Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Easy and Light” Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Three years ago, when I last preached on this scripture passage, we were in the middle of a global health crisis. COVID-19 had swept around the world and into New York state. Down in New York City, the scale of sickness and death was horrific. Even in the North Country, we felt the effects. Restaurants were closed and businesses were offering curbside service. We were working from home and meeting by Zoom. We worshipped online. A trip to the grocery store felt like a strange and dangerous safari. We lived in our masks and applied hand sanitizer at the slightest provocation. We were scared and we were stressed.

Three years later, it feels like we have turned the page on COVID. Thank, goodness! But surprisingly, although our pandemic worries have eased, we are still stressed. The most recent Harris Poll of the American Psychological Association found that 72% of Americans report that stress has a daily negative impact on their lives. We are feeling overwhelmed and worried. We are having trouble sleeping. We may be turning to alcohol, recreational drugs, or prescription sleep aids to find rest.

COVID may no longer top the list of our anxieties, but other concerns have risen to take its place.  76% of us are worried about the future of our nation. 62% of us believe that our children will not inherit a better world. That may be because 70% have drawn the conclusion that the government does not care about the interests of people like us. We are worried about inflation. 83% of us believe it is a significant problem. In the past month, more than half of us have had to make difficult household decisions about what we could or could not buy. We are also worried about violence. The epidemic of mass shootings and gun violence in this country is deeply troubling and stressful for 75% of us. And perhaps because most of us have concluded that the government doesn’t care, we feel powerless to create change. 34% of all adults report that their stress is completely overwhelming on most days, affecting our mental health, eating habits, physical health, and our relationships with others. How is your stress level these days?

Jesus and his friends knew all about stress. Israel had been an occupied nation for more than seventy years, with the soldiers of Rome stationed in fortresses and garrisons throughout the land, all the way from Jesus’ home base in Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee to the Antonia Fortress, right next door to the Temple in the heart of Jerusalem.  The cost of foreign occupation was borne by the people through exorbitant taxes.  All those taxes meant economic hardship.  While we have supports in our society to help neighbors in financial crisis, a first century family might have to resort to debt slavery, selling a family member into slavery to avoid financial catastrophe. 

Beyond occupation and economics, Jesus’ friends coped with a spiritual stress that might sound completely alien to us. From his first sermon in Nazareth, Jesus faced harsh criticism and opposition from the powerful religious forces of his day, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Chief Priests, and scribes.  Jesus’ opponents insisted that all 613 commandments of the Torah should be carefully observed. This included 365 negative commands that demanded that the people abstain from behaviors like eating unclean foods or associating with sinners and Gentiles. The Torah also included 248 positive commandments, things we must do, like offering first fruits of the harvest, circumcising male infants, and resting the land during the seventh year.  613 laws of the Torah. That’s a lot of dos and don’ts.

Jesus certainly knew his Torah, but he believed that this rigid interpretation of scripture had become a harsh burden for the people, a burden that defeated the Torah’s intent to bring people closer to God. Jesus argued that a single great commandment fulfilled the heart of the Torah: to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Jesus chose love over law and hoped his friends would, too. Yet Jesus’ critics took one look at his loving choice to break bread with sinners, touch lepers, heal on the Sabbath, and show mercy to tax collectors, prostitutes, and even Gentiles, and they saw only violations of the letter of the law. They labeled Jesus a sinner, drunkard, and glutton. They wanted him, and anyone who followed him, silenced.

I think we can imagine how good it sounded to Jesus’ stressed-out friends when he said to them, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest…. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light and you will find rest for your soul.”  We might not be familiar with yokes, but every first century farmer knew that a yoke was an essential tool in managing heavy loads.  A yoke is a wooden beam used between a pair of oxen, allowing them to pull together on a load when working as a team. 

