The Water Buffalo Sermon

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light…”  

Sweet – what’s a yoke?  And why does Jesus have one?  

Well, at its most basic level, a yoke is a, a thing that you lay over the neck and shoulders, and maybe even the head, of animals that are suited to ploughing.  Sometimes just one animal, but frequently two animals.  And the yoke helps direct the animal to do what it’s supposed to do – it keeps it focused in the proper direction, helps it turn if it needs to turn – especially if you’re working with two animals, you need to make sure that they’re moving in the same direction at the same time.  And the yoke – yoke – not yolk like an egg yolk – the yoke, is a harness, basically, that is shaped to fit the particular animal, so that the farmer can direct it properly.   

Now, we live in a culture today that is not too far removed from the rural setting – a few of you still farm, and a good number of you grew up farming, even if that’s no longer your profession.  We’re not unfamiliar with farming…but for most of us, farming that involves a yoke is really not something we’ve had much to do with.  Many farmers today are chilling out in air-conditioned tractors watching satellite tv with one foot on the gas, while the GPS system takes care of the rest.  Who needs a yoke when outer space tells you when and where to turn, right?  

But even if we here in the civilized, modernized, western world have moved beyond yokes and animals for our farming, many, perhaps most, people throughout the world have not.  Yokes – and the animals that are guided by them – are common in many parts of the world, especially those places that are much more impoverished than we are.  And now, personally, I always thought that a yoke was about oxen, and not really much else.  Oxen use a yoke, but horses or donkeys, or whatever, well, I don’t know…  Maybe I’m the only one who thought this, but…anyway...it turns out that yokes aren’t limited to oxen – apparently, you can also yoke horses, mules, donkeys, and water buffalo.  Water buffalo!  

Anybody out there familiar with Veggie Tales?  I mean, really, it’s not really fair of me to mention water buffalo if I’m not going to show this, yeah? 

For any of you not familiar with Veggie Tales, this is Larry the Cucumber, well, as it said, the part of the show where Larry comes out and sings a silly song.  And in this particular one, Larry is rebuked by Archibald the Asparagus for singing that “everybody’s got a water buffalo”, because everyone certainly does NOT have a water buffalo, and well, you saw it.  

So, whatever.  It’s a silly song. But the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe Larry is right.  Maybe everybody does have a water buffalo…at least, in some sense.  So, here’s a picture of a water buffalo.

 

That doesn’t really look like something you want to tangle with, does it?  It’s…large…and it has…horns…and it has just plopped its muddy self right down in the middle of an otherwise perfectly useful river…This is a metaphor here, but, do you see what I’m saying?  Is there anything in your life that feels like a water buffalo?  Something that is large and awkward and difficult to control – something with pointy horns that has taken up residence in what was once a perfectly nice area of your life?

For some of us, our water buffalo is our job, our employment.  You don’t really like it all that much, or maybe you actually hate it, or maybe you wish you just had one, period.  Maybe your water buffalo is money – maybe no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get finances under control, and you’re always one step behind on bills…you feel like you’ll never get your head above water…Some people’s water buffalo is their schedule – you’re jam-packed up to here.  You’re running basically a professional taxicab service for your kids or grandkids, you’re working more jobs than you can count, your own “extracurricular activities” are too numerous to mention, and you can’t remember the last day you just did…nothing.  Or what about a “health” water buffalo?  Some of you have some pretty intense health issues going on right now, that have just sort of taken over your lives…or even if you’re not in the middle of a crisis, underlying chronic conditions just take their toll, and take over all your daily decisions.  Some of you have a water buffalo that is related to aging…suddenly, it seems like old age – and the changes it brings – has just deposited itself in your living room and there’s really nothing you can do about it.  You don’t like it, you don’t know how to deal with it, but it’s clearly not going away.  And for some of us, relationships are the core of our water buffalo.  

