Rev. Dr. Bary R. Fleet - Pastor
July 6, 2008 - 8th Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Romans 7:15-25a
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

At Wit's End

Brent, who is now 28 years old, suffers from schizophrenia, the disease made freshly famous by the book, A Beautiful Mind, about the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician, John Forbes Nash. Just as Nash was, Brent is subject to paranoid delusions in which he experiences, in the most terrifying ways, constant menace from other people in his life. Of course, he isn't being threatened at all by those whom he perceives as attackers. No matter to Brent; he lashes out anyway.

The second time he beat up his father, he was about 21, and his parents began looking in earnest for real help from experts, from social workers, from their church, from anyone who could release them from the awful burden that their son had become. They obtained the appropriate drugs for treating Brent's psychosis, but Brent wouldn't stay on the medications. He even refused to swallow them when they were forced into his mouth by his distraught mother. They obtained shelter for him as respite from the never-ending task of caring for someone so psychologically debilitated, but after a few days, Brent turned belligerent and was sent home. His parents obtained governmental benefits that ran out, advice that didn't work, offers to help that didn't materialize, prayers that never seemed effective. At their wits' end, after Brent's father developed a heart condition and extremely high blood pressure and after Brent beat him up for the umpteenth time, they kicked him out of their home. His parents could no longer afford to think that Brent's father could keep surviving the increasingly severe beatings.

Jesus says, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens."

Rebecca opens the family checkbook one more time and looks at the balance. She knows that the constant flipping open and closed of her checkbook represents only the wishful thinking that the balance will have grown the next time she looks. But of course it never does. The rent is due, groceries to feed those two hungry children watching TV in the next room must be bought, the electric bill must be paid at the end of the month. It has been two years since Jeremy, her husband, was injured in a forklift accident on the job, nine months since he received a paycheck, six months since the disability benefits ran out, three months since the health insurance was cut off.

Jeremy's injuries prevent him from doing the same kind of high-paying work. In fact, the pain deep in his lower back prevents him from doing almost anything, even helping much with the children.

Rebecca herself has few abilities that will bring money into the household. Years ago she had no real opportunity or interest in learning computer skills. A college degree was out of the question in her family circumstances. She waited tables at a local restaurant until she married Jeremy and got pregnant with their first child. Now what can she do? Leave her young children in the care of a man who can barely walk so that she could earn minimum wage without benefits at a nearby retailer? Or stay home and hide her husband from public view so that she can claim he had left his family and thus claim subsistence-level assistance from the state?

At their wits' end, together Jeremy and Rebecca come up with a variation on the second plan. He will leave her and move in with his parents in a nearby city. She will register for the aid given only to fatherless children and husband-less women that is available in her state. And so they tell their children that daddy is moving out.

Jesus says, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens."

These two dire situations, each with its own choices and consequences, are faced by ordinary people doing the best they can with the hands they have been dealt. Surely, we have known, or know right now, people in similar straits. Some of us have even been these people! We have been good people to whom bad things have happened. We have been among the deciders who must make painful judgments, the ones who have been at the receiving end of such decisions, the worn-out, the put-upon, the used-up. We have been at our wits' end.

So Jesus speaks comfort to us in these bitter moments of our lives, just as he spoke it to the crowds who surrounded him in first-century Galilee and Judea. "Come to me," Jesus says, "all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest. 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." These familiar words, echoing through the centuries, have been set to music, embroidered on pillows, etched on headstones, memorized by countless 7-year-olds, repeated, mantra-like, by those facing death on battlefields, in hospitals, in terrible accidents.

So who is Jesus in this moment of surrender? He is not Superman -- he does not stop speeding bullets or leap tall buildings in a single bound. Nor is he Santa Claus -- bringing gifts to good boys and girls. No, he is something else altogether. He is the one, like wisdom of Proverbs 8, who offers the soul food that will sustain us when nothing else will satisfy. He is the one, like the God of Isaiah 55, who offers the living water that will slake our thirst when no amount of alcohol or any other substance will make us forget our agonies. He is the Christ who offers only himself, even in his own agony, without reservation or demand. And so, according to some mysterious law of spiritual desperation that makes deepest sense when we are truly at our wits' end with nowhere else to turn, Jesus is there. When we surrender all that we think we know, all that we think we have, all that we think we must be, Jesus is there, whispering, "Come to me, come to me, come to me." And spare as his gift is, it is enough -- sometimes more than enough.

We cannot know what happens next in the lives of Brent, the schizophrenic sufferer, or his parents. We cannot know what Rebecca and Jeremy will do when the money runs out. We cannot even say what we will do in our own bitter struggles with the hardships of life. This is all we can know: We worship a God who sends a Son in those terrible, terrifying moments who says, "I am here. I am here. Take what you need, here and now, from me. And we'll get through this."

NOTE: Today's sermon is taken exclusively from www.proclaimsermons.com.

SERMON IN A SACK: A road map. Talk about following directions ... and about how Paul did what he knew he shouldn't ... and didn't do what he knew he should. Sometimes it is really hard to be a good boy or a good girl ... and Jesus understands ... and forgives ... and asks us to keep trying to follow the directions of the Bible.