Sunday Meditation: He That Gives You Rest

There are two halves to today’s Gospel, but with a subtle interconnection.  For the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year A, Jesus first offers a prayer to the Father where He reveals the Father/Son relationship and then invites those listening into the heart of that relationship.

I think it would be helpful to read the entire chapter eleven of Matthew’s Gospel to understand the context of today’s passage.  Jesus has been preaching across the Galilean cities, and in some which He names He is rejected.  And so He thanks the Father for having revealed to children what the “wise” rejected.  What was revealed?  That there is a relationship between Father and Son.  In a sense, Jesus is exposing Himself as the child with the innocent heart.

Then Jesus turns to us and invites us as children to share His Passion.  His Passion?  He says to share His yoke, and isn’t it supposed to be easy?  Just last week we heard from the previous chapter in Matthew, that “whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”  Can Jesus have changed His mind from one chapter to the next as to whether one needs to suffer with Him or one needs have their burden lifted?  These are not mutually exclusive.

 

 

 

Today’s Gospel:

 

 

At that time Jesus exclaimed:

"I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

for although you have hidden these things

from the wise and the learned

you have revealed them to little ones.

Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father.

No one knows the Son except the Father,

and no one knows the Father except the Son

and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."

 

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened,

and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,

for I am meek and humble of heart;

and you will find rest for yourselves.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

~Mt: 11:25-30

 

For the exegetical explanation, I’m going to turn to Raymond Ruan.  I don’t know who Raymond Ruan is.  His YouTube channel says he’s from Singapore and he has been publishing these exegetical videos since 2011.  The voice does not sound it belongs to a man, so I think he has a reader.  But I don’t know.  I have watched some of his videos and found them very good.  This one is excellent, and so I embed it.

 

 

Raymond Ruan:

We dive a little deeper into what's happening when Jesus prays to the father. We have two panels here. Panel one shows the high Christology. When Jesus says that all things have been handed over to me by my father, he is showing us his exclusive eternal relationship with God the father. He is the pre-existent son.  Moving to our next slide, we dive a little deeper into what's happening when Jesus prays to the father. We have two panels here. Panel one shows the high Christology. When Jesus says that all things have been handed over to me by my father, he is showing us his exclusive eternal relationship with God the father. He is the pre-existent son.  On this slide, we see how beautifully the whole Bible ties together. What we call the symphony of scripture. We have three images here. First, the meek king from Zechariah 9 who rides on a beast of burden to banish the warrior. Jesus fulfills this by ruling with breathtaking gentleness instead of military power.  The blueprint of discipleship. Here we have the greatest image of Jesus washing his disciples feet. His words are profound, but his life is the greatest lesson he offers. He teaches us how to bear the weight of human existence through radical love.

 

In Jewish tradition, a rabbi would invite disciples to take up the yoke of his teaching. Jesus invites us to tether ourselves to his divine wisdom. But there is also the yoke of Calvary.  Jesus says we must deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. We can't embrace his teaching while rejecting his suffering.  So here is the paradox. How can a yoke that includes the agonizing weight of the cross be considered easy?  Grace meets demand. The mechanics of the shared yoke. Here are the answers to the question by showing us the mechanics of the shared yoke. Look at the human reality. A radical demand plus human frailty equals crushing despair. Without grace, carrying our daily cross is impossible.  But look at the reality of grace.  Jesus doesn't just assign us a burden and walk away. He steps into the harness beside us. As the reflection from Epriest notes, when two people are yoked together, they are united in all they do. They are never alone. Christ always takes the heavy side of the beam. The cross remains real, but because grace bears the weight, the burden becomes wonderfully light.

 

We will all experience suffering.  But yoked with Jesus, the suffering becomes lighter.  When we enter the Sacred Heart of Jesus we receive His rest.

For the pastoral homily, I’m going to turn to the Order of Preachers in India, specifically, Fr. Pratik Pereira O.P.

 

Fr. Pratik:

Dear brothers and sisters, in today's gospel passage, we are invited into a deeply personal moment in the ministry of Jesus. To understand the weight of his words, we have to look at what was happening around him. Jesus had just finished preaching in the cities of Galilee where many had rejected his message. In response, Jesus turns to prayer. He praises the father for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom of God not to the wise but to children. Jesus is not dismissing intelligence here. Rather, he's teaching a profound theological truth. God is not a puzzle to be solved by human cleverness. God is a person to be known through love, humility, and a childlike trust. Jesus states clearly that no one knows the father except the son and no one knows the son except the father. This means that we cannot climb our way up to God through our own human efforts or sheer willpower. True knowledge of God is always a gift freely given to us by Jesus.  The relationship between the father and the son is one of perfect intimate love. And Jesus invites us directly into that inner life of God.

 

The image of a yoke is also deeply practical. A yoke was a wooden frame placed over the necks of a pair of oxen so they could pull a heavy load together. Crucially, a yoke is never meant for a single animal. It is designed for two. When Jesus says, "Shoulder my yoke," he's not asking us to carry a new set of heavy rules on our own. He's inviting us to harness ourselves to him. He's saying, "Let me walk right beside you. Let me pull the heaviest part of the weight." The rest that Jesus promises is not a life free of responsibilities, trials, or duties. Instead, it is a rest for our souls born from a security of knowing that we are never walking alone and that our worth is not [music] tied to how perfectly we perform.

 

Jesus then reveals his own character describing himself as gentle and humble in heart. This is the only place in the entire gospel where Jesus explicitly describes his own inner heart. He does not demand compliance through fear or intimidation. He draws us close through gentleness. His humility is the antidote to our pride and anxiety because he is gentle. We do not have to hide our weaknesses, our failures or our exhaustion from him. We can bring our messy burdened lives directly to him confident that he will meet a savior that each one of us will meet a savior who welcomes us with open arms rather than judgment.

He is gentle, so we must be gentle.  He is humble of heart, so we must be humble of heart.  He is childlike, so we must be childlike.  Lessons we need to internalize.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones.”

 

 

Finally I have not posted on the 250^th anniversary of our July 4^th Declaration of Independence.  It’s a remarkable milestone in our history. I think a worthy hymn for this occasion is “My Country Tis of Thee.”

 

My country, 'tis of Thee,

Sweet Land of Liberty

Of thee I sing;

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrims' pride,

From every mountain side

Let Freedom ring.

My native country, thee,

Land of the noble free,

Thy name I love;

I love thy rocks and rills,

Thy woods and templed hills;

My heart with rapture thrills,

Like that above.

 

Let music swell the breeze,

And ring from all the trees

Sweet freedom's song;

Let mortal tongues awake;

Let all that breathe partake;

Let rocks their silence break,

The sound prolong.

 

Our fathers' God to Thee,

Author of liberty,

To Thee we sing.

Long may our land be bright,

With freedom's holy light,

Protect us by Thy might,

Great God our King.

 

That prayer at the end, “Protect us by Thy might,/Great God our King,”  is worth praying at every patriotic event.