25At that time Jesus said, ……….. 28“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29Take 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.”
Jesus said to the crowds…’come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’ The ‘rest’ in Matthew’s text is the Greek word ‘anapausis’ and can refer to Sabbath rest, the rest of death, or rest from war, or rest from poverty, or rest from fear. And to take Christ’s yoke upon oneself is to be yoked to the one in whom God’s reign of justice, mercy, and compassion is continually breaking into this world. We experience the rest we long for, I experience the rest I long for. We who are “weary and carrying heavy burdens” of all sorts, who are deeply longing for rest, identify with Jesus’ audience that day in Galilee, thought to be people significantly in need of encouragement. They were not only being repressed by the Roman occupiers but also by the temple insiders who held sway over their spiritual and economic well-being. The promise to be yoked to the one in whom God’s reign of justice, mercy, and compassion is constantly breaking into this world, is an amazing promise for them, and for us.
These generous words of Jesus are for us. I don’t normally like paraphrases of the Bible but Eugene Petersen book ‘The Message’ is an exception. His words for Matthew 11: 28-29 go like this: ‘Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me, work with me and watch me. Learn the rhythm of grace…..!’ Learn the rhythm of grace. What an amazing image. I find than restful and energizing, humbling and hopeful, comforting and compelling. The rhythm of falling into the restful presence of Christ and then being propelled to lighten the burdens of others is, for me, the rhythm of grace!!
And who are these ‘burdened others’?? On this holiday weekend when we celebrate our nation’s founding, many come to mind. The bronzed words on the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor tell of burdened immigrants who came through Ellis Island. The final and most familiar words of Emma Lazarus’ poem, “The New Colossus” are:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Wow! That invitation to the burdened, to the tempest-tossed, that welcome to the homeless is a part of what we celebrated yesterday. It’s just part of our humanity to share the sometimes overwhelming life-load, with others, and with strangers. The Hebrew scripture speaks of welcoming the stranger 42 times!! And holy writings of other faith traditions such as Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu all have welcome of the stranger as foundational to their beliefs.
But not all have been welcomed over our 250 year history. In Langston Hughes poem ‘Let America Be America Again’ He writes:
‘Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where all themselves are free.
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any one be crushed by one above.
It never was America to me.
That poem has 14 amazing stanzas…I’ve only included two. But we certainly hear his pain and yearning for America to be America. That’s what Raphael Warnock writes about in his new book ‘The Crooked Places Made Straight.’ Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta & a US Senator from Georgia, uses imagery from Isaiah Chapter 40 as a framework for his marvelous book. In the introduction, he says the partisan & petty rhetoric of politics today is simply too puny a language for the magnitude of problems we face today. So he uses biblical language, the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight, and the rough places smooth; and the glory of God shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together!’ Then Warnock writes: ‘Our country needs moral leadership and a renewed vision like Isaiah’s, one that invites us to reach out to one another, to pray for one another rather than prey on one another, and reach toward our highest ideals rather than sink in our basest fears.’
Our country, is a place where, for most of us, our ancestors came to experience that equality, that levelness of which Isaiah writes and for which Hughes and Warnock yearn. Many people came to this country, not by some whim, but because they needed to leave the poverty, the political upheaval, or the conflict of their native land. But not all wanted to leave their beloved homeland. On August 15, 1908 my grandmother saw the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor. She and her uncle Bent, two older male cousins, and two hired men had traveled from Utvik, Norway to Liverpool England, and then boarded the British liner SS Lusitania for America. My grandmother, 21 years old, loved Norway. She didn’t want to leave but as the oldest daughter, she was commanded by her parents to go to the US to cook and keep the household for her uncle and his crew of men as they established their farmstead in Nebraska. My grandmother, during her 88 years of life with a caring husband and 8 children, always saw Norway as home. She didn’t want to leave. There were certainly many immigrants then as well as now who truly love their homeland and didn’t want to leave. But circumstances pushed them to leave….drug cartels, war, political oppression, religious oppression, whatever.
And during the 2 and ½ centuries of our nation’s history, we’ve messed up that dream of freedom and equality. We can do better. We can be better. We can share that rhythm of grace. That’s what Barack & Michelle Obama did at the dedication of the Obama Presidental Center in Chicago! I was blown away by their words, their hope, their Spirited energy to lift up our nation as a place where we listen to one another, care for one another and where we work to lift-up those who are burdened.
The words of Jesus, the words of Emma Lazarus, the words of the prophet Isaiah all point us toward ways for all to experience not only authentic welcome to our nation, but an ability to experience a remarkable life in our nation!!
The last stanza of the Langston Hughes poem goes like this:
‘O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the trees, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!’
We have our individual rhythms of challenges and amazing joy, and that’s also the case for our nation. Yes, that rhythm includes our nation’s tragic bigotry which comprises segregation, red-lining, intolerance of differences but there has also been amazing care for all, lifting up of all, such as the voting rights act, Obama care, and just in the past few weeks, Congress’s remarkable bipartisan support of the “21st Century Road to Housing Act!’. We as Christians are rooted in the rhythm of grace. And the Christ-Spirit in us, using phrase about Powdermilk Biscuits, ‘gives us the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.’ Let’s eat our biscuits and follow Christ’s lead to see one another’s burdens, to share one another’s burdens, and to stand with all who labor and are heavy laddened, and together we rest in that rhythm of grace.
Amen.
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