Sermon for Lectionary 14A/ 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

Sermon

Text: Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30

Our text starts with Jesus talking about the pharisee's and scribe's attitude toward him and John the Baptist. Some of John's followers had approached Jesus to ask him a question, and he begins a talk about John.

Jesus starts with this parable of children in the marketplace playing to describe the pharisee's and scribes. They say to each other, “we played the flute for you and you did not dance, we wailed and you did not mourn.” These would be games that the children want to play. One group wants to play wedding, playing the flute and dancing, while the other wants to play funeral, wailing and mourning. And neither group will consent to what the other wants to do. They cannot agree on what they want to play. They throw both out.

Jesus compares this to the scribes and pharisees. John they refer to as crazy man who will neither eat nor drink, so he must have a demon and is then not a prophet, and Jesus, Son of Man, comes, but he eats and drinks, so he is not the one either, because we can label him as a glutton and drunkard, and not only that but he is a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” So like the children they throw them both out.

Now these are not petty arguments, these are deep concerns from a weary people. In our text from Zechariah, we hear him tell the people that they will be restored to double what they lost in the exile in Babylon. The exile has just ended and they are returning to Israel. They think the persecution they have been under is finally removed. But, nothing really gets better, it does for a moment and they build a second temple to replace the one that the Babylonians destroyed. But, now at this time they are again under the persecution of the Romans. The feelings of everything has returned. In fact by the time Matthew is written that second temple has been destroyed by the Romans. They are asking, are we heading back to the horror of exile, back to the worst part of our history?

Jesus is speaking to the lowly people who are full of weary. They labor wearily under Roman occupation, in which the ruling elite secure wealth, status, and power at the expense of the lowly. They have their decisions made for them from the leaders above them. They are pushed down upon, they are most definitely carrying heavy burdens.

I think Jesus could be talking to the pharisees and scribes as well as the lowly people. It is a lot of responsibility to be in charge, even if they may be taking advantage of the situation. They probably feel a responsibility to discover who the messiah is, the messiah who can remove them from the new Roman persecution. Everything just keeps coming and coming for the leaders and the lowly. They are racing and searching, burdened beyond belief.

Who among us is not searching, burdened, weary? We have good reason to be so. These people in the text are searching and seeking for the perfect person who will free them again. It is no wonder they cannot decide. It is no wonder that nothing seems right. We are always looking. Searching. And nothing seems right. It all gives worry, and stress, fear and trembling. We are weary, weary people. From everyday things, to massive things. From concern about what we are going to eat next, to searching for a job, to will our house be there when we get home. When will we be able to get home. When can we get our crop in, will we get it in, if we do will it survive. Are my kids learning as they should? Do they have the right friends? What will happen now that they are moving away?

It just goes on and on and on. What dwells on you is most likely sitting in your mind right now.

That is what Jesus is speaking to here. To us in our weariness, to the pharisees and scribes in their search, misdirected that it may be, to the lowly, those pushed aside, dragged around by others decisions, not knowing what could happen to them the next day.

“Come to me, all you that are weary, and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

We are weary people, and Jesus gives us rest. Jesus shows us the way we are to go, gives us the direction we should turn.

And Jesus gives us a yoke? Yokes do not connect to rest for me. They connect to heavy, heavy work. Beasts of burden tromping through the muddy ground. Some of you may have even farmed that way, I know of it only through story. A television show on cars talked of the car as the great freer of pack animals, no longer were they burdened with a yoke, but were free to be enjoyed as hobby and entertainment. Removing the yoke.

But, Jesus says that here is a yoke. But, a very different kind of yoke. An easy yoke, not easy as in you do not have to do anything, but easy as in pleasant. The Greek word easy even has a poetic nature to it. It is chrestos with an e, which is only one letter different from Christ is Greek, Christos with an i. The word easy, Chrestos, also means being good, being useful, being kind, being better. This is not a yoke of burden, having to do things, forced to do things, but the yoke of grace, the yoke of getting to do things.

I also like to think of a yoke as having two connectors. I know there are yokes that attach to only one animal, but I think the more common image now, and then, would be two. Christ's yoke is not just upon our shoulders. Christ's yoke is upon his as well.

Christ yoke does not remove all that wearies us, but allows us to journey through them, venturing into the unknown, letting others know of this easy yoke, this restful yoke, letting them known that when they are in the mud, and they are stuck, when we are stuck, Christ takes our burden upon his shoulders and pulls us free.