Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
“It’s Not about Eggs”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN eastridgeumc.org
Not too terribly long ago I was having a conversation with a wonderful person, whom I dearly love, but who had also decided to move their membership to another church.
I asked for the reason, hoping I could help fix whatever the problem was.
The person responded, “Well, I’m tired of all these evangelism outreach things we are always doing. We have been doing these things for years and years and it hasn’t done any good. I think we should just send our money overseas.”
When I responded that, in fact, we have seen a number of people come into the life of the church as a result of our community outreach projects and that, yes, although it is important and we do send money to missions overseas, the local church is the place where the most effective disciple-making is done, and we are called to serve where we are as well—she changed her reasoning…
… “Well, I get so tired of being asked to give money all the time.”
We discussed that a bit, and after a while the reason for her leaving changed yet again.
Finally, she said something to the effect, “Well, I don’t know why I am leaving but I am. It has nothing to do with you.”
Someone has called Matthew Chapter 11 the chapter for the contemporary Church.
Jesus asks, “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the market place and calling out to others: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.’”
In other words, Jesus is saying, “we are fickle and restless. We are like children who can’t respond positively to anything, so we end up playing nothing.
We’d rather sit on the sidelines uninvolved than take seriously God’s Kingdom.”
At times, many of us can act like spoiled children, never satisfied but often complaining.
It has been said that “ours seems like such a restless, moody, unsatisfied generation of Christians.”
It is sad that so much “church-hopping” does take place.
At another United Methodist Church in our district, a man left his “home” church to join another church because he didn’t like the new pastor.
He became very involved in the life of the new congregation he joined, taking on many leadership roles and filling a number of vacuums.
The people loved him!
He also gave generously to the church.
After several years, the time came when the pastor whom this man did not like left, and moved on.
At this, the man decided to up and go back to his home church, leaving his new church in the lurch never to be heard from again.
A friend relayed the shock and disappointment at the man’s leaving.
One woman put it especially well, “I don’t understand how he could just up and leave us like this. The church is your family and you don’t just leave your family.”
After some time Jesus, perhaps a bit weary from all the restless roaming of His followers, looks up to heaven and prays.
The substance of His prayer offers thanksgiving to God that the basic, core meanings of life are really simple, rooted in a childlike faith built on trust.
And that trust, according to Jesus, is found when we cast our restless lives on God’s unchanging, faithful presence.
When I was in my last year of college, I parked behind the same car in the parking lot each morning.
The bumper sticker on the back of this car read, “Trust Jesus.”
That’s all.
And as I would get out of my car and head to class, that phrase helped me through a couple of difficult semesters.
“Trust Jesus, trust Jesus, trust Jesus…”
It is the most welcoming and encouraging invitation ever offered!!!
“Come to me,” Jesus calls out, “all you who are weary and burdened, 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.”
A German tourist was asked, “What impresses you most about the United States?”
He answered, “The fact that you are a tired people—you are all so tired!”
Isn’t it a paradox that Americans, even during these very difficult economic times, have more leisure time than ever before, and yet we are so weary that many of us can’t face life, get involved and reach out to others?
Our prisons are filled to overflowing, but our society has little time for the rehabilitation of the problem.
So instead, we neatly stuff people away into cages.
Many folks are busy riding motorcycles, fishing, vacationing, golfing, whatever.
Yes, lots of us are busy and tired!!!
It has been said that “a more affluent society has never existed. A healthier people has never lived. And a more tired race has probably never breathed.”
We can see the fruit of this in our society.
Both mothers and fathers work so that we can give our families the best, but we come home at the end of a work day tired and ill.
The drugs we take accuse us of being exhausted and burdened.
Did you know that it takes about 51 million sleeping pills to put America to sleep each night?
Did you know that suicide is now the number 3 killer of teenagers, and it ranks high in adult deaths as well.
I believe the prophet Isaiah was speaking to people much like us when he said, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary, his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
We are to come to Jesus with our exhaustion and our weariness.
Now, the rest that Jesus promises is not the rest of inactivity.
It is the “rest” which is made possible through the provisions of a new yoke.
