"An Honest Burden" by Rev. Jillian Hankamer, 1/26/2025

A sermon for First Baptist Lewisburg

Matthew 11: 25-30

When I was 13, I saw my first protest up close and personal. To make it even more interesting, it was my family’s church that was being protested by a fundamentalist sect led by Pastor W.N. Otwell from down the road in Mount Enterprise, Texas. The sect’s preferred protest spot was the sidewalk in front of the McDonald’s, across the street from Stephen F. Austin State University. From there, they preached about the fires of hell, the dangers of homosexuality, and warned everyone to turn immediately to Jesus.

            Everyone in town knew this group. They protested so much and so often as to be ubiquitous. And I suppose, given how progressive and inclusive my home church is, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that they showed up for the special revival services we held that hot Texas summer.

And yet it was shocking to see the protestors, crammed into the only public space available for their protest - the 2 foot strip between the edge of the road and the curb. Despite the lack of sidewalk, despite the high speeds of the cars flying by, despite 100-degree weather, the protestors stood holding their signs through all 3 nights of our revival.

I won’t tell you what the signs said because they were all offensive. But I will tell you that what stirred up the hornet’s nest and landed us in all sorts of papers and online publications was my pastor’s invitation for a woman to be the preacher for our revival.

Isn’t it amazing what we take seriously from the Bible and what we don’t? What theological hills we’re willing to die on while others aren’t even worth climbing? The Mount Enterprise sect is an extreme example of folks who’re willing to put their own safety at risk to stand up for a bastardized reading of scripture, and we all know the biblical text can be used to justify everything from slavery to conversion therapy.

But even those of us who read the Bible with a critical eye have theological blind spots. We have passages that live in our souls and others that are familiar at best, and this morning’s first reading from Deuteronomy is a perfect example.

The Ten Commandments is Church 101, something so common you don’t even need to be churched to know. But can you name all 10 Commandments? If you can, do you know that the one about observing the Sabbath and keeping it holy is “the longest and most descriptive commandment?”^[1] 

Honoring the Sabbath is the only Commandment we routinely brush off as though it’s a throw-away comment, forgetting that God cares enough about our resting as to include it on the same list with the command not to murder.

Given to the Israelites at a time when they’re learning what it means to be free, commentator Kara K. Root observes that while “the other commandments take the people out of slavery; the Sabbath command takes the slavery out of the people.”^[2]

 One day a week, they’re commanded to stop working because their value is no longer contingent upon their output. One day in seven, the Israelites are called to,

“On purpose, remember that [they] are not God. And... [to] on [purpose remember that [they] are...connected in a mutual belonging to God and each other. This is what it means to be human. This is what it means to be free. But we forget this most of the time.”^[3]

Disagree with me if you like, but observing the Sabbath weekly in the hardest commandment. That’s why we get the chance to try again every seven days and step out of the noise, step out of the measuring up, step out of having to produce to feel valuable, and instead make the effort to be still and know God.

Kara K. Root is right on when she says, “we have to regularly stop doing and practice just being… [because] rest is not a reward to be earned. It’s the starting point.”^[4]

      Let’s be clear that Sabbath doesn’t start once we’re done with everything else. Rather, Sabbath is the awareness that’s possible when we take the time to put everything else away and just be together. Humans remembering that we’re not God, but we are made in God’s image. We’re made in the image of a God who, despite going quietly unnoticed most of the time, is always present.

And not only present, but as this morning’s Matthew text tells us, yoked to us. Or more appropriately, we are yoked to God through Christ. Commentator and Professor of Preaching Karoline Lewis describes these verses as being “crushingly honest” because “Jesus doesn’t beat around the proverbial bush when it comes to being a disciple...To believe in Jesus is not escapism from burdens or struggles or the events of our lives...To be a disciple is to be yoked to Jesus.”^[5] 

I read from The Voice Bible this morning because I found its translation of these Matthew verses remarkably well done. Listen again;

“Put My yoke upon your shoulders—it might appear heavy at first, but it is perfectly fitted to your curves. Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. When you are yoked to Me, your weary souls will find rest. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”

            “It is perfectly fitted to your curves…” I connect deeply with that wording because, as you know a ministerial stole is a symbol of the yoke that’s taken on in ordination. It’s a reminder of the holy weight that’s laid around your shoulders, of the promises you make to work for God and God’s people. For that yoke to be “perfectly fitted” means it was created by a God who knows every inch of me. A God who knitted me and formed me. A God who created me for this calling and work, knowing that I am a woman.

            But just as my yoke is made to perfectly fit my curves, the one you shoulder is made to perfectly fit yours. And both of us are yoked to Christ. That’s the most remarkable thing about Jesus' words; despite a yoke being a “symbol of burden, oppression, and hardship,”^[6] it is Christ himself “who is pulling the burden with us, with his head through the other oxbow.”^[7]

            Let me tell you the end of the protest story. Longtime pastor, retired prison chaplain, and great friend of my pastor, Nancy Sehested, was the woman whose presence so enflamed the protestors.  She was the first woman I ever heard preach, but before she spoke a word from the pulpit, she responded to the protestors with remarkable aplomb.

Mindful of the heat, she sent a group of us teenagers out to offer the protestors water and use of the church’s bathrooms. She also armed us with pens and paper so we could write down what all of their signs said and, in a final stroke of genius, made sure our entire group was female.

My friends, it goes without saying that there will always be things Christians disagree on. And while we shake our heads at people like Rev. Otwell’s sect because they are so drastically removed from our understanding of what it means to people of faith, the truth, when we take a hard look at ourselves, is that we have our own scriptural blind spots.

 And while they don’t drive us to form a congregational picket line in front of First Methodist or Grace Point, as a congregation of do-ers, one of our blind spots is the Sabbath. Specifically, the rest Sabbath asks of us. The quiet. The stillness that brings us before God. Sabbath rest is what God gives Moses to ease his anxiety before approaching Pharaoh. Is the rest God gives the Israelites, a people “whose existence has known little rest,”^[8] after they escape Egypt. It is the rest that even God takes after Creation is complete. And it is the same rest Jesus offers us as his disciples.

But the beauty of the rest Christ gives is that he doesn’t leave us alone in it. He doesn’t invite us to take on his yoke and then bolt for the door. No matter how it might feel in the moment, you are not alone in your suffering. “Whatever burden you bear, you do not bear it alone.”  A God who knows us well enough to craft every one of us our own specific yokes is the same God in Christ who, as Karoline Lewis observes, knows better than anyone “what it’s like to be weighed down with pain and anguish”^[9] and yet remains with us, side by side with us bearing our burdens always, until the very end of the age. That, beloved, is very Good News. Amen.

^[1] Kara K. Root, “Commentary on Deuteronomy 5: 12-15 and Matthew 11: 28-30” from, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=4093

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Karoline Lewis, “On Hard Yokes and Heavy Burdens” from http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3266.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] Colin Yuckman, “Commentary on Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30” from, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3334

^[9] Lewis, ibid.