6th Sunday After Pentecost
“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” If we stop and think about that phrase for a second, we realize that, at first glance, it seems quite paradoxical and even almost contradictory. A yoke, which is placed on the back of an ox to use the ox’s labor to plow a field, is, by definition, somewhat difficult, as it implies manual labor. And a burden certainly is, by definition, heavy. So how could a yoke be easy? And how could a burden be light? What exactly is Jesus getting at here?
Some of you already know that Marie and I are finishing up a move. As most of us know, moving can be quite a stressful process. We are excited about our new place and our new location, and I have to admit that Marie has an almost magical ability to make a new home feel very cozy within a matter of days, if not hours, after the actual move. At least the living room and kitchen areas. And, the actual moving process is a lot of work. Our new place is a bit smaller than our old one, with a lot less storage space than our old place. There is no basement, and not nearly as many or as large of cupboards or closets as the old place. So we have been finding ourselves having to sort through and get rid of a lot of things. I have so far done I think at least four or five goodwill runs, and our recycling and garbage bins are holding on for dear life. We have been creatively finding room in our unfinished attic for some things, and are looking forward to finishing building our shed and fence to have some more room to store some things. Tuesday was our last day in our old house, so everything had to be out by then. So there are still a number of boxes to sort through, some of which are currently (as of my writing this on Wednesday) living in our cars. In other words, life in the Stromberg-Wojcik house has felt pretty chaotic lately.
I imagine we’re not the only ones whose lives have felt pretty chaotic lately. I imagine that many of us, for one reason or another, currently fit into the category that Jesus describes, “all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens.” Some heavy burdens we are given without a choice. And, some heavy burdens we do have a choice about. The interesting question about the second kind of heavy burdens is, what is the burden we are carrying, and why are we carrying it? Are these important burdens that someone asked us to carry for a good reason, or are these burdens that we have put on ourselves that are not in fact necessary? It seems to me that one of the burdens that we folks here in the US tend to carry, which I don’t believe necessary, is owning a lot of stuff.
I remember as a boy being shocked when my family and I were asked to help a neighbor clean out the junk from her house. I think she was being evicted, and she was a hoarder. You could barely get from room to room there was so much junk. And any time anyone suggested possibly getting rid of anything, no matter how trivial, her instinctive response was “absolutely not, that is essential.” I think everything eventually had to get taken out of the house by force, when she wasn’t there. It was a shocking and sad experience, and certainly made a strong impression on me as a youngster. Now, as an adult, I am certainly no saint myself when it comes to the accumulation of stuff. Especially now, during this moving process, I certainly have been confronted by the reality that there is plenty I own that I really don’t need.
There is a Japanese organizing consultant named Marie Kondo. Perhaps you’ve already heard of her. It seems to me that she offers some concrete tools and ideas that can help us let go of some of the burden of unnecessary stuff that somehow magically seems to accumulate. Her process of organizing, the KonMari method, involves reflecting on why I want to tidy and what kind of life I want to live. Then, she teaches, we gather everything in the house of 1 category (e.g. clothes) to the same place at the same time, and one by one visualize whether that thing brings me joy or not. If not, we thank it for its service and donate or discard it. We start with clothes, then books, then papers, then Komono (misc, such as kitchen gadgets, electronics, beauty products), then sentimental items. She teaches a vertical fold method and respect for objects, giving things “room to breathe.”
Marie and I have started that cleaning out process, essentially by force, due to this move. And we have made pretty good progress, which I’m proud of us for. Even this week we made pretty good progress, finally cleaning out some boxes of papers that we have carried from house to house, some of them since we were married nine years ago. And we still have work to go, as evidenced by the boxes of papers in my office and stuff to donate in the car (as of Thursday).
It seems to me that, as we move through life, we also tend to accumulate spiritual junk. Life is beautiful, yes, and it is also difficult. We all go through hardships. And it seems that we often hold on to negative energies associated with those hardships. Perhaps there is an old resentment that we cling on to. Perhaps there’s some family skeleton we won’t let out of the closet. Perhaps we have learned to judge before being truly curious and listening, as it seems the folks of “this generation” that Jesus talks about today do with John the Baptist and Jesus, judging them before really getting to know them. Sometimes God hides things from the wise and reveals them to infants. Sometimes the people we least expect have already found ways to cleanse themselves of their spiritual junk, while folks whom we think should have it all together are still holding onto unhealthy energy. God works in mysterious ways. And it is God’s place to judge a person’s character.
The promise in today’s gospel is that God, in Jesus, gives us rest. God, in Jesus, allows us to lay down our spiritual and physical burdens. Maybe we are holding onto unnecessary piles of physical stuff at home. Maybe we are holding onto unnecessary negative spiritual energy. Maybe it is both. Maybe it is neither. It’s not our place to judge for others, only for ourselves. Whatever our burdens, whatever we are holding onto that is not serving us, God is ready and happy to take it from us. We just have to hand it over. It might be familiar. We might feel sad, even afraid, to let go of our familiar little burdens. But when we gather the courage, and hand it over, Jesus promises, “you will find rest for your souls.” Where we are afraid there may be an empty space, God fills it with God’s love. There is no lack, just love. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” May it be so. Amen.
