Have you ever reached the place where Life become more a struggle, where even your religion seems to be dead weight on your shoulders and you wonder whether it is worth the struggle? I think we all do in varying degrees and when that happens so let's take our busyness down, and look at it because something has gone radically wrong.
Sometime when religious life or family life or just life is supposed to be uplifting and sustaining it becomes just another piece of heavy luggage to carry.
Charles Dickens commented on a church meeting that went on way to long, Dickens interrupted the meeting saying I have a suggestion. Why don't we all move to a table and hold hands and see if we can make contact with the living. We have all been to those meetings.
Jesus had the same problem. Especially for the Jewish people of that day for them life was a detailed observance of jots and titles. 600 Thou shells and thou shall not's marked every minute of every hour of every day. The edge to this game of pious hopscotch went to the educated clergy class, for they had the leisure to work at it and become proficient. For those poor, religion was no longer the Lords song but rather a dead weight around their necks.
You would think that Jesus had changed all that. 15 Centuries later under the burden of a top heavy church you would have thought that Luther might have changed all that. And Luther was fresh air, at that time focusing on the fact of our acceptance by God, and it not being a relationship we had to win at.
So if you feel that Faith is a load to be carried, or a project to be supported, or at least to be given a helpful shove, then I speaking to you. Has your life become a weary business or has your service here at church become a weary business of keeping things going.
This tendency to see everything moved and shaped by us, even creeps into worship. We call it a habit. And it is of course. But there is no light in their eyes. It's almost like a chore to be discharged even if it wears them out.
Often in College some students find it hard successfully nursing God through an introductory course in religion! Or they won't be able to bring God alive through a survey course in Philosophy. If your faith rests solely on your shoulders if it's all just your efforts the very thing for which it was supposed to be the answer.
Then we begin to look like the Babylonians who had to carry their idols around on their backs. Against this somewhat dreary landscape, is splashed these words from Jesus. Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Now these words were spoken to folks for whom, religion and life had become a huge burden. I will give you rest means I will give you refreshment.
Now this is not the offer of an additional nap in the afternoon. Nor is it cart blanch for the remote to be always in your hands. Rather it's - the offer for a new way of life, - a lift.
This was Luther's point years ago. Faith isn't a matter of working at your religion or your life but rather a new awareness of the God who is at work in you. This is the heart of the good news that takes a person's eyes of themselves and their endless duties and failures and fixes them on God.
God has been in this thing from the beginning. God doesn't intend to get out from under, at this late date and put the burden back on us. This refreshment of the soul how do we receive it? How does it come?
Notice in the first place that Christ is at the center of it all, simply asking us to come unto him in love and trust. Try putting anything else in the center of life or even your faith except God and it will turn out to be a burden every time. Whether its duty with its demands, or so many propositions in a creed to be swallowed, or a church with its heavy organizational machinery, let these or anything else elbow Christ out of the center and soon you will have an idol in your hands where it quickly becomes something to be hauled around all by your own strength.
But accept Christ invitation to come unto him at the center of your life and then your life becomes the refreshing invigorating thing it's supposed to be. It's like a young couple in love. There a new relationship of love and trust at the center which gives them zest and energy. They've got dreams and plans and they can hardly wait. Their jobs are not just jobs anymore because they now take on a new dimension of purpose.
Their jobs mean something now: a house, furniture and a future. This is the kind of refreshment Christ offers.
Take my yoke upon you, this isn't a lark there is yoke to be taken; this is not a running away from responsibilities or an escape. This must sound silly. I began suggesting that if life gets you down and religion or the kids get to be a burden only then something's really gone amiss. Now I'm saying yes faith and life have demands have a yoke. Sounds like double talk. But you see it all depends on what's at the center at the core of your being.
If we talk the example of our couple in love, they too are taking on bigger responsibilities. And even thought they are shared the responsibilities are multiplied by two at first then as children come by three and by four. However theses added burdens are lighter because love and trust reside at the center of their lives.
That phrase the yoke is easy smells of farm country. It fits like a yoke. It fits our situation because with respect to our rebellion against God, It takes full awareness of our pride and pettiness, it looks with steady eyes into each one's core to see us exactly as we are, sees us in a way that we are unwilling to see ourselves and still says, come and trust me just the way you are. What a weight that takes off our shoulders.
Come and trust me just the way you are. You don't have to pretend to be any more- pretend that you're better than you are or worse. No games to play anymore. God see you as you are and accept us as is.
And his yoke fits with respect to our becoming. His love awakes us and calls forth our meager and tentative offerings of love in return, in a way that no commands or bribes, no threats of punishment could ever do.
It's strange every parent knows that a child conduct is at its best when she responds to love rather than to threat, or bribe. Yet how slow we are to see that this is how best our conduct comes forth. Not because of divine rules or because of threats, but simply because of God's amazing and undiscourageable love for the likes of you and me.
His yoke is easy because it fits. You and I are at home in this good news as nowhere else in the world. And because at home the burdens that come are light.
If your life your job your faith has become one big burden take it down. Shake it out and look at what's at the center. For like a marriage if you fall in love at the edges with money or good looks, or out of a sense of responsibility your marriage is headed for trouble, because it will become a burden. Fall in love with a person at the center and the edges pretty much take care of themselves.
So with faith, let the edges of it, obligations or committees elbow God out of the center, than it's no better than hauling around an idol. And heaven knows we have enough burdens in life without pilling our faith on top of them.
A little kid once asked his Dad what God does all day. Now that's a great question to ask when your religion becomes a burden. What does God do all day? The prophet said I have made and I will carry. Christ said the same thing directly to all of us. Come unto me. And I will refresh you.