St Luke’s,
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
When I look at our readings this morning I’ve got to be honest and say at a pick I’d probably rather preach on Romans or maybe the first part of the Gospel, but then I come to these words at the end of Matthew 11 and I just can’t pass them by, even though I suspect the other readings would be easier to preach on.
The fact is some of us are so used to hearing these words that we take it for granted we know what they mean. We hear them at funerals and, of course, in the so-called ‘comfortable words’ in the BCP communion service, but I want to say loud and clear at this point that the words we hear on those occasions only tell part of the story – half at most – and that’s why, when I get a chance to look at these verses in a non-funeral or a non-BCP setting, I can’t pass up the opportunity to balance the books somewhat.
Let’s start with the reading itself, and note firstly that for one reason or another we’ve jumped straight from the end of chapter 10 last week to the end of chapter 11 today, but to understand what we get there we need to know what’s in the bit we missed. The first thing to note is that where chapter 10 was Jesus addressing only the 12 closest disciples in chapter 11 we’re back with the crowds, and we begin with John the Baptist, in prison, and it’s clear Jesus is not exactly what he was expecting by way of a messiah. So John sends some of his own disciples to Jesus to ask, ‘are you the one we’ve been waiting for?’ This is a vital question for John. He’s devoted his whole literally his life to preparing the way for the messiah and now he needs to know has it all been in vein? Jesus, of course, doesn’t give a yes or no answer, but instead tells John’s disciples to go back and tell him ‘what you hear and see – the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,’ Jesus says in effect, ‘it doesn’t matter what I tell you, it’s what I’m doing that counts.’ Then what follows is a series of comparisons between Jesus and John that culminate in the first part of what we’ve heard today.
Let’s not forget, Matthew’s Gospel actually begins with an emphasis on the continuity between John and Jesus, note in this chapter that theme gets developed further, first by offering the differences between the two – and clearly we’re talking about two very different styles – and then by spelling out their common connections and receptions. ‘John came neither eating nor drinking and they say, ‘he has a demon’. The Son of Man comes eating and drinking and they say, ‘look, a glutton and a drunkard.’ ‘There’s just no pleasing you lot.’
The key here though isn’t just the almost laughable pettiness of the people, but the true nature of Jesus. What Matthew really spells out here is that no, Jesus isn’t what John was expecting, but he’s so much more.
‘Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’ Having outlined all the complaints there are about him and John Jesus uses the ancient Hebrew wisdom tradition, exemplified most clearly in the Book of Proverbs, and says, ‘you call me a glutton and a drunkard, you slag me off and John as well, but the proof remains in the pudding’ – wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, and wisdom, our reading goes on to point out, is often found in places least expected.
Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. We could probably spend a few hours just focusing on that one verse, but to do so would be to miss the point because this verse, this whole passage really, is all one big set-up for what’s to follow, the closing verses of Matthew 11 and the end of our reading this morning:
‘Jesus said … All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’
Jesus, continuing to draw from the wisdom tradition, claims and affirms his own unique closeness to God and then goes on to illustrate the significance of that relationship with those words we know so well, ‘Come to me all that are weary …’ Come to me all those who have been weighed down by the demands of those who claim to be wise and claim to know God. Come to me all those who have been worn out by trying to do what the Law demands. Come to me, the embodiment of true wisdom, and I will give you something very different indeed. Come to me and I will give you rest, but before you breathe a sigh of relief you might ask, ‘rest from what?’
Remember again who the audience is here. Jesus is talking to the crowd, many of whom are disciples themselves, following other rabbis. That was how things worked in 1st century
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
Jesus isn’t talking to his own disciples here. Jesus is appealing directly to those who have taken on someone else’s yoke and saying, ‘come to me for a better way.’ Yes, Jesus tells them to come and receive rest, but that’s not all he says. The problem I have with the way we use these words in some of our liturgies is that we do what we so often do, we take what we want – what suits our purposes at the time – and we leave out the rest, and the rest in this case is crucial.
‘Come to me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.’
‘Come to me’ I’m the one who’s close to God, I’m the one who’s truly wise. ‘Take my yoke and learn from me.’ Pick the right teacher so you learn the right things.
Come and take. Come to find rest from all the hardships of trying and failing and trying and failing at all the arduous and ultimately quite pointless tasks that these others rabbis, these other teachers, are setting you, and take my yoke, a different kind of yoke, a yoke that fits, a yoke that is useful, a yoke that is better than others – there are all these different ways of interpreting the word that our reading today calls ‘easy’ – take this yoke and learn from me.
Jesus isn’t calling us to a life of rest and relaxation. Jesus isn’t promising holiday breaks for Christians. When we hear ‘come to me all that are weary’ we need to hear the call of Jesus to those who have tried other ways, attempted other options, followed other teachers, and found their ways arduous. When we hear his promise of rest we need to understand that it’s not rest as in a break from work it’s rest as in a shift of focus. If I keep trying to do the job with the wrong tools over and over again I’m going to get tired and not accomplish much, but give me the right tool and I don’t stop working, I just start working differently, properly, more effectively. Jesus says, ‘Take my yoke.’
Don’t get me wrong, there are times and places for hearing these verses as we so often hear them. For those who are weighed down, for those who are suffering, for those who hurt and those who mourn, there are promises here of comfort, support and a sense of the ‘lightness of being’ that comes with knowing you are not alone in your darkest hours, and that’s a hope I believe we can and should hold out to those who need it. But at the same time, taken in context, that’s not what’s happening here. Given all that has gone before and all that is still to come, as Matthew has Jesus say these words – these wonderful, beautiful words – we need to remind ourselves that they are not so much an invitation to sit and rest as they are a call to come and follow, leaving us to simply ask ourselves, ‘will we?’