07.05.2020
The Lectionary Gospel for today is in Matthew. Jesus is speaking to a group of people in one of the villages: 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, [Matthew 11:28-30].
When I’ve read this passage before, I have always read that phrase, Take my yoke upon you, to mean I need to take on Jesus’s tasks. If I am going to follow him I need to do the things he is doing.
But I realized in our prayer team discussion this week that that is not what Jesus is saying. A yoke is a type of harness for two animals to work together — a pair of mules or oxen or horses — often to pull something too heavy for a single animal.
Jesus is inviting me (actually each of us) to yoke with him — to let him share the task of carrying our “heavy burdens” while we share in his work.
For almost all of us, this past half-year has involved heavy burdens. Covid 19 itself and the damage it does to a body even when the person survives the illness and gets “better, not to mention the toll is takes on a family. The loss of income when a job is eliminated in the shutdown to slow the spread of the disease. Or the daily threat of illness when the job is “essential” but involves exposure to the disease. The loss of friendship and daily purpose and routine when the schools are closed. And the hardship of juggling the sudden need to provide child-care, and education, against the need to work outside the home. The worry about such things happening even though they haven’t (yet). Even the folks who are fortunate to have “enough” to remain relatively comfortable, worry when the economy slides into recession (and for those folks for whom the quantity of stuff is their identity, this is a heavy burden).
And, yes, living a black life in our society’s systemic injustices and inequalities is a burden made even heavier in this time. Living a life of any other non-white color, including rainbow-colored, is also unnecessarily harder.
There are a couple of reasons that Jesus calls people carrying heavy burdens. First, these are the people that our world most ignores. Those of us who are successful tend to view heavy burdens as signs of personal failure; we often congratulate ourselves on working hard to “earn” what we have as we refuse to give help and comfort to others. This despite the fact that God constantly told the Israelites to care for the widows and orphans, and Jesus commends aiding the “least of these” in his family.
The second reason is simply that regular burdens don’t get our attention like heavy ones do. We like to view ourselves as competent and in control: we can fix things, just as we earn and accumulate stuff. We are as reluctant to admit our neediness as we are to share our wealth. It is when we have run out of options, when we have no more resources, when we are at our wits end, that we are likely to look for and accept help from somebody else. When the burdens are so heavy they knock us off our prideful perch and force us to our knees, we are in a position to say “yes” to Jesus’s invitation.
While one part of us works for and hopes for a vaccine or treatment for coronavirus, the other part of us can accept Jesus’s offer of rest for our souls.