Creaton: 3[rd] July 2011.  2[nd] Trinity

Our reading  from St. Matthew this morning was divided into two parts.    First,  Jesus upbraids his audience by describing them as people who won't listen and criticise.  They criticise John because of his abstemiousness and they criticise Jesus beause he drinkls wine and  moves in a society that is regaded by orthodox Jews as beyond the pale- the publicans and sinners.  
 and in the second part he thanks God for revealing his purposes to the ordinary people, rather than to those who saw themselves as the intellectual leaders of Jewish society.  
And he end with that famous sentence, now part of the Communion Service " Come unto me all ye who travaikl of are heavy laden and I will give you rest ". 
Leading up to these passages, is the story of messengers sent by Jon the Baptist who ask Jesus who he is and Jesus points to what has been happening to the blind, the lame and lepers etc.  And to draw their own  conclusions about Him.     
Linking those tow ideas, but not part of the reading today is a denunciation of the town of Caperneum, and other places, where despite his teaching asnd his healing ministry  they had not listened ot his message of repentance.   " It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgement than for thee. "   
A harsh message, but one softened a few verses later by Jesus portraying himself as someone on who we can all lean for comfort and understanding in our own troubles.   "
"Come unto me all who travail and are heavy laden".  Stress is such a feature of our 21[st] century lives: we rush about under pressure, trying to meet deadlines, taking on more than we can cope with and combatting the resulting stress with Prozac and Vallium and psychiatry.  Millions are on anti-depressants 
You might say that stress is a natural part of th human condition.  My ulcers and stress. Father ponts out that ulcers very prevalent among Greeke shepherds. 
The nurse and me and Vallium.
No comparison, one might think,  between the stress of 21[st] century Britain and first century Judea.  In Judea people mostly walked to work or rode a donkey; led simple lives. Most stressful thing  -  a lost camel, unless you got mugged on the road to Jericho which did not presumably happen very often. 
But actually life in Jesus's day quite probably just a stressful as our own.  Nasty brutish and short; no human rights; no medical facilities and precious little education for most people; famine always a threat; travel dangerous and difficult.   Roman occupation. 
The nearest we have got  throughout the ages to stress free life is a garden which has always been seen as ah aven of stress free bliss. .  The Garden of Eden at the beginning; Heaven as garden. Andrew Marvell, politician and poet.
Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, 
And Innocence, thy sister dear! 
Mistaken long, I sought you then 
In busy companies of men : 
Your sacred plants, if here below, 
Only among the plants will grow ; 
Society is all but rude, 
To this delicious solitude.
I sat here in Creaton in Bloom, doing a stint as temporary church warden, I did feel an inner peace and imagine that others  felt. same as the moved around the open gardens. Not just to compare the size and shape of dahlias or the hearts of lettuce, but to find inner peace.   
The boom in allotments.
 Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, 
Withdraws into its happiness : 
The mind, that ocean where each kind 
Does straight its own resemblance find ; 
Yet it creates, transcending these, 
Far other worlds, and other seas ; 
Annihilating all that's made 
To a green thought in a green shade.
Main thin g is that As Christians we believe, as we move about in our busy stress laden world,  that all these wonderous things are God given and that with God alone , we can find that eternal peace that Jesus promised by putting our trust in Him.  
Message to take away from our reading is that we as beleivers can put our travails before Jesus 
And  need to spread the message of the Gospel to others in the way we lead our lives.  
Longer lives these days so more time ot spread the message. 
But at my back I always hear, Time's winged chariot hurrying near.........
Gardens of vast eternity.

   

  
