14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) – July 9, 2023

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Zechariah 9:9-10; Psalm 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14; Romans 8:9, 11-13; Matthew 11:25-30

Wired for Relationship

So there was this study done by Harvard, over the course of 80 years. Just an unprecedented study of hundreds of people. The goal of this study was to gauge how they turned out in life, what made them happy and successful in life. So it was just a brilliant long-term study of what is it really that predicts someone’s health and happiness and success in life. And the headline, the title that summed up this study said this: “Good genes are nice, but joy is better.” The results of this study blew the scientists minds. They actually found that there was something they could measure at age 50 which would be a better, more reliable predictor of how happy and physically healthy someone would be at 80 than cholesterol. What was it? What is this magic something? What is this magic thing that keeps people happy and healthy?

It blew the Harvard researchers away—one of the researchers said: “When we gathered together everything we knew about them about at age 50, it wasn’t their middle-age cholesterol levels that predicted how they were going to grow old.” No, he said, “It was how satisfied they were in their relationships. The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80.” More than money, fame, success, achievements, status—it was the people with really good, really close relationships that excelled in health and happiness.

And I think most of us, if we examine our experience—we know this is true. Yeah, maybe we’re not 80, but I think we can all think of a person who at one time or another—as a child, as a teenager, as an adult, in our best days or in days of tragedy and sorrow and suffering—we can think of a person in whose presence, in that relationship, everything changed for the better.

(a) The easiest example is young love, falling in love. That relationship gives meaning to your life, it changes your life for the better, life gets better every time you are around them. (b) Another one is a little kid’s relationship with their mother. You get lost in the store as a kid; you turn around and mom is gone, and the world seems to end. But you find her, run into her arms, and everything makes sense again, life makes sense, everything changes for the better. (c) It’s that experience of coming home from work. And even though you may have just had the worst day at work ever, you give your husband or your wife a hug, hold them—and everything changes. (d) It’s returning from deployment. (e) It’s feeling alone in a crowd, but then you see a familiar face. (f) It’s being the new kid in school, but then you make a new friend.

Relationships, our closest relationships, these are what predict our health, our happiness, our joy. Why? Because we’re wired for it. We are wired for relationship. And not wired to be social butterflies—don’t worry fellow introverts!—but wired for relationship, for communion.

Matthew and the Kingdom

Ok—so we just spent the past several weeks listening and talking about Jesus preparing his disciples for their mission: “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few,” “Take up your cross and follow,” yeah? But then today, all of a sudden, seems like a complete 180: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” Seems…random. Jesus just spent a bunch of time telling us about the sacrifices we have to make, the mission we need to embrace—so now just a nice reminder that Jesus is a good guy who makes us feel good. Right?

Actually, what we have is Jesus beginning his teaching on the Kingdom of God, one of the most important and prominent themes in the Gospel of Matthew, in all the Gospels. Today’s Gospel is a kind of introduction to this theme of the Kingdom of God, and for the next three Sundays Jesus is going to use parables to try to help us envision and understand just what this Kingdom is, how we enter it, how we experience it, what it looks like.

And this teaching on the Kingdom of God should be incredibly important to us! We should really be listening and enthralled. Why? Because this is what it’s all about! 

But here’s the thing: when I say “pink elephant,” what do you think of? Pink elephants. When I say “Kingdom of God,” what do you think? Nice place to go once I die; lots of clouds, I get a harp. Or some people think about some political structure where everyone follow the ten commandments. But the Kingdom of God is not a socio-political something (no!), it’s not the place you go when you die. We’ll talk more about this in the next weeks.

But for now, here’s the point: The Kingdom of God is found in relationship to a person.

And spoiler alert: Jesus is the Kingdom. There’s a special word for this. And since I’m a nerd, I know it. And so we’re all going to be nerds together. The word is autobasileia. That’s two Greek words: “Auto,” meaning “itself,” and “basileia,” meaning “kingdom” (think basilica). Autobasileia. Jesus is autobasileia, the Kingdom itself, the Kingdom in person. 

Jesus’ invitation is not to be a good person, or to learn a lot of facts, or anything like that. Jesus’ invitation is always, always to enter into relationship with him. “Come, follow me. Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give your rest.” We experience the kingdom of God when we live in a deep, personal, intense relationship with Jesus himself. The happiness you seek, the deep, abiding, intense, joy and gladness that you’re looking for—looking for in sports, in your job, in your kids, on Netflix, on the next vacation, you name it—the happiness you seek is only, only going to be found in relationship with Christ. That’s the Kingdom. And it shouldn’t shock us: Harvard scientists showed that to us. Jesus comes looking for a relationship—with you.

Go to Him

Can we be honest with each other for a second, though? Because sometimes I feel like I’m just performing up here. Like, I stand up here and keep you entertained for 15 minutes—crack a few jokes, keep it engaging. But the substance, what I’m actually saying—sometimes it feels like that gets lost, misses the mark. So we’re gonna keep it simple today. Is that ok?

Some of you are carrying burdens that, honestly, if you stood up and shared them with the Church today—the suffering that some of you have caused, or that you have endured…it would make people’s hair stand on end. The sins you have committed, the hurt you have caused—the addictions you have or used to have, the decisions you’ve made that you hope no one ever discovers—the anger, and resentment, and un-forgiveness you hold on to—the sadness and nothingness you feel even though everyone would describe you as a happy person—the emptiness, the isolation, fear, sadness, brokenness…

We’re keeping it simple—what 99% of us do is put on a mask, we learn to put our best face forward, and we just pretend everything is ok—and even worse, some of us have convinced ourselves that everything is ok. We work hard. We do what people expect us to do. We take care of ourselves. And then what we start doing is self-medicating: with work, with food, with Netflix, with pornography, with alcohol, with women, with men, with vacations or the next “fun thing”, by over investing in our kids to make up for the shortcomings and emptiness we feel in ourselves, on and on and on—we bury everything, we medicate, and then we wonder why something always seems off. We carry our burdens, alone. And that’s hell—sorry, but that’s a living hell.

What Jesus is asking—Jesus arrives, the reason he becomes man, the reason for all of this—today, very explicit, Jesus is asking you: “Aren’t you tired? Don’t you wish things could be different? Don’t you wish someone could pull you out of that hole? Don’t you wish you could experience a joy and a gladness and a peace that you have never been able to produce for yourself? Don’t you wish life was more than just work?” And he says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”

Friends, we’re wired for relationship. And not just relationships with spouses, or friends, or parents, or anything like that—as important as those are, and they are! But in the core of our being, we’re wired for relationship with Christ. That is where we’re going to find life. That is where we’re going to find the joy, the peace, the something that we can find anywhere else. The Kingdom you’re looking for, the Kingdom we’re promised, that we desire with every fiber of our being…he’s here. You don’t need to look somewhere else. He’s here. He’s offered here. Go to him. Stop holding back. Stop going through the motions because grandma expects you to. Go to him.

We’re going to talk about this for the next several weeks—that’s what the Kingdom parables are going to help us do. But today it is enough to begin to acknowledge and admit to yourself that you need him, what he is offering, and to begin to go to him. Go to him. He’s waiting for you. He’s waiting for the day you finally go to him, entrust yourself to him, and enter into his Kingdom.