The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.This was the first verse of our Psalm this morning. It’s a really good job that God is slow to anger and that He abounds in steadfast love. This is because, as disciples and followers of Jesus, we make mistakes. In the reading from the letter to the Romans (7:15-25a), we were introduced to the writer Paul and his blatant honesty. He tries to do what is right, but he can’t always do it. In the Gospel reading from Matthew (11:16-19,25-30), Jesus described the problems of people for whom nothing was quite good enough.The common theme is people struggling with discipleship. I am pleased that we have also had this Psalm praising God for His goodness towards us. Otherwise, we would be left in a state of knowing that we will get things wrong in our life and in our relationship with God. It’s good that God abounds in steadfast love.I want you to think back to your days at school, in particular the school playground. I can remember some of the games that we used to play. There was one about stealing cookies from the cookie jar. There was tag, where, if you were on it, you had to touch someone else so that they were on it and then had to touch someone else. I suspect that game has lots of different variants. I also remember the trouble that would happen if someone cheated or tried to change the game.The reason I am thinking about games in a playground is because of the Gospel reading. As Jesus described people wanting one thing and it never being quite enough, it was almost like imagining a playground. A bit like children disagreeing over a game, they weren’t happy that they had asked for one thing but didn’t get everything they wanted. It’s as if one group played the flute expecting others to dance, and when this didn’t happen, they complained.Jesus was pointing out that no matter what He did, it was not good enough for everyone. John the Baptist had told people all about the good that was before them. They needed to turn from their sin, but when they did this they gained salvation. They would be rescued; a new way of life was waiting for them.Jesus was frustrated, perhaps, that they just weren’t hearing what He was saying. They weren’t turning to Him fully.They wanted to know God, but on their own terms. They were happy when things went their way.I wonder if we can’t all be guilty of this at times. We can be happy following Jesus, as long as we don’t have to do too much. It reminds me of a little boy who told me he wanted to be a shepherd when he grew up. He then told me that he wouldn’t want to look after the sheep himself. I explained that it would be difficult to be a shepherd if you didn’t go near the sheep. He looked at me as if I was talking nonsense.It is the same for us, though. As we follow Jesus, we need to make sure that we are becoming more like Him day by day. We can’t pick the parts of what Jesus said that we are happy to listen to. We can’t be disciples for part of a day once a week and then carry on without asking God for help. We can’t be disciples but try to keep some things that we are less than happy about, maybe with our behaviour, from Him. We need to give our whole selves to Jesus, to follow Him. We can always know His forgiveness and start again; this is a huge relief.I remember a headteacher of a school telling me about a time when she had explained that if we said sorry to each other when we had done things wrong, and if we said sorry to God, we could start all over again and try not to do things wrong. A little later, she apologised to the children because she had forgotten to print out forms for a school trip, but she would print them the next day. A little girl stood up and shouted, “Forgive her, she has said sorry, she can start again.” She had clearly listened and taken in what it meant to forgive.As followers, we will end up in the same situation as Paul did: wanting to do the right thing, but failing to do it. It’s a little like sitting down to watch a nice, gentle TV programme. You pick up your remote control and suddenly you have a totally different programme on, one that is full of noise and violence. No matter how hard you try, you can’t change the programme. Your remote control needs new batteries.It is as though we are a remote control needing batteries sometimes. In order for us to do what is right, we need power to help us. We may still make mistakes, but in the same way that batteries can fix a broken remote control, asking God for help will strengthen us to do the right thing. We will still make mistakes; after all, even long-life batteries need replacing sometimes, but we know where we can go to make things better.Back to the Gospel reading. After Jesus spoke about people not being happy with what they had, He spoke about the fact that we can worry less. In the beautiful words, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” We are reminded that when we turn to Jesus, when we ask for His help, things get easier. A difficult problem isn’t suddenly solved; after all, Jesus isn’t our personal magic genie. But somehow, and in some way, maybe through another person helping, God gives us strength.It may be in a very different way from what we expected, but He will help. Following Jesus has some rough times, but it has the greatest reward. We can turn to Him, and He will be there for us. All we need to do is commit to Him completely.After all, as we said earlier:The LORD is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.Not only this, but Jesus promises:“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Amen.
