Matthew 12: A Gentle Yoke for Caring for the Most Fragile

Introduction

"Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest." Ester opens her message at Immanuel church in Stockholm with these words of Jesus, which she counts among the most beautiful he ever spoke. Most of us feel crushed by life at times, and it is a comfort to hear that God wants to help us carry what is heavy.

This Sunday, the twenty-first after Trinity, has responsibility toward society as its theme. The message starts from Matthew 12:15-21, passes through Exodus 23 and ends on 2 Corinthians 8. One phrase returns like a refrain throughout the sermon: "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

The question is simple: how do you live a faith that has real consequences in our lives and in society, without becoming too rigid or too harsh? Ester speaks of two ditches to avoid and one direction to keep.

Outline of the message

1. A yoke that lightens life

A yoke is a tool that makes it easier to carry a heavy load. It was a common object in Jesus' day, part of the daily life of many people.
The yoke was also an image for the way a religious leader interpreted the life of the believer and understood the Word of God.
At the end of Matthew 11, Jesus wants to give us rest when life is heavy. But he also says that his way of understanding life with God is not meant to make life heavier, but lighter.
"I don't know what experiences you have had of the church," says Ester, "of the Bible or of the Christians around you." Most of us have known faith as a source of positive direction, but also, at times, as something limiting, hard and oppressive.
The Bible contains many laws and rules that Christians today do not always agree on. Finding the right balance is nothing new, and Matthew 12 illustrates exactly this balance.

2. The purpose of rules: mercy

Matthew 12 begins on a Sabbath day. Jesus and his disciples are walking through a wheat field. The disciples are hungry and pick heads of grain to eat.
The religious leaders accuse them of breaking the day of rest: they have harvested, they have worked on the Sabbath. There was, and still is, a multitude of rules to make sure that this day is truly a day of rest.
Jesus brings the discussion back to what is essential: the purpose of faith and of these rules is mercy, not sacrifice (Matthew 12:7).
Picking a few heads of grain seems like an unimportant detail. The situation escalates in the synagogue, in front of a man with a withered hand. Jesus is asked: "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" His conclusion: it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.
Ester invites everyone to reread the passage at home: Jesus answers there, as he often does, with a story.

3. Jesus keeps doing good

The religious leaders are provoked. They leave the synagogue to look for a way to put him to death. Ester sums up their reaction: this charismatic young fool is shaking up our traditions and our rules, he must be stopped, or there will be chaos.
Jesus learns of their plan and withdraws. This is where the day's text begins: many follow him, and he heals them all.
He keeps doing what he knows is right, what he is called to do: change people's daily lives, lift the burdens from their shoulders. He does not stop doing what he knows to be his mission.
He is aware of the threat and the danger. That is why he forbids the crowds to say who he is. But he holds firm to his purpose: proclaiming justice to the nations.
"A bruised reed he will not break, and smoldering flax he will not quench." His name will give hope to the nations (Matthew 12:20-21, quoting Isaiah 42).

4. Two ditches to avoid

A large part of the Bible is made up of legal texts. In the Old Testament, many belonged to the actual legal system of the nation. In the New Testament, we find rather guidelines for the Christian movement and the growing churches.
The first ditch is that of the Pharisees: being so focused on the details of doing things right that you miss what is truly good and important.
The second ditch is a faith that stays intellectual or private, with no effect on how we live, how we meet others and how we take responsibility toward the society around us.
"We are called to make a difference where we are, as Christians and as a church."
Laws and rules are not only about legal matters and theory. At bottom, they all speak of a vision of the human being, of the world we want to live in and the one we want for others. Faith always touches our real daily life and our real choices.

5. Leaving your margins to the most vulnerable

We might be tempted to set aside the Old Testament, which is more complicated than the New. Ester admits it: there are many difficult things in the Old Testament. "But there are also so many magnificent things."
She reads a few lines from Exodus 23: do not undermine the rights of the poor, stay far from false accusations, do not accept a bribe, because a bribe blinds those who have eyes to see. "You shall not oppress a foreigner, for you know the heart of a foreigner, seeing you were foreigners in the land of Egypt."
Elsewhere, the Old Testament gives rules for the harvest. Anyone who has harvested knows this: after one pass around a field, there are always small margins left, in the ditches, along the edges, in the little furrows.
The instruction is not to make one more pass to gather these margins, but to leave them for the poor, the widows and the orphans, three groups particularly exposed in biblical times.
The principle, the vision of the human being behind these rules, is that we must take care of the most vulnerable in society, whether it is our obligation or not, whatever we think of others.
"Some rules are updated, but the thought of God behind them remains."

6. Jesus became poor: a direction and a balance

In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul describes how Jesus chose to become poor for humanity. He came down from his divine position and left behind wealth, power and security to share our daily life.
For us too, it is always a choice, and not always an easy one: to come down from our wealth, our power, our security to share the daily life of others and give from our margins.
This clear picture of God's love gives us our direction as Christians.
Paul adds a clarification that keeps us from another ditch: "For this is not that others may be eased and you distressed, but for equality" (2 Corinthians 8:13-14). Your abundance supplies their need, so that another time their abundance may supply yours.
A lasting and healthy faith requires active work not to fall into one ditch or the other. According to our means, we can seek to live a faith that keeps its gentleness and its humanity, while standing upright for what is right.
We can hand our burdens over to God, who wants to give us rest, and at the same time let him challenge us to give to others from what we have.

Key takeaways

Jesus' yoke is easy: his way of living with God is not meant to weigh life down, but to lighten it.
The purpose of rules is mercy. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.
Faith must fall neither into the legalism of details nor into a private piety that has no effect on how we live and on society.
Leaving your margins to the most vulnerable remains the thought of God, whether it is an obligation or not.
Jesus became poor for us: this is our direction, lived in a balance that does not seek to crush the one who gives.

Personal application

Is your faith a yoke that lightens your life, or has it become a hard and limiting weight?
Which of the two ditches do you slide into more easily: excessive attention to details, or a faith that stays private?
What are your "margins" (time, money, attention) that you could leave to the most fragile people around you?
Who are the vulnerable people in your city that you tend to forget, or whom you think do not deserve your help?
What burden do you need to hand over to God this week, and what could you give from what you have?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

What does Jesus mean by "my yoke is easy"?

The yoke was a common tool that helped carry a heavy load. It was also an image of the way a religious leader interpreted life with God. For Ester, Jesus is saying that his way of understanding life with God is not meant to weigh life down, but to lighten it.

What are the two ditches the sermon talks about?

The first is that of the Pharisees: being so focused on the details of doing things right that you miss what is truly good and important. The second is a faith that is only intellectual or private, which changes nothing in how we meet others or in the responsibility we take for society.

What does it mean to leave your margins to the most vulnerable?

The Old Testament forbade going back over your field to gather what was left at the edges: these margins went to the poor, the widows and the orphans. Ester draws from this the principle that God maintains: take care of the most vulnerable in society, whether it is an obligation or not, and whatever we think of others.