My yoke is easy and my burden light While talking to young people, it is not rare to hear this sort of expression: “Oh, I cannot engage in premarital relationship, just because I am a Christian.” The subtext of this line is a perception that Christianity restricts me, it controls me, it is a burden! If some pastors of the Church have given the followers of Christ such an image of Christianity, it is a pity, really! Joy of the Gospel: Surely, Pope Francis would not like to burden the followers of Christ with the nitty-gritty details of moral casuistry. The Pope said in an interview: “The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.” This is the tone that underpins his encyclical, Joy of the Gospel. My burden is light: The Pope is just rendering anew the words of Jesus as we hear it in the gospel text of today: “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt 11:28-30). Elsewhere Jesus would condemn the Scribes and Pharisees for making religion burdensome: “The scribes and the Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on peoples shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they!” (Mt 23:2,4). The words of Jesus seem a contradiction even in within the context of the Gospel of Matthew. In Matthew 10, just prior to the gospel reading of today, Jesus warns his disciples of impending persecutions and invites them to take up the cross: “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 10:28-29). Why is Jesus not being ‘consistent’? It all depends on what type of relationship that I have with Jesus. If I look at Jesus as my boss at workplace, then his desires become commands and they are burdensome. If I look at Jesus as my beloved, then even his commands become desires for me to live by. Jesus is inviting us to an intimate relationship with him. Jesus wants me to enter into the same intimacy that exists between him and his Father (Mt 11:27): No one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. When we can respond to this invitation, then the words of the first reading become real: “Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion! Shout with gladness, daughter of Jerusalem! See now, your king comes to you” (Zech 9:9).
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 15:14:24 +0000
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