Matthew 11:28-30
“Come to me, all you who 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.”
We have been doing a considerably amount of bouncing around in and out of the lectionary so far this year, but we’ve only managed to hit a few of Matthew’s readings–and it is Matthew’s year, so I’m going to try a little harder to cover more of Matthew’s gospel for a bit, because even if we don’t see the Bible as inerrant, and historically factual, we still can learn a great deal from it.
Matthew’s account is the second of the gospels to be written -- Mark’s was first, and Matthew was taken in large part directly from Mark. In fact, as much as 90% of Mark’s gospel was copied almost directly into Matthew’s account. Matthew is considerably longer than Mark, so the writer did add a great deal of original work that’s not from Mark.
It was assumed to have been written by the disciple Matthew and thus considered to be a first-hand account of Jesus’ last years, but this has been pretty well discredited in the last century or so. It is now, (based on internal evidence) thought to have been written in the 80’s or early 90’s, a full fifty years at least, after the life of Jesus and so it's unlikely to be an eye-witness account.
Given the context for this reading it would be easy enough to assume that Jesus here is talking only about the burdensome rules that the religious authorities of that time put onto ordinary people. We’ve talked about these before and how many were just burdens and little or no actual help in guiding people in their walk with God.
However, I think it is entirely possible that Jesus is talking here about other burdens as well, such as poverty or illness. Maybe the burdens that society in general place on us, or family, or friends, or work – or perhaps, even our own expectations of ourselves. These last can be the worst.
Society places burdens on all of us. Some benefit us all, many only benefit a few. Some are in the form of actual rules and laws: laws against willful harm in all its many aspects. Others are less formal – e.g., rules of common decency, or social manners. But then there are the other kind of rules, the ones we don’t say out loud. like ‘money is what really matters’, or ‘you can’t be one of the important people if you don’t act just like us’. And, worst of all, those binding beliefs that if we are poor, or ugly, or exhausted, or not free, it is somehow our own fault – we deserve it.
These are the heavy burdens from which Jesus promises us rest. Not by Jesus just snapping his fingers and making those burdens go away. That may not be ‘part of the plan,’ I don’t know, but Jesus asks us instead to share his yoke – which connects us in all kinds of ways.
What he is offering us is to share our burdens, to be responsible for at least half of that load, and I think we can recognize that when two share a burden, unless they are perfectly matched in strength, the stronger will always end up pulling more of the weight. That would be Jesus.
If we are burdened with poverty or depression, grief or fear, pain or failure, Jesus is with us to lighten that load. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” he tells us, “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.”
I think these are some of the most beautiful words in scripture. The gentleness, the caring. This type of statement is why I choose to follow Jesus. When Jesus speaks here, I hear the loving voice of the One who created all life – the voice of the One who loves us, often in spite of ourselves – the One who will always hold us in love. I don’t know if we actually put enough attention on the fact that Jesus loved us all – not just in some abstract ‘it’s the right thing to do” manner, but really loved (and loves) us—each of us—fellow sharers of this life on this planet.
One last thing – I came across a fragment of a poem this week. It had nothing to do with Jesus....but..... The poem was supposedly written by Hafez, the 14th century Persian poet who has become quite popular in recent years – except that it turns out it really isn’t by Hafez – it’s a fake! That’s really not important to the point I want to make so I’m just going to skip over that right now and concentrate on the words themselves and what I heard in them.
The poem fragment reads like this:
The more I thought about this, the more I realized that I was hearing it as the perfect poetic depiction of the loving Jesus. I’m most definitely not saying it was written about Jesus or with any thought of him in mind. I’m not trying to co-opt it. I was, and am, struck by how perfectly it happens to describe the Jesus I’m speaking of here today. We all build cages for each other – cages made of our expectations – and Jesus, the one who wants to share our burdens – “keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful prisoners." ..... That's such a beautiful metaphor.
