2023.07.09 | Heavy Yoke, Light Burden
“Heavy Yoke, Light Burden”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
July 9, 2023
Matt. 11:16−19, 25−30 | Español
As we crack open today’s gospel reading, we find Jesus on a national evangelism tour. Much like candidates running for political office, we find Jesus hitting all the major venues where crowds are gathering, e.g., state fairs, holiday celebrations, and large family reunions. Unlike modern political candidates, though, he did not travel in private jets or luxury tour buses, and he didn’t tell people what they wanted to hear. He migrated on foot, and described the cost of discipleship. Who would vote for him? Who would volunteer for his campaign?
Answer: not many. Jesus invited listeners to share the yoke of ministry with him—by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and welcoming the stranger. His vision was profound, and his invitation compelling, but very few enlisted. Why?
For starters, Jesus’ lifestyle was what you might call “counter cultural.” He lived in a society that determined identity and status by what, when, and with whom one ate. John the Baptist and Jesus presented themselves as conspicuously unacceptable.
John was a desert dweller and hermit, who wore sackcloth and ashes and preached repentance and salvation. His message was grim and his solitary lifestyle was unappealing to the masses.
Jesus, by contrast, had a more upbeat message, and dressed similarly to the majority, but his willingness to welcome outcasts and jettison the Levitical codes, was (in the view of the Pharisees) an affront to God and a reason why God had subjected Israel to foreign occupation.
The only way Israel could get right with God, according to the Pharisees, was for every Jew to practice strict adherence to the Law, including the dietary codes, social expectations, and ritual practices. (See Morton Kelsey’s Psychology, Medicine and Christian Healing.)
Jesus agreed that Israel needed to get right with God, but his view about how to do that was quite different from that of the Pharisees. Jesus argued that the way for Israel to get right with God was to fulfill the prophets’ call to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Jesus represented a small but vocal viewpoint grounded in the prophetic and Wisdom traditions of Ancient Israel.
Jesus identified himself as solidly within the Wisdom tradition by preaching a message of grace, compassion, and healing, and by challenging the legalistic, judgmental, and condemnatory messages of the Pharisees.
As a proponent of Wisdom theology, Jesus preached and openly lived a message of grace, compassion, and healing. He described those who rejected him as persons from whom wisdom had been hidden (Mt. 11:25), and he encouraged his adversaries to exchange the Pharisees’ heavy yoke of Law for Wisdom’s light yoke of grace.
II
The yoke that Jesus offered was not light because it was insignificant, but light because it was shared. The wisdom that is expressed in the yoke he was describing is lost on most first-world, modern people because we were born after “the horse and buggy days,” and we have benefited from the advances of mechanized agriculture practices. But this was not the case for my grandparents’ generation or for farmers who live and work in third-world countries today. So I will offer a little farm history lesson for the uninitiated today.
Draft animals were (and still are) often yoked in pairs—especially as a way of training one in the pair or service by the other.
I remember my dad telling my sister and I about his father’s Clydesdale, named “Jack,” who pulled his farm implements through the fields of Northwest Iowa in the early 20th century.
My dad explained that for most of his farming career, his father had a one-horse plow and the reins to go with it, but when his draft horse was getting near the end of his life of service, Grandpa Nehring switched to a two-horse yoke and reins, so that his mature stud could train his successor, who was a two-year old colt.
For the two-year-old, the yoke was heavy, and pulling the farm implements through the sticky clay soil of Iowa was hard work, but the burden was light, because it was shared with Jack, the experienced, mature stud.
III
The analogy of a heavy yoke and a light burden extends beyond biblical images and pioneer practices.
The other day I was going through some papers in my office, and I came across a memorable photo that a friend had sent. He had been working on his congregation’s annual stewardship campaign, and included with his letter the photo of a barn raising. This picture was not the kind of barn raising that I was familiar with, where neighbors came together to build a barn in a single day.
No, instead, the barn raising in the photo included about fifty people who were literally lifting and carrying a barn several yards from one location to another.
The author explained that no one would believe that they could lift a barn—and of course none of us could by ourselves. But fifty people, lifting and carrying it together, could carry it several yards. Heavy yoke, light burden.
IV
For various reasons, we modern first-world people are often stymied by various challenges, because we think that the only way to complete a task is to do it by yourself. So we think too small, and we are easily defeated. But I can think of numerous times, when people in this congregation and our larger community have been able to do great things for God when we allowed ourselves to focus on our strengths, on what we have--instead of what we lack--and when we have worked together .
I remember, for example, that Pastor Brenda Loreman, who is coming back to serve as Pastor Pepper’s successor, and who was at the time our moderator, joined me in challenging the congregation to participate in a second-mile giving campaign to raise money for evangelism purposes.
The average age of the membership at the time was high--approximately 70. Congregational giving was not. In addition, the membership was afraid of words like “evangelism” and people were resistant to inviting others to church, because, well, they weren’t “that kind of Christian.”
Nevertheless, Pastor Brenda and I pressed on, because we didn’t think that the church would survive without the implementation of a successful evangelism campaign.
In order to garner approval for the campaign, and to stave off negative attitudes, we decided not to announce a campaign goal. We simply said that every dollar raised would be a dollar more than we had before.
In the end, we raised $70,000 for evangelism in 30 days. We sent $25,000 to the national offices to support the God is Still Speaking campaign, and we jump-started a three-year growth effort that took the membership from 140 to 200, and that brought the average age of a member down from 70 to 45. Heavy yoke, light burden.
V
In a similar manner, it’s hard to overstate the importance of sharing the yoke of justice--of being in solidarity with others--as a means of lighting each other's burdens.
I will not soon forget a phone call that I received from Ruth Hartman, who was then the President of Congregation Shir Ami, in the spring of 2009.
A fundamentalist Christian law firm had filed a public records lawsuit against the Castro Valley Unified School District, in conjunction with a presentation that they had invited me to share about being a lesbian and serving an Open & Affirming congregation. I was one of something like 50 other speakers who were addressing various topics having to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion for their “Days of Diversity” program.
Ruth called me on my office phone, explained that she was a Castro Valley parent with students in the school district, and a member of the Parent Teacher Student Association. She said that she was calling to say how sorry that she was that these haters had come after me and our church and school district, and that she wanted me to know that the Jews of Castro Valley thought their behavior was dreadful, and that they stood with us.
And they did. And we’ve been close compatriots ever since. Heavy yoke, light burden.
VI
Think about your own situation for a moment, or other circumstances in our life as a congregation. Think of a time when you felt burdened by a significant challenge. Had you tried to carry that burden alone, you might have collapsed. Had any one person tried to achieve a particular goal alone, it might never have been achieved. But when that burden was shared and that challenge was shoulder by more than yourself, perhaps you, too, discovered that the yoke was heavy but the burden was light--and as a result, God’s mission was advanced. Thanks be to God. Amen.