A Scriptural Reflection: 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time
This is the first post in a possible weekly series being contemplated by a couple of regular contributors. The idea is to provide a short reflection on the readings for each Sunday, one which would ideally serve as the basis for a homily for the day. Feedback on the idea of such as series, as well as on the reflection itself, is welcome. Also, if we do continue, we are looking for a title for the series.
At that time Jesus exclaimed:
“I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
for although you have hidden these things
from the wise and the learned
you have revealed them to little ones.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
No one knows the Son except the Father,
and no one knows the Father except the Son
and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am meek and humble of heart;
and you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11:25-30)
In today’s Gospel, Jesus concludes with the promise, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” And to this I am often tempted to respond, “yeah, right…” On the face of it, this does not seem to be a reasonable promise. We could interpret it naively as a promise that if we just believe in Jesus—accept Jesus as Lord as our evangelical brethren say—then all of our problems will be over. But our own experience shows this is not the case: we have all known people, good Christians, loving and open, who are crushed by disease and tragedy. Faith in Jesus does not remake our world into a kinder, gentler place.
We could also interpret Jesus as saying that the cost of discipleship—his yoke—is small. But the cross of Jesus showed us that the cost of discipleship is high: our very lives. As St. Paul reminds us in the second reading, we need to die to the flesh, our old ways, in order to live in Christ. To be a follower of Jesus is to keep his commandment: “love one another as I have loved you.” This is not the sentimental love that lets us feel good about people we don’t really know. To love as Jesus loved, as the beatitudes show, is to love those we don’t want to love, who we think don’t “deserve” our love: the child who disappoints us, the spouse who has grown distant, the co-worker who betrayed us, the terrorist who threatens our country.
So what does Jesus mean? There are two ways a burden can become lighter: when we accept it freely (instead of having it imposed on us) and when it is shared. We have to choose to become a disciple: no one will make us become one. By accepting the yoke, we make it, if not lighter, then more bearable. It will still be heavy at times, and it will do nothing to make the cares and troubles of our lives any less. But twice in a row, while offering us his yoke, Jesus also offers us rest. Our problems will not go away, but he will help us carry them.
His help will not always be obvious: a lot of times, when I am at the bottom of a pile of trouble, I feel more alone than ever. But he is there, and if I pause and look for him, I find him. He can be present to me directly, in my soul, urging me to get up and keep going. He can be a helping hand from a stranger, a smile from my wife, a hug from one of my kids.
Jesus also said, “take up my yoke and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” If God himself, creator of the universe, is standing by each of us, ready to help when we need it, then we too have to reach out to others. In the week to come, look for someone who is burdened and offer them rest. Give someone a hand, turn the other cheek when someone is a in a bad mood and lashes out, give some of your money or possessions to someone in need. And the peace of Christ, which is beyond all understanding, will be with you.
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Nicely done, David.
The NAB says, in a note, “In place of the yoke of the law, complicated by scribal interpretation, Jesus invites the burdened to take the yoke of obedience to his word, under which they will find rest . . . .”
A great deal of Christianity seems to be an “alternative way” to Judaism to be among God’s people without obeying “the Law.” However, I was just reading from A Marginal Jew, Volume 4, this morning, and Meier insists time and again that “the historical Jesus is the halakic Jesus.” Jesus was very much interesting in taking positions on interpretations of the Law that were under discussion during his time (probably much more than we can tell from the Gospels, who were not written for Jewish Christians and hence were not concerned with interpretations of the Law). This seems to present a grave problem, in my view, for Christianity as a whole. God became man, spent his public ministry preaching to Jews, and is quoted as saying bluntly, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” God himself (as Jesus) interprets Mosaic Law, and after he is executed, his positions on Mosaic Law become irrelevant, because the Jews do not accept him, and the Christians decide they are exempt from the Law. Jesus was wasting his breath when he, as a halakic Jew, talked about the Law. The movement that grew in his name basically repudiated the law. It seems to me if “My yoke is easy and my burden light” was understood by Matthew to mean that the way of Jesus is not onerous compared to the way of the Law, then he either misunderstood what Jesus said or (more probably) Jesus did not say it. The real Jesus, it seems to me, would never have said, “Take what I say as an alternative to the Law.”
