“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.” When I read this Gospel lesson for this morning, I couldn’t help but remember seeing the “stick-men” of Chongqing, China, and the (often) heavy burdens they bore.
Some twenty years ago, Susan and I were in Chongqing—in the old pronunciation “Chun King” (some of you might remember it as the name associated with a Chinese culinary “treat”!). Chongqing, today, is a huge municipality (some say the largest in the world) with a complex history. The city proper is very hilly; it isn’t conducive to bicycle messengers or delivery people (even worse than San Francisco!). So the best/easiest way to move goods from store to customer required physical —specifically, for centuries, human labor: the “stick-men”.
The “sticks” were—and are—poles that rest over the shoulders of the men that carry goods around the city. And, by “goods”, I mean everything from luggage, to soft-goods to television sets. The sticks allowed the carriers to balance their loads . . . making it easier to move the Sony from shop to customer . . . up and down the steep hills of Chongqing. The sticks were the “yokes” meant to ease the burdens that these strong, sinewy, men had to carry to earn their living.
The stick-men, were “yoked” to their livelihood. So, if burdens couldn’t be borne—if there were health or physical problems, occupational hazards, to be sure—livelihoods were jeopardized. (Coincidentally, those livelihoods currently ARE being jeopardized by economic pressures and technological changes; some are saying that the last generation of stickmen are currently at work.) So, “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke. . .” (Mt 11.28-29) took on a different set of associations.
“Yokes” . . . we’ve lost our association with “yokes”. Most of us are far-removed from non-industrial agrarian societies. Our food comes to us from aisle 8, or from the refrigerated meat or dairy counters. The “yokes” we think about are spelled differently. But for those who need “animal” help to plow the fields, harvest the grain, or move goods from farm to market, yokes were (and are), basically, essential.
Yokes are those pieces of equipment that distribute the “work-load”. And we often think of “yokes” having to do with more than one “puller” on a plow or cart— two oxen, for example (never an ox and a donkey together—Dt 22.10). But yokes are also used by individuals—allowing a more efficient means of relocating materials from point “a” to point “b”. As is the case with the “stick-men”, individual yokes mean that the burden is borne by more than one muscle-set.
The image of “yoke” has been a powerful one; it has certainly been used beyond the physical meaning of “carrying a load”. In metaphorical use, a definition I like has to do with the “yoke” being the “laws, interpretations & expectations laid upon one by a higher authority”. While appropriate to the “actual” image—at least as it relates to beasts-of-burden—it can be used for other things. Torah, for example, was seen by the rabbis as a “yoke”— a voluntary “putting on” of the discipline of learning how to live as God required: “Rabbi Nechunia son of Hakanah said, “Anyone who accepts upon himself the yoke of Torah removes from himself . . . the yoke of the way of the world. . . .” (Pirkei Avot 3:5).
We see similar references in the New Testament, although not as “charitable” We may recall Jesus—while not referring to “yokes” specifically—speaking of the “burdens” of the law. In the next chapter of Matthew, for example, Jesus critiques, by action, the sabbath “rules” that would prevent people from being fed or healed on the Sabbath (12.1-13). Later on, Jesus lists eight different ways the “legal experts and Pharisees” either create heavy legal burdens for others (think “tithing mint, dill & cumin”—23.23), or devise work-arounds for themselves to relieve their burdens (23.13). Paul challenges the Christian leaders in Jerusalem to allow for less onerous requirements for Gentiles to be included in the Church: “Why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?” (Ac 15.10, NRSV)—that is, the yoke of Torah. Slavish devotion to the law can be a hard yoke, a heavy burden!
That image of “yoke” as something difficult to bear—servitude . . . slavery . . . oppression—fills the Hebrew Scriptures from the very beginning! Isaac, on his death-bed tells his son, Esau, “By your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother [Jacob]; but when you break loose, you shall break his yoke from your neck” (Gn 27.40 NRSV). God reminds Israel, while they’re wandering in the desert, “I . . . brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be their slaves no more; I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect” (Lv 26.13 NRSV). Ezekiel promises the returning exiles from Babylon that even “The trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be secure on their soil; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and save them from the hands of those who enslaved them” (34.27 NRSV).
Those examples fit the definition of “laws, interpretations & expectations laid upon one by a higher authority”—that is the yoke was imposed. In some other cases, such as the rabbinic study of Torah, the putting on of the yoke was a voluntary act. Voluntary yoking, however, isn’t always beneficial: we read in book of Numbers, that Israel, wandering in the wilderness, “yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the LORD’S anger was kindled against Israel” (25.3). Being “yoked” is a complicated matter. And what we hear from Jesus this morning has to do with the choice as to which “master” we follow . . . whose “laws, interpretations and expectations” we accept. Jesus summons us to leave behind heavy burdens for something better. ndeed all of our lessons this morning have that element of summons to something better.
[9:00am only: Abraham’s servant (his name was Eleazar) summoned Rebekah to leave her homeland, to journey to Canaan to marry Isaac, and to be blessed: “May you, our sister, become thousands of ten thousand; may your children possess their enemies’ cities” (Gn 24.60). Given the customs of the land and time, she chose to relinquish one yoke for another in order to create a new future.]
In the only section of Song of Songs (2.8-13) we read in public worship, the lover summons his bride away; the time is right! She is bid to leave one world for another. Because of the erotic nature of the book—which is one reason we don’t read it on Sundays!—it has been allegorized by both Jews and Christians. Jews say it speaks of the passion of God for Israel. Christians say it speaks of the love of Christ for the Church. Regardless, the Lover calls the Beloved to leave the present to be yoked to something better.
Paul writes of the struggle around choice. He doesn’t explicitly use the words, but he seems to be referring to a rabbinic belief that there were two “inclinations” to which every human is subject, the Yetzer ha-tov and Yetzer ha-ra, that is, the “inclination to good” and the “inclination to evil”. Both scream loudly to us: “I find that, as a rule, when I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me. I gladly agree with the Law on the inside, but I see a different law at work in my body” (7.21-23). Paul has made the choice about to whom he wishes to be yoked, but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy! He—along with us, I suppose, hopes for rest from the struggle.
And, to those struggling, Jesus says, “Come unto me, all heavy burdened”. He invites us to “put on his yoke”. Why?” Because, [his] “yoke is easy to bear, and [his] burden is light” (Mt 11.30). . . . meaning . . . what? Jesus is asking—or offering—that we accept a new yoke, one not burdened with the weight of complex rules and onerous regulations. One not burdened with the notion that only if we can faithfully follow the yetzer ha-tov will we be worthy. Jesus’ yoke is easier than that; his burden is lighter—the most ideal combination.
But, we are not just yoked to “religious” ideas. What other yokes are we wearing that are heavy burdens? Is our sense of “productiveness” a heavy burden— can we ever do enough? Would we ever be perfect enough? Are we enslaved—and, therefore, co-opted—by systems that do not respect the dignity of every human being? Jesus likewise tells us that those yokes do not define our worth, or our worthiness before God. They will not give us the peace we so desire.
Jesus wishes for us—and, I trust for the stick-men—an easier yoke, a lighter burden. He has shown us the way: love God, love neighbor, love self. And, walking in Jesus’ way brings the reward of rest for our souls.
Amen.