Matthew 11:28-30
I woke up at about 4:30 AM on September 10th and looked out the window of our cabin. Overhead was a bridge and its lights were reflecting off the water. In the confusion of the early morning hours, my heart sank. “We must be ahead of schedule and have missed the Statue of Liberty,” I thought. We were supposed to sail by “The Lady” at 5 AM and here was a bridge… It took a few minutes for me to clear out my head enough to realize that it was the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the entrance into the New York Harbor. Lady Liberty hasn’t been the first thing one sees coming into the harbor for forty some years. We pulled on clothes and headed up to the 9th Deck, which allowed us to see both sides of the river. Most of the passengers on the ship were up. At exactly 5 AM, our boat slipped passed the Statue of Liberty, a sight that had welcomed multitudes of people, both American citizens returning home from abroad and immigrants in search of a better life. With lights on the monument, it stood stand out against the dark sky.
I have always liked the poem “The New Colossus” that’s inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. We’ve all heard these words before; perhaps you’ve even had to memorize them in school:
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Emma Lazarus’ poem sets forth a national ideal of compassion. Yet, as a nation, we must admit that we have seldom lived up to such an ideal. When we immigrants established ourselves (and almost all of us came from immigrant families), we tried to shut the door behind us. There was an old comic strip I remember of the President of the United States seeking the advice of the leaders of the great Native American tribes within our country. They looked at one another and then in unison said, “Control immigration.” They were suggesting we should learn from their mistakes.
Contrary to what you might be thinking, I am not up here this morning to talk about our immigration policy as a nation should or shouldn’t be. Let me instead suggest that the difference between the words found on the base of the Statue of Liberty and how we act points mostly to our human inability to achieve perfection. We seldom live up to our ideals and if we do, it’s probably because our ideals have been set too low. We’re not God, yet we’re called to strive to be more god-like.
The reason I brought up the Lazarus poem is that it sounds a lot like Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:28: “Come to me all you that are weary.” “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,” Lazarus wrote. Lazarus sets our national sights high; perhaps it’s too high of a goal for us to be able to meet. Yet, striving for such an ideal has helped us be more compassionate. Jesus, of course, completely fulfills his goal to provide rest to the weary. Read Matthew 11:28-30.
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“Take my yoke and learn from me,” Jesus says. Most of us have an idea what a yoke is, I hope. It’s not the cholesterol-laden center of an egg… My canoe has a yoke in the middle of it and I can assure you that after a two and a half mile portage in the Hudson Bay lowlands of Northern Ontario, I’d gladly shared that yoke with Jesus. In many parts of the world, you still see yokes in use. Through much of Asia, small-time merchants and traders haul their goods to market this way. It spreads the weight across their shoulders. Fruit from the orchards, crates of live chickens and ducks, fish and shellfish, clothing and cooking utensils all get transported on the shoulders of the merchants.
Jesus may be alluding here to a poem of wisdom found at the end of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, one of the books in the Apocrypha that’s not a part of the Protestant Bible, but is found in the Roman Catholic canon. If so, Jesus certainly turns this first century rabbinical teaching on its head. In Sirach, the line reads, “Come close to me, you ignorant, take your place at my school…” It goes on to encourage the reader to “put your neck under her yoke,” insisting that wisdom and the law is how one achieves blessings from God.[1]
Of course, Jesus didn’t make the law easier. In many situations, Jesus’ reinterpretation of the law made it more difficult as lust became equivalent to adultery and hate to murder.[2] With other laws, like the Sabbath, Jesus may have lightened the load a bit.[3] In the end Jesus reduced the law into two over-arching principles: “the love of God and the love of neighbor.”[4] Where there is a difference between Jesus’ and the rabbis’ approach is in how they relate to their followers. Jesus doesn’t call them ignorant; instead he realizes they are hurting. Jesus doesn’t stand over them in condemnation; instead he joins them, he joins us, shouldering the load. It’s in humility and meekness that Jesus approaches his followers.
“Come to me all you who are weary…” That’s beautiful! It sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it make you want to run up to Jesus and fall at his feet? “Come to me all you who are weary…”
Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to God,” for he is the face of God for us. “Come to me…” And who is it that Jesus calls to himself? It’s not the righteous. It’s not the elite or those who are steeped in Scripture. Instead, he calls for the weary, those carrying heavy loads, those who are struggling with life. Jesus isn’t doing anything new here. God has always been concerned for those who struggle—throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the widow and orphan and alien are often lifted up as those whom God is especially concerned. “The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up those who are bowed down,” the 145th Psalm proclaims. Jesus, in his call to those who are struggling, is not saying anything new.[5] But to those struggling with life’s burdens, his call is refreshing.
From a practical point of view one can easily understand there are people who need the church more than the church needs them. On the surface, these are people who are hard to deal with and who take a lot more from the community than they can ever give back. I recall from a decade or so ago, when I was pondering doing New Church Development and reading up on the literature about how one “expert” suggested excluding such people at the beginning of one’s ministry. He suggested that such needy people would be a burden that would keep the church from growing.[6] Although that may be the case, I’m not so sure that is how God calls us to operate. Essentially that’s believing the “means justify the ends,” which is not a Christian world-view. Such a view puts everything on our shoulders (and it’s not an easy yoke). Such a view leaves no room for faith. To be faithful to Jesus we must show the face of Christ to the world, we must be willing to be there beside those struggling in life.
