July 5, 2020
/Proper 9
Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145: 8-15; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30
The Rev. James M. L. Grace
In the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN
I had a conversation last week with a parishioner and we were talking about this challenging time we all find ourselves in. This person revealed to me a sense of fatigue they were feeling. And the fatigue this person felt came not from an abundance of physical exertion, but it was more a heavy fatigue of uncertainty. Of not knowing when it will all end, and what “going back to normal” will look like, if it ever comes. I empathize with this psychological fatigue, and this heaviness.
A clergy colleague and friend who lives and works in Nebraska confessed this same weighty fatigue to me in a conversation last week. I feel it myself. There are days where I feel so tired, and all I have done all day is sit at a computer. Then there other days where I have been active, and feel like because I exerted myself, I should be tired and fatigued, but I am not. I am energized.
How is that possible, one day I am exhausted from seemingly doing nothing, and another day I feel rested when I should be exhausted? These are trying times, for all of us. During difficult times, such as these, I need comfort. I know I will not find the comfort I am searching for in a 24-hour news cycle. I will not find this comfort in COVID-19 related news, and certainly I will not find this comfort on social media.
Where will I find rest, where will I find comfort? I find it in God alone. And today that means I find comfort in paradox, because that is how God often seems to relate to us. A paradox is a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. We have an example of it this morning, where Jesus says, “take my yoke upon you . . . for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” A yoke is a heavy wooden instrument used to bind two oxen together to pull a cart. The wooden yoke would be placed upon the back of the neck of two animals, there was nothing “light” about it.
In the Hebrew scriptures, the image of a yoke was used to describe how Israel had been yoked to outside foreign nations. The image of a yoke in scripture was not favorable, or even desirable. Yet Jesus says his burden, his yoke, is not heavy. It is light. That is paradox.
In these days where we find ourselves with so much outside of our control, we might feel like one of those oxen pulling a cart. The back of our necks are sore, we are tired, there is a heaviness to life right now that does not seem fair, there is no comfort for the yoke is too heavy. Here we encounter paradox, which is that for us to feel light again – for us to feel refreshed when we are exhausted, we must take on more.
That does not seem to make sense, does it? Who wants to do more work? Who wants to take on more responsibility right now? Who wants to take on more burden? “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light,” says the Lord. That is a heaviness I can carry. And when I take on that weight, when that yoke is placed on the back of my neck, I do not feel fatigued. I do not feel cynical, or nihilistic. I feel light.
If everything seems heavy to you right now, if you are carrying burdens which are crippling you – consider taking one more – the weight of glory – the weight of the cross – the weight of Christ’s yoke, which when placed upon the back of your neck will not press your face into the ground, but will lift you up. AMEN.