No Burden at All (Midweek Message)

No Burden at All

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

November 14, 2018

 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill… [U]nless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.  “You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.’  But I say to you, if you merely are angry with someone, you will be liable to judgment, if you call someone ‘Stupid!,” you deserve to be in court, if you call them “Moron!,’ you might land in Hell itself…. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  But I say to you, everyone who reduces others to objects of lust has already committed adultery in the heart.  ” (Matt. 5:17- 22). 

Have you ever met anyone who has never gotten angry or used even a mild insult to put down someone?  And aren’t sexual desire and urges built into us?  These are the ethics of the impossible. 

Jesus seems at times to make impossible demands of us:  “cut off your hand, or put out your eye, if that’s what you need to do to keep from sin” (Mark 9:43-45),  “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), “abandon your family and loved ones for me” ( cf. Luke 9:59-62).   I think this is not so much a setting of minimal standards as it is a way of saying just how impossible it is to be right with God on our own. 

 “But what is impossible for us humans is possible with God” (Luke 18:27).

Jesus also says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30). 

The path of following Jesus is not full of super heroic demands and denials: it is gentle and grows organically from where we are.  Jesus loves and has the best interest of everyone he encounters in mind, yet he challenges us all.  To the woman caught in adultery, he says, “Neither do I accuse you” (John 8:11), adding, “Go, and don’t sin anymore.”  He is asking her to turn from her past, not demanding that she be perfect right here and now and forever on.  

I think that one of the great reasons that the Church is in such bad odor in our society, both for the religious and the non-religious, is that we have made Jesus into a point of doctrine, and “believing in” him a point of division between insiders and outsiders.  We have not been disciples, doing his work and learning from him.    The Way of Jesus is a gentle way, where we are kind to others and to ourselves.  “Cast away your ego and self-absorption.  Kill your false self and wake up into the true one God has intended all along.”     Jesus does not ask the impossible, but encourages us to shoulder his yoke, to bear the weight of our lives along with him.  And this, it turns out, will be liberation and rest, and no burden at all.  Grace and Peace. 

--Fr. Tony+