One of the things that shocked me about China when I was there this summer is the number of beggars. There are lots of people there who have been passed over by the economic boom the country has experienced. Most everyone appears to be in a rush and few take the time to stop and help. In fact, if you stop, you’re liable to be run over. I was heading to the Beijing Main Train Station, a huge complex in the center of the city. My hotel was north of the station and to get to the station there was a multilane highway one had to cross. Crossing it on ground level would be suicidal; there were so many cars and trucks. Above the highway are two walkways, but to get up and down them, one has to climb and descend stairs. There are no elevators or escalators.
I was running to catch the train into Mongolia and had everything with me. My backpack was on with my daypack draped over my chest and in one hand I had a bag with water and some food for the 30 hour trip. There was a crowd of people rushing up the stairs and in the middle, holding up traffic, was an older woman with one of the largest suitcases I’ve seen. She was trying to pull it up by its wheels, one step at a time. I think she was with her daughter for there was another woman with her who was struggling with two suitcases and didn’t have a free hand to help. Seeing this woman struggle, I came along side of her and with my free hand grabbed the handle. It was heavy. I have no idea what she was taking with her, but it could easily have been bricks. She looked at me, surprised. I motioned for her to go on and we walked up the stairs. I don’t think she spoke any English, but when we got to the top (where I was out of breath from having exerted myself so hard), I could tell she was grateful as she bowed deeply, with a smile on her face. “All you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens…”
As followers of Jesus, we find rest in him and should also help others find rest. As Dale Brunner writes in his wonderful commentary on Matthew, “A yoke is not a sitting instrument, it is a walking instrument.” Jesus isn’t saying, take a seat and listen and learn from me. He’s calling us to join him along the way. “Follow me,” he said earlier in the gospel when he called the disciples.[7] To be a follower of Jesus means that we’re on a journey as we strive to live and learn from him. Being a follower of Jesus requires more than just book learning; it requires living a life that reflects his grace. As Doug Hare, a professor of mine from seminary writes about this passage, the rest promised to the weary is not inactivity! This yoke that Jesus offers to share with us, that is often translated as “easy”, could also be translated as “kind.”[8] A yoke is a tool for working, but when it fits well, it will make what must be done a lot easier.
Following Jesus isn’t easy. Jesus never says it is. In other places he says we must pick up our crosses; and a cross isn’t an easy yoke to bear.[9] Instead, what I think Jesus is doing in this passage is contrasting his gentle and humble way to that of many of the teachers of his day. “The meek shall inherit the earth,” he tells us.[10] If we’re to be like Jesus, we strive to learn from him and to live, as he teaches and not as the world teaches. Living a Christ-like life can be difficult, but it is made easier when we are yoked to Jesus, when we realize he is with us and he calls us not to worry about the burden of the law, but to rejoice in life itself, a gift from an All-loving God.
Dale Bruner, to whom I referred earlier, sees this passage as a shift in Matthew’s gospel. Bruner splits the gospel into two parts: the first focuses on Jesus and the second on Jesus’ preparation for the church to take over his work. Bruner divides this passage into four clauses, which relate to the life of Jesus as shown by Matthew.
1. “Come to me” (as Jesus came to us as shown in the opening chapters of Matthew)
2. “Take my yoke upon you” (as Jesus teaches us in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7)
3. “And learn from me” (as Jesus shows us in his teachings, miracles and mission, especially in Matthew 8-10).
4. “Because I am gentle and simple at heart” (as we learn about Jesus’ nature in Matthew 10 and 11)[11]
Jesus’ yoke is still a yoke. It’s still a tool; it’s for work. We still have responsibilities. Following Jesus doesn’t mean we’re free to do whatever we want. But if we follow Jesus, we are assured that we’re eternally heading in the right direction. If we know Jesus, we know that we’re loved. And knowing where we’re headed and that we’re loved will make any task easier to bear. Furthermore, if we have the spirit of Jesus in us, his humility and meekness, we will draw others to the one who gave his life so that we might live more fully. Amen.
©2011 Jeff Garrison and First Presbyterian Church, Hastings, MI
[1] New Jerusalem Translation, Ecclesiasticus 51:23, 25. See also Matthew 23:4
[2] Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28.
[3] Matthew 12:1-8.
[4] Matthew 22:37-40.
[5] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-12 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 537.
[6] In a recent book I’ve been reading about church planting in Mongolia, the author discusses having been taught such a principle and being dismayed when, at first, the only people they seemed to reach were teenage girls. Brian Hogan, There’s a Sheep in my Bathtub: Birth of a Mongolian Church Planting Movement (Bayside, CA: Asteroidea Books, 2008), 105.
[7] Bruner, 539. Matthew 4:19.
[8] Douglas R. A. Hare, Matthew: Interpretation, a Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1993) , 128-129.
[9] We find this summons in each of the synoptic gospels and twice in Matthew and Luke. Matthew 10:39, 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23 and 18:27.
[10] Matthew 5:5
[11] Bruner, 540.
