My Burden is Light

Matthew 11: 16-19; 21-30

July 6, 2014

How can Jesus say that his burden is easy?

Because of Jesus it seems we have a lot of extra

burdens that we wouldn’t have before.

We’re told to worship, to pray, to be in choirs,

to serve in all sorts of capacities.

I love doing those things, but

Those can be a burden sometimes.

Jesus burdens me to care about other people

who are less fortunate than me

a world away from me.

I feel better when I do care, but

that is a burden we wouldn’t have.

Because of Jesus,

I’m now driven to understand this confusing and contradictory

book that we use as a basis of our faith

and then I’m called to try and explain it to others.

I love learning about it, and teaching about it,

But it keeps me up at night sometimes thinking about it.

That’s a burden.

Jesus told us kind of recently

that if we take him seriously,

we could upset our families.

that we need to take up our cross.

that we need to give up our lives in order to find them.

How can Jesus say that his burden is light?

That he will give us rest?

It seems like whatever there was to do before,

Jesus is about giving us more to do.

More to feel guilty about.

At least the way that Christians have done it.

 

Jesus opens up this discussion today by asking

what should I compare this generation to?

He says that they are like little children. And not in a good way.

He says that they complain,

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn” in other words,

You didn’t do what we wanted when we wanted it.
He says when John fasted, they complained and judged

and when Jesus ate and drank they complained and judged.

As you might know, in Jesus time and culture,

religion was the center of life and for Jews it was about the laws,

The conduct for living as God ordained was central to the whole culture.

It was there to order people’s lives so that they could

then live in harmony with one another and with God.

In Jewish writings, “the yoke of the law” was a common phrase.

The yoke was the thing that was put on horse or oxen

to guide and direct them to them so that they

could do the work that they were meant to do.

The law was a control that was meant to give people a better life.

But through time, these laws had become

a way to control people.

I actually want to get away from the idea that the Pharisees

had some master plan to control the populous.

The system which God ordained was put into human hands,

and simply because humanity - not one corrupt portion -

but the whole of humanity, progressively, over time,

it set up burdens which no one could live up to.

Just to survive, regular people had to break the rules.

These rules would inevitably benefit those in charge

and bring more comfort, honor, and control

to those who were in power like the Pharisees.

But it’s not just one person’s fault.

 

I say this because this oppression

doesn’t constantly need to be imposed by the leaders.

This oppression becomes self-imposed.

The people set up huge, un-meetable expectations

for themselves and for their peers.

The judgments and punishments were meted out

in subtle ways to one another by families and communities

and people punished themselves with shame and self-loathing.

They were “Like children in a market place calling to one another”

Although Jesus is talking about his generation,

we can certainly understand what he’s talking

about in our generation.

We celebrated independence day this week

and our country has many political freedoms that others don’t.

But we have given our neighbors and ourselves

a huge set of laws and rules and standards to conform to.

We live in an age of chronic dissatisfaction

and we take it out on each other constantly.

Any public figure - politician or celebrity -

is looked at with a microscope.

Their actions and appearance

picked apart with a fine toothed comb.

When people do almost anything, they are

hailed as heroes and flayed as failures or worse,

 often in the same breath.

It seems that as a society we have a love/hate relationship

with everything and every one.

Both drawn and repelled at the same time.

We want to be close and then when we are

we can’t help but criticize or find fault.

“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn.”

No one needs to tell us to do it, it is human.

And this eternal dissatisfaction is self-imposed too.

We examine and criticize our own actions mercilessly.

We hold up magazines, movies, TV, and celebrities with nannies and chefs and personal trainers as the models for the way we look,

the way we act, what we do with our lives,

and then we beat ourselves up when we can’t reach those standards.

We’re supposed to have our dream career at 25,

have a perfect family at 35, retire at 45,

and win several Nobel prizes at 55.

I’m not a parent, but just reading any kind of

parenting article or blog makes my head spin.

They’re filled with images of this constantly blissful,

engaging, stimulating, exceptional lives people

provide for their children.

They’re constantly positive, reflective, and spiritual,

even when they’re dealing with tragedy.

Now, I know enough to know that is not real life.

But even when I read the ones who talk about how normal

their families are and how they’re not going to live up to

any expectations, I think “Wow, you found time to

hold down a job, get your kids fed and dressed

 and you could get yourself together to write about it?”

I don’t even have kids and I can’t seem to write a blog.

The expectations for greatness and exceptionalism are so high

that nothing seems to make us happy for long

We are like children in market place calling to one another.

Driving ourselves crazy.

You see, when we base people’s worth

on some outside expectation,

some set of rules and regulations

it leads to an endless hole of dissatisfaction.

No one will ever live up to them,

these self-imposed standards are too steep.

Even if the standard is simple something that we might

set as the minimum the lowest bar:

like just have a roof over your head, and provide food,

and stay out of jail.

Someone – maybe you or me at some time –

will not be able to live up to that standard.

And our standards are much much higher.

So we end up yelling at each other in the market place,

“you didn’t make me happy.”

Likewise, when we base our self-worth

on outside things, or even our own expectations,

we put ourselves at the bottom of that

endless hole as well.

It becomes a hopeless at times.

  

And this is where Jesus comes in.

And Jesus burden is light.

It is difficult to remember in the noise

of this world and it’s magazines and parenting blogs

and the calls of our giant egos -

But Jesus yoke is really easy and light:

The kingdom of God is like this:

The worth of a person is not determined

by what they do, it is only determines by God’s love.

Our self-worth is not determined by our achievements,

it is only determined by how God loves us.

And God loves each one of us.

Everything we do as a church, every task we might have

as members of this church is focused

on understanding and living that truth.

If it doesn’t help that, we need to put it aside.

The truth of God’s love that Jesus proclaims -

the gospel in other words -

lifts us out of that hole of dissatisfaction
that the world’s laws, standards, and expectations put us in.

The yoke of God’s grace guides us and frees us for new life.

Martin Luther understood it.

He wrote these beautiful words:

"The Law says 'Do this' and it is never done,

Grace says 'Believe this' and everything is done already."

Jesus yoke is easy and his burden is light.

God’s love is not based on what we do, achieve, or succeed .

God’s love is given to us and each person absolutely freely.

And in this truth, we can finally find our res