The Yoke of Christ
Texts: Romans 7:15-25a, Matthew 13:1-9,18-23
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had some burdens in my life. Not as much as some, more than others. Honestly though, we don’t need to compare burdens. Your burdens are your own, mine are my own. We each have our own things to work through and process. We don’t need to compete over who has it worse. We simply need more support some times than others.
That’s where I think Paul is trying to go in our lesson from Romans today. I’ll be honest and say I don’t like this reading. Paul and I have had many debates over his dualistic tendencies: the spirit is good, the flesh is bad, the law is bad, grace is good. Paul was a trained rhetorician who purposely went to the extremes to make his points, he used patterns of speech that were common to Roman teachers and philosophers of his day. You can see in this passage how he exaggerates his own condition. If we don’t understand his style and the context of this text, we can gain some very damaging views of our bodies and our abilities to control ourselves. This reading can be used to excuse abuse, mistreatment, and all sorts of damaging things we do to ourselves and each other. But that’s not what I think Paul was saying.
This passage comes near the end of a long section of Paul where he tried to explain his views on the law versus grace. He was writing to Gentile converts to this new way, explaining why they didn’t need to take on Jewish practices in order to be a part of this movement, which was still a Jewish movement. The Church had not separated from Judaism yet, that wouldn’t happen until the temple fell in 70 CE. Gentiles were being told by some Jewish Christians that they needed to be circumcised and follow all the Jewish laws. Paul was trying to share why they, as Gentiles, didn’t need to follow the Jewish laws and customs, something he wrote extensively about in his letters. I don’t think he did a great job of making his points clear. Much of his writing about the law versus grace has been taken to promote anti-semitism, something that would have shocked him as a Jewish Christian. But he tried to break apart why grace was superior to the law, so much so that it brought people in union with God without needing to take on the practices of a culture that was not their own. God came to the Roman people and connected with them through grace. They didn’t need to take on Jewish practices to be connected with God, they could access God as they were, no circumcision or following of Jewish laws needed. They didn’t have to become Jews to love Jesus. They could be Romans who loved Jesus. Grace was freely accessible to them. This was the new covenant that was given to them through Christ.
His long wandering thoughts about how grace is greater than the law precedes our passage for today, where Paul got personal. He spoke of how he was before Christ’s love overwhelmed him. He was a persecutor of the Church, doing what he did not want to do because he felt it was necessary in order to follow God. He felt like a dead corpse. He was actively going against God’s desires for his life. He was told that what he was doing was good. But it wasn’t bringing life. It was bringing death. Then grace came. The power of Christ overwhelmed him. He then saw that the law that he was trying to enforce through literally helping to stone others wasn’t what was most important. Law doesn’t come first. Grace does.
A relationship with Jesus changed Paul’s life for the better. He wasn’t hateful or spiteful. He was still moody, don’t get me wrong, but he actively loved people and became the person he was supposed to be: Paul the great missionary to the Gentiles, fully human, and really trying to share his inexplicable experiences with others. He wasn’t perfect. His words have been used to create Christian legalism and excuse harm, but that’s not what he was trying to do.
How would you explain to others how God utterly changed your mode of thinking, turning your life around so that you were a completely different person than you were before? If you don’t know what that’s like, talk with someone who is actively working the steps in a twelve step group. Their stories sound similar to Paul’s. They were doing what they didn’t want to do, they felt trapped in a way of being that was actively harming their spirits, then suddenly there was a release. They received a miracle. They were able to completely change course. They stay sober through repentance and forgiveness. They hand things over to their higher power. They give thanks for grace each day they are in active recovery. If we view these words of Paul through the lens of someone in recovery sharing their story, I think it sheds a whole new light on Paul. He wasn’t in recovery from being a law abiding Jew, he was in recovery from using the law to persecute others. It wasn’t his Judaism that was the problem. It was his hatred of others that was the issue. He had been part of a group that used the Jewish law as an excuse to persecute and harm others. Persecuting others was like an addiction ravaging his soul. Then grace came to him, changing his heart, turning him from a dead corpse who didn’t feel he could change his life, to someone who had more love and life than they could have ever imagined. Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
That’s what our Gospel lesson today is about too, that change of heart to receive the love and life that is available through Jesus. Jesus was frustrated in our text for today. He had gone around all of Galilee healing people and sharing God’s love for them. He was actively doing what prophets had foretold would happen when God’s reign came to earth. People were healed. New life was freely available to all. People had access to more grace than they could imagine. But they weren’t accessing it. They were suspicious and judgmental. Jesus didn’t act like the Messiah they were expecting. But what did they really expect? John came as a complete ascetic, regularly fasting, denying himself many of the pleasures of life, calling people away from excesses. He was acting and living as a fantastic prophet, and people dismissed him. Jesus came and enjoyed himself with others, feasting and celebrating with those whose lives he had changed. He acted like a political messiah might, feasting like an up and coming ruler, and people dismissed him. The people said they were looking for someone who acted a certain way, yet when he and John acted like what they were looking for they dismissed them.
