For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For
my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28 – 30
The tragedies of our day, the deconstruction of truth in common
life, historical and divisive issues and concerns such as racism, sexism, economic
inequality, etc., and an outrageous persistent ignorance more and more codified
into law and exacerbated by vitriolic political rhetoric, various media, and a
politics immoral more and more frustrating for many, should make us thankful
for the life, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is his sacred and holy unwavering
courageous stance in opposition to unjust and burdensome religious and
governmental laws, which left God’s people bound and longing for hope, that offers
the Christian a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light. His profound and
unlawful acts of love present us with the sustenance and the remedy to a
national tragedy. Christ broke the law
all the time. Christ forgave and harbored criminals and refugees. Christ's
challenge to the temple was illegal and got him crucified. He sets the trend
for challenging man-made authorities, i.e. sin, evil and unjust laws, and
giving allegiance to God instead.
In Martin Luther King Jr.’s sermon, “The Death of Evil upon
the Seashore” he writes, Is anything more obvious than the presence of evil in
the universe? Its nagging, prehensile tentacles project into every level of
human existence. We may debate the
origin of evil, but only a victim of superficial optimism would debate its
reality. Evil is stark, grim, and
colossally real.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s words are a reminder that
the faith we profess is not for window dressing, or for an exhibition of
entitlement, privilege or supremacy but for an encounter of sin, evil and
injustice legislated through laws and policies, that do not and will not compromise
in their mission to rape, pillage and if possible to destroy our very souls.
The faith we profess and seek
to live is not an investment in the deception, lies and falsehoods of some
who profess Christianity, but in those things, which affirm a costly grace, as
expressed by Pastor, Martyr, Prophet and Spy Dietrich Bonhoeffer amidst the final
solution, i.e. the murder of 6 million Jews, codified into law in Nazi, Germany,
and experienced at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ our beloved savior. It is an appreciation of this costly grace at
the depths of our soul which compels a discipleship which keeps us from a
profound and dangerous deception which cast many into the abyss of fragility, discouragement
and despair.
Galatians 6:7 encourages the Christian not to be deceived;
that God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man or [woman] soweth, that shall they
also reap. In this sense the deception
espoused by the tragic as seen in the current political regimes governmental
laws and policies regarding immigration, racism and an incivility unleashed, is
only overcome by a discipleship rooted in our encounter of a costly grace in
our soul and a profound and uncompromising believe that God’s unarmed truth and
unconditional love will have the final word and that right temporarily defeated
is stronger than evil triumphant" as said by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. In other words, the religious, political, and cultural polarization
experienced by many today can only be overcome by a deep and uncompromising
believe in the costly grace of Jesus Christ and no other, that regardless of
how things look, God has the final word.
As it says in Deuteronomy 32 verse 35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompense;
Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day of their calamity is at hand,
And the things to come hasten upon them.
An appreciation of costly grace calls us each moment of each
day to reclaim once again the gospel of Jesus Christ so as not to be deceived
by a religion and its politics parading as a form of a gospel reminiscent of
the Jim Crow South and so called Christians who would practice racism while
going to the lynching tree after receiving communion. In his review of The
Cross and the Lynching Tree, by James Cone, Stephen G. Ray Jr. January 30, 2012
writes, “More often than not, the public renderings of black bodies were
carried out by "good Christian folk"—people who had become convinced
that their dedication to the regime of white supremacy that demanded these
executions was part and parcel of their Christian identity. It is no
coincidence that most of the lynchings from the late 19th to mid-20th century
occurred in the Bible Belt. Churchgoing lynchers were often murdering other
churchgoing Christians who were of the same communion: Baptists killed Baptists
and so on.”
Mindful of Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman, in his book, “The Creative Encounter” the history of
Christianity is a struggle between good and evil. This is not unique to Christianity as it is a
tension acknowledged by all the great religions. In this light each of us must
delve deep within ourselves as children of God to encounter that authentic
religious experience. We do an injustice to ourselves, if, unlike Jesus in the
Garden of Gethsemane, we don’t consider who we are, as a product of a system, and
the implications of what our faith must encounter, engage, and eventually
overcome. The faith we live and profess, like our love for all of God’s
creation, is not for the faint of heart as it is meant to take on systems and
processes, whether external or internal, which codify unjust bias,
discrimination and a racial and economic animus into law and governmental
policy such as the current immigration policy which separates children from
their families, discriminates against the Muslim community, while also putting
the healthcare of millions at risk. Of
course, some might consider a position detrimental to so many people, simply a
different worldview, covering up the dastardly and shameful conditions
advocated by this peculiar ideology. Yet who can deny that children separated
from their families and incarcerated in an old Walmart building is not unjust,
for some, conjuring mental images of African American enslavement.
