|
United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
 |
From July 1, 2007
Called To Freedom
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand
firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of
slavery.
What yoke enslaves you? That's a mighty potent question for
a rainy Sunday morning, isn't it? Said another way, what has
a grip on you? What is holding you hostage? What's keeping
you from being free?
The apostle Paul had an idea, a few actually, behaviors and
mindsets he called "works of the flesh." Some announce
themselves - drunkenness and quarrelling, for instance. But
some are yokes a person can bear in secret.
What yoke enslaves you?
Nothing on that list of Paul's list is anything we would
proudly broadcast like we do when we slap on our cars one of
those bumper stickers that start with "I'd rather be..." I'd
rather be what? Carousing? Indulging in idolatry? Fomenting
strife? I'd rather be working up a lather about something?
I'd rather be creating dissention?
I don't know what you thought about what made it onto Paul's
list but it does come off as rather predictable. It's a
litany we want to take seriously, don't get me wrong. But
even those of us who aren't spiritual rocket scientists or
theological powerhouses can come up with a dozen
things - either from experience or observation - that we know
keep us away from the freedom Christ intends.
This morning I want lift up a few yokes Paul doesn't
mention, ones I think are common.
In a book they wrote together, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine
Ketcham identified a yoke they insist is the most tragic of
all human mistakes: the pursuit of perfection. Why is this
tragic? They don't say exactly; instead they invite us to
fill in the blanks. Why is perfectionism the most tragic of
human mistakes? If I were in Vegas I'd bet it's because as
the one thing we humans can never attain, we exhaust
ourselves striving for it.
Unlike its cousin, the pursuit of excellence, the drive for
perfection is indiscriminate. It cannot differentiate
between what is important and what is not. It convinces us
that ironing a tablecloth or waxing the car demands the same
care and attention as open heart surgery or piloting an
airplane.
The pursuit of perfection, it seems to me, is more like a
tandem bicycle than a unicycle; it insists on taking others
along for the ride, and usually not where they'd prefer to
go.
Perfectionism is one kind of yoke, one kind of slave-driver.
But then so is the yoke approval, of public opinion. Maybe
you know that yoke, the one that when it speaks says, "I
could never do that; I could never be that; I could never
say that; I could never stand up for that or speak out
against that."
The yoke of approval, of public opinion has a practical
function; it spares us the burden of standing out. But it
also prevents us from being our own person; it keeps us from
embracing the many colors and dimensions God gives us. Which
the world so desperately needs.
Imagine Jesus wearing this yoke; he would have died waiting
for the Pharisees to give him the green light before
launching his ministry. He would have kicked the dirt
endlessly outside Jerusalem if he had needed Pilate and
Herod to give him high-fives before he saddled up for his
ride into the holy city and then he would have wandered the
streets unable to speak or act, unable to show us how to
live.
Every bit as enslaving as the need for approval is the yoke
of resentment. Something happened. Something unfair.
Something hard to excuse or overlook. By stoking the fire of
resentment, we keep ourselves enslaved to a past we cannot
change and deprived of the riches God wants to bestow today.
Now resentment often likes to travel with a friend and that
friend's name is blame. Blame loves pointing its finger,
loves thinking of itself as a victim, as powerless, as done
to or done over or done wrong. Blame keeps us hoppin',
that's for sure, but it never moves us forward, which is its
own kind of enslavement.
UCC clergyman Wayne Muller tells the story of being asked to
convene a commission of teachers, parents, and law
enforcement officers to evaluate and make recommendations
related to juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice. Muller
agreed but insisted on one condition: that everyone suspend
the practice of blame and instead view themselves as
stewards of the pain the community was feeling.
Freed of the need to determine who was at fault, those who
gathered began a creative brainstorming process that
resulted in programs that were both innovative and wildly
successful, even ten years later. That's a mighty marvelous
harvest.
In his letter to the church in Galatia, Paul mentions
fifteen yokes, works of the flesh. Fifteen fruitless
pursuits. I've suggested four: perfectionism, needing or
waiting for approval, holding onto resentment, and pointing
the finger of blame.
As he looks over the American landscape, Marcus Borg finds
three biggies woven through our culture: the yoke of
appearance, the yoke of achievement, and the yoke of
affluence.
Unlike the yokes on Paul's list, Borg's are tricky because
they come with so many social rewards. Which is why they're
so problematic and difficult to address.
A friend confided once that her mother was addicted to
plastic surgery. No sooner than her mother had recovered
from one surgery, she became restless to schedule the next
one.
Without warning, my friend's middle-aged mama suffered a
debilitating stroke and spent the remainder of her life in a
nursing home unable to speak or feed herself. When my friend
first emailed me with this news, I had to wonder if the
family's grief wasn't double that of the next family.
Because not only were they losing their future with her but
her focus on appearance had cheated them of so many rich
memories.
Achievement, too, can be a milestone around the neck if it
is allowed to go unquestioned. The same with affluence. When
is enough enough? It rarely is. Which is why it is so easy
to fall into slavery, serving these masters.
"Who are you," Jesus asks. "Are you what you have attained?
Are you what you own? Are you how you look or what you wear
or where you live?"
What enslaves you? Or, in 21st century speak, what controls
you? What deprives you of freedom, of abundant life, of
living in a way that is fruitful?
Paul had some ideas about the different yokes we take up,
I've suggested a few, and so has Marcus Borg.
And of course Jesus did. Indirectly, nearly every parable he
tells features a yoke of belief or action that cheats us of
freedom, of life in and with God.
You remember the parable in which the workers at the
beginning of the day were outraged that they got paid the
same as those who labored only an hour at day's end. That's
the heavy yoke of works and rewards.
Jesus' miracles also put a spotlight on what enslaves us.
The yoke of perceived scarcity, for example. The feeding of
the multitude invites us to consider how accustomed we are
to believing we do not have enough within us or between us
for God's will to be done.
Especially in his relationships, Jesus made our human yokes
evident. When one sister complains about the other sister's
laziness, Jesus challenges the shackles of social
convention. A yoke Jesus pointed out continually was that of
self-claimed righteousness, which gave folks license to puff
themselves up and simultaneously keep their distance from
the sullied and the sinful.
Jesus talked about yokes all the time even if he didn't name
them that. The yoke of anxiousness that would have us worry
about tomorrow. The yoke of enemy-making. The yoke of
judgment. The yoke of individualism.
Of all the yokes we struggle under - too many to name - only one
doesn't enslave us. The one Jesus offers.
"Take my yoke upon you," Jesus says when the wrong yoke has
gotten way too burdensome. "Here, take mine," Jesus gently
whispers each time we discover that the same ol, same ol
produces nothing but bitter fruit. "Learn from me" Jesus
insists, giving us a clue how to find and wear that
freedom-giving yoke of his.
"Learn from me," Jesus says, and yet gives us the freedom to
say no, not now. The freedom to try it on and then cast it
off. The freedom to come back to him and learn anew.
"Take my yoke upon you," Jesus says, holding out his
feather-light yoke, hoping and praying that this time, this
day, we will.
May it be so! Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) These three
books name and offer help with some of the psychological and
spiritual yokes so common to the human experience:
The Spirituality of Imperfection, Ernest Kurtz and
Katherine Ketcham, 1992.
Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a
Painful Childhood, Wayne Muller, 1992.
Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, Marcus Borg,
1995. |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
Check the Announcements and
Calendar pages to
keep up to date on current church news and events.
Please join us for a special viewing of
Paper Clips
on May 4th at 12 noon.
|
