Christ the King Epiphany Church, Wilbraham

The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

July 5, 2026 / Pentecost 6 (Lect. 14A)

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

I grew up just north of Baltimore – about an hour or so from Washington, D.C.  With some frequency my family visited the nation’s capital, to visit the Smithsonian, or more likely, to attend a military band concert.  And so, since we lived so close to Washington (relatively speaking), my parents decided that we should celebrate July 4, 1976 by going to see the fireworks on the National Mall.  It was a brave decision for the parents of two young girls.  I was 12, my sister was 7, and although I don’t remember for sure, if I were a betting person I would bet that we wore red, white, and blue – and knowing my mother, we were probably in matching red, white, and blue outfits.  No judging!  Yes, I’m aware – 12 is a little old for your mother to tell you what to wear.  I don’t remember many specifics about the day, but I do remember two things clearly.  One is that I have never, before or since, been in such a large crowd of people pushed in so close together.  I distinctly remember stumbling every time we came to a curb.  We were walking so close to the people in front of us that we couldn’t see the curbs until we were right on top of them.  It was fairly scary for us as kids, and probably for the adults, too.  I remember that anxiety.  But I also remember the feeling of excitement and celebration.  I was very happy to be an American at the Bicentennial.

For me, things feel different at the Semiquincentennial.  Some of my ambivalence about the 250th anniversary of our country is because I see us getting further and further away from the value we place on the unalienable rights of all people to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as the Declaration of Independence, the document we celebrate this weekend, proclaims.  I wonder about the perspective of those who feel deprived of life and liberty and unable to pursue happiness.  And what I realized this week is that some of my ambivalence about the 250th anniversary of our country is because, you know, I’ve grown up.  At 12, I was blissfully unaware of what was going on in the country as a whole.  On the nation’s 200th birthday, I wasn’t thinking about the recent end of the Vietnam War, nor was I particularly concerned about gas prices since I was a few years away from driving.  I knew President Nixon had resigned in disgrace just a few years before, but that hadn’t dimmed my national pride.  As a middle-class white kid, years away from beginning to understand what privilege I enjoy, I was completely unaware that maybe not everybody felt the same way I did about celebrating America at 200.  And in the same way today, not everyone feels the same way about where we are at 250.

But where I hope and pray that we can all be united as Christians within this nation – not as a Christian nation, which we are not, but as American who follow Christ – I pray that we can all join together in imitating Jesus, who always faced outward toward those who did not yet know him and drew them in toward himself, into the kingdom, including them in his care.

We see it in this morning’s Gospel.  Jesus is clearly not happy with the attitudes of some of the people.  They were saying that John the Baptist was too strict, and then when Jesus came along, the same people were saying that Jesus was too loose, too liberal, hanging around with all the wrong sorts of people.  In the part of Matthew chapter 11 that we did NOT read this morning, Jesus calls out the people who had seen him performing miracles, but hadn’t been moved to turn their lives around and follow him.  At the very least, we could say that Jesus had ambivalent feelings about the crowds in which he was moving.  Nevertheless, just a few verses later, Jesus speaks some of the most beautiful words of invitation, presumably to all these same people:  “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”  Come to me, all you who can’t figure out how you feel about me.  Come to me, all you who are disenchanted with the way things are, and can’t see that I am the way.  Come to me, all you who are disheartened about the state of the world or the state of your lives.  Come to me.  For here, in me, you will find rest – not rest, like taking a load off, but like taking on my load.  And I’ll take on yours.  It will feel like rest because we’re pulling together.

All week long, I’ve been pondering Jesus’ words – his welcome to all; his invitation to connect, to be a part of him; his heartfelt desire to include others in his kingdom, even and especially the vulnerable, and to help them carry their burdens.  And the Spirit brought to my mind another piece of literature which feels especially appropriate for this weekend.  Emma Lazarus wrote her sonnet, “The New Colossus,” about the Statue of Liberty. 

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

I pray that our country continues to embrace this lofty ideal.  But even if it does not, I know that we, as Christians, must continue to carry that torch of welcome for all, even the ones whom no one else wants.  Because Jesus wants us all.  Jesus values us all and wants us all in his kingdom.  And while I may feel ambiguous about the Semiquincentennial, about the kingdom of God, which we are yoked to Jesus to bring about – about the kingdom, I feel no ambivalence, but only excitement and celebration . . . and hope.