Gracious Lord, forgive the sins of the preacher, for they are many, that only your Word might be proclaimed and only your Truth be heard ☩ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
How’d you sleep last night? According to studies, more than half of us would say “Not great.” Many do not get enough good quality sleep. Some of that is self-inflicted – going to bed too late, screens before bed, or having an evening drink. But a lot of it is beyond our control because while our bodies might be ready for rest, we can’t seem to turn off our minds. We lay there thinking about what we’d say differently if we could redo that conversation, or running through the to-do list for tomorrow, or trying to figure out how to solve whatever we’re up against.
We just want some rest. We’re weary of war, tired of turmoil, drained from division, and exhausted from evil. To each of us and to all of us Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” That one saying describes both the human condition and the relief of the Gospel so well. As St. Augustine famously wrote in his spiritual autobiography 1,600 years ago, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Jesus.”
During the week, I often come into this church to sit for a while, doing my best to listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying. More often than not, at some point, my eyes are drawn to the reredos and those blessed words of assurance from the prophet Haggai: “In this place I will give peace.” That is my hope and prayer for this parish – that in everything we do, each of us will come to know, trust, and share the peace of Christ that passes all understanding; that this deep peace will be our identity, our sanctuary, and our mission. Because this is what our restless hearts long for.
And this relief is precisely what Jesus gives, but the trick is opening our hands to receive it. We want to be in control, so we go through life with clenched fists, hands on the controls, and hanging on tight to what we think is important. But it’s a simple truth that we can see – we can’t receive unless we open our hands.
Easier said than done though. And, thanks be to God, God knows this about us. One scholar has defined sin as “the human propensity to mess things up.” God does not expect us to just figure it out and do better. And if that’s the message the Church has ever given you, I’m sorry. As we heard St. Paul write, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Christianity is not a religion about telling you how much you’ve messed up and shaming you to try harder. Again, if you grew up hearing that message – on behalf of the Church, I’m sorry. The faith of Jesus isn’t about rules, it’s about relief.
How God brings this relief to us, we might call a “technology.” Technology is a tool or strategy for accomplishing a task or addressing a need. A shovel is a tool for gardening, a microphone is a tool for amplification, AI is a tool for synthesizing information, and a Declaration of Independence is a tool for creating a nation. Speaking of which – I know that we are marking the 250th anniversary of our nation and the 150th anniversary of Colorado’s statehood. These are significant dates to commemorate. And you can read all sorts of reflections in the Gazette or the Times. Immigrants and Senators will speak more eloquently than I can on the topic of our state and nation. There are historians and political scientists whose expertise we can all learn from.
In this pulpit though, my job is to preach nothing except for Christ crucified and risen. So I’m not avoiding July 4th or Colorados’s 150th, it’s just that I trust that you can find a better speaker on the topic than me, and that the message of Jesus is the more urgent one.
Again, technology is something that assists us with work. Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 1500s who was the composer of the first Book of Common Prayer, understood that worship is a form of technology that shapes us in faith. For the remainder of this sermon, I’m going to talk about one specific piece of liturgical technology that Thomas Cranmer gives us. That last bit of this morning’s Gospel text from Matthew makes up part of what are known as the “Comfortable Words.”
Since 1549, every Book of Common Prayer, except for, unfortunately, the current one, has included four verses of Scripture after the Confession of Sin and Absolution. It goes like this, “Hear what comfortable words our Savior Jesus Christ says: Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest; God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life; This is a true saying, and worthy of all to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the perfect offering for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.”
Today, when we hear the word “comfort,” we think about a supportive pair of shoes, or a soft hoodie, or an easy schedule. But this is not what comfort meant for Cranmer. Comfort draws on the same root as fortress or fortitude. Comfort is about strength, it’s about being confident because we know things are secure, it’s about the peace that comes in knowing that all is being made well. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Jesus uses the image of a mother hen to describe himself – he gathers us safely under his wings. He is our strength, our comfort.
