Year A
Zechariah 9:9-12
Psalm 145:8-15
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…

There’s an old expression that’s being used… with a new meaning… and it may even make it into the dictionary one day… it’s a meaning that comes out of this pandemic… and it describes people who have tested positive… and who’ve been maybe sick enough to be hospitalized… but even when they’re discharged… even when they return to work… even when the virus is no longer detectable… well… they’re really not recovered… they’re really not well… they’re really not back to 100%… for reasons not fully understood… similar symptoms return or new ones appear… things like excess fatigue… kidney or heart trouble… shortness of breath… and so these people are called… long haulers… and if you ever listen to Soundings on Sunday mornings… one of the regulars… Roman Catholic priest Fr. Mark Przybysz… is one of them… and he is slightly exasperated…

And today’s chapter of Matthew starts off with an exasperated Jesus… frustrated at the unbelief of his generation… about being unable to please the crowds… and in the five verses that we didn’t hear… between v. 19 and 25… he reproaches the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done… because the people there did not repent…

Jennifer Kaalund… Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College in New Rochelle… writes… Jesus describes a generation that cannot recognize the truth that is right front of them… they thought that John the Baptist was a demon… and considered Jesus to be a glutton… a drunkard… and a friend of tax collectors and sinners… interestingly… they describe Jesus not by what he does… but by the company he keeps… Jesus… on the other hand… compares them to children who are oblivious… children who are preoccupied with playing games… The Messiah… the one they have been waiting for… is right in front of them… yet they have failed to see beyond the superficial appearances of the prophet and the Son of Man… and they fail to see the good he does…

Paul laments in Romans… I do not do the good I want… but the evil I do not want… is what I do… I wonder… what is the good that Paul wants to do… and what evil does he do… and I wonder… how do we choose… there can sometimes be a very fine line… between doing the good that we want… and resisting the evil that we don’t want… and because sin can find ways to enlist us… because sin has a capacity to use the law to its own ends… it can be very difficult to tell the difference between good and evil… and sometimes… what seems to us like sin… may actually be blessing in disguise…

For example… because of the pandemic… some people believe they have lost agency… have lost their power to act independently… and to make decisions for themselves… and because of the restrictions that have been wildly and inconsistently applied across this country… even the simplest choice is far from simple for some… do we wear masks in public or not… is it a gentle suggestion or a law… is it enforceable or not… do we believe we can infect others even when we feel just fine or not… can we eat out or not eat out… go to the malls or the beaches or the bars… or not… and sometimes… unfortunately… people’s sense of their own agency… and their insistence on not being told what to do… can be diametrically opposed to the values of community… but maybe the blessing in disguise… is that we’re becoming more mindful of the needs of others…

Perhaps you heard about the outbreak tied to Harper’s Brew Pub in East Lansing… as of Thursday evening at 6:30… 128 people… who reported that they were there on one or more evenings between June 12 and June 20… have tested positive for COVID-19… and now… according to the Ingham County Health Officer… that total is up to 152 people across thirteen counties… and the total is up by two-dozen people who didn’t even go to the bar… but who were infected by those who did… the average age of those who went is 21.2 years old… the two-dozen who didn’t go… range in age from sixteen to sixty-three…

Jesus said… We played the flute for you… and you did not dance… we wailed… and you did not mourn… I wonder if there are any family members in those thirteen counties who would say… we asked you to wear masks… but you wouldn’t listen… we gave you science… but you scoffed…

Some of us might think of the evil done in East Lansing… or the evil to which Paul refers… as a moral sin… causing harm to another person… acting ignorantly and with wanton disregard for those whose health is at greater risk than our own… but if sin is not only missing the right mark… but also hitting the wrong mark… what if the even greater sin that’s being committed… is not even trying to become… the people God created us to be…

And that… I think… is where our reading from Zechariah comes in… Zechariah wrote in the early days of the restoration… when both returning exiles… and those who had never left… joined together to rebuild Jewish society… v. 9 alone reminds us of Jesus’ victorious entry on Palm Sunday… Lo… your king comes to you… triumphant and victorious is he… humble and riding on a donkey… on a colt… the foal of a donkey…

Douglas Bailey… Professor of Urban Ministry at Wake Forest University… writes… to be engaged in the contemporary Jesus movement is always to be in the process of becoming prisoners and proponents of hope… in this lifelong faith journey… we will discover that there is no such thing as a completed “prisoner of hope”… we are human becomings… becoming more hope-full… more faith-full… prisoners of hope are always in process… on a winding pilgrimage… a sacred journey… a following of The Way…

And Sr. Joan Chittister writes… hope is not a matter of waiting for things outside of us to get better… it is about getting better inside… it’s about allowing ourselves to believe in the future we cannot see… about trusting in God… then we can hope… because we have no reason to hope… hope is what sits by a window and waits for one more dawn… despite the fact that there isn’t an ounce of proof… in tonight’s black… black sky… that it can possibly come… hope is the last great gift to rise out of the grave of despair… it is life out of death…

Yesterday was Fourth of July… the founding of this country… our insistence that a king 3,551 miles away… as the crow flies… isn’t going to tell us what to do… yet for many… it was a day to assert individual agency… but how do we reach consensus… that the needs of the many… outweigh the needs of the few… we have an Independence Day… but wouldn’t it also be nice if we had a Commonwealth Day… a national day to lift up… to laud… and to honor those who make sacrifices for the common good… and encourage others to do the same…

It can be a heavy burden to experience a loss of agency… it can be a sacrifice to willingly give up what one wants to do… to not wear a mask… and take on what one does not want to do… and wear a mask…and because we are yoked with Jesus… who shares our burdens… that kind of burden… ends up being a burden that is light…

I like what the Gospel says about how Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds… because it reminds me… that we are all on this journey together… we’re in it for the long haul… and how it unfolds… depends on how we behave… so it’s more important to watch what people do… than pay attention to what they say… or with whom they eat…