“Take my yoke upon you.” A yoke is an item that
may not translate well in contemporary society. It’s a safe bet you or I have
never worn a yoke, yet in some countries around the world animals and people
still wear yokes. In this country, you might see, among Old Order Amish, two
oxen yoked together to plow a field. In National
Geographic magazine you might see a yoke on a water buffalo. You might also
see people wearing yokes to carry buckets of water, or animal feed. When I
lived in northern Germany, my landlady wore a yoke with buckets of manure to
distribute onto the crops she grew.
In Jesus’ time there were two
kinds of yokes, a double and a single. A single yoke was used for a single
animal. A double yoke was used for a pair of animals. Good yokes were specially
fitted to the animal or animals so the yoke did not rub or abrade the hide of
the animal wearing it. A good fit made a difference in how the animal was able
to bear the weight of the cart, or the burden being hauled. If a yoke did not
fit well an animal would often protest by kicking and pulling against the load,
or even refuse to move at all.
In Matthew’s gospel this morning,
we hear about people who were offered two different yokes and refused them
both.
The first yoke came from John the
Baptist. John offered extreme asceticism: fasting and prayer and a call to
repentance. People were shocked and many refused to put on John’s yoke.
The second yoke came from Jesus.
Jesus offered a Kingdom of God that was at hand, the bridegroom was here and it
was time to party. Worse yet, it was suddenly okay to party with notorious
sinners, not just the law abiding and upright. People were shocked. People
refused to put on Jesus’ yoke.
John was accused of being
possessed. Jesus was accused of gluttony and drunkenness. Neither of the yokes
were what people wanted to put on. John’s way of repentance and giving up seemed
far too serious; Jesus’ way of eating and drinking with sinners seemed far too
joyful. People wanted to wear their old yokes, the comfortable yokes, the yokes
to which they were accustomed. They did not want to put on the new yoke Jesus invited
them to wear.
Jesus invited people to put on a
new yoke and they refused. People wanted to wear their old yokes. They wanted
to continue wearing their comfortable yokes to which they were accustomed. They
did not want to wear the yoke that Jesus was inviting them to wear. Just as we,
today, often refuse to wear the yoke Jesus offers us.
We like our
old yoke, thank you very much. We are accustomed to the way our yoke feels. We
do not want a new yoke even if it is lighter. We believe the yoke of God will
demand things of us.
And it will. I would be lying if
I told you otherwise. If we put on Jesus’ yoke it means taking off whatever we
have ourselves yoked to now. Whether it is the way we do our job, how we spend
what we think is “our” money, what we do with our possessions, how we use the power
we have, how we deal with our anger, and our fear. To be yoked ro Jesus, whatever
we are yoked to now must eventually go.
Yet when we are willing to let go
of one yoke, we make room for the yoke God has designed for us. It will be a
yoke that will fit us like no other because the yoke is as unique as we are, as
unique as God has made us and knows us.
Best of all,
the yoke God has made for us comes with a yoke-mate. The yoke-mate is Jesus.
Jesus offers to wear God’s yoke with us, to walk with us, to bear the weight
and to show us how to bear the weight ourselves.
God gave us
our yoke-mate, Jesus, who bears our burdens and forgives our sins. Jesus came
to fill us with his way of life, by yoking us to him and to a God of grace and
glory.
When we walk with Jesus, when we
are yoked with Jesus into a community of God, we are welcomed into joy. We discover that joy
together. We grow into that joy day
by day. When we put on Jesus’ yoke, we find Jesus was already there before us, already
carrying his end of the yoke, already helping us bear whatever burdens we have,
for his yoke is easy and his burden is light. AMEN.
The
Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2017
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