Proper 9A (Trinity 2)
Matthew 11.16-19, 25-end.
Time pressure
It must be nearing the holiday season because I've received my reminder to buy my time organiser diary for 2012! ‘Reply today and make sure your time is used well.’ Indeed ‘reply within 14 days and you'll receive a free travel alarm clock as our thank you for your time sense.’ Alongside that inducement there was yet more; six different books detailing ways to get the most out of meetings, reading, administration, and the rest. You can make your time so much more productive – and at a special discount only available to people like me with ‘time sense.’
I parody the leaflet–but only a little. Life is so hectic for so many of us. A blur of things to do, and time is always pressured. It’s a busy, busy world. Speed is of the essence, there’s always another change on the way. It took 20 years for the number of land telephone lines in the UK to reach a million. It took just 18 months for mobile phone users to pass the million mark. Your fat Sunday newspaper is likely to have more information in it than a 17th century forebear encountered in a lifetime.
Relief
In our pressured world shouldn’t the words of Jesus come as welcome relief: ‘Come to me, all of you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ Isn’t there ‘time sense’ here? Isn’t Jesus offering that space that all the time management products promise? Why isn’t he up there with all the lifestyle, management, and personal development gurus?
Perhaps the reluctance to take Christ at his word comes from what follows in Matthew’s account, ‘Take my yoke upon you.’ Burden lifting is great, being yoked isn’t. A yoke always means work, and heavy work at that. The picture comes to mind of oxen straining in front of a plough in unyielding parched soil in some poor part of the world, or horses yoked, sweaty and burdened, hauling a great wagon across unforgiving rough ground in countless Westerns. If carrying burdens means toil like that who wants it?
Synergy
The heavy labour involved is so obvious, we miss the crucial thing of how it is being achieved. It is only because the oxen or the horses are working together that what is being moved is being moved. I’m told that a big horse can pull two tons by itself. You would expect then that two horses yoked together can pull four tons, but I'm told that in fact they can pull a staggering 18 tons. That’s the incredible consequence of synergy; of working together.
And that’s how we should understand Christ’s words. Not that we should pick up the burden and get on with it, no matter how heavy. Like the unsympathetic friend who tells you just to ‘pull yourself together.’ No, Christ says take this yoke of mine and we’ll shoulder this together, and take heart because you will be amazed at what we can shift between us.
Choosing
Well, I’ve read my “‘time sense’ super effective time manager manual” carefully. It turns out that the key thing in ‘time sense’ is deciding priorities. Get your priorities right, and then you’ll be able to find the time. The advice has been sold to me as something that will change everything for the better. Get yourself hitched up to your goals in life, and go for them. That’s it. Like so much self-help advice there is something here that is true and hopeful, and obvious and dangerous. It so easy to think you are hitched up to life goals when in fact you’re simply addicted to being busy. And my life goals can be so devastatingly selfish.
Christ’s call to come to him means hitching ourselves up to his purposes that they might become ours. We share his yoke in order that we might be free of self-serving and corrosive preoccupation. Yoked to him we come to see what burdens are worth the effort. What is it that we’re hitched up to? What can we unhitch? And what are the people and things we’ve let slip; where the harness straps need tightening? Yoked to Christ these are no longer lonely choices. Yoked to Christ our burdens are lifted.
[This sermon first published in The Preacher. More details at the College of Preachers website.]
It must be nearing the holiday season because I've received my reminder to buy my time organiser diary for 2012! ‘Reply today and make sure your time is used well.’ Indeed ‘reply within 14 days and you'll receive a free travel alarm clock as our thank you for your time sense.’ Alongside that inducement there was yet more; six different books detailing ways to get the most out of meetings, reading, administration, and the rest. You can make your time so much more productive – and at a special discount only available to people like me with ‘time sense.’
I parody the leaflet–but only a little. Life is so hectic for so many of us. A blur of things to do, and time is always pressured. It’s a busy, busy world. Speed is of the essence, there’s always another change on the way. It took 20 years for the number of land telephone lines in the UK to reach a million. It took just 18 months for mobile phone users to pass the million mark. Your fat Sunday newspaper is likely to have more information in it than a 17th century forebear encountered in a lifetime.
Relief
In our pressured world shouldn’t the words of Jesus come as welcome relief: ‘Come to me, all of you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ Isn’t there ‘time sense’ here? Isn’t Jesus offering that space that all the time management products promise? Why isn’t he up there with all the lifestyle, management, and personal development gurus?
Perhaps the reluctance to take Christ at his word comes from what follows in Matthew’s account, ‘Take my yoke upon you.’ Burden lifting is great, being yoked isn’t. A yoke always means work, and heavy work at that. The picture comes to mind of oxen straining in front of a plough in unyielding parched soil in some poor part of the world, or horses yoked, sweaty and burdened, hauling a great wagon across unforgiving rough ground in countless Westerns. If carrying burdens means toil like that who wants it?
Synergy
The heavy labour involved is so obvious, we miss the crucial thing of how it is being achieved. It is only because the oxen or the horses are working together that what is being moved is being moved. I’m told that a big horse can pull two tons by itself. You would expect then that two horses yoked together can pull four tons, but I'm told that in fact they can pull a staggering 18 tons. That’s the incredible consequence of synergy; of working together.
And that’s how we should understand Christ’s words. Not that we should pick up the burden and get on with it, no matter how heavy. Like the unsympathetic friend who tells you just to ‘pull yourself together.’ No, Christ says take this yoke of mine and we’ll shoulder this together, and take heart because you will be amazed at what we can shift between us.
Choosing
Well, I’ve read my “‘time sense’ super effective time manager manual” carefully. It turns out that the key thing in ‘time sense’ is deciding priorities. Get your priorities right, and then you’ll be able to find the time. The advice has been sold to me as something that will change everything for the better. Get yourself hitched up to your goals in life, and go for them. That’s it. Like so much self-help advice there is something here that is true and hopeful, and obvious and dangerous. It so easy to think you are hitched up to life goals when in fact you’re simply addicted to being busy. And my life goals can be so devastatingly selfish.
Christ’s call to come to him means hitching ourselves up to his purposes that they might become ours. We share his yoke in order that we might be free of self-serving and corrosive preoccupation. Yoked to him we come to see what burdens are worth the effort. What is it that we’re hitched up to? What can we unhitch? And what are the people and things we’ve let slip; where the harness straps need tightening? Yoked to Christ these are no longer lonely choices. Yoked to Christ our burdens are lifted.
[This sermon first published in The Preacher. More details at the College of Preachers website.]
