Year A
 Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
 Psalm 45: 11-18
 Romans 7:15-25a
 Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

My yoke is easy…  and my burden is light… 

It’s difficult…  for me at least…  to hear this passage from Genesis without thinking about patriarchy…  that Abraham sent his servant back to Abraham’s country and kindred…  to get a wife for Isaac…  made the servant swear by the God of heaven and earth…  that although God promised the land of Canaan to Abraham…  that his servant would not get a wife for Isaac from the daughters of the Canaanites…  and to risk bumping even further into the women-as-property theme…  when Rebekah responded as the servant prayed she would…  he put a ring on her nose and bracelets on her arms…  and while the text says nothing about whether Rebekah loved Isaac…  at least it says that he loved her…

And perhaps it’s not overly foolish to say that while the Christian scriptures contain stories of interruptions…  as Jesus points out that both he and John the Baptist interrupt the status quo…  and are players in God’s history who are hard to categorize and difficult to accept…  the Jewish scriptures contain stories of continuities…  and while in our time…  when there are discussions about a return to biblical family values…  we can almost all certainly agree that for the Bible…  family commitments are a value…  the relationships between men and women…  the birth of children…  the dying of parents and the taking of spouses…  and these days…  those whose deepest commitments are to another person of the same gender…  all this is part of the way in which God ensures that God’s creation continues…  and that God’s story is told…  from generation to generation…  even when some of those stories may feel like burdens we carry…

And I’m confident that almost all of you have seen how men and women in third world and other countries carry heavy loads…  sometimes by piling them on their backs… on their heads…  but also by hanging them from a long rod or branch that’s placed across their shoulders…  it makes carrying larger loads possible…  and while it may be hard work…  it’s more efficient hard work…

And if you’ve ever spent much time on a farm…  you may have noticed two oxen working together in a field…  and often…  they’re held together by a yoke…  a large wooden bar that connects their heads…   sometimes that goes around their heads…  so that when one moves…  the other is compelled to move in the same direction…  but if one of them is as stubborn as a mule…  if it digs in its heels…  well its hoofs…  both literally and figuratively…  the work may get bogged down or stopped all together… 

In this morning’s reading from Romans…  Paul laments…  For I do not do what I want…  but I do the very thing I hate…  I think this must be part of the human condition…  and as Natalie Wigg-Stevenson writes…  it’s a metaphysical battle more than an ethical one…  one that bears intimate witness to the tension between everything we humans are…  and everything we can be…  by God’s grace…  I mean…  I cannot claim that I always and only do what I want…  and never do anything which I don’t…

On June 18…  we heard in Matthew’s Gospel…  about how Jesus prepared the Twelve to be sent out and do his work…  to cure the sick…  cleanse the lepers…  cast out demons…  and raise the dead…  this preparation is also recorded in Mark’s and Luke’s Gospel…  and Mark specifies that Jesus sent them out…  two by two…  yoked as it were…  an example of what working together is all about… 

Jesus asks… what’s this generation like… and he observes that it’s like stubborn children who won’t play together…  he calls us contrary…  fault finders…  and too often…  nothing is good enough…

John didn’t come eating or drinking… but you didn’t like his call to repentance… you didn’t want to turn from your ways…  so you dismissed him by saying he was possessed…  and while the Son of Man did eat and drink… you didn’t like those with whom he hung out…  so you dismissed his teaching…  his Wisdom…  and called him a glutton and a drunkard… 

Theologian John Shea writes…  nothing can please these people… they respond negatively to every invitation… what they do best is to sit in the marketplace and make judgments… fabricating reasons… and smokescreens… to camouflage and justify their paralysis… the real reason they refuse the invitation to change… is that they are the privileged… the way the system is set up… sets them up… and most of what they’re doing…  is protecting their status… holding on tightly to what they have…

But Wisdom… God’s Truth… is not vindicated by the reception it receives from people who will neither wail nor dance… Wisdom is justified by the things it does… by the fruit it bears…  so don’t gauge Jesus by how this generation avoids his invitation…  look at his deeds themselves…

The Rev. Heidi Haverkamp writes…  much of human thought was influenced by the fact that people didn’t have refrigerators…  because food can be extremely perishable…  and in ancient kitchens… meat… bread… and produce lasted only so long…  before they became inedible… human bodies were much the same… there were no antibiotics… emergency rooms… or dentists… and people got scars and lesions… lost fingers…  toes… and teeth… they died from what we now consider minor infections and illnesses…

And so today…  we’re protected from physical decay and death in a way that Paul and his neighbors were not… we have well-lit produce sections… with blemish-free fruits and vegetables… and in our culture… we’re surrounded by images and examples of perfection… but perfection is impossible for human beings…  Paul showed us… that the true breakthrough in learning to be Christian… comes not when we succeed at perfection… but when we realize that we will always fail… Paul calls out the sinner cowering inside us… afraid to be discovered and shamed… afraid that if we show our imperfections… we’ll be thrown away like rotted fruit…  because Empire really deeply dislikes failure… and now as then…  there are leaders… who aggressively reject any notion of failure… because they’re like stubborn children… who for reasons they devise… remain focused on manufactured diversions to justify their inactivity and paralysis… and drag their feet when it comes to social justice issues…

There’s a recent translation of the Christian scriptures called the First Nations Version…  translated according to the story-telling practices of indigenous peoples…  it’s been out for about two years now…  and offers a poetic and fresh perspective on some of the passages with which we’re familiar…  Matthew 11:28-30 from today’s Gospel reads…  Come close to my side, you whose hearts are on the ground, you who are pushed down and worn out, and I will refresh you. Then he lifted his eyes to the horizon as if he were speaking to all the world. Follow my teachings and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest from your troubled thoughts. Walk side by side with me and I will share in your heavy load and make it light.

Fr. Richard Rohr understands that the crosses we bear are the burdens of our own experiences… and while we sometimes have to carry heavy things…  from one room to another…  or one home to another…  it’s more likely that the heaviness which burdens us…  are the invisible items that we carry in our hearts and minds…  like antiquated laws…  imposed responsibilities…  familial obligations…  unspoken expectations…  misguided regret…  dysfunctional guilt…  and cultural shame… 

And while teamwork of many kinds…  makes it easier to accomplish what needs to be done… ]  for the ancient rabbis… their yoke was their teaching… and so in v. 29 Jesus says… Learn from me… Jesus asks us to continue to learn… and I think the more we learn… the more Wisdom we embody…  it’s almost like having spontaneous right action…  and the more fruit we bear…  the lighter our burden is… and this is the real freedom to which we’re called… and why Jesus can say that his yoke is easy…  and his burden light…