A Life That Fits: A Reflection on Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

Humans are weird. Glorious theology of our creation in the image and likeness of God aside (for now), we seem to be a strange mashup of instincts and impulses that may very well have set us up for survival on the African savanna, but leave us woefully ill-prepared for life in our postmodern, postindustrial society. One of these traits is our need for community. Apologies to libertarians, but we were not built to be ‘lone wolves’, facing the world alone with nothing but our strength and wits; rather, we were built for community, knowing that our odds for success are higher when we work together. But life in groups is a mixed bag and bring out both the best and worst in us. The forces that bind a football team together or make us feel like we belong in our families are the very same forces behind xenophobia and racist violence. Wonderful virtues like loyalty and togetherness can easily morph and prevent us from standing up for what is right in the face of the mob mentality. And while, when working properly, community is a wonderful and life-giving push-and-pull of individual and collective needs, all too often, group cohesion is used to eliminate difference and force us all into the same boxes, which may not fit. All this is to say, if issues of belonging are at the fore right now, from the battles around inclusion of LGBTQ2S+ people in society and the Church to our current pandemic of loneliness, depression and anxiety, there’s probably a good reason why. We are individuals with a deep need to be ourselves. We are creatures of community with a deep need to belong. And these two things seem all too often to be in conflict.

What does all this have to do with the Gospel? you might be asking. I am convinced that the New Testament’s vision for the Church, as elusive as it may be in practice, does a beautiful job in balancing out our need to belong and our need to be ourselves. Using the metaphor of the body and its parts, it understands the Church to be a community in which God has called and empowered every member to a specific purpose, which is not only their greatest source of personal fulfillment, but also supports the health and success of the body as a whole. As the ‘parts’ grow, so does the body; but if the body stifles the parts, or insists that everyone be the same part, the whole body suffers: A body can’t function without a liver, but neither can it function if it’s only made up of livers.

Today’s Gospel reading, from Matthew 11, takes a different approach to this problem, but one that still fits with the general idea. It starts with Jesus noting that a prophet can’t win with Israel’s leadership. Comparing them to children playing a silly game in the markets, he notes, “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard!’” (11.18-19). Whatever it is they do, it’s the wrong thing, akin to not dancing to the music or not mourning at a funeral. Essentially, figures like John and Jesus are attacked for not going along with what everyone else is doing. John was too ascetic and thereby made people uncomfortable. Jesus refused to play the Pharisees’ games of religious purity and thereby made people uncomfortable. And, the dark side of being in a human society being what it is, making people uncomfortable by refusing to fit in is a fast track to exclusion and a violent end. (For John it ended with his head on a platter; for Jesus, hung on a cross.)

Then, in a bit that is omitted from the lectionary reading, but which I think is relevant for the overall message, Jesus rails against Jewish cities that were unmoved at the sight of what God was doing:

‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that on the day of judgement it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom than for you.’ (11.21-24)

The message here is that it’s better to be an outside the community of faith and respond to God than be on the inside and deaf to it. He then thanks the Father for the mystery of all this, that those who are certain they’re in the right are more often than not in the wrong and that those who shouldn’t be in a position to know the truth are the ones who get it.

The reading ends with some of the most beautiful words attributed to Jesus — though ones that at first glance don’t seem to fit the context:

*‘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.’ (11.28-30)

Beautiful as it is, how does this fit in with the rest of the reading? One clue could be in the word translated as ‘easy’ here, chrestos. The word generally means ‘useful’ or ‘suited to its purpose.’ The yoke of Christ is ‘easy’ not as in simple or achievable with minimal effort, but as in well-fitted. When the yoke fits, it ceases to be a heaven burden. John’s asceticism was not a heavy burden to him, because it fit his vocation. Likewise, for Jesus, spending time with ‘objectionable’ people was not a heavy burden, because this fit his vocation. If we’re doing what we’re truly called to do, if we’re living as we’re truly called to live, what it entails isn’t burdensome to us. Note that this isn’t a free-for-all — there is still a yoke. But the yoke fits. And if the yoke fits, it means it’s not a one-size-fits-all contraption, but made to measure, for each of us.

And so in the end we end up in a similar place to Paul’s teaching on the body of Christ. Being a Christian, being part of the Church, and being part of a healthy community does not mean playing an assigned role made for someone else, but contributing by being exactly who we are. Only in unhealthy communities does being yourself mean exclusion. Only groups gone wrong sacrifice their members ‘for the good of’ the group. That John and Jesus were attacked, and eventually executed, for living unconventional lives that made the powers that be uncomfortable is a sign that their religious culture had gone sour. That so much energy in contemporary Christianity is being spent on gatekeeping and enforcing conformity to expected conventions says much the same thing for our own religious culture. We are not all meant to be the same. God created difference, and when we are allowed to live and grow into that difference and be exactly who we were created to be, then our burdens will be light indeed, for Christ’s yoke always fits perfectly.