Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

My mother would sometimes say of someone that he or she was a, "Dog in a Manger." It's a great figure of speech, but most today (not having been raised on farms) don't get it. The picture is that of a farm dog jumping into a manger and lying on top the hay. He doesn't want the hay himself, but he doesn't want the cows to have it either. Know anyone like that? In a truly funny parable (one of my favorite scripture passages) Jesus points out that most people are disgruntled when it comes to religion, they haven't found what they are looking for. But some may never find it (the parable implies) - because, in their resistance to the Word of God, they make themselves impossible to please. And he offers a timely example. "John the Baptist," Jesus says, "preached a tough, strict faith: he cut himself off from other people, lived all alone in the wilderness, ate weird little meals, never drank, dressed with no regard for style, and preached a message of sin and damnation. And you ridiculed him, said he was crazy. Now here I come," says Jesus, "eating, and drinking, and associating with all kinds of people - preaching a much more cheerful, gracious gospel -- and you criticize me, saying I'm a glutton and a drunk and a friend of sinners." You're like Goldilocks: this is too hot and this is too cold; this is too soft and this is too hard. "You're like petulant children playing in the market place. No matter what game is suggested you're against it. You don't want to play wedding (fluting and dancing), and you don't want to play funeral (wailing and mourning). You don't want to play either game yourself, and you don't want others to play either. Dog in a manger.

I have preached on this text before and always emphasized the perversion of the human spirit. How we often use disagreements about religious matters (John or Jesus) to protect us from the intrusive power of God's word. The people of whom Jesus spoke ("this generation") did have a secondary interest, and a legitimate interest, in how religious people should live and act: whether like John the Baptist, in his asceticism, or like Jesus in his openness and grace. But one suspects that their first interest was to avoid the staggering claim Jesus was making on them. "Let's talk about something else," they were saying in their evasions, "something that won't demand such a sea change!" We're not much different. We argue about the right day of the week to worship, about the right way to baptize, about the exact nature of communion. We don't like certain kinds of church music. We don't like it when worshippers raise their hands in prayer. We don't like it when they jump around like grasshoppers. But we also don't like the cold, sterile worship that characterizes some churches. Each of these arguments has its own merits. It is healthy to discuss them. But let us not be so interested in what takes place on the line of scrimmage that we miss what takes place in the end zone. Because, in the big picture, these divisive issues are miniscule. I cannot think that, when we arrive at the gates, God will ask if we were baptized right or if we were decorous in church. I think he will want to know if we belonged to him, if we passed on his unconditional love, if we fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the prisoners, took in the homeless, ministered to the sick.

One commentator, looking at this parable (about people who were so damnably hard to please -- didn't want to play wedding, didn't want to play funeral), said it wasn't so much that their spirits were perverse as that they were weary, jaded. They had heard too many claims, believed too many promises. Wandering teachers, like Jesus, were a dime-a-dozen. A new one came to town every week. One said "fast," another said "eat." The world of ordinary men and women, in those days, was a lot like our world, where the real question isn't whether one will believe in God, but which god (or gods) one will believe and follow. We have available to us, as did the people in Jesus' day, a pantheon of quarrelsome, unpredictable gods. Hundreds of gods claim our allegiance. That is why Jesus said, "The proof is in the pudding." At the end of the day, which god brings peace? This Chapter in Matthew's Gospel ends with Jesus making a spectacular promise; it's almost a dare: "Come to me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Any God who can deliver on that promise I'll take. Rest - true rest for the soul - is hard to find. It's certainly not found in worldly success. Casy Stengel said, "There are two kinds of managers: those that have been fired, and those that will be fired." Worldly success is like that. One high-ranking executive retired and returned several years later for the annual Christmas party. The pretty young thing who greeted him at the door asked, "And who did you used to be?" Worldly success is like that. Not much "rest to our souls" there. And true rest's not found in the spectacular…even though we are very good at spectacles. I suppose it's a good thing that someone has now flown solo around the world in a hot-air balloon. But I'm not quite sure why. Not much rest in that, at least not for me. I suppose it's wonderful that they shot off 3,000 fireworks at the Mall Thursday night, which is more than ever before, but I don't find that satisfying either, because I'm already worried about next year. No rest.

When I am naked down to my soul, and it's just God and I, and I know what he wants of me, the only way for me to find rest is to accept his claim on me, his ownership of my life. We can play a hundred mind games (too hot, too cold; too soft too hard), we can sample a hundred gods…and we do every day. But in these things we find no peace, no rest. In the long run, Augustine said it right about our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of Jesus: "Our souls are restless 'till they rest in thee."