Sermon for Trinity 4

Sermon for Trinity 4

Matthew 11:16-19, 25 - end

Do you ever overdo it when it comes to carrying things? I know I do. You know what it’s like, you go into a supermarket and don’t bother with a basket because you only need a couple of things? And you end up with your arms full by the time you get to the checkout? Or do you take advantage of the special offers and convince yourself that you can carry the bags all the way home? Or…do you make one trip or two trips from the car to the house? Or what about when you are tidying up and try to carry too many things at once and they all live in different places…and as each thing is put away, the load is lightened and it gets easier the more you offload.

Feels good, doesn’t it when you are free of the things you’ve been carrying around?

And all of us, at some time in our life find ourselves carrying things around whether we like it or not. Things like the cares and worries of life: Illness, unemployment, money, our family. It might even be something we’ve said or done, or even not said or done. Sometimes, all the little worries niggle away and keep coming to the surface and it is so easy to become overwhelmed by them.

The thing is though is that we get so used to carrying them around that we somehow get attached to them and forget all about letting them go.

We might even feel that these burdens are just too big to share with anyone else. Or that people might judge us or won’t understand.

In our gospel reading from St Matthew, we hear that Jesus invites each one of us to share our cares and our worries with him.

He tells us: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest’

These are some of the most well-known words in the Bible and are part of what the Book of Common Prayer refers to as ‘comfortable words. I like that word…comfortable. It suggests things like safe and secure and of course comforting.

I think we need some of that. These past few months have probably been some of the most testing times that we have experienced. Living in fear of a virus that so far has taken the lives of over 11 million people worldwide, over 44,000 of them in this country. You might even have lost family or friends to the virus yourself, I know I have. I even took the funeral of a friend just three weeks ago.

Jesus’ invitation is for all of us. He said “Come to me, all you…” It doesn’t matter who you are or how big or small our burdens are, Jesus wants to offer us some rest…some respite from the constant little niggles that are wearing us down. He wants to set us free from them.

In Jesus’ day, the people who were weary and carrying heavy burdens were the poor and the sick and they had the added burden of also being weighed down by the rules and restrictions of their religion. Jesus went on to say “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. ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Upon first reading that, you could be forgiven for thinking that Jesus is piling even more problems on us by saying “take my yoke upon you”.

Did you notice the image that I added to the gospel reading of the two oxen? They were yoked together. We don’t see that nowadays in this country but it would have been common to see that in Jesus’ day. To yoke two animals together lightens the load.

 Jesus is telling us that he won’t take all our worries away but he will carry our burdens with us. We need to walk alongside him and to share our troubles with him and to trust him as we pull the load together, side by side.

I don’t think that we are very good at asking for help and we’re even worse at accepting it. We don’t like putting people out…they’ve got enough on…they’re busy people…they’ve got their own lives, their own families…and their own problems…

The stubborn among us, when we are offered help, often choose to go it alone. But ask yourself this…how grateful have you been over the past few months for all the help given to you when it came to getting your shopping and prescriptions throughout lockdown?

Jesus wants us to turn to him in our time of need. He tells us “I will give you rest.” He doesn’t add any conditions. He doesn’t say I might, he says I will.

It would be good, wouldn’t it if walking alongside Jesus meant the end to all our troubles? But life doesn’t work like that. It continues to put   obstacles in our way. To be human means that we live with the challenges and temptations of everyday life and the result may mean that things get us down.

What we need to constantly remind ourselves of is that Jesus’ invitation to turn to him isn’t a one-off and if we are yoked with him, we will be guided by him and close enough to him to allow him to continue to help to bear our load.

That way we don’t get too over-loaded with the things that we carry.

So the next time that our shopping tumbles from our arms onto the supermarket conveyor belt or when we stop for breath as we carry our shopping home, remember that when we are weary, the help is there…all we have to do is ask.

Amen.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are 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