This morning’s reading, Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest, a reading found in the final verses of Matthew’s 11th chapter
is one of the most popular passages in the Bible. Each of us is overburdened with the loads that we carry.
Whether our loads are the consequences of our own poor choices or simply the lousy hand that life has dealt us,
we all perk up our ears when we hear Jesus’ promise of rest.
We are tired and we need rest.
The Jewish audience who would have first read Matthew’s gospel was also tired and overburdened.
First-century Jewish peasants lived in a subsistence culture,
meaning after they were paid for their work, they had just enough to get by until the next day.
Life was lived one day at a time.
They were taxed by both their local government and the Roman Empire.
Add to this the many requirements which the Jewish religion heaped upon the backs of the people
and the picture was one of someone standing up to their neck in water.
A small ripple coming into the shore is enough to cover your head.
Living was a moment by moment thing, never knowing when you’ll drown.
As we prepare in the U.S. for Independence Day,
we are reminded of the year 1776 and another group of people who felt the oppressive burden of life.
Struggling to just get by in a land that was not always kind to them, American colonists
like their first-century Jewish peasant counterparts
were overtaxed by a foreign empire which ruled over them.
Finally, on July 4, 1776, thirteen colonies, then at war with Great Britain,
prepared a document that declared them to be independent states,
and thus no longer a part of the British Empire.
And today, on July 3, 2011,
each of us feels the lead weight of the burdens which our own society heaps upon us.
Many of us struggle with financial insecurity or health problems.
The stress and pressure that comes from twenty-first century living
has turned us into little more than survivalists.
And we find ourselves searching for a magic pill to make everything better,
something to help us ignore our loads if we cannot unburden ourselves from them.
But there is no magic pill to take away many of the burdens which we face,
such as the one of employment discrimination.
There is no pill that will allow us to marry the people we love.
One pill will not address the health care needs of the transgender community or the HIV community.
And one pill will not take away the pain and grief and loss associated with the under-reported abuse,
brutalization, and murder of our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender siblings.
Even these many centuries after the writing of this morning’s scripture,
many of us feel overburdened with life and count ourselves a success
if we have simply managed to make it from one day to the next.
But the irony is that if our lives aren’t ones of total exhaustion,
then we do our best to make them that way by filling them to the brim with too much activity,
more good deeds than is expected of any one person,
and an overabundance of unrealistic deadlines.
Episcopal priest and theologian, Barbara Brown Taylor describes it this way:
I may believe that I live by God's grace, but I act like a scout collecting merit badges.
I have a list of things to do that is a mile long,
and the majority of them are things I think I ought to do that I had better do
or God will not love me anymore.
I thought that the way to find rest for my soul was to finish my list of things to do
and present it to God like a full book of savings stamps.
How many of us are busy filling up that book of stamps
and collecting those merit badges until even they grow into a heavy burden?
But even as tired as we may feel, when we hear the words from this morning’s text,
we still have mixed feelings. We like the part that says, “I will give you rest.”
But we hesitate when we hear the words that immediately follow: “Take my yoke upon you.”
But you see, there are two kinds of yokes.
There is the single-yoke variety in which the yoke is placed across the shoulders
and fitting buckets hung from poles on each side.
And although they will tire easily and have to sit down to rest, and their shoulders will ache all the time,
humans can carry almost as much as donkeys when wearing this sort of yoke.
But there is another type of yoke: a double yoke.
It requires twice as many creatures, but they can work all day
because under a shared yoke one can rest a little while the other pulls.
They can take turns bearing the brunt of the load; they can cover for each other.
And at the end of the day both may be tired but neither is exhausted because they are a team.
Most of us have been operating under a single yoke.
We have loaded ourselves down with good deeds, pure thoughts, blameless lives, and perfect obedience.
And we have been trying to do it all on our own so we can make God proud of us.
Or so we can finally feel that maybe we are worthy of love.
God’s love, if not the love of others or ourselves.
But that’s not the right image.
And in her sermon on this morning’s text Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that actually Jesus is standing before us,
with half of a double yoke across his shoulders and the other half is open and waiting for us.
It’s a yoke that requires nothing more from us than to step into it and become part of the team.
And just as the way of Jesus is the way of love, his yoke is also a yoke of love.
And if we make the choice to step into that yoke, as we walk side by side with Jesus,
allowing him to take the load when we get tired, miraculously, the things that we were trying to accomplish all on our own,
the things that seemed as if they were crushing down upon us,
the good deeds that we grudgingly did,
these things seem to become much lighter because now they are done out of love for our neighbor.
And for those of us who have read this morning’s text through the many centuries,
whether they were first-century Jews, eighteenth-century colonialists, or twenty-first century LGBT activists,
Jesus invites us all to learn from him a new approach to life.
When we saddle ourselves up next to Jesus we will find that, although combative and strategic resistance
may effect change for the community-at-large,
if we as individuals hope to find rest it will only be when we cease our struggles against the powers that oppose us.
Learn from me, Jesus says, for I am gentle and humble in heart.
Jesus invites us to live calmly against chaos.
This way, the heart remains at peace.
It’s no wonder that we return to these words over and over again.
It’s no surprise that this text is like medicine for the soul.
This invitation by Jesus which is not to the righteous,
not to those who claim to be his followers,
but to all who are weary,
this open-ended, all-inclusive invitation assures us that we don’t have to carry the load all on our own.
We don’t have to exhaust ourselves with the heavy loads of good deeds and perfect obedience.
All we need to do is accept the invitation to join Jesus in a way of love,
a way of life that honors our neighbor.
And as we walk beside Jesus, he invites us to learn from him,
to learn a new way of living, a way of peace in our dog-eat-dog world.
A gentle and humble way, instead of the ways in which we have been operating.
A way of relationship, rather than our more familiar way of going it alone.
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. Amen.