St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Wesley Chapel, FL
Preacher: The Rev. Adrienne R. Hymes
Proper 9/Year A: July 9, 2023
Gospel: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mt. 22:37-40). Even our Collect this morning begins, “O God, you have taught us to keep all of your commandments by loving you and our neighbor.”
Speaking of loving our neighbor, there is a documentary-esque series on the Investigation Discovery channel, called “Love Thy Neighbor.” The show’s title is a snapshot of Jesus’ words, that those who are even remotely familiar with the Bible, would recognize. So, it is quite ironic that the words of Jesus, “Love thy neighbor,” title a show that is the absolute opposite—true events of festering impatience, raw anger, hateful and brutal acts and even murder. The neighbors in the series have no love for one another and would prefer life with their neighbors gone or erased from existence. A better title for the series would be, “Neighbors Gone Wild” or “Neighbors Gone Native.”
In our epistle, in Romans, Paul was perplexed by the evil that dwelt within his flesh, which kept him captive to the law of sin; that in opposition to doing what he wanted, he would do the very thing he hated. Not to be presumptuous, but I have a hunch that each one of us can nod our heads in affirmation.
This sinful behavior that seems to be quite powerful as Paul described it, reminds me of a memorable quote in my thesis on workplace chaplains, captured when I interviewed Bishop James J. Magness, former Bishop Suffragan for Armed Services and Federal Ministries of The Episcopal Church. In my interview, Magness shared the challenges he encountered with military chaplains, who have to negotiate living within a bifurcated world as the spiritual care provider and as one who has been inculturated with training as a non-combatant soldier. Magness alluded to the temptation that can arise when the chaplain’s identity as minister of Word and Sacrament becomes so deeply inculturated into the secular world that it becomes dangerously compromised, and said, “It’s hard to keep them from ‘going native.’”[1]
It strikes me that that is what Paul, and each of us, struggle with as spiritual beings who are having fleshly, human experiences. Paul had a keen self-awareness of when he was “going native” by carrying the heavy burden of sin. Paul also had the self-awareness of his inability to overcome the burden of sin and death on his own, and that Jesus Christ was his only rescuer.
In this brief Gospel passage in Matthew today, Jesus invited the weary, heavily-burdened soul to stop living in a state of spiritual dryness and to make space for Jesus to walk alongside.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me…,” said Jesus. A yoke was a work implement which connected beasts of burden to each other for work on the land. The image is that of an inflexible bar with two side-by-side openings for the heads of the animals.
Typically, an older animal would be yoked with a younger one so that formational, behavioral learning might more easily take place. Once yoked, the inflexibility of the yoke itself made it impossible for one beast to go in its own direction and the other in its own direction. Both must move together and learn the unique nuances of the other, so that over time this collaborative relationship of labor starts to blur from two wills into one. So, when Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,” he used the imagery of the experienced animal having the younger animal come alongside it to nurture its way of being and acting—training the younger animal out of its native, untamed behaviors and instincts.
Inherent in this yoking technique is the reason for the yoking—there is work to be done. For the baptized, there is spiritual work to be done. It is this spiritual work that requires the heavy lifting of repentence—the turning away from all that separates us from the unceasing, outpouring love of God.
So many souls are burdened with shame, guilt, apathy, unforgiveness, loss, grief—seeking rest where the peace of God which surpasses all understanding can never be found—in attaching to impermanent people, places and things—all of which are falling away.
The gift of taking upon ourselves Christ’s yoke is that we are, like Paul, keenly aware of Christ’s active presence, showing us that we are not left to do the hard work of living and becoming Christ-like on our own. We are not left to our own devices and knee-jerk reactions to neighbors who might be a lot easier to love if they lived elsewhere.
But first, we must recommit each day to turn away from a society that says that by the sheer force of your own determination, strength and might, you can have everything you want, and do whatever you want without regard for how your actions impact your neighbors.
We must choose to participate in receiving the gift of being yoked with Christ—being present with him and being accountable for the hard work of soul preparation. We must repent and turn to God, and willingly choose to participate in the gift of learning from Christ as he walks alongside us, imparting His divine wisdom, throughout this temporal life’s journey, resisting, with intention, the temptation to “go native.” And, we must accept Christ’s gentle, compassionate, humble way of being so that in Christ, the weary, heavily-burdened soul will not only find rest, but be at rest in this human experience. In doing so, what once was native to our sinful human nature, becomes transformed into our true nature as children of God, made in God’s image—the God who is, “…Gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness” (Psalm 145:8).
Sisters and brothers, dependence on self alone is a weary, burdensome existence. Turn to Jesus, who invites the weary human soul into dependence on God alone, and take upon you his yoke, learn from him and find rest for your soul.Amen.
[1] Hymes, Adrienne R. “Liberating Workplace Chaplaincy from Under the Bushel Basket: An Exploration of Workplace Chaplaincy Models and Practices in the U.S. and the U.K. and the Opportunities for the Episcopal Church.” Masters Thesis, Virginia Theological Seminary, 2014.
