Jesus invites us to share his burden. This is a beautiful invitation but also can be a heavy lift.
Erik C. Nelson
5 July 2026
Texts: Zechariah 9:9-12; Psalm 145:8-14; Romans 7:15-25a; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
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Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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Today’s Gospel lesson is one that we hear often. It’s beautiful, it’s full of promise. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
And these are beautiful words, and there is truth behind the promise, but I have to confess to you that these words are difficult words for me to preach. Because as beautiful as they are the first time you hear them, the more you think about it, the harder it becomes to believe it.
Yes, sometimes we get weeks where we hear Jesus call the Pharisees a brood of vipers, or we hear him tell Peter to “get behind me Satan!” Those are tough, but they can be explained with some context and historical critique. Though they’re tougher on their face, they’re maybe easier for me to wrestle with.
These words from Jesus today are tough because they strike right at the heart of everyday lives. When we hear him say this, it feels contrary to how we live our lives, as Christians in America.
Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. He picks up on language from Zechariah, which says, “See, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey.”
Across our history and even today, there are countless instances where Christians have stopped reading after the first part. They hear it say, “Your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious.”
And they use that image to justify horrific things. They lose sight of the rest of Scripture. They lose sight of Jesus as a gentle and humble and compassionate ruler.
They don’t read the rest of Zechariah that says the King will cut off the chariot, the war horse, and the battle bow. The King shall command peace to the nations. The King sets prisoners free.
In connecting himself to Zechariah’s prophetic image of a King, Jesus shows us what his reign is like. He destroys anything that we wield as a weapon. Jesus demands peace. Jesus frees the prisoner.
He stands firmly with the outcast and the outsiders. He stands with the people we hate, the people we cast aside. And that can be hard to hear. We often expect that we should be the insiders.
But in this, Jesus offers us an invitation. He invites us to become outsiders. He invites us to disrupt systems that dehumanize people and dishonor his family.
He says this is an easy yoke, a light burden, but to be honest with you, that feels pretty far from the truth.
To follow Jesus, to take his yoke upon us, is to let go of our own priorities, our own demands, our own privileges, and to align ourselves with his priorities, his demands.
And that means, this weekend, being honest about the ways that our country has fallen short throughout our history. The genocide of Indigenous people, the horrors of slavery, the ongoing systems that strip people of their dignity.
These things happen in a country that proclaims itself to be One Nation Under God.
Paul was onto something in our Epistle reading today when he said, “the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability.” I think we all know what that’s like in our own lives. We want to do the right thing, but sometimes it just feels impossible.
It’s true of our own history as a country. We had our start with documents that proclaim that “all men are created equal,” and yet our country’s actions haven’t matched that desire.
The actions of Christians have left scars in this land and wounds in our people that we haven’t even begun to heal. That’s a heavy burden.
And it’s a burden that the people of God have taken up. Across this continent, over the last five centuries, there have always been people of God who have resisted systems of injustice.
The people of God have taken up this heavy burden, working for the Reign of Christ wherever they are.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with people like Bartolome de las Casas, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, and countless others.
People who have done their part, motivated by their faith, to try to make our national actions match our desires.
And so as we look into the future, remembering our past, we can start to see a way that maybe we can believe Jesus when he says that his yoke is easier than we think and his burden is lighter than we expect.
Because none of us carry it alone. We share this yoke with one another. We share this yoke with all God’s people across time and space. We share this yoke with Christ himself.
This image of Christ’s yoke is one that binds us together, like a team of oxen, pulling in one direction. We are bound together, just like we are in Communion. We are made into one body, broken for the world, so that new life might spring up everywhere.
The invitation of Christ’s yoke is the same one that our spiritual ancestors received. We are invited to know Christ personally and intimately in Word and Sacrament, and through the family of God, and then, to go out together, to do God’s work in the world.
And yet again, I know we look at a world that seems to be careening out of control. All we see violence and poverty and cruelty, and it can be overwhelming.
But of course, we aren’t called to do all of it at once. There’s no way we could fix everything in a day. But instead, together, we can take it one day at a time. One step at a time, one moment at a time, one day at a time.
As we travel together, I pray that the reign of Christ comes with us, the yoke becomes easier, the burden becomes lighter, step by step, moment by moment, day by day.
May it be so.
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In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