Our burdens shove us into boxes, into cages. Maybe we’ve been in them so long we don’t even notice that’s where we are. But Jesus sees us there and comes to bring us keys to free us from those cages, free us from our burdens....for his yoke is easy, and its burden is light.
Thanks be to God.
Matthew’s account is the second of the gospels to be written -- Mark’s was first, and Matthew was taken in large part directly from Mark. In fact, as much as 90% of Mark’s gospel was copied almost directly into Matthew’s account. Matthew is considerably longer than Mark, so the writer did add a great deal of original work that’s not from Mark.
It was assumed to have been written by the disciple Matthew and thus considered to be a first-hand account of Jesus’ last years, but this has been pretty well discredited in the last century or so. It is now, (based on internal evidence) thought to have been written in the 80’s or early 90’s, a full fifty years at least, after the life of Jesus and so it's unlikely to be an eye-witness account.
Given the context for this reading it would be easy enough to assume that Jesus here is talking only about the burdensome rules that the religious authorities of that time put onto ordinary people. We’ve talked about these before and how many were just burdens and little or no actual help in guiding people in their walk with God.
However, I think it is entirely possible that Jesus is talking here about other burdens as well, such as poverty or illness. Maybe the burdens that society in general place on us, or family, or friends, or work – or perhaps, even our own expectations of ourselves. These last can be the worst.
Society places burdens on all of us. Some benefit us all, many only benefit a few. Some are in the form of actual rules and laws: laws against willful harm in all its many aspects. Others are less formal – e.g., rules of common decency, or social manners. But then there are the other kind of rules, the ones we don’t say out loud. like ‘money is what really matters’, or ‘you can’t be one of the important people if you don’t act just like us’. And, worst of all, those binding beliefs that if we are poor, or ugly, or exhausted, or not free, it is somehow our own fault – we deserve it.
These are the heavy burdens from which Jesus promises us rest. Not by Jesus just snapping his fingers and making those burdens go away. That may not be ‘part of the plan,’ I don’t know, but Jesus asks us instead to share his yoke – which connects us in all kinds of ways.
What he is offering us is to share our burdens, to be responsible for at least half of that load, and I think we can recognize that when two share a burden, unless they are perfectly matched in strength, the stronger will always end up pulling more of the weight. That would be Jesus.
If we are burdened with poverty or depression, grief or fear, pain or failure, Jesus is with us to lighten that load. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” he tells us, “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.”
I think these are some of the most beautiful words in scripture. The gentleness, the caring. This type of statement is why I choose to follow Jesus. When Jesus speaks here, I hear the loving voice of the One who created all life – the voice of the One who loves us, often in spite of ourselves – the One who will always hold us in love. I don’t know if we actually put enough attention on the fact that Jesus loved us all – not just in some abstract ‘it’s the right thing to do” manner, but really loved (and loves) us—each of us—fellow sharers of this life on this planet.
One last thing – I came across a fragment of a poem this week. It had nothing to do with Jesus....but..... The poem was supposedly written by Hafez, the 14th century Persian poet who has become quite popular in recent years – except that it turns out it really isn’t by Hafez – it’s a fake! That’s really not important to the point I want to make so I’m just going to skip over that right now and concentrate on the words themselves and what I heard in them.
The poem fragment reads like this:
- "The small man builds cages for everyone he knows while the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low, keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful rowdy prisoners."
The more I thought about this, the more I realized that I was hearing it as the perfect poetic depiction of the loving Jesus. I’m most definitely not saying it was written about Jesus or with any thought of him in mind. I’m not trying to co-opt it. I was, and am, struck by how perfectly it happens to describe the Jesus I’m speaking of here today. We all build cages for each other – cages made of our expectations – and Jesus, the one who wants to share our burdens – “keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful prisoners." ..... That's such a beautiful metaphor.
Our burdens shove us into boxes, into cages. Maybe we’ve been in them so long we don’t even notice that’s where we are. But Jesus sees us there and comes to bring us keys to free us from those cages, free us from our burdens....for his yoke is easy, and its burden is light.
Thanks be to God.
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