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His Easy Yoke
by Margaret Guenther
July 6, 2008
[Romans 7:15-25a and Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30]
In the name of the Lord who invites us to lay down our burdens and take his easy yoke upon us.
It is poor or at least questionable taste to tell stories about your children from the pulpit—but the child in question will soon be old enough to join AARP and—more to the point—is several hundred miles away.
This week I remembered a conversation when my eldest was four. Many of us have parented those mini-adolescents and all of us have once been four—we know that this is a time of growing independence, of pushing the limits, and being not always reasonable or easy to live with. Selfishness and unselfishness war within us. And we are not always sure—spiritually and emotionally—what we are up to.
Well, at any rate, Elizabeth had committed some mini-atrocity; and I asked her—more in despair than anger: “Why did you do that?” Her reply, more defiant than contrite: “Because I is bad.” Now this much loved and wanted child had never been told that she was bad—even the time when she colored on the wallpaper lavishly with a thick black crayon.
I found myself thinking about that long-ago conversation when I pondered these wonderfully human words of Paul. Too often he gets bad press—depicted as bristly and typically with a businesslike sword. And after all, before his conversion, when he was literally knocked to the ground and blinded by his encounter with the risen Christ, he was a zealous persecutor of the new Christians. Luke in the Book of Acts tells us that he was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” We know too that he stood by, holding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr—not casting a stone himself but applauding from the sidelines.
It’s taken me a while to learn to love Paul, indeed to recognize our kinship as I see myself in him. But through his letters he reveals himself in his human imperfection. No longer the persecutor, he is as zealous now in love of Jesus and only too aware of his own falling short. Even when he scolds his followers in the new churches urging them to pull up their socks and shape up, his love for them shines through. And more to the point: his humility. He knows who he is, he knows his place in God’s great economy, and he knows that he has a way to go. He doesn’t quite go so far as to accuse himself for his shortcomings—the first century equivalent of “because I is bad”—but he knows his imperfection and recognizes that inner conflicted struggle to do what is right when he so clearly knows and yearns for the good.
So I can see myself in these poignant words in the Letter to the Romans. I suspect that you too can see yourselves. Long before the discipline and the vocabulary of psychology existed, the mystery of our human limitation, our fallibility, our just not getting it right—despite all the good intentions in the world—was woven into our fabric.
I’m pretty sure that my four-year-old didn’t enjoy being a transgressor, a mini-sinner. And I won’t presume to speak for you, my brothers and sisters, but I know that I don’t enjoy those times when I come face to face with my pettiness, my wrongheadedness, my sinfulness—those confusing ways of being and acting that separate me—despite all good intentions—from the delight of basking in God’s love and in the reflected light of the love for all those whom God has made.
O Paul, in your intensity and fallibility you know yourself only too well. And in your candor you hold a mirror up to us who can never rival your courage and steadfastness, those of us who indeed I hope will never be called to follow your example of courage and steadfastness that ended in martyrdom. Compared to our first-century brother in Christ, we’re pretty comfortable; our challenges are scarcely life-threatening. At least, our physical lives are not threatened. Even in this violent world it is unlikely that we Columbans face martyrdom by the sword.
And yet—I can see myself, we can see ourselves in Paul, our tough brother and teacher. We want only the good for ourselves as individuals, as family members, as citizens of this country, and as part of the Body of Christ the Church and as that smaller part of the Body, the household of St. Columba’s—and why is that so hard? We want clarity of purpose; we want to know and understand ourselves, our motives, our actions and inactions. Why is that so hard?
Too often we march as Christian soldiers with two left feet, impaired vision, and unreliable maps. Again and again, I am reminded: don’t trust Mapquest. More to the point: there is no spiritual Mapquest—only our trust and a willingness to keep learning and growing. Getting it wrong and then getting back on the path.
This could be a grim passage in Paul’s letter to the Roman, except that our tough brother was not grim but determined. He knew his limits, and he knew his resources: “What,” he cries out, “will rescue me from this body of death?” The answer is immediate: “ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is not shallow, happy-clappy faith, but rather a deep awareness that he is firmly anchored in Christ.
Some of us who have been around for a few decades remember the so-called Comfortable Words of the Rite One Eucharist: following the confession, when we have acknowledged like Paul that we have left undone those things which we ought to have done and done those things which we ought not to have done—in other words: we simply don’t understand why we are so messed up and flawed—the priest offers words of comfort. Remember what that little word “comfort” means at its heart: not something soft and cushy, but something that brings us strength and restores our confidence in ourselves. And one of those assurances of comfort in the old liturgy is Jesus’ promise that we will find our strength in him. In the words in Matthew’s Gospel, he invites us: “Come to me, you that are tired and carrying heavy burdens. I’ll offer you a safe place to rest. I’ll lay my yoke across your shoulders—not another heavy burden, but a way to balance and share the load.” Like Paul, our flawed yet fervent brother, we can give thanks, lift up our heads in joy, even when we’re not quite sure that we’ll ever get it right.
Every time I put on my stole, I kiss it. I kissed it 24 years ago when the bishop first slipped it over my head. I kiss it now as a reminder that I accept this yoke with joy, that I take it on willingly, that it makes all burdens bearable. This maybe wouldn’t fly in seminary courses, but I am convinced that we all have invisible stoles, our sacred yokes. You can see mine—it’s made of fabric with colors varying according to the church year. I can’t see yours, you can’t see it, but it’s there. You got it in your baptism. Take that yoke upon you, let go of your burdens, and accept the promised safety and rest. It’s an easy yoke. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.