I have this memory, it's one of my first memories from my earliest childhood.  My sister and cousins and I were going to put together a skit to entertain the family.  The basic plot was that we were going to sing a kids song the boring old way, and then we were going to do it as a rap and make it "cool" and "hip."  I was maybe four, and I was going to pop out of a box and start the rap.

And it came time for that, and I popped out of the box - and I started to sing the song in the old way.  The way that they had just finished it.  The wrong way.  And my cousins, who were all almost a decade older than me, they all laughed at yelled at me and then we all did the rap together and everyone clapped and said it was wonderful.

And to this day, I'm still afraid to start a song first.  I'm still afraid to start singing at the wrong time, or the wrong song, or the wrong words.  Oh, I'll sing any song, and I'll sing with you just as loud as you want - but I won't start it ... and if I do, it's with a lot of fear and trepidation.

The Kingdom of God, it calls us to sing a new song.  Jesus preached his first sermon, and all of his sermons from then on, about the Kingdom of Heaven.

[Read Matthew 11:28-12:7]

Jesus preaches a radically different message than those who had come before him.  Jesus offers that the people take up his yoke.  What is a yoke?

This is a yoke.  It's the thing that oxen use.  It is used to drag heavy objects.  But it also binds them together.  But a yoke is also the term that rabbi's would use to describe the knowledge they gave their students.  If you remember this bit of trivia, it will become part of the yoke that I have shared with you - and we are bound together by this and it helps us to pull the harder and more difficult things.  

And Jesus specifically states that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  

And this is an odd statement.  It's a contradiction.  It's like saying "the elephant in the room (cлон в посудній лавці, слон в китайському магазинчикуслон у воротах, )  - who has gone on a diet and is really thin now."  It takes all of the punch and the power out of the word picture.  

And it is directly following this, that Jesus and his disciples walk across a wheat field, and his hungry disciples pick a few pieces of wheat, rub them between their hands, and eat them.  How many, well - less than "a baby lamb could fit in its mouth - that's how many.  

Wait. What?  What is that supposed to mean? 

Well, this is the Kingdom of God that Jesus comes a'preaching.  This is the new thing.  Because the Jewish religion had become a constant barrage of rules and regulations.  

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus was promoting this new "easy yoke, with a light burden" they were certain that he just meant that people could do whatever they wanted - and they were going to make sure that it was known that he and his disciples were terrible, filthy sinners.  

They just had to follow them around long enough and eventually they would catch them in a sin.  

And the disciples begin to pick wheat directly from the stalk of SOMEONE ELSE's wheat.  So - they have stolen - but the Bible had actually addressed this very concern.  It was allowed for someone to take and eat the grain from someone's field as long as they were hungry and did it by hand, and didn't use a sickle or scythe to cut it down.  

But, this wasn't clear enough, because someone with a thousand slaves could come to your farm, and pick all of your wheat by hand - so over the thousands of years, different rabies and pharisees, and lawyers wrote and re-wrote these laws.  And it had been decided after much debate that each person could lawfully pick one baby lamb's mouthful of wheat off of someone else's land - as long as they did it by hand - and as long as they were hungry. 

Rules, right?!?!

So, the disciples hadn't broken the commandment to not steal - but the Pharisees remembered that it was the Sabbath, the day of rest - and while it had been decided that picking the wheat and eating it on the day of rest was allowed - they disciples were rubbing the grains inbetween their hands - using their hands as tools - and this was technically a sin on the Sabbath!  Ah ha!  They finally had their trap - and they were ready to condemn the disciples, and their teacher Jesus right along with them.  

And Jesus, he just eviscerates them.  He uses the Bible to tear each argument apart - and he ends up at this startling accusation, 

I desire compassion and not a sacrifice. 

These men of the law, they had no compassion.  They had no feelings of good will toward these disciples, they were just looking for some loophole to trap them in so that they could show how much better they were than Jesus' disciples.  

Jesus took all of these rules, and the rules that were written about the rules written about the rules - and he reinvigorates them all.  He doesn't get rid of the rule, but he reinterprets it so that the people could understand them as God originally meant them.  

Jesus was an interpreter, a translator.  He took these ancient laws, and he interpreted them so that people could understand what God had meant.  Jesus took almost each of the ten commandments, and redefined them in the Gospels.  In this story, he radically redefines the commandment about observing the Sabbath (sixth in our system - fifth in yours?) - that God made the Sabbath so that we could rest and relax and reconnect with God, not so that we would be slaves to keeping the observance.  

Because the rules, they keep us safe.  But God's grace - it sets us free.  

Maybe it's easier to keep the rules.  It's easier when everything is black and white and you can find loopholes.  It seems like most of the time when people talk to Jesus they are trying to find some loophole.  And over and over again, Jesus tries to explain that there aren't any loopholes.  