Relationships with your kids, spouse, siblings, parents, or even friends.  The constant fighting…or the cold shoulder…or the walking on eggshells…the fact that whatever you wanted that relationship to be, it’s changed, and that change feels like a giant water buffalo is sitting on you all the time.  Maybe your water buffalo is all about pressure to succeed.  You need to be perfect at school and the MVP on all your sports teams and never miss a beat at home and always get that next promotion at work…the constant worry that you’re not good enough is a huge water buffalo…

Whatever your thing is, point being, Larry the Cucumber is right: we all have a water buffalo.  And some of them start off oh so cute.  Look at this little baby water buffalo! 

 Isn’t it adorable?  I bet when you took that job, or went into debt to buy the car or the furniture or whatever, when you said “I do” or signed on to the team, this was the picture in your mind.  But now this sweet little thing has turned into this:

Yeah…And sometimes, it’s actually our whole lives – not just our lives, but our actual selves, us as individuals, that seem to have turned into a giant water buffalo.  Listen again to the reading from St. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:  “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”

Do you ever have this feeling?  Like, “GAH!  What is going on?  With me?  And my whole life?  And why is everything screwed up, and why do I screw everything up???  Everybody’s got a water buffalo?  I AM the danged water buffalo!”

Yeah.    

See, the thing about water buffalo is that, if they’re not…controlled, managed, yoked, and so on, they end up trampling all over the natural vegetation, disturbing bird nests and other small animal habitats, and even spreading poisonous weeds all over… but when someone who knows what they’re doing controls the water buffalo, and yokes them, and put them to a decent use…they look like this:

 

So today, in the gospel reading, Jesus is addressing those of us who are weary, and heavy-laden.  I’m pretty sure that’s all of us. There’s a lot of water buffalo in our lives, and we keep trying to yoke them ourselves, and that gets pretty tiring after a while.  We’re like this guy:

What we need – every one of us – is somebody who knows how to yoke a water buffalo.  Somebody who can take all the large, awkward, pointy horned, vegetation trampling, weed spreading, mud sitting water buffalo that is, well, each one of us, and turn us into this:

Somebody who puts a yoke on our water buffalo, on us, and takes us to exactly where we’re supposed to be – guided, directed, cared for, and most especially, loved.  Look, this guy loves his water buffalo.  It means so, so much to him.  And he has carefully crafted a wooden yoke, as part of his care for his dear, water buffalo.  You can see it in his eyes, in the way his hand rests on the animal.  And doesn't it kind of look like the water buffalo gets that?  He understands that his master loves him, and is caring for him.  This is what Jesus is talking about when He says, “take My yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle, and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your soul…”

Trying to yoke ourselves, trying to get ourselves and our problems yoked, organized, moving in the right direction, fixed, solved, always on top of everything, doing what we’re supposed to, have it all under control, all of that is exhausting.  It’s utterly, completely exhausting.  And we find, with Paul, that the stuff we want to do we don’t do, and the stuff we don’t want to do, we do, and it’s all so frustrating and aggravating and hard, just plain hard, and eventually, I think, we all reach a point where we just want to give up.  We might not admit that to anyone, but who hasn’t, in the deepest part of your soul, wished for it all just to go away for a minute, an hour, a day.  If you could only have some space, to think, and be still, and just hit the reset button and start over… Do you ever just want to sit down, right in the middle of the river there and just cry, until someone comes to rescue you?

As Paul says, “WHO WILL DELIVER ME FROM THIS BODY OF DEATH?!?!?!”

Over here, in Matthew’s gospel, we’ve got Jesus raising His hand – “Ooh, call on me!  I will!  I will!  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.  My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 

The irony here, is that when you yoke an animal, it’s because you’re putting it to work.  But Jesus is talking about rest – rest for your soul.  When you wear His yoke, it’s not so He can put you to work, it’s so you can find rest – deliverance from all the weary, heavy-laden-ness of your life.

