July 9, 2023 Sixth Sunday After Pentecost The text is Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30.

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[Jesus spoke to the crowd saying:] ¹⁶“To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
 ¹⁷‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
  we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
 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.”

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May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God the Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

By the time we rejoin Jesus this morning, his twelve apostles have been sent out and John the Baptist has been arrested and he languishes in prison.  Jesus has addressed the crowds and told them that John is the messenger whom the ancient prophets wrote about; the one who would proclaim that the Messiah had come into the world.  And this proclamation has greatly upset the status quo within the Jewish temple authorities; thus John has been imprisoned in order to curb any further spread of his message among the people. 

It’s safe to say that Jesus is displeased with the way John has been treated, and he is also frustrated by how he has been rejected by some, especially the religious leaders who have been opposing him at every opportunity. 

He scolds those who have been in opposition to both John as the prophet sent to prepare the way for Jesus’ arrival and Jesus himself, as the promised Messiah.  And he highlights the strong distinction between his own behaviors and choices and those of the Baptizer in the wilderness.  Those who take issue with the message that he and John bring seem to have a problem with the lifestyles of the two of them, radically different though they are.  His detractors aren’t happy that Jesus chooses to eat and drink like any normal person; at the same time they feel that John lives a much too ascetic life.  “John must be possessed because he lives by himself in the desert and eats and drinks only what he needs to survive”.  “Oh, and Jesus dines with sinners and tax collectors, so he must be overindulging in food and wine at every meal”.  It seems that their detractors are so unwilling to embrace the message that Jesus brings them, that they will find any excuse to disparage those who proclaim it.

And let’s be honest; John’s message of the need for repentance and baptism before the people would be worthy to welcome Jesus; well, negativity toward John the Baptist’s proclamation is actually quite understandable.  He called the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him at the Jordan a “brood of vipers”.  He warned that the ax was at the ready to chop down any tree (that is, any person) not bearing good fruit.  He promised that Jesus would come to baptize with the Holy Spirit, which is a good thing, but for good measure he also promised baptism by fire.  Again, those seeing how John lived, wearing camel hair and eating locusts and wild honey were likely not going to readily accept his proclamations; his warnings of dire repercussions would certainly have turned many against him.

But the contrast between John‘s alarming warnings and Jesus’ promises of God’s love, grace, and mercy couldn’t be more extreme.  Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which he delivered just a few chapters ago in Matthew spoke to the inheritance of the kingdom of God by the disenfranchised.

He promised that the meek, the hungry and thirsty, the poor, the merciful, and those grieving are “blessed” by God.  So, while John’s behavior and proclamations may have been difficult for people to accept, what was it about the way Jesus acted and what he preached that was so challenging for many to embrace?  This is clarified in the next verses, as Jesus prays, giving thanks to God the Father for hiding wisdom and understanding from the “wise”; while revealing Jesus’ nature to whom he calls “infants”.  These “wise” ones are the religious leaders, the temple authorities and those whose job it was to interpret the Law for the Hebrew people.  The so-called “infants” are the Jewish people themselves, who do not have the theological training of the Pharisees and Sadducees, but they are the ones to whom God has revealed the identity and nature of Christ Jesus.  These are those who have been embracing the message of both John and Jesus, widely different though they are, while it is the teachers of the Law and the rabbis who reject both of them and the Gospel message.  Jesus lets these “wise” ones know in no uncertain terms that while they think they understand God’s will, it is Jesus alone who determines to whom the truth is revealed.  He tells them, ”all 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.”

And that is exactly what Jesus has been doing the entirety of his ministry; revealing God’s glory through healing miracles and preaching good news to the downtrodden persecuted people of Israel.  In contrast, the religious leaders have been downplaying everything Jesus has done or said that has displayed God’s grace.  Instead they have been enforcing strict adherence to the Law, without exception. “Don’t heal the sick on the Sabbath”.  “Don’t pick berries in a field, even if you’re hungry; the Law states this isn’t permitted on the Sabbath”.  “How dare you eat with undesirable people; don’t you know that God has deemed them as sinners and they are not worthy of God’s grace and mercy?”  This stringent, inflexible interpretation of the Law has made the people’s faith a burden and not the gift of God as it was intended to be.

The Law is intended to regulate and enhance the peoples’ relationship with God and with one another, but not to the point that keeping the faith becomes oppressive and heavy upon the faithful.  The Hebrew people in Jesus’ time are living under the oppression of Roman occupation, they are being taxed to the point of bare subsistence, and strict adherence to the Law of Moses is becoming more and more difficult to maintain.  The people are weary.  Jesus sees the weariness the people are experiencing and he knows the burdens they carry.  Rather than use the Law as an excuse to make their lives more intolerable he calls to them to come to him for rest and comfort.  Jesus invites those who are weary from their burdens to share what weighs them down with him. 

And even this was a subtle dig at the Pharisees who placed strict obedience  to the Law above all else.  The accepted practice in Jesus’ time was that teachers of the Torah, rabbis, would expound on their specific understanding of the Law, and this usually done through verbal teaching.  The disciples of a particular rabbi would then be said to be bound to their teacher through this agreed-upon interpretation.  Disciples would take the “yoke of Torah” that their rabbi taught, upon themselves.  Thus they became bound together, in the way a pair of draft animals would share a yoke for plowing or pulling a wagon.  They would study and live by the version of the Torah that they now shared.  Disciples were bound to their teacher, and they were expected to obey his teachings when it came to the Law and how they must live under it. They studied their Rabbi's every move and memorized every word that he said.  More than once Jesus condemned those who forced burdensome adherence to Torah, saying that they took "traditions of men and made them doctrines of God"; thus weighing the people down with heavy burdens that they were not able to bear; making the people weary.  Jesus said, “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.”

He is reminding the people that God’s Law is meant to be a comfort to those who live under it, providing guidance, while allowing for grace and mercy.

We who are invited to take the yoke of Jesus upon ourselves are bound to him by our faith.  We understand that we must try to obey God’s commandments, but that we are forgiven when we stumble, when we disobey.  Saint Paul expresses the difficulty we mere mortal humans face when we struggle to live according to God’s Law, when at the same time we are sinful by our nature.  To paraphrase his letter to the Roman church this morning; “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  I know that nothing good dwells within me.  I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.  Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Poor Paul; he so eloquently voices the struggle we all face; the desire to please God and the knowledge that we are not able to do so.  Paul thanks God for sending Jesus to rescue him from the moral wrestling match he is constantly waging within himself.  He understands that he is not able to live under the burdensome dictates of an inflexible interpretation of the Law; the only way he is able to find peace, comfort, mercy, grace, and salvation is in the sharing of Christ’s yoke.  He is bound to Jesus, as we are, acknowledging that the burdens of this life are too heavy for us to bear alone.

We who are weary are invited to come to Jesus and take upon ourselves the yoke he offers to share with us.  One that is easy and light.  One that promises forgiveness for our inability to bear our burdens alone.  One that we are eager to place on our shoulders, for we know that when we are bound to Jesus, he walks with us, sharing all that weighs us down.  This earthly life is not without burdens that we must struggle with, but thanks be to God, we never have to bear them alone.            

Will you pray with me?  Good, and gracious, and holy God, even as we try to obey your holy commandments, we confess that we are unable to do so.  We find ourselves burdened by the world, and often we are weary.

Forgive us when we fail to live according to your Law.  And we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, the One who invites us to take his yoke upon ourselves, and who secures for us your mercy and grace.  Amen

God is Good, all the time.  All the time, God is Good.  Amen.