Walk as Jesus Walked

Reverend Blythe Cody

Sunday, 9 July 2023

Our gospel reading this morning contains what I think are some of the most comforting words spoken by Jesus:

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 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. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

I think, though that if I were to ask for a show of hands letting me know who feels weary this morning, or who feels like they are carrying some heavy burdens, I am guessing that most of us would raise our hands.

I would be one of the first to say that following Jesus has not made my life ‘easy’

What about you?

Life is complicated; there are pockets and sometimes long stretches of grief, it’s unfair and sometimes it is unjust. For me, there are many days when it feels like there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all the things that I am asked to do, or I should do, or I could do.

Jesus himself said, “In this life you will have trouble.” (John 16:33)

The following passages of scriptures certainly seem to agree with the promise of trouble in this life:

2 Corinthians 12:9

9 but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power[a] is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

Romans 5:3-5

3 And not only that, but we[a] also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

James 1:2-4

2 My brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; 4 and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;

You may recall that just a little earlier in Matthew, Jesus sends out his twelve apostles to perform miracles and to preach the arrival of the Kingdom of God. He describes it as sending them out as ‘sheep among wolves’. The disciples are told that they will be taken to court and given a sentence of punishment, for preaching God’s Kingdom. That brother will hand over brother to death and a father his child, and children will rise up against their parents and put them to death. (Matthew 10)

So if we don’t believe that Jesus is being sarcastic when he says that his yoke is easy, what is Jesus telling us?

1. What kind of yoke?

A yoke is a piece of wood shaped to fit over the neck of an animal so that their strength can be used to plow a field or pull a heavy load. It’s important to note that Jesus’ listeners would have also been familiar with the Biblical symbolism of a yoke – a symbol most often used in a negative sense as a metaphor for submission and oppression.

So far a yoke does not sound like a tool for building relationship with God. These words of comfort from Jesus are starting to sound more like the invitation to a pyramid scheme. Sounds pretty good for everyone at first but on further reflection you realise this isn’t good or beneficial for anyone but the speaker. The yoke is not sounding like a great metaphor to be used in connection with an invitation to rest and relationship.

For the animal, the yoke is not a choice. We are not animals ploughing a field, though, and unlike an animal we have a choice in whether or not we will accept the yoke. Jesus knows this. God does not impose His yoke on us, instead we are invited to accept it. “Come to me,” Jesus says. So why does Jesus think that this image of putting on a yoke would have any appeal to us? Why would we want to put on this device that symbolizes submission and oppression and that is used for heavy labour? I think it is because we are already under so many yokes. I don’t think it would take you long to start listing the things that in your own life and in our society that pull people in a certain direction, whether they intended to go that way or not.

2. Easy?

When you hear the word easy, I am guessing that a lot of things come to your mind and it’s unlikely many or any of them are linked to your relationship with God. Here is how the Cambridge Dictionary Defines it:

“needing little effort” There are lots of ways I could describe my relationship with God to you. This description would never enter my mind.

Perhaps this is why this passage sounds so comforting and yet so far removed from my experience of life and even from what Jesus says my life will actually be like.

So, what’s going on?

The word in this passage that gets translated as ‘easy’ is found in other places throughout scripture, but when it gets translated in those places, the English word used is ‘kind’. If we follow this tranlation, the phrase would read, ‘for my yoke is kind…’. We might still wonder how the yoke could be kind, but it is much easier to comprehend how it could be kind than how it would be easy. A burden doesn’t have to be easy to be kind. If the one who is putting the yoke on you is kind, you could only come to the conclusion that what you are carrying is for your benefit.

3. What is the yoke of Jesus, then?

Let me give you an illustration that helps me make sense of it:

I like to run. I run most days each week, usually running between 5-10 km’s each fun. So nothing spectacular but it keeps me fit and helps my mental health. Some of you might have heard of these things called ultramarathons.

There is one called Badwater. Badwater takes place in California’s Death Valley, beginning in the Badwater Basin at 86m below sea level and ending 217 km later at Whitney Portal at an elevation of 2,550m. The race takes place in July, which in California is the hottest time of year, temperatures can reach 54 °C. There is no course support, meaning that each runner must arrange for his or her own support crew who will provide the runner with all of their needs, including water, ice, food, gear, pacing, and first aid. The course must be completed in 48 hours. Your reward for finishing the race is a belt buckle and a medal. No prize money is awarded. Around 90 people compete in each race, with 20–40% failing to reach the finish line.

If I told you that I was going to fly to California this week to compete in this race, you would think that I was crazy.

This is not a race that you can just show up for on the day, fill out your race entry form, and expect that because you know how to run you will be able to compete. If I wanted to have any chance of finishing this race, I would have to spend probably the next two-five years doing nothing but preparing. I would need to model my life on a top ultramarathon runner and do everything that they do to prepare for this sort of race. And it wouldn’t just be running. I would need to change the way that I eat, I would have to work on my mental health, I would need to train for different parts of the race –changes in elevation, heat, carrying my own water and supplies. The preparation is about more than just knowing how to run.

So it is in our life with Jesus.

I think that this is what Paul is talking about in our reading from Romans when he says, “Why is it that I continually do the things that I do not want to do?”

We tend to approach our life with God as if we can show up to any given situation and say “what would Jesus do here” not having done any of the training.

4. Spiritual Formation

How do we take on the yoke of Jesus?

We are all being formed every day by each and every choice that we make, whether we are intentional about those choices or not.

If the first thing that I do each morning is reach for my phone and scroll through my feed for thirty minutes, whether I intend it or not, I am being formed by the news/facebook/Instagram/email feed that is the first priority of my day. If I continually rush from one task to another, not stopping to rest or to notice of what is happening around me, or to evaluate why I am rushing, my spirit is being formed into a person for whom rushing is normalised. If I apologise when I am unkind to my children, I am being formed into the kind of person for whom relationship is valued above being right. If I intentionally slow down and eliminate hurry from my day, I am being formed into a person who can be aware of God’s spirit moving in and around me.

There are ancient practices called spiritual disciplines that help us in our formation. These practices are an intentional taking on of the ways of Jesus. There is solitude and silence, prayer, simple and sacrificial living, meditation upon God's word and ways, and service to others. But these are lived out in one's life in myriad ways. They are the real and practical ways in which you take off the yoke that the world has given you and you put on the yoke of Jesus.

So, if I really struggle with needing to have the last word in a conversation – I really need to prove my point. My spiritual discipline could be to practice not having the last word. Just let the other person win. This is not ‘easy’ but it is not complicated or only available to the super spiritual.

In his book The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard says this:

“The church needs to give realistic methods for human transformation. It needs to show how the ordinary individual who make up the human race can become, through the grace of Christ, a love-filled, effective, and powerful community.”

Jesus invites us to follow him and I firmly believe that he would not have given that invitation if following him was not possible.