You Call This Easy?

Sermon from 7/3

You Call This Easy?

I’m a huge fan of the Muppets. I grew up watching Sesame Street and the Muppet Show. I saw all of the Muppet’s movies as a kid. I haven’t seen any of the newer movies though. My favorite Muppet has always been Kermit the Frog. I really love Kermit’s songs. Rainbow Connection is one of my all time favorites. Being Green was Kermit’s first ‘hit’ song. It became his signature song. In that song, Kermit laments the fact that he is green. Green is ordinary. He blends in with his surroundings and no one notices him. He wishes to be some other color, like red, or yellow, or gold.

By the end of the song Kermit realizes there are pluses to being green. It’s the color of spring. It’s a friendly color. Finally he says, “It’s beautiful, and I think it’s what I want to be.” He never changes his mind and says it’s easy. It’s still not easy, but he’s happy.

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Our scripture today is not about Kermit the Frog. Jesus is addressing a crowd. John the Baptist sent word from prison to his disciples to ask Jesus if he truly is the Messiah. Jesus tells them to go back and tell John that the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are hearing the good news.

Then Jesus talks to the crowd about John the Baptist. He compares him with Elijah. This is because the prophet Malachi said that Elijah would come before the messiah. Jesus tells the crowd that John fulfilled Elijah’s role.

Then he continues talking to the crowd.

Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

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Jesus starts off talking about the rejection that both he and John faced. He tells the crowd that ‘they’ say that John has a demon. In other words, people say he’s crazy. Then Jesus came and ‘they’ rejected him also. We’re never really told who ‘they’ are, but I think it’s a safe bet Jesus is talking about the Pharisees. They called him a glutton and a drunkard. Interestingly, the terms ‘glutton and drunkard’ come from the description of a rebellious son in Deuteronomy 21:20. Which, in a way was true about Jesus. He spent his ministry rebelling against the established religious leaders. And because of their respective rebellions, John and Jesus were both rejected by the religious establishment as heretics.

This makes what Jesus says later all the more interesting. After all of this talk of rejection, including a section we didn’t read where he lists several cities that snubbed him he says this, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

By itself this statement is cause for celebration. My life is hard. I’m struggling to get by. I have more tasks than I have time. I have worries and stress. Jesus says, take my yoke. It’s easy. But we can’t take the statement by itself. We have to look at it in the context of the entire speech. When Jesus talks about being rejected he is preparing his followers to face that same rejection. He is preparing them for persecution. Can rejection equal rest? Is persecution easy?

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Even apart from persecution, because, truthfully, when was the last time any of us here in North Alabama, the buckle of the Bible Belt, were persecuted for our faith? What about other things we are called to do?

Give money to the church. 10% if you want to tithe. Right off of the top of your income, give to the church. It’s not an investment. You’re not placing it in an interest bearing account. You are giving it away; your hard earned money. That’s not easy. Especially when you’re on a fixed income, or maybe you’re out of work. You have bills to pay. And well, we are in a down economy.

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What about that feeding the hungry, clothing the naked stuff? You know, ‘whatever you do to the least of these.’ It’s not exactly easy help people who may or may not care about helping themselves. I should give a homeless guy $5 even though I’m pretty sure he’s going to go buy liquor? Or what about helping your neighbors? Many of you have spent the last couple of months helping others clean up storm damage at their houses. I came and visited some of you here just after the storms. Out there cutting up trees, hauling limbs, picking up debris. Was that easy? The sweaty, dirty people I saw did not make it look easy.

What’s easier; resisting temptation or giving in to it? If you give in the temptation goes away. If you resist, it tends to only get stronger. What’s so easy about resisting temptation?

Heck, even getting up on Sunday morning to go to church is far from easy.

When I was growing up some of the best shows came on Sunday mornings: Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. For a 7 or 8 year old boy it doesn’t get much better than that: A family battling aliens and their own frustrations as they try to get back to Earth, and a futuristic nuclear submarine battling amazing sea creatures. Those shows were great stuff, but I had to miss at least one of them every time we went to church. As a kid, that does not equal easy!

