Sermon on Matthew Chapter 11
By The Reverend Dr Sam Cappleman
My Yoke is Easy and My Burden is light
A couple of weeks ago many of us turned on our TV’s to watch the American
Formula 1 Grand Prix only to see just 3 teams on the starting grid after the
parade lap
As we now know, there was a problem with the safety of one of the types of
tyres and so the rest of the teams did not race
Several alternatives were looked at to get round the problem but they all
seemed to break one of the myriad of rules that govern how a Grand Prix race
is run
Ultimately they just couldn’t get round the weight of rules and the race
became what many saw as a farce
It was if the people involved had lost the key reason why millions of people
turned on the TV all over the world – they wanted to see a race and a
spectacle and couldn’t understand why some compromise could not be found
that would enable the race to take place
It was as if they were crushed by the weight and complexity of the rules
that surround racing
To Jesus, it was as if many of the Jews were in the same kind of Grand Prix
race
The Jews had laws to help them live holy lives, the 10 commandments, the
Torah, books about the Torah and the law, commentaries on the law,
commentaries on the commentaries on the law, sermonettes on the law, but
they had lost sight of what the law was all about…
Taking a legalistic approach to the minutiae of the law, following the
letter of the law had become more important than anything that the law
itself stood for, like helping them live holy lives which were honouring to
God-.
They had not understood that the law was a means to an end, not the end
itself
Jesus gets cross with people like these and earlier in Matthew chapter 10
Jesus has been very frustrated with people who cannot see the significance
of what He is saying and doing
And in the section of the gospel which is today’s reading Jesus invites
people to get out from the burden of the law and follow and learn from Him
His law is the law of love.
‘A new commandment I give to you, love one another as I have loved you’ Jn
13 v 34
He invites all who are weary and burdened to come to him to find rest,
through His gentleness and humility for His yoke is easy and His burden is
light
And that seems a bit strange, a bit of an oxymoron, because isn’t a yoke
designed so 2 oxen can pull a heavy plough or farm implement?
Well, yes, in a sense. But one of the primary roles of the yoke was also to
keep the oxen together, so they could walk together
When Jesus invites us to take up His yoke it’s not just so that we can have
Him share our burdens, which He does, it’s so we can be connected to Him so
He can guide us in our lives and show us the way to walk
Now we might think that because we’re not Jews we don’t have the burden of
the law so we don’t need to come out from under the burden or take up
Christ’s yoke, we’re free enough already and we don’t need any of the yoke
nonsense at all
And that may be true, but sometimes the culture, values, taste, and
behaviour that we find ourselves following can be a yoke in itself,
something that constrains us and effectively governs how we are as people
We find ourselves conforming to the world and our society and being shaped
by the world and the people around us, even when we don’t want to be, its as
if we have no freedom to make choices for ourselves
Alternatively we find ourselves weighed down by our cares and concerns
Not that it’s wrong to engage with those around us and have cares or be
concerned about the world. The Make Poverty History initiative is a great
example of something with which Christians should be involved
God does want us to get stuck in and make a difference
But if we only see world poverty as an issue we care about from an economic
or political standpoint we miss an important element of poverty, that it is
also a spiritual issue
If people are not changed then we will only have limited success in
eradicating poverty and world hunger, irrespective of any grand edicts and
directives that ay come out of the G8 summit
We’re falling into the same trap as did the early Jews. Its not that there
is some better world order that we can assess and bring about just by
following our own ideas and a set of economic and political principles,
important factors as these are
Jesus wants us to be free from that burden and stricture too, so we can be
our true selves, free for any constraints and connected to His so He can
guide us in today’s world, whatever we do, including working to get rid of
poverty and a whole load of other things in this world which are not the way
God intended
He wants us to be concerned about what Hs is concerned about, because those
are the important things in this world, that’s the burden He wants us to
share with Him as we take up His yoke
And we can only be truly effective if we are connected to Him - otherwise
we’re just pulling in the wrong direction