We are celebrating the 250th birthday of our wonderful nation. This brought to mind my 8 th
grade graduation when our nation celebrated our 200th birthday. My parents were born around
our nation’s 150 th birthday. And for our nation’s centennial birthday we had something called
our Second Founding. As you know, the Civil War was one of the darkest times in our history.
Four years of bloodshed and battles often between families, as we fought and struggled to end
slavery and define state rights. We were a weary nation. Sons and fathers did not come home or
became a shadow of the men they had once been. We were a weary nation. Reconstruction took
time and patience, and the emotional wounds rebelled against healing. We were a weary nation.
Yet in the following decade we strengthened our nation with our Second Founding. Our Second
Founding took place during Reconstruction with the passage of the 13 th , 14 th and 15 th
Amendments to our Constitution. Our Constitution abolished slavery (13th Amendment). It
made everyone born on American soil a U.S. citizen with equal protection under the law (14th).
Our Constitution guaranteed the right to vote free of racial discrimination (15th). And it gave the
national government the authority to protect the civil and political rights of all. (13th, 14th, and
15th Amendments) (constitutioncenter.org).
When our nation was at its weariest, we established the profound ideals of our Constitution with
clarity and strength through the Amendment process. We answered the Declaration of
Independence’s prophetic call for freedom and equality. We defined birthright citizenship. We
codified the means for all people to vote regardless of race, and we gave the federal government
the power to protect these rights. Even though it took another hundred years to get the Voting
Rights Act, granting black people the right to vote without discrimination, these Constitutional
Amendments made these freedoms possible.
The context of our gospel lesson is Jesus’s response to the disciples of John the Baptizer’s
question: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Mt. 11:3). Jesus
answers John’s question by noting the ways Jesus is changing the world through one act of
mercy at a time. Then “Jesus likens the folks of ‘this generation’ to children who refuse to go
along with the rules of a game. When urged to act joyfully, they won’t dance. When the situation
calls for gloom, they won’t mourn” (Working Preacher, Matthew Skinner). Yet the heart of our
gospel lesson, only found in Matthew, is familiar and liberating. I must admit I have rarely
related to it, maybe because of my privilege. I have not felt oppressed or burdened. The time I
have sensed its power is when I have been emotionally weary like while grieving my mother’s
death. Giving that burden to Jesus was truly a blessing and one for which I am grateful. READ
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Are you feeling weary? Are you tired from all the drama in our politics right now? Are you
struggling to make ends meet because of inflation and tariffs? Are you feeling burdened by the
threat to our democracy and the senseless war? Are you weary from the attacks against our
democracy with the Supreme Court decisions flirting with ending birth right citizenship, and
striping the right to vote? Once again, we are a weary nation. We are struggling to understand
how the promise of our nation is being sold to the highest bidder, and the tyranny from which
our nation was built is now ascending.
Weariness can also be very personal; like when you are tired of waiting, exhausted from chemotherapy with every cell depleted, or weary from criticism and persecution. One commentator likened this promise of Jesus to join with us in our weariness as a restatement of the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12). The weariness of the poor is spirit, the mourners, the merciful and the persecuted. “Jesus is in the business of removing the heavy burdens that our societies and systems inflict on certain people” (Working Preacher, Matthew Skinner). Jesus offers his yoke to the weary.
At first the idea of yokes feels oppressive. As you know, yokes are worn by animals to carry
heavy items. Yokes were also a metaphor for obedience to God. Then I noticed that Jesus is
offering us his yoke and inviting us to “learn from him.” “The way of Christ is a way of
imitating Jesus. He won’t ask us to do anything he won’t.” (Working Preacher, Matthew
Skinner).
“There is a wonderful legend concerning the quiet years of Jesus, the years prior to his visible
ministry. The legend claims that Jesus the carpenter was one of the master yoke-makers in the
Nazareth area. People came from miles around for a yoke, hand carved and crafted by Jesus, son
of Joseph. When customers arrived with their team of oxen Jesus would spend time measuring
the team, their height, the width, and the space between them. Soon the team would be brought
back and he would carefully place the newly made yoke over the shoulders, watching for rough
places, smoothing out the edges and fitting them perfectly to this particular team of oxen. (A
well-fitting yoke doesn’t take the burden away. It does, however, make the burden much easier
to carry.)
That’s the yoke Jesus invites us to take. Do not be misled by the word “easy,” for its root word in
Greek speaks directly of the tailor-made yokes: they were “well-fitting.” The yoke Jesus invites
us to take, the yoke that brings rest to weary souls, is one that is made exactly to our lives and
hearts. The yoke he invites us to wear fits us well, does not rub us nor cause us to develop sore
spirits and is designed for two. His yokes were always designed for two. And our yoke-partner is
none other than Christ himself. He is not just a Lord whom we burden, and we do, but a Lord
who actually solicits our burdens” and carries them with us. (Sermons.com)
So when Jesus said my yoke is easy and my burden is light, picture your relationship with Jesus
as a well-fitting yoke, a double yoke with Jesus on one side and you on the other. Jesus is
helping you to move through this world with all its trials and burdens. Jesus is lightening your
load.
Yes, we feel weary. Yes, once again we are a weary nation. Yet I hope we will be our own
generation. Jesus spoke about “this generation” as the ones who did not recognize John the
Baptist as the new Elijah. Who did not see Jesus as the Messiah. Who didn’t dance at the party
or mourn at the funeral. They resisted the coming of Christ. They denied Jesus in favor of their
own power.
May we be the generation who declares the emperor has not clothes. May we be the generation
who fights for our democracy and who stands up against the systematic oppression from our
government. May we be the generation who yoked with Christ can carry the burdens before us,
trusting that we will once again ascend to the great ideals of our nation, the ones envisioned by
the framers of the Constitution.
As I drove Parker to the airport, he asked me about my sermon. When I told him about Jesus
saying take my yoke, he asked what kind of yoke. I explained the one that harnessed the great
power of animals. He told me that in aviation, a yoke is the control stick in an airplane. It is that
W shaped handle that controls elevation, roll and pitch. When they pull the yoke back the plane
rises, push the yoke forward it descends. It is literally what pilots use to fly the plane. And I
thought how beautiful. Rather than putting Jesus’ yoke upon us we can use the yoke like flying
an airplane and see Jesus as the pilot and we are the co-pilot. We are still partnered through the
ups and downs of life, but we see new vistas of where this relationship takes us.
From this vantage point, as we celebrate our nation’s 250 birthday, I pray we have a third
founding. A time when we reassert the founding principles of our nation. That all people are
created equal. That the American Dream is not for the few but for everyone. And in the words
of Abraham Lincoln, given on the Gettysburg battlefield, that this nation, under God, shall have
a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth. AMEN.