Matthew 5:17-19 says:
The NAB has a note that says:
I find it extraordinarily difficult to buy that the passing away of heaven and earth was a phenomenon that only those who believed in it would be aware of, or that Jesus understood his words to mean that. It seems to me a far less credible interpretation of heaven and earth passing away than, say, the interpretation of the Resurrection as being Jesus living on not bodily, but in the faith of the Christian community.
I know, if only by reputation that Meier is an incredibly gifted scholar, but I have not read his book. Nevertheless, I find it hard, given the totality of the gospels, to reduce Jesus to “just” a Halakic Jew. The early Church had to cope with the law—Luke Timothy Johnson describes the solutions arrived at during the first generation as earthshaking. But it seems clear (to me anyway) that they were walking in a direction Jesus firmly pointed them in during his active ministry.
I can’t claim to have read more than 1% or 2% of Meier, but it is not necessary to read four volumes of A Marginal Jew to see the problem. Jesus was a Jew who says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Yet in Matthew 11:29-31 he is quoted as saying, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” I have consulted four commentaries, St. Matthew by J. C. Fenton; the Anchor Bible volume Matthew by W. F. Albright and C. S. Mann; The New Jerome Biblical Commentary by Brown, Fitzmyer, and Myrphy; Dictionary of the Bible, by John L. McKenzie, S.J.; plus the notes to the New American Bible. In all of them, yoke is associated with the Law or the obligations of the Law. So it seems problematic to me that Jesus, a first-century, Law-obeying, halakic Jew, is offering his way as an alternative to the Law.
So it seems to me that all of Christianity is basically adapting the teachings of a Jew to fellow Jews—some (but by no means all) of which were interpretations of Jewish Law—for non-Jews, with the teachings specifically about the Law being now irrelevant, since non-Jews do not follow the Law.
Jesus was a Jew who came for the Jews, but now he is relevant to everyone but the Jews, since they are not to be targets of Christian proselytizing. So what God Incarnate said about the Law is ignored by Jews and irrelevant to Christians. Even if that is not seen as a challenge to Christian faith, it is at minimum a tremendous irony. God himself, who delivered his Law through divinely inspiring the authors of Hebrew scripture, becomes man, engages in interpretation of the Law he gave, and his interpretations are irrelevant!
David,
I think I’m missing your point, at least in part, because I don’t fully understand what you think is ironic. True, Jesus is a Jew who came to the Jews, but it’s pretty clear that He came to those who weren’t Jews too — that is based on Jesus’s interactions and words with non-Jews. Even your quote ““I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” is said in the context of Jesus having mercy on a non-Jew.
Also, I don’t understand you saying that Christians ignore or find irrelevant Jesus’s interpretations about the Jewish law. The traditional notion is that Jesus wasn’t a Jew interpreting the Jewish law, but that He was God who came to fulfill the Law, and that the fulfillment of the Law meant no longer following many of the Jewish rituals.
Anyways, if you consider that Jesus came to fulfill the Law, it’s not strange that He is offering an alternative “yoke” to those only following the Old Law.
Nice reflection. Would be good to make this a regular feature !
God Bless
A tremendous amount of peace comes to me from your reflection. Thank you for sharing your gift. I pray you continue. Grace and peace.
Great idea…this is similar to the notion of ‘going from gospel to life, and life to the gospel.’ I hope that you’ll continue this feature.
As a thought, sharing the yoke with Jesus is beneficial in two senses. One is that it combats our alienation by ‘yoking’ with someone who is ever faithful. And secondly, in that it guides us on along a path that contains a promise of abundant life or life in the full.
Peace and all good.