The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
July 9, 2023
Proper 9A
St Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” This, right here, is one of the most profoundly relatable things Paul ever wrote, and it’s also one of the clearest. Why do we do the things we do?
Religion, philosophy, and psychology have been grappling with that question since forever. What motivates human beings to do what they do? And if we know what we should do, if we know what is the good and helpful and healthy thing to do, why do we persist in doing things we know we aren’t good and helpful and healthy things to do?
St Paul sees it in terms of a battle between his innermost self and parts of his body at conflict with each other. His innermost self is rejoicing in God and wants to do God’s will, but the rest of him is inclined to sin. It’s a battle. And it’s a battle he generally is losing, yet he still has hope in God.
While I understand St Paul’s point and agree with him, I think that the way that he phrases it is too easily misunderstood. There are three ways I think St Paul is interpreted incorrectly here.
The first way Paul is misunderstood here is best summed up in the phrase, “The devil made me do it.” While I don’t think a lot of people actually would say that, the idea that the bad things we do aren’t our fault is a lot more common than we might assume. “Deep down I had good intentions; it just came out wrong. It’s not my fault.” But sometimes even if we did have the right intentions, what we did wasn’t the right thing to do.
The second way Paul is misunderstood here is almost the opposite of the previous one. In this one, we see ourselves at war with ourselves. Our emotions, our thoughts are like the enemy. We have good intentions, but our emotions and bodies go in the wrong direction, and we’ve failed if we let our emotions influence us. I’ve often heard people say, “Well, if I were a better person I wouldn’t get angry. I got angry. Anger is a sin. Therefore I must not be a good person.” In this misunderstanding, if we were “good people” then we wouldn’t have “negative” emotions at all; therefore, the second we feel a “negative” emotion then we latch onto the thought that we must not be good deep down. (And don’t get me started on the fact that there are no “negative” emotions – they simply are our brain’s way of processing what’s going on in the world)
The third way Paul is misunderstood here is that too much emphasis gets placed on this inner spiritual fight and the last parts of today’s reading are neglected: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” We forget that the struggle is not about gaining victory over ourselves or defending our own goodness; the struggle is to live as faithfully as we can to Jesus.
We won’t get it perfectly right. That’s Paul’s point. We have habits in our brains that pull is in ways we might not want to go. We might have good intentions and mess it up anyway. We might react to something someone said, not because we heard what they said but because it triggered a well-worn path in our brains.
How exhausting! And so St Paul is trying to give us the wisdom to help us follow Jesus’ advice in our Gospel reading. “Come to me, 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.”
It is a heavy burden that we bear. Trying to do what is right. Knowing that there’s always something we’re not getting right at the same time.
So what is this yoke that Jesus talks about? How can a yoke, like one that an ox would wear to pull a plow, how can that be light? How is that supposed to be rest?
Look at the context. Jesus compares himself to John the Baptist and how the people reacted to both of them. John the Baptist was fasting and preaching repentance, and people said he was possessed, out of his mind. He was the pinnacle of religious discipline, and yet people didn’t want to listen to him. Jesus eats and drinks with sinners, and the people call him a glutton and a drunk. There’s just no way to win! But Jesus still does what he is called to do in faithfulness to God the Father. Faithfulness is the mission, not perfection.
Doing what is right, it’s hard. We can have the best of intentions, but the outcome is not what we expect. We don’t give up. We keep trying. We keep learning from our experiences. We try to choose what is right. We have hope – not hope that we’ll get it 100% perfectly right, because every day is something new to challenge us in a way we haven’t handled before – but we have hope that Jesus’ yoke is on our necks, a yoke of faithfulness and trust. Faithfulness to Jesus looks like being open and honest and humble. If we had the best of intentions but messed it up, we admit it. If we had the best of intentions but we reverted to an old pattern, we acknowledge it and try to figure out what to do the next time something like that happens. Faithfulness is the mission, not perfection. Be faithful to Jesus, take his yoke upon you. Do what is right as best as you can, and never despair. It’s not about being good and perfect. It’s being faithful to Jesus. Faithfulness is the mission, not perfection.