Yes, His yoke is easy…but sometimes the process of “taking it on”, is not so much.  Because to take on Christ’s yoke, we have to let go of our own…and more than that, we have to let go of our illusion that we can do it ourselves (!!) if only we just try harder.  See, I think that on a fairly regular basis, when we confront the water buffalo in our life, or when we realize that we are the water buffalo, we go to Jesus and we ask Him to show us how to do a better job of yoking ourselves, or maybe we say, “Hey, a little help here, Jesus?” And we expect him to help us nudge the water buffalo into submission.  Altogether too frequently, we don’t so much look to Christ for His yoke, but for an instruction manual on our own yokes. 

But that’s not what’s on offer here.  In fact, Jesus says that the Father hides things from those of us who think we’re wise and learned, who just want the correct answers.  Jesus doesn’t want you to fix your own yoke, or do a better job of controlling it.  He doesn’t want to give you advice for how to live your best life now.   

He wants you to take His yoke, He wants you to see that He is your best life now!    

He’s not simply here to teach you how to operate your own yoke, how to manage yourself or your water buffalo.  He’s here to actually give you His yoke, so that He can handle the water buffalo.  The reason that the “right answers” are hidden from you, are precisely so that you will turn to Christ.  Christ is the ultimate “right answer”, and He is so much more than the right answer…if all that He did was give us 7 Steps to Godly Weight Loss or 3 Keys For Successful Leadership, we’d still be relying on ourselves, and missing out on His resurrection and redemption!  So that’s no good.  Not at all.  No, no. 

Go all the way.  Everybody’s got a water buffalo, but it’s time to let go of yours.  Throw the whole messy muddy thing at God - it doesn't have to be organized when you give it to Him.  Let him deliver you from this body of death, and take His yoke upon you.  Let Him place it on you, in fact.  His yoke is easy, and the burden is light.  He is gentle, and humble in heart, and there – in Him – you will find rest for your souls.  What more could we ask for, than for someone to deliver us?

In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – Amen.    

On the Conversion of St. Paul

Good morning!  So, if you were here last week, you know that we celebrated Peter’s confession of faith, when he declared that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  This week, we are transferring Saturday’s celebration of St. Paul’s conversion to today, and remembering his story, his faith, and most especially, the way that God worked in his life. 

In the same way that last week we celebrated not so much Peter himself, but the faith that God had placed in Peter’s heart, the faith upon which Jesus builds the church, today we remember Paul’s conversion – not because of how awesome Paul is, but because of how awesome Jesus is.

Let’s start, though, by taking a good look at Paul, at who he was, and the life he lived, so that we have a really good context for seeing the work of Jesus. 

We get just a short background to this at the beginning of the Acts reading, so I want to flesh it out a little more, so that we’re all on the same page to start.  So, Paul, who Acts chapter 13 also tells us went by the name of Saul, which is the name that is used in this part of the story – this Saul guy was Jewish.  Now, we have talked before about Peter, or the other disciples, or Jesus, or most of the people who hung around Jesus during his ministry, and how they were good, faithful, Jewish people.  But Saul was, well, his religiosity, his zeal for the Jewish religion, and more than that, for the God of the Jews, far outstripped everyone else around him.  Saul wasn’t the sort who came to church most weekends, and made sure the kids got to well, Saturday School and confirmation.  Saul wasn’t even the sort to be a local synagogue leader, or to volunteer at the Temple to usher or read the Scriptures once a month.  Saul was Jewish to beat the band.  He grew up in a household filled with faith.  He had the Scriptures – what we call the Old Testament – memorized backwards and forwards.  He studied under all the best rabbis and priests and teachers.  He read everything he could get his hands on.  He was consumed with evangelistic fervor.  He loved the Lord, the one who had promised to save his people, to one day bring them a Messiah who would deliver them from all their enemies.  He trusted God’s promises, and he was willing to defend God at all costs. 

If you were someone who said something untrue – something heretical or blasphemous or just plain mean or wrong about God – Saul was perfectly happy to correct you. He wasn’t going to let anybody stand in the way of knowing and believing the correct things about his God, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, the God who had promised a Messiah, but who hadn’t yet delivered.  He followed every last rule and law of the Jewish religion – dotting all his I’s and crossing all his T’s – because this was what God had said to do, so, I better do it, and so should everybody else.  This was Saul.  100% sold out for God.  And so Saul also knew that one of the things you don’t do – in fact, the primary thing you don’t do, when you are a follower of God, is to go running around following other gods, claiming somebody or something else is God, and worshipping that. 

