My Yoke Easy? My Burden Light?

Written by Bill Weisenbach

Saturday, 05 July 2008

My Yoke Easy?  My Burden Light?   Text: Matthew 11:16-19,25-30   There is a story told about a fifth grade Sunday School teacher who was teaching a class on the text you just heard.  "What is a yoke?" the teacher asked the fifth graders.  “The yellow part in the center of an egg,” said one.  In fact, that seemed to be the consensus of the class.  But there was one particularly bright youngster who had another definition.  "A yoke,” he said “ is a collar you put around a horse or ox."  And the teacher, thinking this child was really quite bright, asked the natural follow-up question, "What then would be the yoke of Christ?"  The child thought for a moment and said, "I suppose that would be when God's got you by the throat."  There is more truth in that than we would want to believe.   These words of Jesus, are among the most beloved of all of Jesus' sayings.  "Come to me all you that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you for I am gentle and humble.  My yoke is easy, my burden light."   But this particular text, as much as we love it, is not as lovely as it first seems.  Remember, Jesus said to these words just weeks before his crucifixion.   And, this Jesus who said that his yoke is easy and his burden light is also the same one that said, "Anyone who would come after me must take up a cross and follow me.  Those who would save their life must lose it." My yoke is easy?  My burden light?  This texts doesn't sound at all light or easy.     And think about the people to whom he spoke those words.  It was the disciples gathered around him before they were sent out in a dangerous mission.  Tradition tells us that of the twelve disciples, eleven of them met a violent death.  My yoke is easy?  My burden light?  If violent deaths are the definition of a light yoke and an easy burden, I don't want one?   And the story doesn't end with the disciples.  Think how the great figures of the Christian faith, in almost every case, were people who lived lives of considerable self-sacrifice.  My yoke easy?  My burden light?  Look at the great Christian figures of the twentieth century.  Was Mother Theresa of someone with a light yoke and an easy burden as she moved among the dying untouchables of the city?  Was Albert Schweitzer, when he left Europe for life as a missionary doctor, someone who was taking up a light yoke and an easy burden?  Was the family that harbored Anne Frank and her family at the risk of their own lives, enjoying an easy yoke and a light burden?     So what does it mean for Jesus to say that his yoke is easy and burden light?  To think about that question, let me draw your attention to our first lesson.   Now remember, the Hebrew people loved to tell stories.  And they were a community that often endured considerable hardship.  In the course of generations they developed wonderful stories, many about their ancestor, Abraham who lived in what is today Iraq.  One day God came to him and said, "Head to Canaan and there I will give you the whole of the land and many descendants."  But he died only owning a parcel big enough for the burial of his wife, Sarah.  And, though he'd been promised descendants as many as the stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore, he and Sarah only had one child, their son Isaac, born in their old age.     Can't you just see how the Hebrew storytellers would weave this tale when they was trouble, when it seemed like God's love and promises to them were on shaky ground.  When it seemed like their hope hung by a tiny thread, they would say, "It's not so bad; remember when Abraham was 99 years old and didn't have any children yet."  And they would tell the stories of God's faithfulness in previous generations.   Well, as I said, old Abraham and Sarah just had the one child, Isaac, and, in the text today, Isaac gets a wife.  Now, in ancient days people didn't date the way we do now.  Marriages were arranged.  To wit, Abraham called in his most trusted servant and sent him back to the home country saying, "Find a wife not among the Canaanite women here, but back in the home country."  Indeed, in those days, the ideal match was considered to be a cousin.  Aren't you thankful you didn't have that assignment?      Anyway, according to the story the servant goes to the far country.  He gets there and he sits down beside a well outside a village, and he prays.  And he says, "Oh Lord, let the next woman that comes to the well to draw water be the woman for Isaac."  Now, I have heard of some interesting ways of choosing a spouse but that one is among the most interesting.  And, of course, the first woman to come out to the well was Rebecca, who just happened to be Isaac's cousin.  And sure enough, a week later Rebecca is packing up to go to Canaan to marry Isaac.  Now how improbable is that?   So in times of adversity the storytellers told this story to remind people who might be in trouble in their own lives, "Don't worry.  Long ago our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents went through much worse than this, and God kept faith with them."  This errand to find a wife for Isaac was an errand that seemed doomed to failure, but, in the view of the ancient storytellers, it was an errand that was one small piece of God's plan.  As they understood it, it was God's plan to call Abraham and his family and make of them a light to the nations.  And if Abraham and his descendants were to be a light to the nations, if that was God's project, if that was God's plan, then it was GOD'S plan and the characters in the story, the actors in the story, as difficult as their way of life and circumstances may have seemed, were part of something bigger than they were - they were part of what God was about.  And God could be trusted to keep faith.   It seems to me that that lesson is a part of the key to understanding how Jesus' yoke can be light.  Jesus, just weeks before his own crucifixion, could say to his disciples, who were themselves to meet violent deaths on his behalf, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," because he understood all of these events to be part of a bigger plan – the plan of God.  And things look differently if you understand them to be part of a larger plan that will not fail.   I am told that in some countries, where yoked oxen still do much of the plowing, there is always a lead ox whose job it is to train the younger one, to set the direction and pace and to teach the younger ox how to share the load. For it is only when the two walk in step, each pulling in sync that the work can be done.   Mother Theresa understood herself to be yoked with Jesus.  Albert Schweitzer and Anne Frank’s protectors, and on and on the list goes, all understood themselves to be yoked with Jesus, following the lead of the one with whom they were yokes, part of a larger plan - a plan of the redemptive work of God - to walk in God's way and to do God's will partnered with Jesus.     So, as you struggle to deal with the hurts and hopes of your own life, as you seek to support loved ones and friends through the tragedies of their lives, as you work to feed the hungry, as you work to bring peace to a conflicted world, as you work to bring justice to people of every race and religion and station in life, as you do these things, you do not do them alone.  They aren’t just your projects; they are God's as well and you are part of a larger plan.  And if you are yoked with Jesus, walking together, then indeed your yoke can be easy and your burden, light.  Amen Now here’s a question for you, what holds us back from really believing God will provide?

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