Jesus knows that we are restless.
We look here and we look there for meaning and, without fail, we find ourselves exhausted in every search that does not include a personal connection with Christ.
Viktor Frankl survived the horrors of Auschwitz and wrote a book that now, years after his death, is still printed and reprinted.
It’s called Man’s Search for Meaning, and it’s a story of courage and survival in which human beings came through to the other side of the Nazi madness with meaning.
How?
Simply put, Frankl believed that the supreme need in every life is not for pleasure or for power.
But rather, the highest need in every life is for meaning.
All of us long for meaning that transcends our work, every success, and life itself.
Jesus Christ invites us to find in Him the energizing, vital meaning that life offers.
And that discovery begins when we come to Him, acknowledging that we are exhausted and empty from a spiritual wanderlust that has taken us places rather than to a Person.
Back 20 years ago or so, when I used to read this passage, I used to somehow think that Jesus was talking about the “yolk” of an egg.
I didn’t know anything about yokes for animals.
It’s just not a word we use much anymore.
Suffice it to say, the kind of yoke Jesus is referring to is a wooden frame used for harnessing together a pair of oxen so they could pull a plow.
Most of us know that Jesus and His earthly father were carpenters.
And according to legend, there was a sign that hung outside their shop which read, “Our yokes fit well.”
Today we see that Jesus is no longer making yokes for animals, but for people.
And Jesus’ yokes still fit well!!!
Jesus says that His yoke is “easy.”
The underlying Greek word here means “kind.”
A good yoke is one that is carefully shaped so that there will be little if no chafing.
Jesus’ yoke is designed to be kind to our shoulders, enabling us to carry the load more easily.
In this sense, our burden will be “light.”
And it has been suggested that when Jesus says, “learn from me,” He means more than just “listen to my teaching.”
As Christ’s disciples we are not simply just pupils, but we are apprentices as well.
We don’t learn from Christ simply to think but to do!!!
In this sense, the yoke of Christ is not just a yoke that Jesus puts on us, it is one that Jesus wears as well so that we can be harnessed together with Christ!!!
A yoke makes two oxen a team.
Jesus is saying to you and to me this morning, “Become my teammate, and learn how to pull the load by working beside me and watching how I do it.
The heavy labor of life will seem lighter when you allow me to help you with it.”
How awesome is that?
Jesus’ yokes are tailor made.
They fit well because they are not hand-me-downs.
They are especially made for each of us.
God has amazing plans for all of our lives.
And what a horrible, horrible—the most horrible shame to waste it.
The yoke Christ wears with us is our calling in life.
God has work for every one of us to do, things which, only with the help of Christ, we are qualified to do!!!
It’s God’s divine plan for our lives.
And when we carry out God’s divine plan for our lives, we experience the peace and joy and freedom which is called “abundant life.”
Hundreds of years ago, Augustine tried on God’s yoke for his life and he remarked, “In [God’s] will is our peace.”
A young dog was spinning round and round in circles when an older dog sauntered up.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m chasing my tail,” the younger dog replied.
“You see, happiness is in my tail. When it wags, I’m happy. When it drops, I’m sad. Happiness is in my tail.
If I catch it, I will always be happy.”
So again the dog spun round and round trying to bite hold of his elusive tail.
Finally, he sank to the ground, tired out.
The older dog, still watching all this, said, “You know, I used to chase my tail. But one day I found that if I just went on about my business, happiness followed right along behind.”
Jesus calls out to any and all tail-chasing, happiness-seeking, worn-out people, and promises, “you will find rest for your souls.”
When we follow Christ, we enroll in the School of Jesus and never really graduate.
Which is cool!
The Christian journey is one in which we are life-long apprentices or disciples of the One Who loves us—all the way to death on a Cross.
As we are yoked with Christ, we work with Christ for the saving of a lost and broken world.
And there can be no greater meaning found in life than doing what God calls us to do.
Jesus is the One Who shows us the good way, where the restless, the under-challenged and the overburdened can find rest for their souls.
And true happiness follows behind!!!
Praise God.
Amen.
