This sermon was preached loosely from my manuscript you see below. I had been distracted all morning with stuff going on with my body. Ech. Anyway, this sermon idea came from how close the poem "The New Colossus" that is found at the base of the Statue of Liberty sounds to what Jesus says in Matthew 11. It was also a great time to brag on my folks from University Lutheran.;)
Image: Freedom by Pixel Quadro at FlickrText: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30[Jesus spoke to the crowd, saying:] “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 mourn.” For John came neither eating or 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!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds”(Jump to vs. 25) At that time, Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. 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.”In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Three In One who takes our heavy burdens upon Himself.Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,At the foot of the Statue of Liberty, there is a plaque with a poem by Emma Lazarus called “The New Colossus.” You may not know all of the words to this poem, but I am sure that a few lines may sound familiar to you:“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.”Between 1820 and 1920, one hundred years of this nation's history, that poem captured the experience of 34 million persons who immigrated to America, many of them passing by the Statue of Liberty. It is not a poem recounting the heroism of the Revolutionary War heroes. There is no mention of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson. It is a poem, rather, about those who would make this country what it is today – but who were then simply “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”In our Gospel reading today, you heard something that sounded similar to that poem spoken from the lips of Jesus. After praying to His Father in thanksgiving, He seems to turn to the crowds and says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” You can almost imagine Jesus speaking those words to those 34 million immigrants to the United States, just as Emma Lazarus spoke her own words to them.Yet in 1920, Immigration statistics begin to change. Because of some of the booming numbers and because some were beginning to notice a recession was beginning to take place in the American economy, immigration laws began to exclude more and more would be immigrants seeking to walk through the “Golden Door” that Lady Liberty watched over with her torch. Suddenly, instead of echoing Jesus' words that all who were weary and heavily burdened should come to him, our nation was singing a different tune, it was reciting a different poem.Many in the worldwide church have shut their doors, or at least have been accused of creating an atmosphere in which the doors of the church appear to be shut. Church has become the home of the middle classes and of the morally elite. In many ways, we have gotten away from the words of Jesus which have said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens.” Instead, we have become indignant, perhaps even irate at times crying out in the marketplace, “We played the flute for you and you did not dance, We wailed and you did not mourn.” Let me put that in church terms for you, “We hosted a contemporary service, and you did not come inside, we had a Bible study and you did not feel it was important.”It has been almost a year since my ordination. A few words from the sermon that was preached on that day by my friend and mentor, John Roth, have stuck out to me. “We are living in an age when the church is different than when I began.”Dan Kimball, a note worthy pastor and Christian author, tells a story of when he first started attending church. Like many of the weary and heavy burdened today, Dan grew up in a home that was not culturally Christian. He didn't grow up going to church or reading the Bible. He was about 20 years old and had been studying a Bible just out of curiosity, when he walked by a small church with what he called a scrawled sign out front that said “Bible study today”. When he walked in, he found three people sitting in a circle and all smiling at him. He tried to nonchalantly take a seat when an elderly man handed him a thermos cup full of liquid. “Here,” he said. Dan drank it right away and said, “What is this?” “Ovaltine” came the reply, “would you like some more?” After wondering to himself if this was a cult and if he was going to wake up in some strange place, he said, “sure.” What developed was about a year's worth of time of going to that Bible study and then worship. Dan went on to become one of today's most prominent young pastors because of that church that held a torch to the Golden Door of Scripture. Because of that church that held a torch to the death, resurrection, and forgiveness found in Jesus.That is why I am proud to call myself the pastor of this community gathered at University Lutheran Church and Student Center in Tallahassee, Florida. When I hear complaints that the worldwide church has closed it doors and has stopped taking in immigrants, I smile defiantly. That is not our church. We have opened our doors to the homeless of the InnBetween program and HOPE community. We have opened our doors to the demographic that is most in danger of never engaging the Gospel – college students. We have opened doors and have continued to open doors. Soon we will begin to contact recent move-ins to our neighborhood here. We have lit our lamp and we have held it by the Golden Door of Jesus. We have proclaimed to this campus and this community that Jesus is here, that Jesus is here for the weary, that He is here for the heavy laden. We have proclaimed His easy yoke and His light burden and will continue to do so.July 4th has came and went. Around this time, we hear many stories of the heroic and famous people of our nation. We hear of patriots, soldiers, politicians, and inventors. We celebrate this nation founded and made into one of the greatest nations in the world not normally by those who were born within its borders, but by immigrants to this land. Each and every person here is an immigrant to this land of the Golden Door. I am not talking about this land of the United States, but rather to the land of God's Kingdom. Each and every one of us have been heavily burdened, we have been weary. We have brought our yokes to the cross of Christ. He has taken our infirmities, our sins, and our status as aliens to God's kingdom and He has taken it upon Himself on that cross. He has made us citizens of this Kingdom of His Father. He has paid our price with His life, His Body, and His Blood. Now we stand on this land with the torch of the His Gospel in our hands. We stand as stalwartly as Lady Liberty. We speak her poem, but we speak it as the church, as the people of God holding the light to the Golden Door:“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.“"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries sheWith 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!”This church is not like a brazen giant, but she is a mighty woman, whose torch and flame of Scripture is the imprisoned lightning, the Mother of those exiled by sin. Because Christ has said to us, “Come to me, all you who are heavily burdened,” we say to the world, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to us,” we lift our lamp beside the golden door of Jesus Christ.