Mass readings for the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Zechariah 9.9-10 Psalm 145.1-2, 8-11, 13-14 Romans 8.9, 11-13 Matthew 11.25-30
“Come to me…” this is Christ’s invitation to “all you who are weary and bearing heavy burdens.” Really, all of us.
I’ve waxed sentimental on this verse on other occasions. As a child growing up in the Anglican tradition, praying according to the rites of the Book of Common Prayer, this verse figured prominently in the service of Holy Communion. It was a slightly different translation: “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” Significantly this was said along with other bible verses collectively known as “the comfortable words” by the minister before he began the Eucharistic prayer; and what that implied is that the Eucharist and the act of communion is what refreshes us, what gives us comfort and rest.
However, after all these years, when I came to reflect on this verse that were so familiar to me, I found myself saying, “hold on a minute.”
Now, what I’ve said thus far concerns the liturgy of a protestant Christian community, but I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that most Christians are apt to hear those words and take that as the message – Christ will regenerate us; and logically for Catholics, he will do that through the sacrament of his body and blood – what we know him to have said was “true food and true drink.”
And that might be a fair and accurate understanding but for the fact that this is not all that our Lord says.
Indeed, he says to us, “Come to me, all you who are weary and bearing heavy burdens, and I will you 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.”
What Jesus is saying is not, put down your burden, and I will regenerate you – rather, by the work I will give you, my work, you will be regenerated. Christ is asking us to exchange burdens; to put off the yoke of our oppression, but then to take his yoke and put it on our shoulders. The Christian life then, is not a putting-off of burden, but rather, it is the conscious, intentional taking on of a specific burden; and as much as that is work, is a labour, it is easier to carry, it is, in comparison to the weight of the world, the weight of our worries, light.
So, the rest and refreshment doesn’t come from things we would think of, things that give pleasure, provide comfort – on a hot summer day, a nap in a hammock, a cold beer in hand, gently rocking under the shade of a tree – that doesn’t restore the soul even if it does rest the body. What restores us is the taking up of Christ’s burden; of doing his work in the world; and how crazy is that? We accept a burden that gives relief, a yoke that takes a weight off our shoulders, we rest through activity.
I can’t help but be reminded of something I read recently about the steady decline of economic productivity in Canada over the past ten years. It’s rather disturbing to see that we are in no way an economic powerhouse like Texas, Florida or California, but are closer to Louisiana. By the way, productivity as an economic measurement doesn’t indicate laziness. To be clear, it describes a problem: that there are inefficiencies and logistical challenges, misplaced human resources and technological deficits, but also, politics, that are creating this situation. You may have heard the saying, “Work smart, not hard” and that kind of summarizes our problems economically. When we come to the Church and consider her productivity, we have the same situation. Now, the secret of Catholic success until recently lay in the fact that there are so darn many of us. And in each giving a little, we reap a great deal together. Yet, that was never really the case. It was in a few doing much, some doing a little less, and a great many doing a only a little. Today, as we know from the many who are alienated from the Church, no longer worship, no longer practice their faith or contribute either time or treasure, that we have the vast majority now doing nothing; and the spiritual productivity of the Church is falling. But one must ask, do we all know what we’re supposed to be doing? Are we all keeping busy, both inside and outside the Church, but in no way answering Christ’s invitation?
What is this burden of Christ, what is his yoke?
One recalls Jesus criticizing the Pharisees, he says they heap burdens on the people, and don’t lift a finger to help them. Further he says, they shut the door to the kingdom of heaven to others, but even they, for all their religiosity, do not enter. There is then this other burden that is weighing humanity down that Jesus’ enemies are quite happy to impose on others, and I daresay, to carry themselves. And as long as we are carrying it, we can’t enter the kingdom of God, we can’t enjoy the peace of God, the joy of living a life of hope, faith, virtue, truth, justice and love. That which is heaped on our backs won’t fit through the door, it can’t pass the gate.
That worldly burden, as we know from sacred scripture, is bound up, like a bundle on the mule’s back, like sacks tied to a camel’s hump, by sin, but it’s not sin itself. Sin isn’t the burden.
Remembering how Eve fell in the garden, what gave rise to her sin? We know that it was her fears and her doubts in the love of God; it was a lack of confidence in her relationship with God that made her the prey of Satan – her sin, and Adam’s sin was committed not as an act of defiance so much as an attempt to gain the safety and security they craved by being gods themselves. And of course, their fears were bound up in their flesh. Right? Shakespeare in his famous Hamlet soliloquy speaks of the “heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to…” and that we “grunt and sweat under a weary life” but bear it all because our even greater fear of death impels us to keep on carrying this horrible weight.
Listen to what Saint Paul tells us today, “You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit since the Spirit of God dwells in you.”
If you are in Christ, what are you carrying? What is the burden? Well, it is hardly a burden at all, it is the Spirit of the God who dwells in perfect light – you are bearers of light, but unlike the original Lucifer, the fallen angel who was the bearer of God’s light, you have not refused to serve God, but rather you have freely chosen to take up the light of Christ and carry it into the world and to let it shine before others. And you bear this light in the power of the Spirit, for it is in our spiritual selves that we have life, and by grace, the strength to do this work.
And where sin, as I said, was what binds up the burden of our fears that come of the flesh and lashes it to our backs; Christ says, “take that off” and instead take up my yoke – learn from me about the life of holy virtue. Holiness by grace is the yoke that allows us to carry this new burden of light, the light of truth, of justice, of love. And there is no mistake in this: to live a virtuous life is work, to uphold truth as the world offers us ridiculous lies that confuse, divide, and enthrall us; to uphold justice as worldly powers equivocate and stall to keep justice at bay; to uphold love that strives for the good of all against the lust for power that seeks to dominate all, this is Christ’s heroic labour and is our work too.
The burden of Christian faith is not, as Christ and his Apostles repeated constantly, the keeping of the law, the observance of rules; it’s the light of Christ who is absolute truth, perfect justice and self-offering love. And Christ shows us how to live that virtuous life that makes the carrying of it not just possible, but an absolute joy.
Amen.