14th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR A
Whether you’re spiritually exhausted in your attempt to please God through human effort that falls short; or you’re overwhelmed by the external things in life, like the pandemic and its social isolation or perhaps desperate in these difficult economic times; today Jesus is extending an invitation to you.
Come to me, all you who are weary from your human search for God! Come to me if you have been dissatisfied with your religious experience! Come to me if you are burdened by the crushing weight of sin! And I will give you rest!
In other words, Jesus is extending his grace and care and comfort to everyone, everywhere, no matter who they are and no matter what they’ve done or failed to do. Come to me all you who are weary and find yourself with heavy burdens and I will give you rest.
Jesus is extending an invitation to exchange our burdens and brokenness for his life and peace. It’s not a bad deal! It means that salvation is not a creed to recite, a parish to attend, a ritual to repeat, or a pastor to follow so much as it is a simple and active faith response to Jesus.
So, if you’re tired of all the religious games that lead nowhere…or if you’re fed-up trying to do it on your own…or if you’re tired of living under the weight of sin – then why not turn to Jesus and accept his invitation to take his yoke upon your shoulders and find rest in him.
The yoke that Jesus was talking about was the interpretations of the 613 rules that Jewish people were expected to obey.
In Jesus’ invitation, he offers instead that we exchange that yoke for his. Instead of taking on the yoke of the 613 rules, Jesus says to take on my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
If it’s not those 613 rules, then what is Jesus’s yoke? He summed that up in those two great commandments; You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Your faith and trust in Christ becomes evident when you treat others in the same way Jesus has treated you.
Yet, I’m not so sure we’ve understood the goal of Christ’s invitation as he intended. And, I’m fairly certain we’ve not taken it as seriously as Jesus meant.
Too often we’ve viewed his invitation as a mechanism to save us from hell. And although it does indeed do that, his grace isn’t primarily about what we’re saved from, but rather what we are saved into – a relationship with Jesus in which he wants us to become so much like him that we become his hands and feet and voice to those around us.
To engage in religious activity does not make for a disciple who has found rest in Christ. God’s rest comes to those who have abandoned themselves to God, taking by faith the way of Jesus, and learning from him to deny self and follow him.