He had studied everything he could get his hands on. He obeyed every commandment put before him. He followed every ritual. He was determined, and successful. At least that is what he tried to convince himself. But as he later admitted to the Christians living in Rome, it was not enough; it could never have been enough. "I can will what is right, but I cannot do it," he said. He thought he could. To anyone looking at him it looked like he did. He was one impressive person! He wanted so badly to possess the key, to know the secret, to fulfill all the demands, to arrive. "Wretched man that I am!" he said. "Who will save me from this body of death?"
It’s a humbling thing to let go. "Let go and let God" looks good on a bumper sticker, but the reality is much more difficult, because it’s a lot easier to pad the resume a little, than to stand naked in front of a mirror. It’s far simpler, or so it seems, to work harder to be acceptable, to be loveable than to recognize how beloved we already are.
Rev. Dr. C.K. Robinson is an Episcopal priest. Several years ago, he’d spent considerable time, money, and energy overseas working towards a PhD. He was back in the States as a parish priest when the word arrived that he had successfully defended his dissertation and could now be called Dr. Robinson. When the mother of a young girl in the parish told her daughter the news, the girl looked at Father Chuck with wonder and asked, "Does this mean you can operate on people now?" The mother was quick to explain, "No, dear, Fr. Chuck is the kind of doctor who doesn't help anyone." Immediately realizing what had just escaped from her lips, the mother turned to him red-faced and stammering. For his part, he couldn’t help laughing and said, "That's okay. Actually, it's a pretty good description of a Ph.D."
Now let me say. We have reason to be grateful for the opportunities to read the various books, do the various tasks, learn the various things that will help us grow and mature as individuals and as people. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the best person possible. As Paul told the Corinthian Christians, it is important to transition from the milk of infants to meatier substances. However, at the same time, we must remember that we are called to be born anew and become like little children. An adult recognizes the importance of responsibilities, and that’s a good thing. But it’s so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that mastering our responsibilities is what will save us and make us whole. A child knows better. Or rather, a child young enough not to have been taught otherwise knows how much she needs help. And a child innocent enough not to be caught up in the world's deceptions knows that he is loved just as he is. In fact, it is not even a matter of knowing--for the infant in our arms, it is matter of experiencing Love, being held by Love.
It is no wonder, then, that this particular Gospel passage concludes with words considered to be some of the most comforting and most sublime ever uttered. "Come to me," Jesus invites, "all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will refresh you. 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." Nothing I do is ever enough! Nothing you do is ever enough! Yes, that's right! And the sooner we recognize that truth, the sooner we can embrace the deeper reality that God already knows us more fully than we would like to admit, and still calls us "beloved." The devotional writer Henri Nouwen once said, "When you are able to create a lonely place in the midst of your actions and concerns, then somehow, slowly, your successes and failures lose their power over you."
We are not God...and as much as the self-help book industry would like to convince us otherwise, we don't have to try to be. We can dare to let go of the heavy, burdensome yokes we put on ourselves and allow others to place upon us. We have a choice: to take up the blessed yoke that imposes no burden; the yoke of acceptance of our own beloved self in Christ; the yoke of acceptance of the beloved nature of other weary, heavy-laden ones still striving all around us. "Come to me," Jesus invites, "come, my beloved."
“Come to me,” Jesus invites, “come to me, my beloved” and “take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Do you notice all the first-person pronouns? That’s important because it means we are not doing this work alone. Far from it. This is Christ’s church, not ours. Sure, we have a part to play, of course. We are witnesses to and participants in God’s work. We are witnesses and co-workers with Jesus, but we are not saviors. We are witnesses and co-workers with Jesus, but we are not the Messiah. So lay down your burdens, lay down your heavy load. Learn from the One who regularly departed from the demanding crowds in order to go away by himself to a quiet place to pray (Matthew 14:13, 22). You’re not shirking your duty. Because you will come back and take up the tasks of ministry again. But in that quiet place, you can shed the excess worry and care that are not yours to carry. You can lay down your heavy load and take up again the yoke that Jesus offers. To take time to go to a quiet place and pray is to acknowledge that the burden is not really yours to carry in the first place.
The yoke that Jesus offers is a shared burden. And it’s light because Jesus is the one who carries it with you and for you.
AMEN