Love.  Love them.  Love your enemy.  Jesus doesn't care how often they've been mean to you - you forgive them in your heart, and you pray for them, and you learn to love them.  You can disagree - you can stand up against, you can speak out against - but that has to come from a place of love.  

The second that you feel your adversary is someone other than the devil, you have been fooled by your true adversary.  The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  Every second you allow your heart and soul to spend energy on hating someone is a moment that you have lost.  Hating someone is like drinking poison and then waiting for the other person to die.  

The Kingdom of God calls us to love.  When we love those who hate us - we expand that Kingdom just a little bit.  Do you get that?  Do you understand that?  This Kingdom of God is already here, but we are still building it.  We are still praying for it to come.  When we choose to forgive and to live in Christ's love - we expand that Kingdom.  

  

  

I've always liked John the Baptist.  Even as a child he was one of my favorite Bible characters.  John the Baptist was kind of a hipster when you think about it.  My understanding of hipster is the people who do things that no one else is doing - and that was John the Baptist.  Maybe he was the original hipster and everyone else is just a copycat.

"I started wearing clothes made from camel hair long before it was cool."  "Yeah, I'm going to this really cool little eatery - they only serve raw foods, only bugs and honey.  You've probably never heard of it."

John the Baptist, he was the inviter.  He invited people to come and see.  To come and taste.  To come and experience.

But when Jesus shows up, and says that he wants this whole "baptism" thing that John has essentially created out of nowhere - John is taken aback.  Because while John has always done his own thing, he knows that Jesus is special.  Jesus who was born of a virgin.  Jesus who was so wise even as a child.  Jesus, who was possibly the Messiah that the people had been waiting for.

My sister and always fought to see who would be first.  For decades, it was like we were playing one giant game to see who was smarter, faster, better, and more beloved by our parents.  My sister was four years older than me, so she was smarter than me for a long time.  Not anymore of course, but for a long time she was!  And one time we were sitting in the car while mom went to the bank, and this very fat woman walked in front of the car.  Rebecca made a really funny joke about this woman's name - it rhymed with Bumble bee  and so it was funny - and I laughed a lot.  I was maybe only four or five, so it didn't take much to make me laugh.   Mom came out of the bank at the same time as this woman, and as she got in the car I yelled out the joke so that mom could laugh, too.  But my mom didn't think the joke was funny ... and when we got home I got the wooden spoon.  And Rebecca won another point in our little game.

But what is really wonderful is that my sister and I have grown up, and we never play this game anymore.  Oh, sometimes we joke about it, but now we focus so much more on how we can help each other become better.  I remember when she was in grad school and we would drive somewhere and I would quiz her on medical terms for hours.  And today she supports this ministry every month so that we can finish the remodel of our new student center.  This is what friends do, and this is how John and Jesus treat each other.  
 
And John and Jesus have this little fight - because John knows he has been preparing the way for Jesus and wants Jesus to baptise him.  But Jesus insists on being baptized by John.  That it may be so.

We're going to pause for a few minutes, and everyone is going to get the name of someone famous placed on their backs.  You can only ask yes or no questions - and your job is to figure out who you are.

[we will encourage people to walk around and introduce themselves to anyone they don't know.]

Here is where we are in the story.  Everyone was trying to figure out who Jesus was.  Do you hear the description John gives of the one who is to come?  (John 3:11-12)  How would you like this introduction?  Whenever I'm introduced to someone and they explain that I speak Ukrainian I get really nervous ... because now there is lots of pressure to speak Ukrainian well.  And I always think about this when I read the description John gives - because it is at this moment that Jesus shows up.

To be baptised.

Baptism is such a special thing.  Think back to the last time you were at a baptism.  Were you struck by how holy that moment was?  Even if the parents were perhaps not so very religious - still it was this tremendous moment of covenant with God.

And as Jesus is baptised,heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

This is the moment - the moment when God declares in audible voice that Jesus is the son of God.  That this Kingdom of God thing is really real and that the prince is here to bring it.

I was twelve when I was baptized.  And I remember waiting for the magic to happen.  I remember in Sunday School talking about baptism and being nervous about it because it seemed like a magical thing.  I remember just waiting for something magical to happen.  I thought maybe I would never sin again.

And all of these years later, I am struck by how very magical that moment was.  It was a covenant.  When I told my parents that year that I wanted to go across the ocean and be a missionary, because of my baptism they knew that I would go where God wanted me to go.

This is one of the first moments in the Bible where God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all mentioned together - that they are all operating in their unique way - and yet all together.

This is the great beginning of the Kingdom of God.  How many of you fully understand the trinity?  I mean ... we get it ... but we don't fully understand it.  Jesus was fully God and fully man.  We don't fully understandit.  The Kingdom of Heaven is already here.  It's something that we don't fully understand, but that we live in and enjoy.

We live in this Kingdom, here and now, and yet we fight for this Kingdom to come.

Over these next few months, we are going to explore Matthew's Gospel.  We are going to explore the Kingdom of God and what it means for us today.

Amen.