Readings (Track 1)

If we were putting together a soundtrack for the Gospel of Matthew we would have been using some pretty dramatic music as Jesus’ proclamation of God’s reign scatters all the dreary certainties: the blind don’t stay blind, the dead don’t stay dead, the poor get something other than more bad news. But here, for the bulk of Matt 11, we’d probably turn to the blues. After all that Jesus has done—including walking away from a solid carpentry business—the audience response is deeply discouraging. John the Baptist—the fellow who baptized him—is asking “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Mat 11:3). The public in general are acting like cranky children: “’We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’” The cities (Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum)—Sodom would have given Jesus a better reception! Davies and Allison describe the woes against the cities as “a testimony to dashed expectations” (1.270)—Jesus’ dashed expectations.

I’d guess most of us could empathize with Jesus at this point.

Nevertheless, what all this leads up to is not the blues but a quite remarkable combination of thanksgiving and invitation. And while there’s plenty that we might explore in the preceding verses—not to mention the other readings—let’s focus on this combination of thanksgiving and invitation.

“I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.”

What has happened is not outside of the Father’s providence. If every hair of the disciples’ heads is numbered, Jesus’ hairs are numbered as well.

But what do we make of Jesus’ language of hiding and revealing? I doubt that it’s about election, God choosing some and not others. Rather, I think it has to do with the vulnerability of those who consider themselves ‘wise’ and ‘understanding’. Wisdom, per se, is good. The thing is, as the Book of Proverbs explores in some detail, those who major in wisdom face the constant temptation to shift from the pursuit of wisdom to the pursuit of what will be recognized as wisdom by the well-heeled.

When Jesus shows up proclaiming God’s reign (“He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. / He has filled the hungry with good things, / and the rich he has sent away empty” [Lk 1.52-53 BCP]), the wise and understanding know enough to ignore him. The Father hides Jesus by putting him in plain view. Meanwhile, the lowly and hungry (‘babes’ in our text) recognize good news when they hear it.

“All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

This is, I think, a continuation of the thanksgiving, Jesus giving thanks for the Father’s trust, for what the Father’s entrusted him with, for the privilege of revealing the Father to the world. The task is no easier for Jesus than it was for the prophets—the wise and understanding were a hard audience then too—but Jesus’ wouldn’t trade the task for any other.

As for “no one knows the Father except the Son,” that’s part of an ongoing issue we meet repeatedly in the Old Testament, God’s people assuming they know all they need to know about God. So in Psalm 50:

²⁰ You sit and speak against your kin;
you slander your own mother’s child.
²¹ These things you have done and I have been silent;
you thought that I was one just like yourself.

It’s one of the main problems with idols: they tempt us to think we’ve got the god’s a known quantity. And the idol can’t talk back. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does talk back, and so the Gospel of John brings Jesus onstage identifying him as the Word. And as the next bit of today’s Gospel reminds us, that we need to get to know the Father is good news. If God were as we often imagine, we’d be in very bad shape.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Rest—one of those self-evidently good things, like happiness.

Looking at the wording of the invitation, it recalls one of God’s promises through the prophet Ezekiel: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD” (34:15). “I will make them lie down” gets translated “I will give them rest” in the LXX, using the same word Jesus uses in his invitation. It’s precisely Jesus’ intimate relationship with the Father that authorizes him to extend this invitation. And it recalls Matthew’s earlier description of Jesus: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36 NRSV). Well, the shepherd has arrived, and it is precisely as shepherd that Jesus is extending this offer of rest.

What sort of rest is Jesus offering? Earlier in the chapter, speaking of John the Baptist, he’d challenged the crowd: “What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces” (11:8-9). So he’s not offering the rest that depends on soft robes and royal palaces.

What sort of rest is Jesus offering? It is rest grounded in Jesus’ presence. The invitation is, after all, “Come to me…” Given Jesus’ unique relationship with the Father, it is God’s presence, for we rightly address Jesus as ‘Emmanuel’, God with us. With God present, rest is possible, even in the midst of a storm Earlier in Matthew we heard “A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but [Jesus] was asleep” (8:24). ‘Rest’ doesn’t mean no storms; it means we can learn not to let them disturb our sleep.

What sort of rest is Jesus offering? Today’s text as a whole is a pretty good indication: Jesus has faithfully proclaimed of God’s reign in word and deed, and the response has been John the Baptist’s question, the petulance of “this generation” (“We piped to you, and you did not dance…”), the indifference of the cities. And Jesus is able to rest, to give thanks to the Father. He is able to work with the situation as it is, rather than as he would like it to be. He is able to respond generously to “this generation,” extending an open invitation to “all who labor and are heavy laden.”

“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount we heard “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” And now Jesus is talking about ‘easy’ and ‘light’?

Jesus doesn’t explain; let’s wonder a bit. A few weeks back I recalled Scott Peck’s opening in The Road Less Traveled: “Life is hard.” And, Peck argues, life does become easier when we accept that, rather than investing considerable energy in trying to escape it. Jesus wouldn’t argue with that, but probably has more in mind. Perhaps it’s like this: Jesus grounds obedience to the law in love: love God; love your neighbor. And love, argues Augustine, perhaps with a bit of hyperbole, “makes all…easy” (cited in Bruner The Christbook). A bit later in Genesis we’ll encounter Isaac’s son Jacob. Jacob loves Rachel, whose father sets her bride price at seven years. Genesis tells us “So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her” (Gen. 29:20). Jesus’ yoke is about nurturing love.

Or perhaps it’s like this: the commentator Hare notes that yokes were usually for two animals, and so paraphrases: “Become my yoke mate, and learn how to pull the load by working beside me and watching how I do it” (Bruner The Christbook). That is, we’re going to do this together.

In a bit we’ll celebrate the Eucharist. ‘Eucharist’: the transliterated Greek word for ‘thanksgiving.’ It mirrors today’s text, giving thanks to the Father and inviting all who labor and are heavy laden to receive Jesus, truly present in the bread and wine. As we leave the altar, leave the sanctuary, we do not leave Jesus and his rest. We heard his promise on Trinity Sunday: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt 28:20). Amen.