Whose Yoke Guides You?
Chapter 11 of Matthew explores at least two identity crises
going on at once: who is John the baptizer, and who is this Jesus? Two upstarts
that the credentialed religious professionals and the powerful political elite
relegate to irrelevance: one for fasting and eating bugs dipped in honey, and
the other for letting anyone and everyone sit at the dinner table with him. One
is an ascetic, the other a glutton and a drunkard. The present generation,
Jesus says, just does not understand. We are that “present generation” as Matthew
understands it.
Jesus answers the detractors, “You have fallen for my
Father’s strategy to keep the central message among the “little ones,” “the
children,” the uncredentialed, the unprofessional, those exhausted from endless
labor with no time for Sabbath, and weary from the multi-tiered taxation of the
Empire, of Herod Antipas, of the priest’s tithes, and the Temple dues. These children
are not darling, innocent post-Victorian waifs and little Lord Fauntleroys.
They are the land and tax poor of any and all generations. Which is why in
Matthew when Jesus teaches us to pray he says, “forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors.” Debt is how they ended up in Egypt in the first place: by
the foreclosure of their farms and herds they became slaves for Pharoh; for the
empire.
We may notice five verses missing from our portion of
Matthew 11. It seems those who set up the lectionary thought we might not be up
for hearing Jesus go into an unscheduled tirade against some of the villages
where he had been teaching in the region around Galilee. Considered, perhaps,
too indelicate for our Sunday morning ears to hear him castigate these towns
where he he also had healed people, but they refused to repent and follow him.
To refuse to put off the yokes of the Empire and Jerusalem, and try another.
His yoke. Missing the tirade makes it difficult to understand what happens
next.
After praying for his Father to continue to confound the
credentialed, rich, and powerful, and continue to point to what life in God’s
kingdom looks like among the “little ones,” rather than Caesar’s kingdom. Jesus
also prays that he will announce what his Father is really looking for, and
that he will “choose” to whom to impart this wisdom from on high. Jesus then
concludes with familiar words: “Come to me, all you that 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.”
For generations of our Anglican tradition, we have called
these “comfortable words.” We tend to heave a sigh of relief when we hear them,
missing the deeper inner meanings of a saying one might embroider on a pillow. Yokes
are physical implements to guide and control beasts of burden, and had long
become a standard metaphor in biblical religion to refer to having one’s life,
and one’s community’s life, guided and controlled by Torah, God’s commands,
which Jesus regularly boils down to love God, and love neighbor – which for God
and Jesus means “all” neighbors, all people, everywhere, all the time.
One of the pesky words in these final words is the word
“all.” Like his behavior at the dinner table, Jesus invites all, everyone and
anyone, to sit down with him. This means the taxed and tax collectors; the
land-poor, and those who have foreclosed and usurped their family farms; the
religious conservatives and religious liberals; the undocumented resident
aliens and those whose tribe and clan has been in the land for generations;
those whose work, poverty, illness, or social location made Torah observance
difficult or just plain impossible, and those for whom Torah observance was a kind
of fetish and personal luxury. Shared meals created belonging in the ancient
Mediterranean world of Jesus. They marked who was included and who was
excluded, Yet, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you… all y’all,” crossing the lines
that organize the world into binaries: clean and unclean, acceptable and
unacceptable, respectful and disposable.
“You who are exhausted and weary” of being asked to fund
tributes to Caesar, to fund vanity building projects for Herod Antipas (the
king of the Jews) such as a building named after the Emperor Tiberias, and to
maintain the demands of the Temple. It has been estimated that one-third to
one-half of one’s yearly produce went to these overlapping demands, keeping
families in chronic debt and vulnerable to foreclosure. When Jesus speaks of
those who are weary and heavy-laden he speaks to those who are being
ground-down by the dominant economic systems. Those who work half a year to
satisfy the multiple yokes around their necks.
Come try my yoke instead, says Jesus. It’s still a yoke.
There will still be responsibilities. You will have to lay down all the hatred
and mis-trust, and love one another as I love you. As my father loves me. As
the psalmist sings, “8 The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to
anger and of great kindness. 9 The Lord is loving to everyone and his
compassion is over all his works.” [Psalm 145] You will find that in loving
all others as I love you there will be rest for your souls. The word for rest, anapausis,
is used in Old Testament texts to mean Sabbath. Sabbath was not understood
as a personal practice of piety, but rather represents a break with the
dominant economic system and to attend to loving our family and neighbors: the
hungry, thirsty, unhoused, undocumented, in prison, disabled physically or
emotionally, and in any way ground down by work under the pressures of the Empire,
and the state and religious elite.
In the very next verses in chapter 12, one sees Jesus pilloried
for allowing people to work: to harvest food for the hungry while he heals
people on the Sabbath day. He issues the challenge: is not relief and release
from whatever exhausts one and makes one weary a kind of Sabbath in and of
itself? Was humankind made for the Sabbath? Or, is Sabbath mandated for
humankind?
Finally, he says, “My yoke is chrestos,” usually
translated “easy.” Yet, it more often means useful, good, kind, or benevolent. It’s
a Greek word used for the Hebrew ahavah, or “love,” as in “love thy
neighbor and the sojourner in the land.” True love means actively giving to
others rather than just having a feeling. It means doing something useful or
kind for them. Which is consistent to the kind of Sabbath “rest” Jesus not only
advocates, but encourages and actually acts out. This also may be a play on
words to suggest that Jesus the christos (anointed) is also chrestos,
benevolent 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Christos is Chrestos!
Who are Jesus and John? They do not support the status quo
of dividing people into binary categories, a practice that is still prevalent
in our “generation.” They share his Father’s will, love, mercy, and compassion
with whomever they choose whenever necessary. Jesus insists that both he and
John, and their respective followers, will be judged not by what they say or
believe, but by what they do day in and day out. Jesus exposes the trappings of
political power and religion as just that: traps that exhaust everyone but the
elites. We all wear a yoke. The question is not whether we do or don’t, but
rather whose yoke is it, and who profits from our labor? Jesus asks, “Are you
ready to try my yoke?” Our answer will make all the difference in the world!
Amen.