So Jesus got frustrated. He saw people who thought they knew what they were looking for, but couldn’t see what was right in front of their eyes. Jesus encouraged the people to be vulnerable like small children, putting their whole trust in another, leaning into love for safety and security. Then they might see what was happening around them. He told them that God wants to play with children in the marketplace. God wants to dance to their flute music with them and mourn when they place a funeral dirge. The marketplace was busy and noisy, a child’s flute could easily get drowned out in the chaos, but if they listened they could find the melody.
The problem with Jesus’ generation was that they think they have it all together, they thought they could do it all on their own. They failed to pay attention because they thought they knew what to expect. They couldn’t see how reliant they were on God. They became like Paul before his conversion, trying to follow all the rules and do everything right thinking that will bring the most pleasure to God. But rules and regulations aren’t what’s most important to God. It’s not that the law is bad, it just doesn’t do what grace does. Grace connects people, grace helps us see the relationships that are missed if we are rigidly trying to play by the rule book. We can miss out on relationships if we’re trying to be the wisest or most intelligent people ever, aka if we’re trying to do everything exactly right all the time, trying to get others to do things how we think they should be done. God doesn’t want us to be nitpicking each other all the time, pointing out every time another person doesn’t get it right. God wants us to live in the moment, to pay attention to the now, to regularly stop what we’re doing, lay aside our own stuff and see the child playing the flute in the marketplace. No one is going to be exactly how others expect them to be. Jesus didn’t fit the bill. But if we take each other as we are, there’s deep joy in that.
There’s also a deep vulnerability in that. Jesus talks about the vulnerability as a yoke. Before this week I thought about a yoke like my bookbag. I recently switched out the bag I carry my computer and books in. The one I had before looked nice and held quite a bit, but the strap dug into my shoulder and I could only carry it so far. It was heavy. So I switched to a two strap backpack that evenly distributes the weight over the center of my back. I can carry a lot more a lot further more easily with this bag. I thought of God’s yoke like that change of bags, being able to carry more a lot further because it distributes things more easily.
The problem with that image though is that it’s completely individualistic. It’s something I carry for myself and can take off whenever I want. I’m in control of the yoke. I get to decide. But what if Jesus’ yoke isn’t all on me? What if it’s not just my burden? What if Jesus’ yoke is mutual, Jesus helps us and we help others? What if it’s a communal yoke? Jesus bears us and carries us and we are called to help carry each other. Then my image of the yoke changes.
Instead of seeing my backpack, I see the new carrying harness we got for our dog. Our dog, Keeva, recently had ACL surgery. She can only put so much weight on her back leg and she’s not supposed to go up and down stairs on her own. The issue is that our bed that she sleeps in with us is upstairs. We tried having one of us sleep downstairs with her for a few nights, but one night while I was fast asleep on the couch, she took the initiative to walk up the stairs and jump into our bed, which wasn’t good for her recovery. So we started carrying her upstairs. The problem though was that she’s nearly 70 lbs and a bit too large for me to comfortably carry. We had some scary moments trying to go up and down the stairs and my neck muscles were screaming at me to stop. Now we have a harness where I can pull up and take some weight off her. She walks up the stairs, but she’s not putting her full weight on her back legs, I’m supporting them. My yoke is easier and her yoke is easier. We listened to each other. We found a solution. That’s the yoke of Christ. It’s both someone taking the weight off us and us helping to support each other. Sometimes Christ carries all our weight, sometimes we help others carry their weight. There’s a mutuality that carries us through even the hardest of times.
That is the pattern of grace filled living. We listen. We build relationship with God and each other. We come into harmony. It’s listening to the child’s flute and dancing. It’s listening to their mournful song and crying with them. That’s how Jesus relates to us and that’s how we can relate to others. Laws aren’t bad, but they don’t get us to that place. In fact, if we become too legalistic we can lose that relationship that God wants. We can become rigid and persecute each other in the name of a God who wants to bear our yoke with us and help us support each other. We can put on an individualistic yoke and try to carry it all on our own, that burden’s not easy or light. Or we can put on Christ’s yoke, putting on harnesses that allow God to support us so we can support each other. Christ promises us that this yoke is easy and light. He can handle our weight. That’s the choice Christ presents to us today. Paul testifies to the power of putting on Christ’s yoke. It brought him from a place that felt like he was living in a dead corpse to a place where he felt alive and full of love.
The yoke is not a free for all, it comes with its own responsibilities, but those are the responsibilities of living in relationship with God and each other. We are called to actively pay attention through active listening. We actively listen to God through daily prayer and regular communal worship. We actively listen to each other through sharing our needs with each other and asking the community to be present with us and support us. God puts a harness on us and lifts us up and we are called to help lift each other up when needed. Sometimes we are the one in most need of support, sometimes it is another. Sometimes we hold each other at the same time and hobble together through the pain. Sometimes we hug each other and dance with joy. Either way, together with Christ and our neighbor we find the yoke easier and the burden more light as we engage in the mutuality of grace filled life.
May we take on the yoke of Christ and find ourselves transformed by the grace of God. Amen.
