7/5/20
(Gen. 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67;Ps. 45:11-18; Rom. 7:15-25a; Mt. 11:16-19, 25-30)
Our son Harry had a somewhat checkered career in high school (academically and otherwise), but the one thing he was really proud of – and will be all his life – was making the varsity soccer team his senior year. He was never a starter, only got into about half the games; but his school is known for having one of the best soccer programs in the Northeast; it recruits from all over the country, and internationally; so just making the team was a big deal.
Harry had been good at sports since early childhood, but the training regimen, and the self-discipline, required at this level were of a whole different order than what he was used to. And I’m glad that he had this achievement to be proud of; but I’m much more glad because of what the experience taught him, and which has stayed with him: that is, the value of staying in good physical condition, how it makes your life better; and how to maintain that condition, through exercise and diet. He can literally feel the benefits, and can feel the cost when he doesn’t keep it up: the cost to his work, and to how he feels about himself. And I’m glad he learned that when he does keep it up, it gets results. This experience changed his life forever.
I think the single most important factor in what changed Harry’s approach – what made him willing to buy into that self-discipline – was the coach. He was a young man, not a slave-driver, he didn’t yell; he motivated his players by quietly communicating to them the connection between their personal commitment to the work that was necessary, and the result, which was not defined in wins and losses: it was in knowing their commitment to each other to give their best; and knowing what it felt like when they didn’t, when they failed to honor that. Once that connection is made, the work isn’t nearly as hard; because it’s a matter of the spirit.
Jesus says something along the same lines in today’s gospel reading. (It’s a passage which sounds disjointed and a little obscure, and I’ll try to address that.) But Jesus’ words at the end are (I think) some of the most profoundly moving in the Bible: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest….For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” It’s hard to imagine a human to whom that invitation would not appeal. Especially these days, with the burdens of the pandemic, and the cultural upheaval that’s going on all around us, and not just in our community, or our state, or our country, but around the world.
But in Christian experience we learn to trust the words of Jesus. We know that this is the voice of our good shepherd, whose words are truly timeless, and who speaks to us all across the centuries. Whatever burdens we are carrying, Jesus says to us – each of us personally – “Come to me, and I will give you rest” – is like a drink of cool water to a parched throat.
But Jesus immediately follows this promise with an instruction: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” This is the first step in our part of the process: through which Jesus gives usrest. Some people might react negatively to the image of a yoke, which seems to equate us with so-called “dumb animals” and seems to ask us for mindless submission to forced labor. But in Jesus’ time, when most people literally earned their bread this way, the farmer and the draft animal in the yoke, pulling the plow, had to work together – each needed the other – to get the work done. And the yoke was there to give direction and discipline, without which the goal – to create what was needed for the sustenance of life – could not be achieved. Jesus chose his metaphors pretty well.
Today’s reading sounds disjointed and obscure because it contains jagged pieces of one unified context. I’m going to spend a little time giving you that context from Matthew chapter 11, from which today’s reading is drawn, so please bear with me a bit, because it’s necessary in understanding what Jesus says: why his yoke is easy, and his burden is light; how it gives rest and refreshment.
Jesus is speaking to a world that is in just as much turmoil as ours: first-century Palestine, suffering under the iron-handed occupation of the Roman Empire, and the domination of the religious authorities, who were suffocating the Spirit. Jesus is speaking to a crowd, and he begins by speaking to them about John the Baptist: John who preached the coming of the Messiah, God’s Chosen One; and the need for repentance – turning in a new direction – as the necessary preparation for that event.
Jesus is talking about John because, as Matthew tells us at the beginning of chapter 11, John is in prison, has heard about Jesus and his ministry, and has sent some of his own disciples to ask him, Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?
When they do ask him this, in chapter 11, Jesus doesn’t answer them with a yes or no. He says, instead, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” As he does all the time, Jesus is saying, essentially, the answer to your question involves you. As he says to his own disciples, Who do you say that I am? The answer involves you because that’s the only answer that’s going to be meaningful: honest and truthful; and because then we’ll be in a relationship with each other: alive, together; and that’s the whole point.
As John’s disciples depart, Jesus speaks to the crowd in praise of John (“…among those born of woman no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist…”), but then immediately connects this to his own mission: “…yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Jesus has come to proclaim the presence of that kingdom.
And that’s where we come to the first verses of today’s reading. Jesus talks about children playing games in the marketplace to compare the people’s reaction to John and to himself: make-believe sad games in imitation of John, make-believe happy games in imitation of Jesus. Jesus tells them, Don’t get wrapped up in such trivialities. John and I are involved in one mission: God’s mission. We just have different jobs. John was the one who came to you to say, Get ready! The axe is headed for the root of the tree; so repent! Turn in a new direction! John was hard to take, a doomsayer, because he had to shake you awake. That was the first part of God’s mission, here, now.
My part (Jesus says) – now that you’re awake – is to tell you the good news: of the peace, and the joy, that are yours, here and now, because of God’s love, for you, which is infinite; and eternal. That’s what makes my yoke easy, and my burden light. I am here to show you how that happens in practice. So come to me; and you will find rest for your souls.
God’s presence has to happen through us. That’s what makes it a yoke: our commitment to live in the awareness of God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s justice: to see where it wants to happen – because it does want to happen – every single day, right around us; and to be part of that, through what we say and what we do. When we take on that yoke, we see how light it is; how it’s really not a yoke, at all: it is life; and life in abundance. Thanks be to God.