A week ago Saturday we celebrated and blessed the marriage of Kris and John Lowe’s daughter Teresa to Eric Dipzinski. One of the ushers for the wedding wore a full-dress Marine Corps uniform. He told me that he had just completed basic training and that he was soon to begin advanced infantry training.

What I want to share with you is what happened while the post-wedding photographs were being taken. The young man was standing along the west wall of the church when he turned and saw the thousands of names that are posted there and read the sign that says that we pray weekly for those men and women of the military who have died in the occupation of Iraq. He did a kind of double-take and looked closer. Then he snapped to attention and saluted the panel in front of him. Then he moved to the next panel and the next – stopping in front of each one and repeated the snap to attention and the salute.

While this was going on, the photography stopped and all eyes focused on the marine, and there was a period of silence. It was a holy moment. All those lives lost . . . largely forgotten by our people . . . but in the middle of a wedding celebration . . . one young man remembered and helped all of those present to remember as well. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

The line from today’s Gospel causes me to recall that moment, “ . . . we wailed, and you did not mourn.” (Matthew 11:17b) Soldiers die by the thousands, they are maimed and wounded by the ten thousands, Iraqi and Afghani men, women, and children killed and injured by the hundreds of thousands. “ . . . we wailed, but you did not mourn.”

In the Matthew text Jesus is critiquing his contemporary society.
Jesus said to the crowd, “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not morn.’” (Matthew 11:16-17)

What Jesus is describing is an unresponsive culture, a community without empathy for one another – a community that in the end is not community. They neither respond to one another’s sorrows nor to their joy. “We played the flute, and you did not dance.”

Did you see the news report this week about the woman who spent 24-hours in the waiting room of a Brooklyn Hospital . . . only to collapse and die? A security camera revealed that while she was lying there on the floor, other patients ignored her, a staffer in a white coat walked up, nudged her with a foot, and went on. A security guard peeked around a corner at her, stared for a moment, and then went on about his business. This may be an egregious example, but it belies a culture where too many of us are unresponsive to one another.

But one thing Jesus’ contemporaries seemed to be good at was tearing one another down.
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” (Matthew 11:18-19)

The quickest way to diminish or destroy the teaching or thinking of another is to attack the person himself. Oh, he’s demonic or a drunkard. How can we trust anything the man has to say?

About Jesus they said:
• “Why, did you know that he once shook hands and ate dinner with Zaccheus, that notorious tax-collector?”
• And have you heard the rumors that on some of his out-of-town business trips Mary Magdalene was seen with him.
• And I have it on good authority that on at least one occasion he had so much wine that they crated it in in water barrels.

Sounds a lot like a contemporary American political campaign, doesn’t it? Cast a little doubt, gossip, innuendo . . . real or imagined . . . and the reputation, patriotism, and even the faith of a candidate can be destroyed in the public mind.

Unresponsive, uncaring, mean-spirited, immoral – that’s Jesus’ description of his first century generation. It was selfish and far too many folk were left to sink or swim on their own.

Many of us feel like we’re on our own as well. Whether it’s affording gasoline, health care, maintaining stable employment, affording to keep up the mortgage, or sitting in a crowded waiting room – we want to know that someone, somebody, some community really cares about how we’re doing and is ready to offer a kind word or a helping hand. That’s empathy. We want empathetic government, empathetic hospitals, and empathetic churches. Empathy is the value that Jesus holds out as the critical morality. This is the critical anti-dote to immoral culture.

At the end of this text Jesus says:
‘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.’ (Matthew 11:28-30)

We know that life has heavy burdens . . . especially the Christian life where Jesus calls upon us to take up our crosses and follow him . . . to sacrifice ourselves – our very lives in his cause and for his sake. But here in the language of the yoke is the secret to those of us who are heavy laden. A yoke joined two or more oxen together so that the yoked beasts could handle the heavy load without any one of them being overwhelmed.

We take responsibility for one another. We provide strength for each other. We pull the load together. We bear one another’s burdens.

The good news is not that we don’t have to pull a heavy load, but that with the yoke of Christ upon us we don’t have to pull it alone.

I’ve been hearing from many of you about the things that are weighing you down:
• Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline that’s driving up the cost of almost everything else.
• Anxiety about jobs, healthcare, and pensions.
• Worries about meeting mortgage payments or rents as utilities are projected to increase this coming winter.

And on top of all of that, there’s the cross to bear and to proclaim.

So let’s commit ourselves right here this morning to yoke ourselves to Christ and to one another. In the midst of the burdens we face, I invite you to let the rest of us know if you need anything from a ride to tank of gas to help with a utility bill, a bus pass, professional services, or a mortgage payment. If you want to remain anonymous that’s alright. Speak to me or to a trusted friend who can bring the need to the attention of the community. Don’t let pride (one of the seven deadly sins) break your back while you try to pull the load alone . . . for then you will not be there to help share your neighbor’s burden on another day.

When you respond to the altar call later in the service (what we Episcopalians call “coming forward for communion”) – let that act be a recommitment to the morality of caring and empathy – to being the people of the yoke of Christ.

Recall that young marine. Let no one wail without the whole community of the church responding. And when someone sounds the flute, let us all rise to the dance.

Amen.