back to sermons
July 6, 2008
Lay Down That Heavy Burden
a sermon on Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
Who in human history has done the most to destroy religion? Who has left us a
legacy more lethal to religion than any other? Would you say Voltaire? David
Hume? Charles Darwin? Karl Marx? Jean Paul Sartre? Who?
If you ask this question of Toronto pastor Bruxy Cavey, he will answer quickly
and confidently. And his answer will be … Jesus. Yes, it sounds crazy. After
all, the world’s largest religion looks to Jesus as the Son of God. All the
other religions pay him respect: to some Jews he was a rabbi, to Muslims a
prophet, to Buddhists an enlightened one, to Hindus an avatar, and to a lot of
nice people who don’t bother with organized religion he was a good moral
teacher. You could make a strong case that Jesus has done more to advance
religion than any other single person in history. But crazy as it sounds,
Cavey’s point is worth pondering. He has written a book called The End of
Religion, in which he makes the case that Jesus intended to do away with
religion and replace it with … well, I’ll come to that. Cavey may overplay his
hand a little, but not much. He points out that there was no religion in the
Garden of Eden at the beginning of the Bible and there is no religion in the
vision of the New Jerusalem at the end of the Bible, just people in communion
with God—God immediately present with his people. In between, there is a lot of
religion, but it all leads up to Jesus, who turns everything upside down.
Before we go farther, it will help to define religion. I like how Cavey defines
it: Religion is “any reliance on systems or institutions, rules or rituals as
our conduit to God … any system of rules, regulations, rituals, and routines
that people use to achieve their spiritual end-goal … whether they call that
enlightenment, salvation, nirvana, union with the Divine, or something else” [p.
37]. Note: This includes systems and institutions invented by human beings and
those given by God himself.
Jesus’ controversies with the religious establishment of first century Judaism
are well known. His rivalry with the temple comes through even the most casual
reading of the gospels. And because of what they learned from Jesus, his
followers gave up many of the religious symbols and practices they had always
held sacred, such as a kosher diet, circumcision, holidays, and more. Cavey’s
argument is: Jesus believed God had given all these things.
The God of the Jews is the one true God. But Jesus also believed God
was doing something new through him. So Jesus overturned religion and replaced
it with … himself.
The conduit to God, the bridge between humanity and God is … what? Not rules.
Not rituals. Not a place. But a person, Jesus himself—the eternal Son of God,
who became a human being in order to fully and finally bridge the gap. Jesus
shows us who God is, and he makes us a new creation. Now we can love and enjoy
God. And God can take full delight in us, once he makes us the people he created
us to be.
Jesus didn’t come to found a new religion. He came to replace all religion, even
good religion, with himself, so that all people can come to God through him—or
not at all. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” Jesus said. And that is a
hard thing to understand, especially for religious people. In the time of Jesus’
ministry, religious people were constantly taking offense at Jesus because he
did not fit their religious categories. He broke the mold, and they had put
their trust in the mold. He compared himself to new wine, bursting the old
wineskins of tradition and religion.
That’s what is happening in our scripture reading. At first the three parts of
it may seem unrelated, but really they fit perfectly together. In the first part
of the reading, verses 16-19, we listen in on the end of a conversation. Jesus
had been talking about John the Baptist, another character who didn’t fit in.
Jesus affirmed John as the forerunner and himself as the Messiah. Then he
expressed his frustration with the unbelief both John and he encountered. He
quotes a children’s song, and accuses: John was too serious and acetic. You
could not accept his message because he didn’t fit your mold, so you dismissed
him as crazy or possessed. Now I come along, eating, drinking, celebrating the
coming of God’s kingdom, and you cannot accept my message either because I don’t
fit your mold. You dismiss me as a partier and a friend of sinners.
The verses we skipped in our reading, 20-24, are a lament over the towns that
did not believe in Jesus. These were places he had visited and knew well. He had
lived in Capernaum for a time. Yet despite all that he had done, they did not
trust him or turn to God.
In the second part of the reading, Jesus catches us off guard with a prayer
thanking his Father that God’s truth has been hidden from the wise and
intelligent and revealed to infants. Those who simply accept Jesus at face value
get it. They are like children. They take him as he is and trust him. Those who
analyze him and try to fit him into their pre-existing religious system don’t
get it. From their perspective, Jesus and their religious traditions are
incompatible. Something has to go. Unfortunately, they let go of Jesus and hold
onto their inherited ideas. That’s tragic, because as Jesus goes on to point
out, no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses
to reveal him. In other words, their cherished religion will not get them to
God. Only Jesus can.
I love how Cavey grasps the implication of this insight. He writes:
Sometimes people who know I am a Christ-follower ask me if I think all religions
lead to God. I suppose they are waiting to see if I argue that only the
Christian religion is the way to God or if I will give the open-minded answer
that all religions lead to God. Instead I choose a third alternative. I tell
them I do not believe all religions lead to God because no religion leads to
God. Religion does not lead people to God any more than cups quench your thirst.
[p. 40]
He had just given an illustration about a thirsty person holding a cup of water.
This thirsty person begins to lick the outside of the cup in an attempt to
quench the thirst. That, Cavey says, is religion. Religion is the cup. Only
Jesus is the life-giving water.
The third part of our reading is the money passage. This is the where Jesus’
claims and insights come together in a powerful invitation to freedom. “Come to
me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you
rest.”