And to a great extent, Saul is not wrong.  Even today, when we read the Old Testament, we assume that it’s all about rules, and it’s about not doing bad things, and following the Ten Commandments and being a good religious person.  But that’s actually only sort of true – see, when God gets angry at the Israelites for all of the bad things they keep doing, it’s less about the fact that they did those specific sins, and more about the fact that they had first turned their hearts over to other pagan gods.  The confirmation class this year has been reading through the sections of the Old Testament, and right now we’re at the part that is all about the kings and prophets.  There are some good kings, and lot of bad kings, and it turns out that the primary characteristic of a bad king is one who doesn’t follow the Lord, one who turns away from the Lord, and then, because his eyes are turned toward other gods, begins to do all sorts of evil things – once you’ve broken the first commandment, the rest just fall like dominoes…

So Saul, in being zealous for the primacy of God, well, let’s just say that his heart is in the right place.  But unfortunately, we all know, that our heart can be in the right place, and we can still be radically, totally, completely wrong.  And this is what had happened to Saul.

You see, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Jewish religion.  In his conception and his birth, in his ministry, his death, and his resurrection, and in his ascension to the throne in heaven, Jesus is proved to be the Messiah that God promised long ago, that the prophets spoke of, that the Israelites had been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for.  When we speak of the relationships between Jesus, and Jews, and Christians, it’s not that Jesus is Christian, just like all of us, and we’re waiting for the Jewish people to get on board with that and join Christianity like they’re supposed to.  It’s actually almost the opposite – Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the fulfillment of all the Old Testament promises of God, promises that God made to his chosen people, the nation of Israel – also known as the Israelites or the Hebrews.  And it is we, the Christians without Jewish ancestry, who are grafted – adopted – into that family, that nation of Israel, to whom the promises were first given. 

But if like Saul you are Jewish, and you don’t believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised one, then when Jewish people who do believe begin encouraging others to follow Jesus, to believe that He is the one who fulfills the promises, that He himself is God, and should be worshipped and praised as such, well then, it looks like you’re leading people into idolatry, does it not?  It would look like you were saying untrue things about God, and worshipping false gods and denying the faith.

This is where Saul is at, before his conversion.  At the beginning of the Acts reading today: Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.  Yes, Saul had gone so far as to be an accomplice to murder.  One of the apostles – Stephen – was the first person to be killed for his faith in Jesus.  He had been out witnessing to Christ, and the Jewish leaders had gotten a hold of him, and for his so-called “offense” against the Jewish faith, Stephen was stoned to death.  And the Bible tells us that Saul was there, not throwing stones, but holding the coats of the men who were.  

Saul firmly believed in his zeal for the faith, in his willingness to condemn Jesus-followers, that he was pointing people toward the one true God and away from false idols.

And yet, he was incredibly wrong.  He was so, so, so wrong.  Poor Saul, he just doesn’t get it. 

Do you know people like this?  People who just…for some reason…can’t grasp faith?  People who claim to basically believe in like, God or something, but they don’t really get it.  People who think they know God, but really, Jesus is just kind of a peripheral thing to their lives?  Are you people like this?  Someone who comes to church because it’s “what good people do”, but when other people are talking about Jesus and faith…you just kind of bow out of the conversation, because you don’t quite get it? 

If this is you, or someone that you know and love, then listen up – Saul’s story isn’t done.

Because as Saul was hunting down followers of the Way – the first term they used to describe Christians – as Saul was, in his ignorance, seeking out the Lord’s disciples to kill or imprison them, Jesus came to Saul.  In a brilliant flash of light, Saul was struck blind, and heard Jesus personally speaking to him: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?  I am Jesus, who you are persecuting.  Go into the city, and you will be told what to do.”

