Deeper Meanings

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be not afraid, burdens, experience, healing, Isaiah, Luke, participate, psalm 85, Scripture, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, yoke

One could say I’m rather stuck on a theme carried over from last week’s messages as I see and hear short but powerful texts from Scripture. It’s the power of words that makes me stop and say to no one in particular in the ethers of my bedroom, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before!” At other times it’s the tenor of the entire cluster of readings that wakes me up to the obvious, reminding me of something I have most likely known for decades. Both experiences speak this morning.

1. Throughout today’s texts (IS 35: 1-10, PS 85: 10-14 and LK 5:17-26) there is a consistent feeling of promise. God is working on physical wholeness and psycho-spiritual healing for all creation – not just humanity, and the urging not to be afraid is palpable. Assurances abound that God will do this!
2. In the “never heard it before” category is the gospel acclamation that says, “Behold the king will come, the Lord of the earth, and he himself will lift the yoke of our capacity.” I learned long ago that when Jesus told the people to take his yoke upon them, he was speaking metaphorically of the burdens that they carried, those he shared with us being lighter than those demanded by the laws of the religious leadership. Not so long ago I heard capacity defined not just as “the maximum amount that something can contain” like water in a bottle or pain the body. Rather another nuance was added, i.e., “the ability or power to do, experience or understand something.” For me, that moved the definition from one of passivity to active participation. This morning I am aware, therefore, that not only are my burdens light because I do not carry them alone but, in addition, I have the offer of laying them down totally if I am willing to work on expanding my capacity for living fully.

The Rabbi’s Yoke

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burden, cultural, inner motivation, intention, Jesus, law, Matthew, rabbi, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Torah, yoke

A clear image comes to mind when Jesus says this morning (MT 11:28-30) “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” I see a team of oxen joined together by a wooden structure that keeps them together and joins them to a wagon that is full of supplies of some kind. That “collar” that joins them has always been known to me as their yoke. Whether or not the “burden” that the oxen are pulling is heavy or light, they themselves are heavy and so the yoke appears that way too.

Some years ago I heard a talk that gave me a new interpretation making the “yoke” Jesus was talking about more plausibly light. It seems that as rabbis began to interpret the Torah for their students they stressed different things in the law: care for the poor, personal piety, proper worship, etc. It did not mean that they jettisoned part of the given law but rather that they considered the community to which they were speaking, the cultural situation, etc. (just as we know the gospel writers did) and taught what was most needed for the people who were their disciples. Their interpretation came to be called their yoke. So when Jesus spoke of his yoke being easy and his burden light, he was calling us to the way of love and to what he came to reveal of the Kingdom of God. For those who truly grasp his message, it is not a question of the outer experiences of our lives being the determining factor in our assessment of ease or difficulty, but rather the inner motivation and intention that allow a vision and a path of light. It does not mean that we will never feel burdened but that we will be able to withstand our trials in light of the example of Jesus who came to share his “yoke” with us.

Plowing Through

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burdens, closeness, God, Jesus, light, Matthew, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, yoke

Some years ago I heard an interpretation of today’s most familiar gospel lines (MT 11:29-30) that made sense and has stayed with me. “Take my yoke upon you,” Jesus says, “and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.” The picture this conjures up naturally is a pair of oxen joined together by a wooden crosspiece over their necks pulling a plow. The presenter I was listening to didn’t change any words but asked us to think for a moment about what Jesus was really saying to each person. He wasn’t just saying if we trust him our burdens will feel lighter; he was offering to share our burden, to join in the experience. He spoke of my burden indicating that our burden was his burden which he was willing to take on in humility, to give us rest from carrying it alone, to make it easier for us. In other words, he is the other side of the coupling, attached to us as we “pull” the burdens of our lives along. The definition of “yoke” implies a tethering, attachment, joining together that is inescapable. It seems then that Jesus is “stuck with us” – unable to detach until the field is plowed, the tasks are complete and we ourselves are no more. Until that moment, Christ is beside us lightening our load, cheering us on, companioning us in the way that St. Augustine saw things when he said, “God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.” When we recognize this closeness and let go into God, all becomes light. So today, those oxen are replaced in my mind’s eye with me and Jesus walking along, tethered together, hardly noticing what we’re pulling because we are so engrossed in the conversation he has begun about possibility and creative ways of living and the light that comes from within.