Living in coronavirusworld 98: Come you who are weary

6/29

Come you who are weary

General Assembly is not over.  I begin to write my reports to those I feel responsible to, namely New York City Presbytery and the Presbyterian Heath Education and Welfare Association. I find myself struggling to hear the depth of pain experienced by my Black siblings.  Especially black women.  As the day goes on, I begin  to understand  the depth of their anger and concern. Was too caught  up in wanting to celebrate  my own work being approved that I could not hear their work being excluded. And their hurt. One of those over and over again hurts.Words I’d  rather not  hear. But words that needed to be heard. 

Our Bible Study tonight looks at Matthew  11:16-19, 25-36.  It’s part of  a longer section looking  at Jesus as Messiah, servant and son of man. The one who continues his mission to Israel even as opposition mounts. In 16-19, he denounces his generation as corrupt. Calling out the elitism of the Pharisees.”We piped and you would not dance, wailed and you would not  mourn.” Wedding imagery. Funeral imagery. Jesus’,ministry vs. John the Baptist. People want neither one.   As son of man, he’s referring  to the final judge, as in Daniel 7:13-14, the one who must suffer and/or using an Aramaic expression for simply referring to ones’ self as human. The reference to eating and drinking’s comes back to John  again.  John the ascetic, Jesus the one who embraces abundant life, turning water into  wine. People don’t want to accept either one.

There’s a section about Jesus as Wisdom, this is Sophia, a feminine entity . By tradition, almost powerful enough to be part of the Trinity . Or maybe a quad god squad. Sophia the most hidden female side of the tradition. Scary enough to have women  who tried to reawaken interest  in sophia  accused of being idolators and heretics in the’90’s.  West Park had a Sophia group that  went on for years…even after the women members left the church…..

The final part is what everyone’s been waiting  for…

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.”

What we need …we are weary. Need a place to lay down all kinds of burdens. And simply rest.

                                                   from the Messiah

Russ plays for us that section of the Messiah.  

And I play my own Rest awhile. 

 I go it to get sandwich. My trombone man is just panhandling. Behind my mask I look at him and mime a trombone.  Man I got jumped on 120th. Some guys stole my horn.”

 I know a policeman helped him  get his last one, it’s been a “story. ” (https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2017/12/21/nypd-sergeant-gives-new-trombone-to-homeless-man#:~:text=One%20month%20after%20his%20trombone,was%20sleeping%20on%20the%20train.).  It’s got to be hard. Tim’s been out there awhile. With the trombone, he’s someone special. Without it, just another homeless panhandler who no one sees. And that’s what happens when you are homeless, you become invisible. We need to get Tim a new trombone. 

The seven o’clock cheer sees to be no more.

Matthew 11

16 “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

17 

“‘We played the pipe for you,
    and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
    and you did not mourn.’

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

The Father Revealed in the Son

25 At that time Jesus said, “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.”