And so Saul follows instructions, goes into the city of Damascus, and is met by a man named Ananias, whom the Lord had sent to lay hands on Saul so that Saul’s blindness would be healed.  So the two of them meet up, and Ananias does as he’s told.  Saul is filled with the Holy Spirit, and something like scales fell from his eyes, and he could see again, and was baptized.

Now this is another one of those stories that has two layers of meaning to it – first is the literal, historical level.  We believe that this is actually what happened, and how it happened.  And there’s also a metaphorical level to it as well – Saul had been struck with physical blindness, yes, but he had also been experiencing spiritual blindness.  He simply couldn’t see that Jesus was the Messiah, the fulfillment of the promises to Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  And as the scales fell from his eyes and his physical blindness was cured, his spiritual blindness was also cured – by the power of the Holy Spirit, who opened Saul’s eyes, both physically and spiritually. 

Don’t miss that part – that it was solely through the action of God, that Saul was brought to an understanding of the truth about Jesus. 

Luke tells us this in Acts, Paul relays it himself in the reading from Galatians.  Jesus came and revealed himself to Paul, to one for whom it seemed that all hope would be lost, one who just didn’t get it.  But God intervened.  The Holy Spirit came and personally brought Paul to faith in Jesus – just as the Holy Spirit does for each one of us – and from there, Paul went on to an incredible life as an apostle – a witness, a missionary, a pastor, a preacher, a teacher – throughout all of the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Asia Minor.  The man who participated in the killing of the very first Christian martyr is the same man who later wrote 1/3 of the New Testament, and traveled through much of the known world to spread the message of Christ and build the local church wherever he went.  

Yay, Paul, but more importantly, yay God!  This is a story of hope.  When we celebrate the conversion of Paul, what we are really celebrating is the power of God to transform hearts, to bring people to Jesus, and to work powerfully in each of our lives.  If God takes it upon himself to knock Paul upside the head when he needs it, then there is still hope for each of us, yes?  If someone who is so opposed to Christ as Paul can be brought to faith, then there is still hope for all of your children and grandchildren who are uninterested, to say the least, in Jesus…right? 

This is the message of Paul’s conversion – that it is never too late, that someone is never too far gone, or too opposed to God, for God to work miracles.  That even though we share our faith with other people, it is not our responsibility to pressure people – ourselves or anybody else – into believing – that the Holy Spirit will work faith when and where He wills, at precisely the right moment to serve God’s purposes.

If you struggle to believe some days…or every day…(and really, don’t we all?)  If you know someone who seems downright opposed to the message of Christ…do not lose heart, and do not despair.  God wants every single person – each one of you, and each one that each of you loves and cares for – to come to know him through faith in Jesus Christ.  And he does not give up on any of us.  It may seem like a long time coming, we may not notice the miniscule adjustments he is slowly, patiently, tenderly knitting into our souls, but He is faithful.  We only need to look at the Cross to see the extent to which he will go to bring each of us back into the fold. 

Through the conversion of Paul, and his unfailing witness to Jesus – the same zeal that was once focused against Christ now set to the task of expanding God’s kingdom – through Paul, and the inspiration and workings of God in him, the church took root throughout the world.  Like the churches of Judea, that we heard from Galatians today, we praise God because the man who formerly persecuted Christians went on to preach the faith he once tried to destroy.  We remember and celebrate that today, that victory of God, and we remember and celebrate that what God did for Paul, he can and does also do for us, and for our loved ones. 

Paul experienced an epiphany of his own on the road to Damascus, as he saw Christ for who he truly is: and so let this also be our epiphany today – that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, is the Lord of all, and he is working to bring us to himself in his own good time.  He is the one who has the power to work faith in each one of us, and he is the one for whom not a single one of us is too sinful, too unbelieving, too far gone to be brought to life, health, and salvation.  This Jesus whom Saul encountered, who was born for the shepherds and the wise men, for Mary and Joseph, for John the Baptist and Peter and the disciples and Paul – was born for each one of us, and he is graciously working in each of us for our benefit.  May you be blessed by this epiphany.

Amen.