What was this like? It may be compared to a
king who has seven sons. To six of them he gave his wealth and to the seventh
he gave nobility. So the six older sons went out and found mates, but the
seventh noble one remained alone. And so it was with the creation of the days.
The seventh day said to God: to every day of
the week you have given a mate; only I have been left alone. And God answered:
Israel will be your mate. And so it is. The sabbath is given to the people of
Israel.
We know the commandment: remember the sabbath
and keep it holy. And sometimes we squirm uncomfortably about that. Because we
have – in one way or another – been taught all kinds of uncomfortable things,
rules, about keeping the sabbath.
I have heard about playgrounds where the swings
have been chained together on Sundays, because it is unlawful to play on the
sabbath. Some of us have memories of childhood where the expectation was to be
in church all day on Sunday, and of course that meant being on your very best
behavior. All the live-long day. Not an easy thing for a kid.
Many of us remember “blue laws” that kept
businesses closed on Sundays – and sometimes we say how much we miss those laws.
Although I do see an awful lot of church people at the supermarket on Sundays.
Our problem with keeping sabbath, I think, is
that we think of restriction rather than freedom. We think of dreariness rather
than joy. We think of thou shalt not rather
than let there be.
The Rabbis of Jesus’ day were diligent about
spelling out the rules for things like sabbath restrictions, and on the list of
things “thou shalt not” do were walking, carrying things, writing, lighting a
candle, and apparently even providing compassionate care, which is something
Jesus ran into when he healed a woman on the sabbath.
And maybe we are confused, because why would
our God of love and life put chains on us? Why would the God who frees people
want to enslave us to sabbath?
I wonder, sometimes, if the first-century Jews
would have been asking themselves similar questions. I wonder if they grew
irritated with strict rules about this one day of the week and thought to
themselves: Is this necessary?
Is it really necessary for me to run around
like a crazy fool all Friday afternoon trying to outrace the sun, because if I
don’t get all of the sabbath preparations done before sunset I’ll be in big
trouble? Is it really wrong for me to do certain things on the sabbath –
important things?
And then Jesus came out, saying: take my yoke
upon you and I will give you rest.
The Rabbis were the teachers of Israel. They
would gather students who learned from them and followed their teachings –
these were their disciples. A Rabbi’s disciples were said to have taken on the
yoke of their Rabbi.
And some of these yokes were hard,
cumbersome, heavy. And not life-giving, as one would hope for. But Jesus says:
My yoke is easy.
And that is really the point of the sabbath.
A day in which we step away from the hardness of the world and step into the
realm of God.
With these words, Jesus is encouraging us to let go.
“My yoke is easy, my burden is light.” Let go of the burdens you insist on
carrying. Remove the yoke to which you have attached yourself, the yoke that is
hard, burdensome. Take my yoke upon you.
Jesus says, “My yoke is easy.” But that becomes hard
when we are unwilling to remove the other yokes, the ill-fitted yokes, the
burdensome yokes of this world. The ease that Jesus offers comes from moving
away from, letting go of, the burdens of the material world.
I read from Rabbi Heschel that when the Romans were
first introduced to the laws and customs of Israel they were appalled by this
reverence toward sabbath. They called it laziness. The only way they could
understand, and maybe accept, the practice of sabbath was to see it as a
necessary rest that was built in to their lives for the sake of being most
effective when they returned to their work. That is, to see the sabbath in
service to work.
But that is getting it backwards and getting it
backwards is completely missing the point. The sabbath day is not a pause in
our frantic working weeks. If that is so, then we are wearing the yoke of the
world of stuff. We are still enslaved to the world of productivity. And how can
we be fitted with the yoke of Jesus when we are still wearing that burdensome, heavy,
ill-fitted yoke?
The Romans didn’t understand it, but the Rabbis did,
and they tried hard to protect the sabbath. The problem was when they outfitted
it with too many rules and restrictions of their own. I suppose they didn’t
really believe that it could possibly be easy.
The same is true today, when we weigh down Jesus’
perfect yoke with lots of extra rules. I
have seen people walk into our sanctuary then walk out because they heard
something they did not like, some element of our worship that, in their minds, didn’t
follow the rules. They might say that our faith is too worldly, too easy. But
perhaps their yokes are too heavy, ill-fitted, binding rather than freeing.
Jesus knew then, and knows still, that many people
will refuse his yoke. They will find it inadequate, imperfect, not exclusive
enough. As he says in these first verses, there will be no pleasing them; they
will find fault in whatever he does. But he is still offering the easy yoke,
the light burden, to everybody. Even all the whining children…even us.
It’s not any wonder that we whine and complain. These
things are not easy for us to understand. What Jesus is offering us is a
glimpse of the eternal, a little bit of heaven when we slip into his yoke.
Whenever we consecrate a day, or even a moment, this is what we are offered: a
little bit of heaven on earth.
The sacrament of communion is an example of just
this: the sacredness of a moment. The elements, themselves, are less important
than the act in the moment, the experience in time. When we celebrate the
sacrament together, whether you are here in the room or in the livestream, we
are entering into a moment of holiness together. We are entering into sacred
communion with Jesus.
A little sabbath.
I know the resistance we feel to this. It’s really
hard for us to turn away from our agendas and our worries, our to-do lists and
our wants. Yet if we deny ourselves sabbath rest we are denying the very
purpose of life: to touch the holy, if only for a moment.
You may not have the ability to fully immerse
yourself in sabbath. But what if you tried it for a moment? For an hour? To
slip off the yokes of the world and into the ease that Jesus offers.
It is always there for you, and that is the good
news. You don’t have to make it. You don’t have to earn it or be good enough
for it. His easy yoke is here now; you only have to let go.
And slip into it.
Photo by Clément Falize on Unsplash
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