Sunday School Lesson - July 3 - Year A - Pentecost +3

Have you ever thought, "No matter what I do, it is just never enough?" How many times have you been in "no-win" situations? What do you do when this happens? What is enough? Why even try? What does it matter? Sound familiar? In these situations, what would you give to be satisfied or relieved? What would that cost? God has provided us the answer in his Son, who has told us: "Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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." What are your burdens? Give them to him. "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world." Sin, from the Greek `aμαρtia, "falling short," "missing the mark."  For us, who feel we can never do enough, we mean enough to God, and can mean enough to each other, that he bids us "Come to me, beloved," for beloved we are. He gave his Son for us.

The Rev. Canon C.K. Robertson tells us "Nothing I do is ever enough!" Yes, that's right! And the sooner I recognize that truth, the sooner I can embrace the deeper reality that God already knows me more fully than I would like to admit, and still calls me "beloved." The devotional writer Henri Nouwen once said, "When you are able to create a lonely place in the midst of your actions and concerns, then somehow, slowly, your successes and failures lose their power over you." You and I, we are not God...and we don't have to try to be. You and I can dare to let go of the heavy, wearisome yokes we put on ourselves and allow others to thrust upon us, and instead take up that blessed yoke that is no burden, the yoke of acceptance of our own beloved self in Christ, the yoke of acceptance of the beloved nature of other weary, heavy-laden ones still striving all around us. "Come to me," Jesus invites, "come, my beloved." Read more from "Never Enough" in Day 1.

"Jesus implied that all humankind are in some way burdened. There is the burden of our anxieties and of our fears. There is the burden of our temptations and our responsibilities. I think of the burden of our loneliness, maybe after bereavement, and the burden people have when they sense that life has no meaning, and above all, there is the burden of our failures and of our guilt. What a burden they can be! Does our conscience never feel its guilt? Is our heart never bowed down with a sense of shame? It is such persons that Jesus invites to come to Him. He promises to ease our yoke, to lift our burden, to give us rest, and to set us free." Matthew 11:28: "Come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, 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."  Read more of Dr. John R.W. Stott "The Greatest Invitation Ever Made"