Year A

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Burden is Easy

On July 4, 1776, 241 years ago when those first thirteen colonies declared independence from Great Britain, they were also declaring their dependence on one another. Not one of them could stand alone against that great power. They needed each others help and support. They had to be united and most importantly they needed together to be dependent upon God’s help and mercy. Generations of those who have gone on before us have needed this same dependence upon God’s help and mercy. We are one nation under God. God’s mercy has placed us in human community and we need each other. We depend upon one another.

For example, just think of our dependence on others in something as common as our morning breakfast. The coffee beans, fruit and grain for bread were grown by a farmer somewhere. A truck driver may have driven long hours to deliver them to the market. A clerk may have gotten up early to get to the store so the doors could be open. It took many hands to deliver our first meal of the day. The scriptures remind us that all these are gifts of God. By the labor of others, God feeds and clothes us. The physical gifts from God keep us alive and the spiritual gifts give meaning to our lives. What a comfort it is to know that God loves us so much that God wants to provide us with what we need at all times so we can be the people God needs us to be.

Today’s Gospel lesson comes from a section in Matthew where John the Baptist and Jesus are talking about what Jesus’ ministry is going to be. John the Baptist had a different picture of what Jesus’ ministry would bring to the world and people are comparing what John had said and what Jesus was doing and wondering about their ministry. We hear Jesus’ response in the passage today where he recognizes John’s ministry and at the same time, he tells people that his ministry is different. The final verses lead us to see that Jesus’ ministry is also full of compassion and mercy. We hear about this great compassion in one of the greatest comfort and consolation passages in the scriptures.

Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest” This is a promise, filled with hope. When our best efforts fail, when our burdens seem impossible to bear, when we forget our dependence upon God and each other, God says I will lift the load off your back and replace it with a lighter yoke, lighter because it yokes us with one who is greater than us and whose strength can help us bear any burden. Jesus’ words call us to be dependent upon God’s help and mercy. They also are a call to discipleship which involves living our lives with integrity and faithfulness to God and this requires that we realize we will find rest for carrying the burden of the gospel by living out the Gospel, by living out the unique mission to which Jesus calls each of us. When we live the gospel message of love of God and love of neighbor, we find God’s rest.

Jesus insists that this blessing is known, not by the mighty and powerful, but by the infants and the lowly, leading us to realize again how important it is for us to help each other find God and carry those burdens together because we do depend upon each other. Jesus calls us to come with him, to come because of him, to live and serve as we are called and this should lead us to ask ourselves, are we a comfort to those who are weary and carrying heavy burdens? Are we engaged with those whose struggles are profound and whose needs are overwhelming? This way of thinking is certainly not what the folks in the marketplace expected that day. Jesus certainly didn’t meet the expectations of those in the market; he didn’t dance to their tunes, he didn’t cry with their grief. He was and is about something else.

Not walking in step with the establishment is hard work, and it can be dangerous as Jesus will soon find out. During this holiday week, it’s not hard to think of the names of those who made hard choices for this nation: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and so many others. It’s not hard to think of those whose impact has changed the world: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, and so many others. But in some ways, our attention given to them can actually feed the apathy of our age, for how many of us will be another Washington? Another King? Another Mother Teresa? And if we can’t be them, what difference can we make?

Such is the thinking of the so-called wise and intelligent ones to whom Jesus refers, the ones who have lived life and already know that life is as it is, and we can never change it. Our fate is our fate; why try to make a difference, to make things better? Why try to face the challenges of our age? We can only tend to our little world, to our personal space and leave the rest we leave to God or fate or simply to everyone else. Yet, during a week of patriotic celebration, how can we fail to reflect on the ways in which our generation understands, or fails to understand, the reason for celebration? It brings to mind the Lady Liberty statue in New York Harbor with that inscription from Emma Lazarus: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Those words echo Jesus’ invitation: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden.”

In this prayer lifted to God we begin to realize just how clearly his focus is centered on those who are far from the places of influence that we so yearn for. His focus is not on the powerful, wise and intelligent ones who don’t need God. The blessings of God are hidden from those who are filled with the wisdom and wiles of this world. Instead, it is the infants of this world, the ones who are dependent upon God who somehow understand best the ways of God. It is on those who understand it takes all of us working together to bear burdens and make a difference, a difference that finds rest for our souls.

If you have ever read National Geographic or traveled around the world, you may know that there are two basic kinds of yokes that can be used to bear burdens: single ones and shared ones. The single ones are very efficient. By placing a yoke across the shoulders and fitting buckets hung from poles on each side, human beings can carry almost as much as a donkey. But you tire easily and your shoulders will ache and it is impossible to move great loads under a single yoke. But a shared yoke works differently. A pair works together, sharing the load. They take turns resting while the other pulls. They take turns bearing the load because their yoke is shared and when the day is done they are tired but not exhausted.

Today, Jesus assures us that those who please God are not those who can carry the heaviest loads alone but those who are willing to share their loads, those who are willing to share their yokes by entering into relationship with the one who says, “Come to me…you will find rest for your souls. The easy yoke is a call to see God’s kingdom realized here. It is rest offered to those who will embrace the worthy task of bearing and sharing the load of others. Let us go forth to love and serve the Lord!