FOLLOWING JESUS LIGHTENS OUR LOAD

 

Come to me all you who are weary and find life burdensome and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.

Matthew 11:25-30

Seven kids in a small house! I don’t know how my mother did it! She was one of the most generous persons in the whole world, not only to us kids, but to her neighbors as well. She was what I would call “totally selfless.” She was an old-fashioned country mother. Besides giving birth to seven kids, she cleaned, cooked, helped clean the church, did laundry, ironed our clothes and even altar lenins, raised a huge garden, sewed, canned food, raised and slaughtered chickens, helped us with homework, taught us our prayers, took care of us when we were sick and even played with us! I don’t know how she did it, day in and day out, her whole life long, until she finally died of cancer at 58! But every once in a while, the burdens of motherhood weighed her down, sometimes to the breaking point! Even though she loved us and never complained outright, every once in a while she let us know that she would love to have a break from the burdens of motherhood. “All I want is a little peace and quiet, a small white house with a picket fence and a few flowers in the yard!” It never occurred to us that she wanted it without us! She loved us very much. She did not regret the disciplines of motherhood. She only wanted a little relief once in a while. Poor woman! She had to die to get the “peace and quiet” she longed for!

I used to think about my mother a lot, especially when I was a pastor. As much as I love the priesthood, whenever I was over whelmed by its disciplines, I found myself fantasizing about selling all I have, packing my bags and moving to another city where no on knew me, no one expected anything from me, where I could do any damn thing I wanted, whenever I want to do it!  I know it was an illusion. I knew I would miss my life as a priest very much. In retirement, the discipline of being a priest are not so wearisome and burdensome these days. In fact, I enjoy what I am doing because I don’t have to worry about administration, personnel issues and parish finances.

Like my mother’s yearning for relief from the burdens of motherhood! I know I am here to stay! I know that I was just tired back then when I fantasized about leaving whenever I thought the grass might be greener o the other side of the fence. I know that fundamentally the disciplines of priesthood are life-giving for me and they have always been!   

Just like motherhood, marriage and priesthood, which have the ability to give life to people and to drain the life out of them sometimes, Jesus knew that religion has the ability to give life to people, as well as the ability to drain the life out of them. Religion at the time of Jesus was draining the life out of people. But before you rush out and condemn organized religion, know this: Jesus was not against organized religion, but an organized religion that had lost its faith! He wanted, not to condemn organized religion, but to renew it! Jesus did not abandon organized religion because it lost its way, any more than my mother would abandon her kids or most of you your marriages or me the priesthood, just because we are tempted to run for the hills every once in a while! 

Jesus uses the image of a yoke to talk about his discipline versus a religion that had lost its focus. He called the discipline of religion a “yoke,” something that every good Jew recognized as “the Law” or us "the Bible,” if you will.  Jesus was a carpenter. He knew about yokes. He made many of them.  When it came to making yokes for oxen, the carpenter did not make one-size-fits-all. He took a “roughed out” yoke and then trimmed and whittled until it was “custom made” so that it would not gall the neck of the ox who wore it.  Jesus says his yoke is “crestos,” which means “custom made” or “made to order.” Some translations of “crestos” say it means “easy,” but that is not quite the sense that Jesus means. “Crestos” means more like “well fitted or well suited.” Using this image, Jesus says that his spiritual discipline has high expectations and demands a lot, but it is a joy to carry! It’s sort of like that old Boys Town story when the young man who was carrying his brother said, “He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother!”  Healthy religion expects a lot, but a healthy religion gives back even more! That’s what the “yoke of Jesus”  is all about!

I can not imagine life without faith in Jesus and his life-giving discipline. Yes, my own weakness and the weakness of others, weigh me down at times, but  that is nothing compared to the life-giving power that comes with walking with Jesus.  Yes, I have been worn down a few times along the way, but what keeps me going is the certain knowledge that God is at work even now, in spite of any former setbacks or future scandal! As my favorite old hymn goes, “Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear the music ringing. It sounds and echoes in my soul. How can I keep from singing?” Knowing how things will turn out when all of this is said and done, how can we keep from singing?

Keep the faith! Keep the faith!  Our faith has just been fed on God’s Word, now let us go to the table and let God feed our faith with nothing less than Christ’s own body and blood!  Remember that faith, even faith the size of a mustard seed, can move mountains, so keep the faith all the way to the end!