A carpenter like Jesus would have made yokes regularly.  The best yokes were made from a single piece of wood that was light and strong.  Roughing out a yoke from a log in those days before bandsaws and power sanders would take a carpenter two days of steady, hard labor.  Yokes were custom made and fitted to animals to ensure that the load could be borne across shoulders, chest, and neck without causing friction or harm. An ox, when yoked with a mate in a well-fitted harness, could readily pull loads much too heavy to shoulder alone. 

Jesus’ metaphor of the easy yoke and the light burden would have reminded his friends that they were not alone as they contended with difficult experiences that stressed them out and made them feel powerless.  In Jesus of Nazareth, God had chosen to enter a world where foreign powers oppress, economic hardship was widespread, and the religious critics were sharpening their knives.  Jesus taught his friends that they could face life’s heavy burdens because they had help.  In Jesus, they had a yokemate who bore the burden with them and for them.  Jesus’ words did not change the difficulties that his friends faced.  But all those burdens could be shouldered, just knowing that Jesus, with the power of God Almighty, was right there in the yoke with them.

Perhaps this morning, we who are feeling burdened and stressed by an indifferent government, escalating inflation, and daily horrific reports of gun violence can find comfort in Jesus’ words, too. “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest…. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light and you will find rest for your soul.” The Lord is with us when we are feeling burned out, stressed out, down and out. Jesus invites us to rest in him.

These days, I’m feeling the stress of being caught up in the healthcare system, an experience that many of us have shared. Biopsy results last month determined that I – the picture of health and wellness – have breast cancer. I’m fortunate that it looks like they have caught it early. With surgery and follow-up treatment I should make a full recovery. But it’s scary, feeling like I am at the mercy of health care providers who know nothing about me. It’s overwhelming to ponder the expense. It’s easy to allow my mind to probe the what ifs. What if things don’t go as hoped? Lately, this picture of health and wellness has been feeling more like a poster child for burden and stress. Praise the Lord that Jesus is in the yoke with me and I can count on him to bear the burden.

When a young ox is being trained to work with a yoke, the youngster is always teamed with an older, stronger, and more experienced yokemate. As they pull a heavy load, the younger ox may even lean into its partner, depending on their superior strength, firm footing, and experience. That’s me and Jesus these days. I’m leaning in.

I’ve got to tell you that sharing healthcare news like this isn’t something that I like to do. It’s a little like preaching naked (every pastor’s nightmare). It’s vulnerable and uncomfortable. It’s tempting to keep quiet and simply hope for the best. But I have gained a fresh perspective on today’s scripture reading as I have begun to share my news with others. When you are part of a Christian community like this, it isn’t just you and Jesus in the yoke. There are others who are willing to pull together, to be encouragement, strength, and support as we manage our stress and pull the heavy load. Thanks be to God. I know that you all will be pulling for me.

This week, it’s pretty much guaranteed that something is going to turn the dial way up on our stress. The latest news of climate change will prompt despair over the world we are leaving to our children. Those politicians in Washington will continue to play games at the expense of people like you and me. There will be more mass shootings, and all our thoughts, prayers, and protests won’t seem to outweigh the power of the gun lobby. I’ll have my surgery. The burden will feel heavy and our stress will be high. But we won’t be alone.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened,” Jesus says, “And I will give you rest…. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light and you will find rest for your soul.” May it be so.

Resources:

Sophie Bethune. “Stress in America 2022: Concern for the Future, Beset by Inflation” in the Journal of the American Psychological Association, October 2022. Accessed online at www.apa.org.

Dale Alison. “Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30” in Preaching This Week, July 6, 2008. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Stanley Saunders. “Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30” in Preaching This Week, July 6, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Colin Yuckman. “Commentary on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30” in Preaching This Week, July 9, 2017. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

International Society for Cow Protection. “How to Make a Yoke” in Ox Power Handbook.  Accessed online at https://www.iscowp.org

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Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

¹⁶“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ¹⁷‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ ¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; ¹⁹the 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.”

²⁵At 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; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All 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. ²⁸“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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