Take My Yoke: Jesus' Gentle Burden

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 11th chapter.

Glory to the Lord.

Jesus spoke to the crowds, saying,

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 who are weary and 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.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Christ.

You may be seated.

Before I begin with my sermon,

I do have a special note of welcome and introduction.

We have with us this morning a great representative of the ELCA,

and that's Dr. Jared Tice, who is here with us this morning.

He is the president of our oldest ELCA college in our country,

which is Capital University,

which is also home to one of our seminaries, Trinity Seminary.

So, Dr. Tice, it is good to have you with us here this morning.

But to the task at hand,

there are a number of critical moments

in America's journey towards nationhood.

And we, of course, celebrate, as John Adams so eloquently put it

at the beginning of our worship today, or rather yesterday,

July 4th, 1776,

the moments when pen met paper

at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

But there are other important moments in this story as well.

And historians hold mixed views

as to when the U.S. became a true established country.

Another moment for consideration would be June 21st, 1788.

Anyone know what that date is?

You didn't know. There's going to be a history lesson here today.

That's when Rhode Island, of all states, little Rhode Island,

became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution.

And why that matters is because that vote eclipsed the two-thirds majority

needed to make it the official framework of our country's government.

Another still would be one year later, in 1789,

when George Washington was inaugurated as the first president

of the newly unified Federal Republic.

But the dates continue.

There was also, we could say, September 3rd, 1783.

This is when Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay

negotiated the Treaty of Paris,

which officially ended the American Revolutionary War.

And this is important because, at that moment,

the British monarchy formally recognized the sovereign independence

of the United States, and that also meant that other nations

could do the same.

And if those aren't enough, 1783, 1788, 1789, and 1776,

let me throw one other pivotal revolutionary event out there.

This one, here I am going to quiz you.

October 19th, 1781.

Anyone have that one in the back of their...

All right, that is the end of the Battle of Yorktown.

That's right. Choir, I can always count on you guys.

It's the end of the Battle of Yorktown.

And that was a three-week siege of that Virginia port town

by the Continental Army and the French Navy.

And at the end of it, General Charles Cornwallis

surrendered his entire British Army to George Washington.

And when news of this reached the British Prime Minister, Lord North,

he famously cried out, he said,

Oh God, it's all over.

So when?

When do we become a country?

What act makes us who we are?

At this last event, the surrender at Yorktown,

the pivotal moment occurred at the moment of surrender

when the British troops marched between a two-mile long line,

the line on which one side were American soldiers

and on the other side, French ones.

They marched to deliver General Cornwallis' sword to Washington,

a symbolic way of recognizing the end of the battle

and the surrender of one army to another.

I bring this up because famously in the time of Jesus

and in the ancient world,

if something like this happened, which it often did,

especially when those Romans were involved,

always conquering, always expanding,

when one army surrendered to another,

a different tradition was practiced,

not the handing over of a sword, but something else.

And this something else ties directly into the words of Jesus

in our scripture today from Matthew.

You see, as an act of humiliation,

as an act of subjugation,

entire defeated armies were forced to walk under a yoke.

At first, this was an actual yoke,

the wooden frame used to hitch oxen together to plow a field.

But later, for convenience, it was often symbolized

by a makeshift gate of three spears,

two vertical ones and one horizontal.

Either way, captured soldiers had to bow and walk underneath it,

signifying that they were stripped of their weapons,

that they were tamed like, well, like draft animals

and subjected to the will of the conqueror.

How strange.

How odd that Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace,

would use this metaphor to describe the benefits of following him.

Right, that whole metaphor there at the end of the reading.

I'll read it again.

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.

That whole thing, it's a little confusing at first glance,

even separated from the ancient wartime use of a yoke.

I mean, just taking it in its pure traditional sense.

A yoke wouldn't have been easy.

A yoke would not have been light to wear.

A yoke was heavy, this custom-made wooden crossbeam

used to couple two draft animals, usually oxen, together

so that they could plow through a field or draw a heavy cart down a road.

Here's where things get interesting.

Jesus, of all people, would have had firsthand knowledge

of this type of implement, its heft, its importance,

because of his time as, well, as a carpenter

or watching his father, Joseph, in his woodshop.

