The Yoke is On Us (7-9-2023)
July 9, 2023
Sixth Sunday After Pentecost (A)
Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145:8-14; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
I know that I’ve told this story to several of you, but it’s such a good story and it helped me so much with today’s gospel reading that I want to share it again with everyone. So if I’m repeating myself to you, please accept my apology in advance.
A month ago we had our annual synod assembly here in the Metro D.C. Synod. At a synod assembly there are occasionally questions that require a vote, and they wanted to test an electronic voting system we could use on our phones. So we all did a test vote. We took out our phones and received a ballot where we could vote on which of six flavors of ice cream was our favorite. Everyone voted, and within a few moments on the screen popped up the results. And my candidate, strawberry, came in dead last.
And it probably says something about where I was mentally and spiritually that day, that my immediate reaction was to think, I’m the oddball yet again. I’m an outsider here and I always will be, nobody here gets me or thinks the way I do, I’ll never fit in here. That’s a burden I’ve carried my whole life, as far back as I can remember, feeling different, worried about fitting in, and on a bad day it can be overwhelming.
But a moment later I was rescued from my grim thoughts by the people sitting in the row directly behind me. One commented aloud to the other, “Mint ice cream is number one? These people are weird.” And I was reminded that there’s more than one way to react to feeling different. I immediately went to – what’s wrong with me? But it’s also possible to react by wondering, what’s wrong with everyone else? And how we respond is a choice that we get to make.
Our gospel passage today begins with Jesus reacting to criticism he was receiving for the way he conducted himself with his disciples. Now, perhaps differently from me, Jesus was very secure in who he was and in what he was called to be and to do. And his reaction tends much more to the “You people are weird” side of the spectrum. “To what shall I compare this generation,” Jesus asked. “You’re like children playing in the park – we sang a happy song and you wouldn’t dance, we sang a sad song and you wouldn’t cry, what is the matter with you?” Jesus says, John the Baptist lived in the desert and ate locusts and wild honey and you said, “What a wacko, hard to listen to someone who doesn’t live like a normal person.” I eat and drink like a regular person and you say, “Not very holy, this one, is he?” You people are weird.
And I presume that this gentle teasing of Jesus got a few laughs, from his disciples, at least. Maybe not from the people who were criticizing him; they don’t seem to have had much of a sense of humor. Whatever tune Jesus was inviting them to play along with, they didn’t seem to catch on. But then Jesus – who, as I say, was secure in who he was and in what he was called to be – Jesus moves seamlessly from humor into prayer. “I am so grateful, Father,” Jesus prays. “I am so thankful that you have wisely arranged the world so that the wise and the intelligent can’t hear your tune, they can’t see what you are doing, but these infants can see exactly who you are, they can unself-consciously play right along with you.”
The wise and the intelligent think they know better than God how God should act in the world. So that when God does act in the world they are completely unable to recognize and to connect with it. Because God does not play the tune that the wise and the intelligent expect God to play. The tune they expect from God is a song of authority, and power, and judgment.
When the Old Testament prophet Zechariah imagined the coming of the Messiah, he described it in the words of our first reading today: Here comes your king, triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey. He is not, as triumphant and victorious kings normally do, riding a warhorse. In fact, Zecharaiah says, when the Messiah comes he will forever get rid of chariots and warhorses and battle bows, and his command to the nations will be peace, not war. Jesus knew this passage from Zechariah well; on Palm Sunday he deliberately rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, according to the gospel writers precisely because of this passage from Zechariah.
Now the wise and the intelligent, as this world considers them to be – both in the first century and in the twenty-first – generally don’t get to be called the best and the brightest by excelling in meekness and humility. And whatever the prophet Zechariah may have said, whatever Jesus may be saying, these people know that when God comes God must come in power and authority. And we have no shortage of religious leaders – not in the first century and not today – who will be more than happy to tell you that the main thing God demands is that you respect God’s authority.
This week I happened to run across a sermon from one of the most influential pastors in the United States, the pastor of a large and very well known megachurch near Los Angeles. He has a TV and radio ministry that many people watch. In his sermon, he was preaching on why wives need to be obedient to their husbands (which seems to be a favorite topic for some of these folks) and he said this:
“The principle is this – people, get it – authority and submission pervade the whole universe. In the relationship between man and man, there is authority and submission. In the relationship between man and God, there is authority and submission. In the relationship between God and God, there is authority and submission. The entire universe is pervaded by this concept. … Now, listen, it’s simple. Think of it this way: if Christ does not submit to the Father, then redemption is not accomplished.”*
He says, if the Son does not submit to the authority of the Father, all is lost. He says that if the wife does not submit to the authority of the husband, if the nation does not submit to the authority of the leader, if the flock does not submit to the authority of the pastor, all is lost. Because that’s the way the God has designed the world to work, because that’s the way God works. To the wise and intelligent nothing could be more clear.
But with all due respect to this famous pastor, there is nothing that could be further from what Jesus is articulating in this gospel passage today. Jesus, like the prophet Zechariah, completely subverts this expectation of the authority of God and the authority of the Messiah. I am gentle and humble in heart, Jesus says. And I am so grateful, Father, that the wise and the intelligent cannot see this, but the little ones! The little ones see it perfectly clearly. And no one really knows just how gentle and humble in heart the Father is the way that I do. No one knows that the Father has given completely of himself and given everything over to me the way that I do – and the way that anyone who comes to me can learn.
Don’t get me wrong, there is a kind of submission in yielding ourselves to God. Jesus says his yoke is easy and his burden is light, but he still has a yoke and a burden. But the kind of submission that God wants from us, the kind of yoke Jesus wants to impose on us, is the complete opposite of the authority-and-submission model that is popular in some parts of the Christian world today. It is the submission that Jesus models in his prayer to the Father in today’s text: I see what you’re up to, God, thank you, you are more amazing than I could possibly have imagined, you have graciously willed it so, yes, yes, this is so good. God’s love and grace are amazing things, beautiful things, life-giving things, more than any of us could have ever come up with on our own, and Jesus says, yes, this is what I want. The love of God is captivating precisely because there is no coercion or force or threat in it at all.
As captivating as this vision of God’s graciousness may be, we do remain attached to authority and the false comfort it brings. Even though submitting to those kinds of authorities can be a heavy burden, even though carrying them makes us weary. As Paul says in the second reading today, I know who God is and what God wants for me and I want what God wants, and then I find myself doing exactly the opposite. What’s wrong with me? Who can save me from this mess I keep making of things? Thanks be to God, Paul says, Jesus can.
Come to me, Jesus says, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, 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.
Come to me, Jesus says, and I will give you rest. Come to me, I will remove from you the yokes of authority and submission that others have imposed on you, even if they think they have done it in the name of God. Come to me, Jesus says, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest.
Come to me, Jesus says. And Lord, here we are.
* – John MacArthur, sermon “The Subordination and Equality of Women,” Apr. 25, 1976, https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/1844/the-subordination-and-equality-of-women. Thanks to Brian Morris @brmorris on Twitter who pointed out this sermon.