Stirring Soul-Soil
“Stirring Soul-Soil”
Psalm 145:8-14 Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, July 5, 2020
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Andrew Kennaly, Pastor
This morning’s scriptures are filled with beautiful sentiment, faith lessons we know, deep down, ring true in our soul. We read words, like “The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. The LORD is good to all, and his compassion is over all that [the LORD] has made. […] The LORD upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.”
These words are amazingly affirming, encouraging, and righteous; righteous in the sense of how everything should be if everything is working as it should. But somehow, grace, mercy, patience, and love don’t always make the translation into the realities of attitudes, policies, and practices, and people resist the very goodness and compassion God creates, or worse yet, they manipulate it for their own advantage and cover up their delusions and distortions with things we think are good, like systems of doctrinal belief.
Matthew’s Gospel shares many familiar images that people take comfort in, especially during times of struggle. Hearing Jesus say, “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest,” speaks to us at a deep level, because there are times in life where that rest, or the hope of that rest, is the only thing that sustains, that holds us in our complexities. We hear Jesus inviting, saying, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me;” and we are glad Jesus adds, “my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” These types of phrases have sustenance, feeding our soul, watering our spirits.
Yet even as comforting and familiar as some of these verses are, they are in a context of tension as Jesus points out the superficial hypocrisy of his critics, even as he takes us on a deep dive into authentic spirituality.
We don’t live in an agrarian society as only 1 percent of the American population is engaged in farming or ranching. In 1840, “workers in the agriculture industry made up 70 percent of the American workforce.” People in our culture are detached from the land. That Jesus uses the word, “yoke” is probably lost on most people in our time. (https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/farming-industry-facts-us-2019-5-1028242678# )
A “yoke” is a farming tool that helps a relationship flourish. A yoke is usually made of wood, and links together the farmer with some sort of animal, such as a horse, mule, donkey, or oxen. This “beast of burden” carries the weight of the load in pulling a cart, a plow; whatever the harness is attached to. The farmer uses reigns, straps connected to the head of that animal, and through subtle movements and voice commands, the farmer and animal work together to do a particular job, such as tilling soil, opening the hard ground.
Jesus was a carpenter and apparently, tradition has it, made very nice yokes. His yokes would custom fit, so an animal could work to their potential in partnership with the farmer, and the yoke could distribute the load, avoiding pinch points or creating sore spots. “My yoke is easy” means it’s made with intention, care, and with a desire to help the creature do it’s work with comfort and endurance.
Let’s play with this image, of a farmer and an animal working a field, pulling a plow. Which way does a plow move? Which way does the yoke work the best? Moving forward. While going backwards just a bit may be possible, the yoke is really designed to make progress, moving forward, it’s designed to pull, and wherever the animal walks, the load follows.
Also, on one hand the animal is strapped up, tied to a harness and the yoke goes over their head, around their neck, onto their shoulders, and involves their chest, or torso. It is a bodily experience, but the animal needs to operate with certain constraints. It’s not going to run amok and mess up the furrow, the row, but it looks ahead and moves forward, in a line, trusting the guidance of the farmer.
The farmer is unattached, is free from the burden, can walk around, step on or off the farming implement, and is the one to decide the speed and direction. The farmer is unencumbered, yet doesn’t take their freedom for granted, but rather chooses to remain linked with the creature, focused on giving guidance and encouragement; a very present help, knowing when the sun has been hot enough and it’s time for water; knowing how hard to push and when to ease off, knowing where to place their feet so as not to step on any fragile plant or precious seed. This is a metaphor for the sovereignty of God, in covenant relationship with creatures.
Also picture a field, with a farmer and a plow being pulled by the oxen or other creature, and that field is packed down, hard ground worn smooth, and the work involves turning the soil, revealing the dark, fertile, soft ground beneath, ready to receive air and sunlight and seed and water. It’s in turning the soil that new life finds possibility.
Why is Jesus using this image, talking about taking on his yoke and his burden easy and light? And why is he prefacing this image with the other metaphors about children playing in the marketplace, and dancing and mourning, and mentioning John the Baptizer? You see, Jesus in this larger context, is basically critiquing surface-level religion that resists going deep. He’s confronting those who critique him, and he’s pointing out that they’ll never be satisfied. Merry music for weddings and they don’t dance, sadness for a funeral and they don’t weep or mourn. John the Baptizer came with an austere approach, the greatest prophet, and they reject him as having a demon. John was beheaded.
