Rest for the Weary 7-9-23
Rest for the Weary
Rom 7:15-25a; Mt 11:16-19, 25-30
Rom 7:15-25a
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Mt 11:16-19, 25-30
“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “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.”
Prayer – Lord, in our current time and place it feels like there are so many burdens – the fear and uncertainty with a world-wide pandemic; how do we survive in this new normal where we can’t travel, we can’t see our families and friends, we can’t do church the way we always have. Remind us that we don’t have to carry the load of life all by ourselves – you are here always, by our side, to share the load – amen.
“I’m exhausted . . . I’m stressed to the limit . . . I’m bone tired . . . I feel drained . . . I’m running on fumes . . . I feel like I’m at the end of my rope hanging on for dear life.” How many of us have heard others speak those words? How many of us have heard those words frantically running around in our own brains? At one time or another, most of us have been there. We live in a fast-paced world where most folks believe that hurrying, rushing, working too hard, until our energies are depleted and our well-being in tatters is the pathway to success and fulfillment.
And then we come to church. Welcome! Welcome to this church, in the meadow, this place for tired and weary and anxious people. In our text for today, Jesus offers a clear invitation and a promise – “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Such appropriate words for us today in our current world and context. But will we rest in Jesus’ invitation and promise, that is the question?
This past week we’ve been celebrating America’s Independence. With freedom and justice in our consciousness and conscience, I’ve been thinking about 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 are weary and carrying heavy burdens and want to be freed, once and for all.”
We may come to church for many different reasons. Maybe you’ve come because Mama or Grandma said to go. Maybe you’re here to enjoy the music, the singing, maybe even what I have to say. But we also know that too many of us come here stressed and worried, troubled and tired. But will we, can we share the load and find rest for the weary?
This morning’s passage from Matthew’s gospel contains one of the great consolation passages of all time – Come with your trials and troubles, hand them off to me and I will give you rest. It is a passage you can find etched on tombstones or worked into stained glass windows or perhaps cross-stitched and hung in a church parlor. It is a wonderful promise, a comforting promise to which many of us turn when our burdens seem impossible to bear, when our best efforts to cope with them have failed and we are close to collapses. It is a promise that offers hope for help, hope of a God who will lift the sweaty loads off our backs and replace them with a lighter yoke, lighter because it yokes us with one who is greater than we are, and with whose strong help we can bear any burden.
That is what the passage means to many of us today, but it meant something different when Jesus first said it. He had just finished preaching in several Galilean cities, where his welcome had been less than warm. The people in those cities were smart and capable. Despite Roman occupation/oppression things were working pretty well economically and religiously. They were not looking for help and certainly didn’t need it from an itinerant street preacher who promised to share the load.
Jesus offers to lighten the load of all who are carrying heavy burdens, some which have presumably been laid on the shoulders of simple people by the smart and capable. In the first century, this burden may have been literal sticks and bricks, the increasing weight of Rome, or the invisible load of any of life’s grief and fear. But since this is Matthew’s gospel, it is likely that Jesus meant religious burdens as well. Burdens to live in a certain manner, to abide by stringent rules and decrees, of who had the authority to speak for God and what those authorities said about the yoke God placed on humankind.
Then, as now, some proposed weightier requirements than others. Then, as now, some placed more weight on their own view of those requirements than others. Thanks to the apostle Paul, most Christians identify this struggle as one between faith and works. In traditional telling, when Jesus offered his heavy-laden listeners a lighter yoke, he was offering them a religion of grace to replace the religion of works under which they were laboring.
As best as I can tell, the truth is that every human being who longs to know God lives with the tension between grace and works. On one hand, we long to believe that God comes to us as we are, utterly unimpressed by all we ‘do’ to prove our worth. On the other hand, we live in a world where those things we do often work very well, so that it is next to impossible to give up believing them too. I may believe that I live and am loved by God because of grace, but I act like, I work like, I have to earn the salvation merit badge. I may believe that my life depends on God’s grace, but I act like it depends on me and how many ‘good’ deeds I can perform, as if every day was American Idol, or the Voice, and God had nothing better to do than keep up with my score.
We human beings have a perverse way of turning Jesus’ easy yoke back into a hard one again, by driving ourselves to do, do, do more and whipping ourselves to be, be, be more when all God asks is that we belong to God. That comes first, everything else follows that, and yet, we have the tendency to get the order reversed. We think and act like are all kinds of requirements to be met first, all kinds of rules to follow, all kinds of burdens to bear, so that we are not yet free to belong to God. We are so loaded down, not only for our jobs and our families, and all the other responsibilities but by something deeper down in us, something that keeps telling us that we must do more, be better, try harder, prove ourselves worthy or we will never earn God’s love. It is the most tiring work in the world, and it is never done.
In our current time and context, there is much that feels burdensome in our world. It seems like each morning brings a new ‘mass shooting’ where multiple people have been shot and killed or wounded. With there being an election next year there is a great deal of angst on which party will take control and which will not. And for us here at Trinity, we look ahead to a few weeks when we will begin a new chapter as a faith community. Certainly these concerns as well as how will the Cowboys do this year, college football, a loved one’s new cancer diagnosis, attending a wedding or graduation party – all of these things and far more impacts our everyday feelings of burdens and challenges. And all God wants is for us to share the load.
Some of 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 but not nearly as efficient as the shared ones. Shared yokes allows taking turns to bear the load; shared yokes can cover for each other without laying the burden down. Sharing the burden allows two to work as a team and no one ends up bearing the whole load.
I think/believe a big part of our challenge is the inherent illusion that our yokes are single ones, that we have got to go it alone, that the only way to please God is to load ourselves down with heavy requirements – good deeds, pure thoughts, blameless lives, perfect obedience, self-reliance – all those rules we make and break and make and break, while all the time Jesus is standing right there in front of us, half of a shared yoke across his own shoulders, the other half wide open and waiting for us to step into it and become part of the team.
‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ No wonder those words have weathered the centuries so well; no wonder they are still music to our ears. Despite our best efforts, despite our misperceptions, they assure us that those who please God are not those who carry the heaviest loads alone but those who are willing to share their loads, who are willing to share the load by entering into relationship with the one whose invitation is a standing one. ‘Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ It is all about trusting that God wants to ease our burdens, giving rest to the weary – the question is are we willing to rest in God’s grace – thanks be to God – amen.
(Adapted from Barbara Brown Taylor)