Thomas Cranmer understood something very important about the human psyche – he knows that we are prone to self-justification and worrying about our worthiness. And so after we have confessed our sins and heard the priest pronounce that we are forgiven, he knows that we might wonder, “Is that really true?” Furthermore, he knows that the absolution isn’t merely a formal and liturgical way of saying “No worries, it’s all good.” Not at all – our forgiveness is about being reconciled to God and therefore being empowered to be agents of reconciliation in all the world. As Jesus tells those who have been healed, “Go and do likewise.”
The forgiveness of our sins is about strengthening us for ministry, liberating us from worrying about the need to get everything right and the fear of making mistakes. We are given the assurance that we are forgiven, so we can take the risk of being bold in our faith. Because, goodness knows, we’re going to get things wrong. Again, St. Paul writes, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” But that is not an excuse for doing nothing.
When I was in North Carolina, our congregation did a lot of work around racial reconciliation – when it comes to race, there are things I am ignorant about, sometimes I made faulty assumptions and said the wrong thing. But, over and over again, what I heard from my colleagues of color was, “Be open to learning, and keep showing up to this work.” The reason why we can do the holy work that God has given us to do is because what Jesus asks of us is not perfection, but persistence. We have the assurance, the comfort, of knowing that we are always loved and already forgiven.
And so that you don’t have to just take my word for it, Thomas Cranmer included these four verses of Scripture as a piece of liturgical technology. One 17th century priest said, “Here are selected four of the most full and proper sentences in all of the New Testament, containing in them the very marrow of the Gospel, so overflowing with sweet and powerful comforts, that if duly considered they will satisfy the most jealous souls and the cheer the most broken hearts. If believed and embraced, they will utterly banish all clouds of sorrow and despair.”
But, unfortunately, these words were stricken from the Rite II version of the Holy Eucharist in our current Prayer Book. However, there is no rule against quoting additional Scripture in worship. So, beginning this Sunday, we will begin using the Comfortable Words at both Rite I and Rite II Eucharists.
Focusing on the Comfortable Words recorded by Matthew, there are two important words to notice. The first is “all – “Come to me all who are weary.” Now if we check the Greek of the New Testament, what we find is significant. That word “all,” it means “all,” which includes you. The promise of the Gospel is for you. It doesn’t matter how many doubts you have or how many mistakes you’ve made. You are included in the all of the Gospel. And that’s not only true about you, but every single person you encounter.
And the second word is “rest,” which could also be translated as “relief” or “rescue.” Jesus describes this relief as being yoked to him. A yoke is a piece of technology that allows a burden to be shared. The comfort we are given through the yoke of Jesus is that we are never, ever alone. We will never be left alone or rejected by God. It’s the relief of knowing that the salvation of the world, or our lives, is not up to us, but is in the almighty, gracious, and loving hands of him who loved us so much as to give himself up for us on the Cross. That is where our comfort and strength come from – not from our own ability, but from the one who came to be yoked to our humanity. It’s what led St. Paul, in the span of one verse to go from “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” to “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
My hope is that including these Comfortable Words in worship will inspire the same declaration of relief from us: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! That these words will quiet those voices in our heads that make us doubt our belonging and belovedness, assuring us that we are forgiven and that nothing stands between us and the love of God. My prayer is that these Comfortable Words will strengthen and inspire us to being witnesses for reconciliation in the world, equipping us to be bold in our faith.
I get so excited thinking about the things that we will do in the name of Jesus when we trust that we are enough, that we are forgiven, and that each of us matter in the Body of Christ. I hope to see our fellowship deepen as we learn how to love and forgive one another more fully. I can’t wait to find out how the Holy Spirit intends for us to extend the “all” of Jesus’ invitation to come to him. I long for that relief and peace to be something that more and more people come and receive in this place. It is going to be so amazing to see how the comfort of our faith will make us bolder witnesses to the Good News.
One of the great theologians of the last century was Paul Tillich who said that “Faith is the courage to accept our acceptance.” The Comfortable Words are a great gift and technology of our tradition that are intended to give us that courage. So come to the table and receive relief for your weary souls; open your hands to accept your acceptance. Amen.