It's this intimate knowledge of a yoke that makes Jesus the perfect person

to reclaim this tool as a different kind of symbol for his followers.

Jesus would have known that a good yoke, made properly,

took a carpenter significant time as they carefully smoothed

and leveled and hollowed out the undersides

to fit the exact contours of each animal's shoulders.

If this type of individual care and intention was not taken,

poorly made yoke would have injured and maimed the animal trying to use it.

And I think this gives new context to when Jesus says,

my yoke is easy.

Because the Greek word for this word, easy,

which we find in our Bible often translated that way,

kratos, it could also be more accurately translated to mean well-fitting.

Suitable, even tailor-made.

Now this, I think, is pretty amazing.

Jesus, a carpenter, is reclaiming this at first unusual metaphor

to promise that the life he gives

is actually, despite what it might look like,

perfectly shaped for you, for humanity.

And here's some more good news.

The yoke that Jesus was talking about wasn't meant for just one individual.

Yokes were built for two.

And here's some even better news.

In the first century, farmers rarely paired two untrained

or equally weak animals together.

A heavy, experienced, well-trained ox was paired alongside

a younger, weaker, untrained one.

The strong ox would walk in the proper direction,

set the pace,

bear the vast majority of the physical weight.

And the younger or weaker ox simply had to stay in step

with the stronger one.

What Jesus tells us, that following him will be a well-fitting,

suitable, tailor-made yoke,

it is more than just a beautiful fit.

The burden is light because as we walk through life,

when we look to our side,

the person who is beside us,

the whole time,

while we are at work in the fields of life or at leisure,

in good times or in bad, in rain or shine,

sickness or health,

heat or cold,

on holidays or just regular old days,

it is Jesus beside us, yoked to us,

leading the way, giving us direction,

setting the pace,

helping us bear the weight of our sins and shortcomings

and all the world, bear them all away.

And we know this is true,

not just because we believe the words of Jesus here

in the 11th chapter of Matthew,

but because we believe in the life of Jesus

and it is at the end of his life

that Jesus takes up his true yoke.

Another beam hewn from wood,

another tool that in different contexts in the first century

was also meant to humiliate and subjugate

and another time that Jesus reclaimed

and subverted it to instead be a symbol of his reign of justice,

a sign of his kingdom of peace.

And that is the hardwood of the cross.

It's from the cross that Jesus shows us

how he yokes all the world to himself,

revealing to us the way,

giving us life,

bearing the weight of our sins and shortcoming

and showing us what true power and might looks like.

It looks like a humble servant

who lived for others,

a gentle savior

who gave his life so that we might live.

I want to end where we began

with the question and answers that I kind of danced around

at the beginning of the sermon.

When do we become a country?

July 4th, 1776,

when the Constitution was signed,

when Washington made Cornwallis walk beneath the yoke of defeat.

Those could all be answers.

Or perhaps we become a country

when we acknowledge that we are yoked to one another,

not through a piece of paper or a surrender,

but with a yoke that helps us realize

that we don't pull through this life alone.

We don't go through this life on an island,

us against our neighbors,

but yoked together as we move forward to year 251 and 252

and on into the future.

In school, when you study the Declaration of Independence,

you often focus on how it begins.

Maybe some of you even had to memorize it.

In case you don't have it, right up here on demand,

here's how it starts.

When, in the course of human events,

it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands

which have connected them with another.

If that's all you remember,

then you would think that this is just a document about separation,

independence, going it alone.

How many of you have recently read the last line

of the Declaration of Independence?

Anyone recently?

Do you spend your time between fireworks just like going through it again

for old time's sake?

In case you haven't, here's what it says.

The last line.

And for the support of this declaration,

with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence,

we mutually pledge to each other

our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

We mutually pledge to each other.

There it is.

From the word go.

The whole time, right in front of us.

For 250 years.

While we are at work in the fields of life or at leisure,

in good times or in bad,

in rain or sunshine, sickness or health,

heat or cold, on holidays or just regular old days,

we have been pulling this heavy cart,

traveling down this road

we call the United States of America,

together,

side by side,

connected to each other.

And as that last line also says,

connected,

united,

yoked to God,

in His divine providence,

we still rely.

Amen.