Jesus’ Easier Yoke – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
When Jesus says, “Come to me, all that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest,” this is not about rest for the body, but rest for the soul. Jesus is speaking about relief from the heavy burdens of following the scribal law. The scribes – who copied, interpreted, and taught the scriptures – had taken the broad principles of the Hebrew scriptures and created a rule and regulation for every imaginable aspect of life. Jesus says the scribes “tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4).[1]
For example, according to scribal law, if someone were to write something on the Sabbath, that would be work, prohibited. But then writing has to be defined. So scribal law dictated that one who writes two letters of the alphabet with their right hand or with their left hand, if they are written with different inks or in different languages, is guilty of breaking the law. Even if they should write two letters from forgetfulness, they are guilty, whether they have written them with ink or with paint, red chalk, vitriol, or anything which makes a permanent mark. Also one that writes on the Sabbath on two walls that form an angle, or on two tablets of their account book so that they can be read together is guilty. But, if anyone writes with dark fluid, with fruit juice, or in the dust of the road, or in sand, or in anything which does not make a permanent mark, that one is not guilty. If, on the other hand, one writes one letter on the ground, and one on the wall of the house, or on two pages of a book, so that they cannot be read together, that one is not guilty.[2]
Jesus transforms the carrying of these heavy burdens when he speaks about his yoke. A yoke is a wooden bar placed over the necks of a pair of oxen so they can pull together. We are yoked to Jesus. When Jesus says his “yoke is easy and his burden is light,” the underlying Greek word here translated as “easy” actually means “kind.”[3] A good yoke is kind to the creatures, a yoke that is carefully shaped to match the builds of both animals, and so that there will be a minimum of chafing.[4]
Jesus’ yoke is kind to our shoulders and to our heart, enabling us to carry the load more easily. And what is the load? It is the work of love. Jesus does not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it… which we do, as he says, by loving the Lord our God “with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves” (Matthew 22:37).[5] The fulfillment of the law is no longer purely objective – following a checklist of dos and don’ts. It is now much more subjective, emanating from our heart and all about love, which is certainly kinder.
And as for this work of love being easy, that is not my experience. Love is not easy, certainly not always. Tough love or tender love is neither easy nor sustainable without the help of Jesus to whom we are yoked. And so we pray to Jesus: “Please supply for what you command.”[6]
Amen.
[1] By the third century CE, this work of the scribes in Jesus’ day came to be codified as the Mishnah.
[2] Detailed codes from scribal law regarding Sabbath prohibitions.
[3] From the Greek chrēstos: kind, good, useful, benevolent.
[4] See Douglas Hare, Matthew: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Interpretation, 2009), 129.
[5] Matthew 22:37.
[6] A shorter version of a prayer attributed to Saint Augustine: “Give what you command, and command what you will.”
I found this sermon deeply troubling. The subtext that I was hearing was that of the ‘bad Pharisee/bad Jew’ and ‘good Jesus who is kind and loving’ – in comparison with the Jews/ Pharisees who are guided by laughable laws.
There is no real footnote other than ‘the Mishnah’ a very large and important text. It was put together around two hundred years after Jesus, and after the end of Temple Era Judaism, at which time Judaism changed in important ways. I love the Brothers, and I listen to these sermons almost daily, but this is one I find disturbing. I imagine you are familiar with Amy Jill Levine. She might be able to shed more light on the meaning of some of these rules, and on the role of the Pharisees in general. All her comments in the NRSV New Testament are very helpful.
Amen. Thank you, Br. Curtis.