The sacred and holy stand against sin, evil and injustice are
an ongoing continuing struggle which must be fought generation to generation.
Any resting on our laurels becomes an opening for the weeds of delusion,
deception and deconstruction, and dehumanization legislated as law, to rise and
choke whatever righteousness and an inclusive life-giving hope being nurtured.
In this I think the words attributed to Jesus, “It is finished” in the gospel
of John 19:30 can be deceptive, used by the forces of injustice to inflict a
cruel dispensation, the cheap grace of injustice, upon the innocent making it
clear that sin and evil persist. More so, the words “It is finished” is a
trumpet call amidst the injustice of our day that Jesus Christ has been the
example, he’s given those who choose to be his disciples the tools to stand
against the sin, evil and injustice of this world and he’s given his disciples
the Holy Spirit so that they might critically and forcefully engage those
things which deny a necessary hope. Amidst
the “It is Finished” Jesus had an intimate knowledge of the burden which
confronted and confronts his disciples.
Today’s text, Matthew 11:28-30 emerges out Jesus’ dealings
with Pharisees who seek God’s righteousness through unswerving obedience to
Jewish law. Similar to today they sought
to legislate righteousness and morality, creating a huge and unbearable burden
for God’s humanity. The scripture is Jesus’s engagement of the sad affair and a
reminder that the law, whether religious or secular, for as much comfort as the
law can seemingly provide secular or religious authoritarians or zealots, is a
burden which denies the very righteousness, mercy and grace of God and a
morality they seeks to take hold of.
The saying “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” is part
of a larger passage (Matthew 11:28–30), in which Jesus tells all who are weary
and burdened to come to Him for rest. He isn’t speaking here of physical
burdens only. Rather, it was the heavy burden of the system of works that the
Pharisees like some today, laid on the backs of the people that Jesus was
offering to relieve. Later, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus will rebuke the
Pharisees for laying heavy burdens on the shoulders of the people (Matthew
23:4).
The “yoke of the Pharisees” is the burdensome yoke of
self-righteousness and legalistic law-keeping. It has been said by biblical
scholars that the Pharisees had added over 600 regulations regarding what
qualified as “working” on the Sabbath. That is a heavy burden! Recall the story
of the lawyer who asked Jesus what the greatest commandment of the Law was
(Matthew 22:36). You can almost read between the lines of the man’s question:
“What law, of all the laws we have, do I absolutely have to keep?”
Following Christ
In the life of the Christian, strength and the will to
persist become the evidence of their discipleship in Christ which sustains and
overcomes the difficulties and challenges of unjust and unnecessary laws which
perpetrate the sin, evil and injustice of humanity. Sin, evil and injustice are often the only
words which adequately describe programs and policies which reveal evermore the
destruction not only of innocent families longing for a better life but of the
demise a nation which each day becomes more and more burdensome, fragile and
polarized in its common life. It is
during times like these when the faith of the Christian, their relationship
with Christ, becomes paramount in the apprehension of a hope which overcomes
burdens which compel a sadness, depression and hopelessness. Considering such
matters, today the Christian must lay their burdens at the feet of Jesus Christ
knowing that obedience to these words are the clearest way and means to
overcome and address the sins and evils of humanity which persist.
In the final analysis, where the laws of humanity fail, making
weariness and burden the norms of our day, it is the law of love, which makes
the yoke easy and the burden light. It is the Christian’s obedience to Christ and
his teachings rooted in love as exhibited by Jesus, which must overcome those
burdens, those frustrations encountered in unjust laws. There may be times in the life of the Christian
when they will have a choice between obedience to God’s law or obedience to
man’s law. This has been a very real
reality for those dealing with immigration and those who addressed issues regarding
environmental concerns at Standing Rock in the face of big oil. We may be fortunate now not to have to make
that choice, yet this choice eventually comes to all who profess their
obedience to Jesus Christ.
This day let those of us who profess discipleship to Christ
practice the law of love and in so doing gradually begin to change our lives, our
homes, our communities, our nation, our world and its politics and in so doing make space for the Kingdom of heaven.