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It makes me think of model cars. Did anyone else like model cars growing up? Growing up we would make at least a monthly trip to the local TG&Y. On most of those trips my mom let me pick out a toy. That usually meant a Star Wars action figure, but if they didn’t have any I wanted I would go for the model cars. I had a spending limit, which usually meant I had to go for the “easy” models that didn’t require glue. I have to say “Easy” with quotes, because I never bought one of those things that was easy. Even getting the pieces off of the plastic holding them together was an ordeal that usually left me frustrated and a few of the pieces bent and broken. By the time I “finished” I usually had a Corvette with a missing passenger seat or an F-15 fighter jet with no landing gear. It’s a bit of false advertising. When I think about living the life of a Disciple and I hear Jesus call his ‘yoke’ easy, I kind of get the same feeling. So what’s so easy about Jesus’ yoke? And, what is a yoke anyway?

Let’s answer that second question and I think it will get us to an answer for the first question.

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There are a few different ways to look at what Jesus called his yoke. First, there is the most common and most literal explanation. A yoke was a device used to connect a team of pack animals. Usually oxen. The yoke would allow the two or more animals to share the burden of a piece of equipment like a plow or a cart. For me, this explanation heads right back to the false advertising issue.

Another explanation is this: Yoke was also used to refer to a rabbi’s particular interpretation of scriptures. Maybe Jesus was telling his listeners that his interpretation of Torah was easier than that of the Pharisees who stressed ritual cleanliness and strict adherence to food and Sabbath laws. Again, I think this metaphor breaks down when we think about the life Jesus calls his followers to live.

Another interpretation says that Jesus is using imperial language here. Both 2 Chronicles and Isaiah use the terms rest and yoke. Yoke refers to the harsh rule of Imperial powers. Rest refers to being free of imperial rule. In this case, maybe verse 30 is better translated as ‘My yoke is kind’ or ‘my rule is kind.’ And ‘my burden is small.’ In other words, Jesus is a benevolent king, not a cruel emperor.

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I think this passage has been misinterpreted for a long, long time. I have heard more than I care to remember that this verse means that as Christians we should have an easy life. That because we love Jesus that nothing bad will happen, that we’ll always be successful, that we’ll always be happy. And if those things aren’t true, well, you just aren’t being faithful enough, or maybe you did something wrong and you’re being punished, or you just need to love Jesus more! To that, I say, “Hogwash!”

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Last week, I sang a song I wrote a couple of years ago called Live Free. That song was based on this scripture. The chorus says, “I’ll follow you though it’s a narrow road. Take this weight from my shoulders, you lighten my load. Teach me all that my life could be. I’ll take your yoke Lord. I want to live free.” Just after the first chorus the second verse says this, “Life’s not perfect, just easier to face. Daily you teach me the rhythms of your grace. Through storms and troubles still I’m blessed. I come to you Jesus, you give me rest.” In that song I wanted to stress that following Jesus does not guarantee you a pain-free, stress-free life. If anything, I think it guarantees struggles; rejection, persecution, temptations. But it also guarantees God’s presence and God’s help to bear the burden.

There’s one more interpretation of Jesus’ easy yoke that I want to mention. Lance Pape teaches at Brite Divinity School in Ft. Worth, TX. He wrote this: “What Jesus offers is not freedom from work, but freedom from onerous labor. Soul-sick weariness is not the inevitable consequence of all work, but rather of work to which we are ill suited, of work extracted under compulsion and motivated by fear, or of work performed in the face of futility. There is also the weariness that comes from having nothing at all to do that truly matters. The easy yoke means having something to do: a purpose that demands your all and summons forth your best. It means work that is motivated by a passionate desire to see God’s kingdom realized.”

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It’s not easy to be a disciple of Jesus. But just like Kermit sang about being green, “It’s beautiful. And I think it’s what I want to be.” I don’t follow Jesus because it’s easy. I follow Jesus because it’s fulfilling. I follow Jesus because I have a passionate desire to see God’s kingdom realized. Let’s follow together!

As the church we are called to be the body of Christ. Which means we have a role in bearing the burdens of those around us. That’s part of being in community. As a part of the body of Christ we are called to be in community. Part of following Jesus together is participating in what we call Holy Communion or The Lord’s Supper. A few years ago, on the way to church, Abby asked me if we were having Community that day. I realized she meant Communion, but I thought, “Wow, that’s really what this is. Coming together as a community to share in God’s grace.”