Scripture: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
I’m not keen on surrender. This past Wednesday afternoon, I felt dizzy. I continued to work as always, pressing on to complete all my tasks and calls. I didn’t quite finish, but I finally decided to leave after 10 hours of work. I did an errand on the way home because I like to be efficient and finally arrived at my house. By then, I was markedly dizzy. I began to drink bottle after bottle of water, assuming my dizziness came from dehydration. It didn’t help. In fact, my dizziness got more pronounced, and my whole body began to shake. A headache pinched my head. Quite terrified and of course reading everything I could find about dehydration on the internet, I waited until 2:30 in the morning before I called my sister. When her husband, a doctor, picked up, I was so grateful. He suggested my electrolytes were not in balance. I searched my kitchen for salty foods, landing on a jar of pickles. 45 minutes later, still terrified, the shaking stopped. My dizziness largely gone but in no shape to drive to the store myself, I texted a neighbor asking that she drop by with Gatorade. She very kindly did, and I spent Friday sleeping and drinking large quantities of water, Gatorade, Pedialyte, and powerade. In the back of my mind laid a question about my productivity or lack of it. Likewise on Friday, though I felt comparitively better, I was still weak, exhausted, and slightly dizzy. As I wrote this sermon Friday afternoon laying on the couch because of my exhaustion, a sermon about setting down heavy burdens and discovering rest in Jesus’ light and easy yoke, I suddenly realized that I’m not keen on surrender.
Work, efficiency, self-sufficiency, and more work, this is my yoke. This is what guides me or at least guided in this situation. In the moments when I called my sister and texted my neighbor, moments when I asked for help, I surrendered this yoke. And the response? Almost immediate action and wise medical advice, a text message from my neighbor that thanked me for letting her help. Why didn’t I surrender, why didn’t I stop working, ask for help, and call my doctor earlier?
Jesus’ words this morning from the gospel of Matthew comfortingly invite us who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens to find rest in Jesus. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,” Jesus says, “for I am gentle and humble in heart...For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The crowds who hear Jesus’ words understand the metaphor of yoke, the wooden beam fitted across the shoulders of oxen, a piece that guides them, helps them walk together. By telling the crowds to put on his yoke, Jesus commands his listeners to be guided by him, to listen to his wisdom, not to be guided by their own burdensome way of living. And because no one can take on more than one yoke at a time, they first surrender whatever yoke they have chosen before taking on Jesus’. As comforting as they are, Jesus’ words about rest and lightness challenge us—for I suspect others are not keen on surrender, either.
It’s curious to me that this is such a hard command. Why would we be reticent to surrender our heavy, burdensome yokes? Why would we push back on Jesus’ guidance and wisdom when he offers us rest? Especially at a time when we are so burdened. Pandemic, unemployment, growing awareness among white folks of racism and racially-motivated violence, rising political polarization, along with all of our personal troubles, some related to the pandemic and others just our continuing struggles related to relationships, mental health, or worries. Why do we hesitate to surrender our yokes at this difficult time and receive Jesus’ yoke instead?
At least some of the answers to these questions are revealed in my own struggle: the primacy of work, efficiency, and self-sufficiency in our culture. But there are other answers too: pride or stubbornness, arrogance or even shame.
I’ve had other hard lessons related to this yoke I hate to surrender. For instance, updating my beliefs when I acquire a new piece of information. Meaning, fairly regularly, I learn that I’ve been wrong, maybe about something small like a comment that seemed funny to me but was actually hurtful to a friend or colleague. Or, after receiving new information, I realize a long-held social or political view no longer jives with my values. Ooh, that is hard yoke to surrender. But once I surrender that yoke and receive Jesus’ humble, gentle yoke, I am always grateful I did. To say, I didn’t know everything then, and I don’t know everything now. To say, I made a mistake, or just: I have a different opinion now.
Sometimes the yoke I hang onto is anger or resentment towards a person after having been wronged by them. After hours of tearful conversations with my friends about how this person did me wrong, after countless journal pages describing their bad behavior and my victim-hood, after denying that I am even
angry, I surrender my yoke of anger and being a victim. I receive Jesus’ yoke of humility and gentleness and practice forgiveness. And doing so is really the best thing for me, a yoke of ease and lightness.
So, I’ve been consciously practicing surrender to Jesus’ yoke the last couple days, and I gotta tell ya, it’s been pretty great once I have been able to get out of my own way. For Jesus’ yoke is easy and light. What it has looked like for me is, fundamentally, connection with God and others. Reaching out for help. Being vulnerable enough to say what is honestly hard. Practicing gratitude and other spiritual practices. Even text messaging and calling people, just to connect.
I’ve been thinking about how deeply ironic it is that we gather here in this virtual space week after week, that many of us have gathered in churches every Sunday for decades, that we have reached out for a savior, that we have discovered our need—and then rejected the yoke our savior offers. Those of us who have surrendered to Jesus’ yoke, a practice usually born of deep struggle and many years, I am in awe of your humility and gentleness, in awe of your loving posture towards yourself and the world. While you are not perfect and surely struggle in other ways, you help us understand what it is to take on Jesus’ yoke, to surrender to Jesus’ guidance and authority, to seek Jesus’ gentle and humble wisdom.
Jesus says: Come to me, 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. Thanks be to God! Amen.