Bible Text: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30, Romans 7: 15-25 | Preacher: Rev. Berlin Guerrero | Series: 2020 | If you are just safe about the choices you make, you don’t grow.
– Heath Ledger

 

As human beings, we live in constant tension within ourselves.

 

There is always that struggle within us about things we like and don’t like to do. We are pulled within ourselves to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong. To sin or not to sin, is the question? “To be, or not to be? That is the question.” as Prince Hamlet put it in William Shakespeare’s play ‘Hamlet’.

 

To obey God’s will or ours? Perhaps this is the central question at the core of each follower of Christ.

 

Romans 7: 15-25a features Paul’s teaching on this tension. He places it as a struggle between life in the Spirit and life in the flesh. For Paul, the flesh is inherently weak and sinful. Therefore, humankind is lost and in need of salvation. Paul says, 24Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

 

This reflection is of course based on his personal experience of encountering and later on becoming an apostle of Christ. He was of the belief that there is a great gap between divinity and humanity. Divine beings are spiritual beings and so they are inherently holy. Human beings, made of the flesh, are patently sinful. Paul often uses the language of slavery: being a slave to sin and being a slave to Christ.

 

But I have to make you aware the belief in the sinfulness of the flesh, or that the flesh is inherently sinful is influenced by Greek thought about life as a whole. Going back to the creation story (or stories), Adam (humankind) was created good. The earth was created good. From the goodness of the earth, according to Monica Melanchthon, God dirtied and muddied the Godself in order to create a being that is to be in the Divine image. God breathed on the being’s nostril and the creature was alive. And God saw that it was good.

 

In the Creation Story, this earthly creature of flesh and bones, received from God the Breath of life. This breath we acknowledge as God’s Spirit. And so a person is of flesh and spirit.

 

If Adam (humankind) was created good, what was it that made humanity sinful?

 

Many theologians, including the total of ___ here, would agree that it was disobedience to God’s instructions (not to eat of that tree) that started it all –called the original sin and the Fall of man. The gift of free-will gave the creature choice.

 

And we comeback full circle to what we call ‘choices’. The power to choose for yourself is free will. American businessman and philanthropist says:

 

“You always do what you want to do. This is true with every act. You may say that you had to do something, or that you were forced to, but actually, whatever you do, you do by choice. Only you have the power to choose for yourself.”

 

Dr Kathleen Hall tells us that our life is a product of the choices we make. In every single thing we do, we are choosing a direction.

 

What are the choices you have made in life that placed you where you are now? Do you want where you are now? Do you have regrets about things you were not able to do, and things that you did which you were not supposed to do?

 

Today’s world is a world of choices anyway. We live in an era where individuals and peoples have inalienable rights including the right to choose. Hinder a person of his or her right to choose and you supress this person’s human rights.

 

This is also a time when people have the right to choose the kind of truth they want to believe in. In American presidential lingo, this is called the alternative truth brought to you by alternative facts.

 

In the July 7 2017 Sydney Morning Herald news site, Clementine Ford, in an article wrote: We need to move past the idea that everything is up for debate. She cited Former Senator and political advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously wrote that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts”.  She noted “It remains an unwavering truth in a world where opinions are increasingly viewed as equal to facts, even when those opinions have little more than a suspicion or feeling to back them up.”[1]

 

So there is a tendency for all of us to stick to the kind of truth we want to believe. Even if this so-called truth is not backed up by scientific data or actual experience. Unfortunately, this becomes the basis of our opinions. For some people, their opinion becomes the whole truth.

 

What did gospel write Matthew write about Jesus comparing his generation to?

 

16 “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, 17 “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon’; 19 the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

 

Jesus might have observed the playful children at the market place mimicking a wedding and a funeral. Children are good at copying what adults do for the sake of play and fun. But Jesus was actually exposing the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of his time. For the Pharisees and Scribes used their acting to deceive the people. They were playing with religion. If they are serious and sincere about what they believe in and what they do, they should have known who John was and who Jesus was.

 

The religious leaders at the time failed to see the truth. They believed only in their interpretation of the Scriptures. They rejected John’s call for repentance, the call for a return to God and God’s holiness. They tagged him as demon-possessed. Jesus who sat and ate with the downtrodden and rejected by society was called a glutton and a drunkard. He was indeed a friend of sinners but it does not make him one.

 

The religious and political leaders of his time missed the wisdom of the Galilean teacher.  Matthew writes: “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

 

And wisdom according to Jesus is revealed not to the wise and intelligent, but to infants. Again, another comparison. The wise and intelligent feel they no longer need to learn and even unlearn. Infants on the other hand absorb stimulus and information like milk when breast-feeding.

 

And Jesus words ring true for us today. This generation believe only the things it chooses to believe. They see, but not understand; they listen but not hear the whole story.

 

Our life is a lifetime of making choices. We can get tired of choosing and choosing. Making choices can become burdensome. Jesus taught us there is one choice we can make and we are thoughtfully invited.

 

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 

Rest here is not equivalent to a grand vacation or an overseas holiday. It is about inertia. Rest is what you achieve when you stop running away from an important decision you have to make. Your weariness and heavy-lifting will cease when you cast your burden to God. And when you surrender your will to God’s will. There is no easier yoke or lighter burden than that which is carried by you with God doing the heavier-lifting.

 

[1] Clementine Ford: We need to move past the idea that everything is up for debate; The Sydney Morning Herald news site, 7 July 2017, http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/clementine-ford-we-need-to-move-past-the-idea-that-everything-is-up-for-debate-20170706-gx5uco.html (accessed 7 July 2017)