Jesus comes with a more accepting approach, welcoming outcasts and sharing life with those that the religious and political establishment reject. Those in power, those benefiting from status quo religion call him a “glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” But this is more than name calling. This is using doctrinal faith as a weapon to make a claim against Jesus. Calling him a glutton and drunkard is their way of using their tradition to attack him, saying he should be killed for the sake of purity.
But then there’s this phrase to summarize: “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Wisdom! God’s Spirit, Wisdom! Matthew is showing us Jesus embodying God; and his deeds, his actions, indeed his very life shows God. Then Jesus says, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants.” And then explores how the Son knows the Father and the Son chooses to reveal the Father. Amazing. Relationship with God on a soul level is found in Christ Jesus, and we can live this too.
Not only are these ways of saying that Jesus and God are one. But it’s more than that. As James Finley reminds us, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” We give God an address, God is in heaven. But Finley reminds us that God also lives inside us, and indeed is the core of our very soul. Our soul, he says, is our “God-given, Godly dignity,” that’s what a soul is. What Jesus is saying in Matthew, James Finley gives us a parallel, putting it this way: “God lives inside of you, in the inner most hidden center of your self. If we think of heaven as where God lives, and if God lives in you, then you’re God’s heaven, you’re the one in whom God takes delight, you are the beloved of God.” That’s why the farmer stays with the creature, united in their work to bring new life. (James Finley, podcast by Center for Action and Contemplation: Turning to the Mystics with James Finley, Teresa of Avila: Session 1, about 9 or 10 minutes in, June 22, 2020, https://cac.org/podcasts/teresa-of-avila-session-1/). That’s why Jesus is thankful God reveals this to infants. His critics think they’re so smart, think they in charge, strong, and powerful, defending their tradition, protecting the truth. But it’s infants who maintain true Wisdom simply by being. Infants are held, vulnerable, loved simply for being who they are, not caught up in doctrines. Jesus is inviting us “to take God seriously as God reveals to us, or invites us, to reflect upon the stature of the mystery of our own soul.” (Finley).
This is a powerful lesson, and it’s no wonder his critics felt threatened. They represent the old systems and Jesus is bursting them wide open. The fancy word for this is “deconstruction.” We see this in the daily news. Like the NFL changing a football team’s name because it is racially offensive to American Indians, like Black Lives Matter movements that are affecting structures that have not been responsive enough for real justice. When old systems don’t work anymore, even belief systems, deconstruction needs to happen, and indeed it’s taking place.
Neil Donald Walsh, puts it like this: “Yearning for a new way will not produce it. Only ending the old way can do that. You cannot hold onto the old, all the while declaring that you want something new. The old will always defy the new, the old will deny the new, the old will decry the new. There is only one way to bring in the new, you must make room for it.” (Eager to Love, a book on Franciscan spirituality, by Richard Rohr, presented in conversation with Brie Stoner and Paul Swanson on podcast called Another Name for Every Thing, What is the Alternative Orthodoxy?, Saturday, May 30, 2020, https://cac.org/podcasts/what-is-the-alternative-orthodoxy/).
As one teacher reflects on this we catch a glimpse of why Jesus uses the yoke and talks about burdens, using an agricultural image of breaking the land so nourishing food can grow, all in the mix of critiquing his critics who are closed to the very source of their tradition, the Perennial Wisdom of God. “To make room for the new, you must let go of that which is tired or empty. You must always be willing to begin anew. But the pressure and weight and burden of the old can be very powerful, resisting the new.” (Rohr).
May we, like many others, find comfort in words of scripture. But may we all the more invite the Living God to transform our consciousness into greater awareness of God within us. May we not settle for mere belief systems, or systems of belonging, or perpetuating tired, burdensome structures. When the powerful and those unwilling to go deep threaten violence and use harsh words and symbols to intimidate, may we courageously stay focused on what is better, learning from Jesus who is “gentle and humble in heart.” May our souls rest in the Presence of deep Wisdom, even as we continue to embody action, pushing forward, guided by the one who’s yoke is easy and burden light as we cultivate the world with Love, beginning with our own heart and soul.
And may God’s humble, gentle, vulnerable love be with us NOW, even as forever. Amen.