Matthew 11:28–30 by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
June 26, 2016
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
- Matthew 11: 28-30
My first real job after college graduation was in restaurant management. I had worked with a casual dining company through my college years as a server waiting tables. I was grateful to be promoted to Associate Manager. I loved working in hospitality, with a team, and with good food. I had the privilege of hiring and training wait staff. I wrote the weekly schedule for about 35 employees. I was called to speak with our patrons when they sang the kitchen’s praises and also when they grumbled if the food or service was not up to par. My favorite part of my job was working back in the kitchen with our cooks to prepare food. We would sing with the radio and I would occasionally grab a few copper foil sheets and make Wonder Woman wristlets and headbands. Hospitality was not just for the patrons, it was also to build up the team of 70 employees.
There was also the work that was not fun, like terminating employees, breaking up fights in the bar, and the administrative details that come with any management position. A work week easily added up to somewhere between sixty and seventy hours. It was easy to hit a breaking point with all the stress and demands. In those days I worked all the time and I did not have a broad support system. Too much stress quickly led to forced rest by a weakened immune system and illness.
Back then I did not understand what true rest should have looked like as a twenty-something, other than sleep. But as I look back through the last forty plus years of the shared human experience, I realize that all of us have a hard time finding true rest when our noses are to the grind stone. The average American works over 55 hours a week now. The more we work, the more our stress weighs upon us a burden. Stress compromises our well-being physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When we are stressed by all of the other plates we spin during the week then we find it difficult to bounce back in healthy ways.
We push through the exhaustion because our work is closely tied to our identity. We normalize daily stress and carry the weight alone, too proud to ask anyone for help. We grumble and complain more. For some a break is found when we take to social media or facebook instead of looking into God’s faithbook. I have done all of these and maybe you have too.
Why are we so stubborn to search for a life of balance and resilience? Why do we resist Sabbath?
There is some truth to Eric Carl’s Hungry Caterpillar story I shared in the children’s sermon. We will tear through everything else around us before we will pause to look more deeply within.
Saint Augustine was a fourth century bishop and theologian. He once said, “Our hearts are restless until the find rest in God alone.”
When we are stressed and burdened, this restlessness that Augustine mentions is very real. And we reach towards so many other things in hopes to satisfy and quiet this restlessness. But nothing will calm the restlessness of our stress and burdens quite like God.
Every time I read Jesus’ words from Matthew I am reminded that we need to unburden ourselves and seek Jesus’ strategy for self-care with spiritual resilience.
“Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11: 28-30).
Spiritual resilience is found in relationships. Jesus says “Come to me – not come to work one more day or to facebook or to your spouse – but come to ME and I will give you rest” (verse 28). God created us out of the sheer joy of living in relationship with us. Within this gift of God’s love we find the sacred center of all things. Jesus lived his life according to this profound yet simple truth. Jesus’ life got a bit chaotic. The days were filled with demands to give of himself for his work and to help others. The crowds would charge after him with hands lifted in praise or fists raised with stones. There were days he felt the world’s weight of fulfilling the promise of salvation upon his shoulders.
But Jesus did not work in isolation until he hit a breaking point. Jesus would regularly leave the scene to rest in God alone. Jesus knew the importance of quieting himself to be still and nurture his relationship with God. Jesus, while fully human and fully divine, knew he needed a regular time out with God to feel restored by grace for the work that lies ahead.
Spiritual resilience is found in tapping into God’s strength. Jesus says, “Take my yoke and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart” (verse 29). The yoke Jesus talks about is not a single yoke but a double yoke. It implies that the burdens we carry are meant to be carried with God and the body of Christ. The yoke is a spiritual support system.
Jesus knew he could not bring about God’s purposes all on his own ability. Therefore Jesus called the twelve disciples to teach them to lean into a deeper trust of God so they could carry on Jesus’ work in the world. Jesus’ gentle and humble heart teaches us to more fully rely on God and one another as a source of strength, empowerment, and peace. Even Jesus needed to rest by setting down the weight of the world and to trust God and others with it.
Spiritual resilience is being diligent to rest so that it may be well with our soul. We are to follow Jesus’ example of wearing this yoke that is easy and light because God has fashioned it in a particular way for us. God has ordered life with a rhythm of work and rest and when we allow our steps to be guided by this rhythm then all the burdens we carry are more bearable. There is nothing we carry that is too heavy for God to lift with us and even work through. But we must have the courage, humility, and discipline to allow God to lighten our load and just be.
To be still and know that I AM God. To be still and know the I AM. To be still and know. To be still. To just be.
Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and the true giver of self-care. It is through the example of Jesus Christ that we find the sacred center – our sacred center – of all things. When life feels overwhelming and seems to fall apart we cannot hold the center of it all by ourselves. And we are not meant to.
The hand and heart of God hold us and all that weighs on our shoulders. We feel God’s deep embrace through our relationships as the body of Christ and through the strength of humility and disciplined rest. This rest is not just an absence of work but it is self-care that allows us to explore what re-energizes us. Maybe that is centering yourself in prayer, taking a run or a walk as you let your thoughts unwind, painting with friends in a class, or claiming some time with family.
Sabbath is a sacred center of all things. It lightens the load to set our burdens down and trust God with them. It builds us up in God’s grace and strength. It empowers us to be resilient and bounce back in our daily lives. Sabbath is a weekly spiritual discipline that allows us to thrive and grow through any burden or challenge.
If we choose to ignore Sabbath and we never find a true rhythm of resilient rest then our center cannot hold. We deny our Creator’s gift; isolation causes us to feel cut off from community with God and one another; we compromise our well-being; and we lose a sense of gratitude because we are constantly depleted and have nothing to give.
I pray we reclaim the gift of Sabbath. It is a spiritual space created and set apart for us to rest in God alone. Sabbath frees us from being a slave to our work. Sabbath empowers us to feel fully alive when we play in God’s creation. Sabbath allows us to be agents of restoration when we are the grace of Christ to one another. And Sabbath shows us how to unburden ourselves in order to thrive through any challenge so that we may be spiritually resilient.
As we claim this day of Sabbath together, I lift this prayer from Walter Brueggemann for us:
Things fall apart
The center cannot hold.
We are no strangers to the falling apart.
We perpetuate against the center of our lives,
And on somedays it feels like an endless falling,
Like a deep threat,
Like rising water,
Like ruthless wind.
But You – in the midst,
You back in play
You rebuking and silencing and ordering,
You creating restfulness in the very eye of the storm.
You – be our center
Cause us not to lie about danger
Cause us not to resist your good order.
Be our God. Be the God You promised
And we will be among those surely peaceable in your order.
We pray in the name of the one through whom all things hold together.
Amen.
Source Referenced:
Walter Brueggemann, “Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth”, p. 26.
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