When we hear this we often think of our heavy burdens as a load of guilt that
weighs on our conscience. Or the burden of stress and fatigue so much a part of
modern life. What about you? When I talk about your heavy burden, what do you
think of? Let me be clear, I think these ideas are appropriate. Jesus does free
us from burdens of guilt and misplaced priorities. He frees us from the lies
that bind us, such as, if you are not rich, good looking, or successful, then
you don’t matter. Jesus sets us free in a lot of ways, but I think when he spoke
these words, he had a very specific burden in mind, the burden of religion.
Let me explain why. First, the context of these verses in the gospel.
Immediately after this Jesus gets into trouble because his disciples pluck grain
on the Sabbath. Then he gets into trouble for healing on the Sabbath. This whole
section of the gospel is about the collision of Jesus with the religious
traditions of his day. Second, religion can be a heavy burden.
If I had time, I would develop this point about religion being a burden by
surveying a broad spectrum of religious history, from primitive religions based
on superstition and fear to new-age smorgasbord-style religions that seek and
seek and never find. I would look at what some religions say a person must do in
order to be right with God. We could look at Hinduism, Islam, and even
Christianity. When Martin Luther visited Rome, he was shocked by the empty
religiosity—people climbing stairs on their knees, offering a prayer on every
step. And don’t think I couldn’t pick on contemporary Protestants. How many
people sit in Presbyterian pews nearly every Sunday worrying if they are good
enough to get into heaven? If the number is one, that’s too many.
I don’t have time to go into the depth I would like, but I must say a few
things. First, religion does not always feel burdensome. Even those faiths that
prescribe lots of rituals can feel good.
The monk whose life is one long series of prescribed
rituals repeated over and over again may be happy as a kid in a toy store. If a
person sincerely loves God and wants to please God, religion can be a positive
experience. To that person, Jesus offers a fuller, freer, deeper relationship
with God. Very often, however, religion can be burdensome. When you get tired,
Jesus offers a better way.
Second, hopefully you have trouble comprehending how burdensome religion can be
because you come from a religious tradition that points to Jesus and preaches
grace. Your religious experience has already been shaped by Jesus and his
radical message, so hopefully you know the freedom and peace Jesus gives. If
somehow you have come this far and you are still trying to be good enough, then
lay that heavy burden down.
Third, Jesus spoke these words to people who took religion seriously. They loved
God. That was not their problem. They had a lot of rules and regulations. Don’t
eat this. Don’t touch that. The Pharisees tried to live ordinary life according
to the rules for purity prescribed for priests serving in the temple. They did
this because holiness was important to them. It set them apart from other people
who were not God’s people, and they hoped that if they were holy enough, God
would make Israel an independent nation again. Paul was a Pharisee who excelled
at keeping the rules. He never imagined what freedom was until he met Jesus. The
big problem was, for a lot of people, religion was actually coming between them
and God. It was getting in the way. God himself walked among them in human form,
and they couldn’t see it. They were thirsty, but they just kept licking the cup.
The cup was everything to them, but they never drank the life-giving water.
“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. For my yoke is easy, and
my burden is light.” A yoke attaches an animal to a plow. Often it attaches two
animals together to a plow. Jesus invites us to share his yoke. Come alongside
me, he says, learn from me. I will show you the way. I will pull the load. You
will find rest for your soul. A yoke seems a strange place to find rest. Jesus
may have used that word because Pharisees often talked about the “yoke of the
Law.” Jesus offered a different yoke. An easy yoke.
One final question: If Jesus undermined religion, why do we have church? I like
Cavey’s answer to this. He says he leads a group of people who gather every
Sunday to celebrate the fact that they are not saved because they gather every
Sunday. This is the easy yoke, the yoke of grace. Keep in mind, when you come to
Jesus, he makes you part of a family. It is never just Jesus and me off by
ourselves somewhere being holy and who cares what everyone else is doing. Jesus
wants us to be together. He wants us to worship. He wants us to do good things.
But we are free to do all these things because we are saved by grace. We do them
out of love—not fear, not obligation. The church is
not your conduit to God. Jesus is. The church is a lot of people gathering to
celebrate the way, the truth, and the life.
I’ll end with a practical example: The Lord’s Supper. We are about to celebrate
the Lord’s Supper, and that is obviously religious. It is a ritual. But let’s go
back to what Cavey said about the cup. Strangely, it fits perfectly with what
Presbyterians believe about the Lord’s Supper. Cavey said religion is like a
cup. Jesus is the life giving water. If you are thirsty, you drink the water;
you don’t lick the cup. We believe that the elements of the Lord’s Supper—the
bread and cup—are just what they are. They are not Christ. Their function is to
point toward Christ. They are a sign. Yet, as we celebrate the Supper, Jesus
actually gives himself to us spiritually. We feed on him in our hearts by faith.
He unites himself with us. Because he has given us this sign, and he never gives
an empty sign. He always gives what it points to. So you can think of the Lord’s
Supper as a cup, and inside it is the life-giving water, which is Jesus himself.
We don’t have to give up religion entirely. But we do need to make sure it
doesn’t get in the way of our relationship with God, and we never have to carry
it as a heavy burden. We have Jesus. He is gentle and humble, and so we find
rest for our souls. Amen.
rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
back to sermons