A sermon delivered by Dr. Patrick H Wrisley on Sunday, July 9, 2023

Years ago, the former President of Princeton Seminary, Dr. Robert Gillespie, was speaking at a conference about the state of the church and culture. He said, “We are living in an Age of Carnival.”  He went on the explain that the culture we are living in today is seriously out of balance.  In the throes of postmodernity, anything goes and the demands of the many voices vying for our attention, affection, and worship are always barking at us.

In the midst of the carnival barkers shouting, the Church has been swept up in this Age of Carnival as well. We simply have to look at the last three years and note how the pandemic threw us into a swirly mess. The Church had to pivot quickly and daily respond to the pressures of “how to do Church” in that time of COVID.  Our text this morning has something to say to us as we live in this Age of Carnival.

Our Gospel reading comes from Matthew 11:25-30 and Jesus has something to say to us and the Church in these swirly times; turn in your Bibles and listen to the Word of the Lord.

²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ²⁸“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus begins by thanking his Father that it’s the little people, the common people, the folks we bump carts with at Target and Walmart who are the ones who have the capacity to hear and receive the Good News of his message. Their minds are not cluttered with pomp, pretension, and an overblown sense of pride that muffles the sounds of God’s whispers of grace. And then he gives us that wonderful invitation “to come unto me all who are weary…” These few verses in our text are a refreshing change to the ones who first heard his words just as they are to us.

Because the promise Jesus makes is so profound, I want us to hear verses 28 – 30 from two other sources. The first is from the First Nations Version of the New Testament written by a council of America’s indigenous peoples. The second is from the late Presbyterian pastor/linguist/new church planter, Eugene Peterson, and the Message. Hear again, afresh, the Word of God.

Then he turned to the ones who walked the road with him. ²⁸ Come close to my side, you whose hearts are on the ground, you who are pushed down and worn out, and I will refresh you. 29 Follow my teachings and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest from your troubled thoughts. ³⁰Walk side by side with me and I will share in your heavy load and make it light.”^[i]

            The Message reads,

^28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

These two versions of our Story really help me to clear away the dirt in order to clearly see what lies beneath waiting to be discovered…

You whose hearts are on the ground.

Walk side by side with me and I will share in your heavy load.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me.

Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.

Beloved, these are words written to a people who were exhausted by the demands and pressures of their faith. For the Jewish people of the day, they couldn’t do enough to satisfy God’s needs, at least according to the priests, Pharisees, and Scribes. Participating in religious life had morphed from honoring God in all of one’s life to becoming a complex punch list honoring the edicts of what one was supposed to do in order to be loved and approved so as to maintain standing in the religious community or in the Jewish culture. To put it modernly, “Going to church and being part of a religious community was just no fun anymore.”

Has anyone here ever felt that way before? For the Jewish audience who heard Jesus’ words, the word yoke had special significance as the yoke of the Torah was well-known to the people of the first century.  The Yoke was the compilation of the various teachings and interpretations of Jewish Law. Over the centuries, rabbis and Jewish religious scholars kept adding their own nuanced interpretations to what the Torah said and over time those interpretations, called midrash, were considered to be a part of the Law itself. With each passing generation, the weight of the Law kept on getting heavier and heavier and heavier and harder and harder to maintain and keep. For folks back then, having a relationship with God was just plain hard and difficult. There was not enough you could do to be considered good enough to be held in God’s arms. Sadly, in some contemporary Christian churches and circles, that same narrow view is still held.

And then Jesus shows up.

And then Jesus redefines the meaning of the yoke. Jesus’ yoke is defined by the Beatitudes and the spirit of the teachings in his Sermon on the Mount. His yoke is very simply stated that if you want to be loved and cared for by God, then…

Become poor in Spirit;

Be sensitive to those around you and mourn for the things that bring God pain;

Be gentle and meek, hunger and thirst for living a life that is set apart from the rest of the world where people can see you loving others;

Be merciful and show pity to those who are undeserving;

Be pure and clear in the depths of who you are, and you will see God working in and about you;

Become adopted as God’s child when you bend your heart to working towards making peace with others and cease sniping about them behind their backs;

And finally, because you will be living this counter-cultural way of life, be prepared to be mocked and ridiculed because of it.

Jesus makes it pretty simple really. He doesn’t place upon us a bunch of rules to follow; rather, he says the way to be a child of God is simply to live into these simple and basic values like he does.  His yoke is not about sacrificing and doing “stuff” for God to earn God’s favor; his yoke is to model the way God sacrifices and lives for us. His yoke is when his followers start living in a way that makes an impact on their very neighbors and the people they meet at the gas station. If you read the Beatitudes carefully, you will see that what Jesus is asking us to do is live our lives for the other and when we do, God shows up.

And yet, being poor in spirit, gentle and meek, merciful, and persecuted is not always easy to live into, is it? And that’s where the yoke is most important. As one scholar has said, “We do not see many yokes around these days. Indeed, we may forget that a yoke—a wooden bar or frame that joins two animals together so they can pull a heavy load—is not only something that is meant for two but something that was used by farmers to train inexperienced animals for their work. Less experienced beasts of burden would be teamed with more experienced ones so that the neophyte could learn how to pull the weight of the plow.”^[ii] And who is the one who promises to teach and place his yoke upon us? Jesus himself. Jesus is inviting you and me to join him, side by side, so we can walk along together as he shows us how to do it, lifts the burden when it’s too heavy for us to plow through alone, and encourages us with words of direction when we get tired and falter in our steps. 

Church, the nexus of today’s lectionary passage and my privilege of being with you today is no accident. For five years, you as a church have been plowing rocky fields as best you have been able. In my heart, I feel called to come alongside you and stand under the yoke with you. I come offering to help shoulder the burden with you, to help cut straight furrows as we live out the Beatitudes together. I come to offer words of encouragement, recalibration, and direction when you get tired and falter in your steps. I am no Jesus, that’s for sure. I’m just a simple shepherd who wants to help carry the load with you.

I want to walk with you whose hearts are on the ground.

Let’s walk side by side letting me share in your heavy load.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion or Church? Together let’s joyously and winsomely live a shared journey of impact in and through this place.

Together, let’s learn the unforced rhythms of grace so that we can let it overflow into the community. And the people of God all say, Amen.

© 2023 Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, 400 Glen Avenue, Glens Falls, NY 12801, and may not be altered, re-purposed, published, or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

^[i] First Nations Version. An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Pres, 2021).

^[ii] Feasting on the Gospels–Matthew, Volume 1: A Feasting on the Word Commentary by Cynthia A. Jarvis, E. Elizabeth Johnson. See https://a.co/28nWvTk.