2/28 Sermon

Worship February 28. 2021 German Church of Atlanta

Sermon Dear Friends, We listened to the words of prayer of Jesus: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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.”

Today I will get help with my sermon from a three-year-old preacher. Tianna is her name. You just saw her on the video.

I also watched other videos of today's sermon text, but each time I shook my head: "How detached. How theoretical. How dogmatic.

How legalistic. How sad". All the adult preachers who preached on our sermon text for today were not inspiring, not enlightening.

Sometimes we adults in the Christian churches believe that the Christian faith is something for the wise, something for the studied and educated. And we think as if faith were something very serious, sad and hard, perhaps even off-putting.

That has always been the case. Religion has a tendency to produce an elite, men and also women, preachers, teachers and educators who think they are chosen, especially wise, with special authority from God....

Jesus thought differently. He criticized many who thought that the Jewish faith was only for the scribes, the Temple inhabitants, the priests.

In our text today Jesus says: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.”

The creator God of heaven and earth first reveals himself to the young, the children. We have just heard the story of another child in the Old Testament: Samuel. The priest Eli should have actually been the one to whom God was to reveal himself, shouldn’t he? As logical as that may seem, God spoke instead to the young Samuel, and not to the religious man, the priest. Eli was wise enough to recognize and to admit this, and to support: "The next time God speaks to you, Samuel, say: Here I am, Lord, your servant. " Thus, over the millennia, God has repeatedly chosen children, formally uneducated people, not famous people, not recognized authorities, but young people to make God self known and his word through the mouth of a child.

Jesus knew this. And he rejoiced about it.

And yet, what is the point here in our text of Jesus talking about the "yoke"?

" 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.”

Many preachers I looked at say that the yoke are the Ten Commandments. Others say that the yoke is the cross that Jesus carried and which we should bear as well. Some preachers say it is the burden of life that we as Christians are supposed to bear without complaining...

Those interpretations could all be logical. And it all sounds very correct Christian and dogmatic.

But if one looks closely and looks at the context of that time, one learns that Jesus, like many Jewish teachers at the time, many rabbis, were known for their teaching, their very own interpretation of the Torah. How a teacher interpreted the Jewish Scriptures, was then called the "Yoke". Just as two Oxen were placed a yoke on their shoulders as to be able to plow the field, so the students and disciples of a rabbi put on a "yoke" by following the teaching of the master.

Jesus' words, if they are translated exactly from the Greek, actually mean: "My yoke is easy" in the sense of: "My yoke fits exactly". It is "light" because it fits exactly. It doesn't hurt. It's not too big or small. It's not too heavy or too fragile. My yoke is easy, meaning my yoke suits you exactly. It's tailored to you.

And so, Jesus says here: My teaching of the Torah is gentle, and my doctrine of God is no burden. “I'm gentle and humble in heart.

Learn from me, and you will find peace for your souls.”

And so, Jesus, who turned above all to the needy, to the poor in body, soul and spirit, reminds us that he wants to refresh us. He did not come to bring additional rules. No heavy laws and strict orders.

It is not moral sermons and high ideals that Jesus teaches to his followers.

No, it is only the double commandment of love. This is how Jesus interprets the Torah, the Jewish law: Everything is summarized in this one commandment: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength, and your neighbor, your fellow human, as yourself. " This is the "yoke" of Jesus. This is the basic, simple and clear teaching of Jesus, to whom he dedicated his entire life and teachings, and which he has embodied with his example.

And this teaching, like a yoke, is to be carried by his followers. And this yoke is gentle, it is humble, easy and it is light.

With his teaching, Jesus places no additional burden on us human beings. He looks at us mercifully, gently. He sees all the burdens that we are already carrying around with us, simply because we are human beings. The burdens of stress, fear, strife, anger, pain, hatred and retaliatory behavior. We carry so many burdens with us, that his teaching, his yoke does not want to add an additional burden, but wants to be liberation, wants to give us rest, wants refresh us.

And now I want to let little Tianna speak one more time. God chooses preachers where and how God wants. The teaching of Jesus is often embodied in humans we call “minors”.

I can imagine that Tianna's parents first might have felt convicted in their strife, stress and anger by their wise three-year-old daughter, then possibly deeply astonished and in the end also refreshed.

The words of this three-year-old are a wonderful interpretation of the teaching of Jesus as the double commandment of love.

I am reciting Tianna's words to her parents after she had experienced her parents’ fighting.

And Jesus would have surely listened to Tianna’s words and prayed: " I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”

--------------------------------------------------------------Mom, Are you ready to be his friend? The mother: “Yes” Try not to be that high up to be friend.

I want everything to be low, OK. Just try your best.

I do not want you and my Dad to be replaced and mean again.

I want you and my Dad to be placed as settled and be friends.

I am not trying to be mean.

I just want everyone to be friends.

And if I can be nice, I think all of us can be nice too.

I am not trying to be mean.

But, I am trying to do my best in my heart.

Nothing else than that.

I want you Mom, my Dad, everyone to be friends.

I want everyone to be smiling.

I don’t like being mad.

I want everything to smile, Especially when I see someone,

I want them to smile, especially Nana, everyone, I want everyone to smile.

And if that’s for my Dad and for you Mom, I think you can do it.

I think you can settle your mean heights down a little to short heights.

Then it is both, OK? I am not trying to be mean. I am not trying to be a bully.

I am trying to be steady on the floor. Not way down, on straight, on the middle where my heart is.

My heart is something. Everyone else’s heart is something too.

And if we live in a world where everyone is being mean, Everyone is being a monster in the future.

What if there is a little person and we will eat them? Then no one will ever be here.

Only the monsters in our place.

We need everyone to be a person, everyone, including me and my mom, everyone.

I just want everything to be settled down, nothing else.

I just want everything to be as good as possible, nothing else.

The mother: Thank you, Tianna. I love you.

Tianna: I love you, too.

“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

Amen