"Easy Yokes for Sagging Shoulders" + 8 Pentecost A + Zechariah 9:9-12; Romans 7:15-25; Matthew 11:16-19, July 6, 2008

Transcription

1 "Easy Yokes for Sagging Shoulders" + 8 Pentecost A + Zechariah 9:9-12; Romans 7:15-25; Matthew 11:16-19, July 6, 2008 Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen. The text for this morning's message is the Gospel for this day. "The Fourth of July is certainly not a church holiday, but it is an opportunity for the church and the preacher to reflect on the history of the republic, the extraordinary group of leaders who gathered in Philadelphia to declare independence and their remarkable conclusion that at the heart of the American revolution would be individual liberty and freedom of conscience." So begins the lead article from the "Editor's Desk" in the latest edition of the Christian Century entitled "Free to Believe," It goes on to describe Thomas Jefferson as he stood in the doorway of the White House on New Year's Day 1802 and received delivery of a 1,235 pound cheese. Painted on the crust of the enormous gift was the inscription: 'Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.' The cheese was a gift to the president from a Baptist church in Western Massachusetts. One year earlier the campaign of John Adams was attacking Jefferson as an infidel and atheist. The Baptists may have worried about Jefferson 's faith, but they respected his defense of religious liberty-and hence the gigantic gift of cheese." They appreciated that Jefferson stood for the casting off the yoke of political and especially religious tyrants where a state church was required. Today's Gospel concerns yokes those cumbersome appliances worn by beasts of burden so they can do their work. This text contains some of the most comforting words Jesus ever spoke, to all who are weary (and who isn't?) because they are an invitation to "rest" in Him and a promise that as we do so, we will find His "yoke" easy and His Page 1 of 5

2 burden light not that there will be no burden no work, but that it will be light duty as we rest in Him.. If this were all the wandering rabbi Jesus had ever said about the "burden" of following Him, He would have proven the most popular preacher on earth, at least until His followers discovered that His "yoke" wasn't always easy and His "burden" wasn't always "light" at least in terms of what people consider an easy life without any cares or trials. Within a few short chapters of Matthew, Jesus apparently contradicts Himself. Two weeks ago, one chapter before this one, Jesus talked not about easy yokes, but about sharp swords; not about peace, but about conflict, not about light burdens but heavy crosses. Our chapter for this morning begins with John the Baptist imprisoned and soon to be executed; I wonder if he would have said the yoke of discipleship was easy? What do you think? Is it easy for you to follow Jesus or like most of us, is it hard for you to reconcile a light burden with a heavy cross? Or, like Paul complained, do you also wonder why good intentions have such a difficult struggle turning into good choices. How does it strike you that the Gospel apparently promises "Easy Yokes for Sagging Shoulders," but also demands that those same sagging shoulders bear crosses that are anything but nice and easy? I don't know if we always understand that conundrum. Living as we do, in a land where we celebrate freedom not only on the fourth of July, but every day, the notion of ourselves bearing a cross and suffering all kinds of injuries because of it (since after all, a cross is a killing machine) seems rather antiquated and counter-cultural. We deserve our freedom as citizens of the U.S. after all, we were born to it. We have rights, privileges, and SWAG (stuff we all get) and we'd really rather not share with the rest of the world's population who didn't happen to be born here. Who cares about their tyrants? As Christians should we care about tyrants elsewhere that abuse, oppress and annihilate whole cultures especially if they aren't even Christian cultures? Page 2 of 5

3 As for the cross we bear as Christians well, in reality that is not some particular illness, injury, loss, condition or hardship as so many people seem to think. Yesterday I buried a 25 year old who died of cancer. I'd married him to his high school sweetheart Kristine last October. They'd moved up the wedding date due to his prognosis. He died last Saturday on what was supposed to have been their wedding day. One of my little third graders, now 37, is in a diabetic coma in Dallas has been for more than 2 weeks. They don't know why he isn't waking up. He probably won't. Those kind of painful hardships are common to all people Christian and non-christian because we live in a sinful world where bad things happen to all people. The cross we bear is not some particular hardship but is the disdain, the discomfort, the burden of being persecuted and looked down upon for following Jesus. So what does this text mean about an easy yoke and a burden that's light? I realize that here in the Midway the only "yolk" most of us ever see is the one that comes in the middle of an egg. But if you lived back when Jesus walked this earth, or even a hundred years ago (in my Jottings article I mentioned my Dad worked a team with a yoke and he would be 100 this fall) back then yokes were as common as lawnmowers. Somewhere back in history, someone discovered that putting two animals together in one yoke, actually more than doubled their pulling power. And that is what Jesus was getting at. Now if you look it up in the Bible, the word yoke appears about 50 times, the vast majority of which are completely unappealing to believers like us: they are symbols of bondage and heavy burdens. In first Corinthians Paul even warns believers not to be "yoked" or married to unbelievers, because their unbelief will drag you down; the way one ox stumbling makes both oxen fall, though he mentions your faith may pull them up bring them to faith. But twice the word yoke is used in a positive sense. Here, in this Gospel and once in Philippians where Paul refers to a co-worker as a "yoke-fellow." Here Jesus is inviting us to be His "yoke fellows," His Page 3 of 5

4 partners in accomplishing God's will for the world. It is not just an honor but a promise of a strong partner in life and clear through to eternity. Does that make His yoke "easy"? Well, there's a better way to translate that word: you see, an easy yoke is one that fits well. I never got to see my father hitch up a team to plow in the fields but I saw my uncle help harness horses at the County Fair when I was a boy. There was all kind of adjusting buckles made to lay flat settling the straps down on just the right place for each horse to feel comfortable. Ancient yoke makers would whittle and sand the wooden yoke to precisely fit the beasts of burden bearing it. When I remembered that as I was working on this, it occurred to me that for all the crosses we would rather not bear and don't usually bear "gladly", each and every one of those is tailor-made to fit the one who carries it. Only I can live my life. Only you can live yours. The situations where you will face challenges to your faith and the comments people might make to put you down or cause you to suffer are not the same as the ones I might face. Similarly, my yoke won't fit you. Your yoke won't fit me. But every yoke that every believer has ever been granted by grace to wear, on its other side, there is Jesus pulling perfectly adjusting the pace and the strain to ease our load working all things together for our good as we are called according to His purpose. We may not understand each other's struggles. But Jesus does. Though we are encouraged to "bear one another's burdens" we may not always be as helpful as we would intend. But Jesus is, which is why we take on His yoke and learn from Him. From Jesus we learn how to be better yoke-fellows with each other. Does that make sense? No. It doesn't. It takes faith trust to narrow the gap between our wisdom and God's wisdom. Jesus said that things like this are hidden from the braniacs and revealed to the babies to those whose inabilities leave them no choice but to depend on a power and a person greater than themselves. That powerful person carried a Page 4 of 5

5 cross heavier than you or I will ever shoulder. By holy baptism that perfect person yoked Himself to imperfect people. His burden is light when we lay our hands upon it and discover that Jesus has laid His hands on us, to buck us up and to bear us up. In Jesus' name. Amen. Now may our great God who made us for Himself, bear with our restless hearts until they rest at last in Him. Page 5 of 5