What Do You Want Me To Do For You?

Jesus gives agency to those he heals, particularly in this story. How would you answer Jesus’ question, were he to put it to you?

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Mark 10:46-52

⁴⁶They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁸Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁹Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” ⁵⁰So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” ⁵²Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

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Dear friends, grace to you and peace from our loving God through Jesus, who calls us to him.  Amen.

If this story of a blind man being healed sounds a bit familiar, it’s because we heard the story of a similar healing a number of weeks ago.  That man was not named; Bartimaeus is certainly named.

That man was told to go home; Bartimaeus is told merely to “go” but he immediately follows Jesus.

Contrasting these two stories is a good reminder to us of the development of Jesus’ ministry through Mark’s gospel.  As well, this story is loaded with all kinds of fascinating details that flesh out the implications of this story on the big picture.

First, there’s Jericho.  Legendary city whose walls, at one point, came tumbling down.

Bartimaeus means literally, “son of Timaeus.”  There is more than one Timaeus in Greek philosophy within this time period; whether the connection is real or for effect, it’s interesting to consider the meeting of philosophy and faith.

For him to call Jesus “Son of David” is to publicly call him the heir of the throne of Israel – a dangerous and radical move.

The crowd likely rolls their eyes at this latest intrusion from this blind beggar, until Jesus stops and asks them to call him over.

Bartimaeus does so – but not before throwing off his cloak.  More about that in a moment.

Jesus asks him the same question he asked James and John last week: “what do you want me to do for you?”  This time, however, the question is asked for a very different reason.

Bartimaeus’ answer, of course, holds multiple dimensions along with the rest of the story.

Jesus and the disciples are on the way to Jerusalem.  It’s not a journey of speed, but rather one of destiny.  They take time as they move from town to village, likely visiting with friends and families of those in the crowd.  And as they begin to head out of Jericho, they cross paths with Bartimaeus.

This event does not happen in the city, but rather at the edges.  In the liminal space.  One of those places to which Jesus tends to gravitate.

But it’s also the place where Bartimaeus is.  If this were happening today, where would that liminal, in-between space be?

I think of the less-affluent areas of Portland, marred by decades of impact from poor municipal decisions.  I think of the in-lieu sites along the river.  And I think of the lines we’d be in coming back across the border from Mexico, with dozens of folks trying to scratch out a living by begging or selling something, up and down the rows of vehicles.

Jesus could have so easily just kept walking.  It’s the way society usually deals with the folks on its margins – keep on walking.

But Jesus is called by name in this place.  Not only his name, Jesus, the name given because he will save people from their sins – but the name “Son of David.”

Could Jesus have stopped because he needed to stop that before it got out of hand?

Or is it because he was fully named?

Maybe you’ve had an experience where you’ve been somewhere and someone calls out your name in such a way that it names you completely.

When I was heading back to California after our meet & greet in 2019, I got out of the Hedmans’ car at the airport and was organizing my bags when I heard “Mary Shaima.”

I certainly wasn’t expecting to hear my name out loud, at an airport in a city I’d never visited before.   I looked up and there was my bishop!  He had just arrived to sit down with the new bishop in Oregon as her bishop-mentor.

Hearing my name out loud like that was at once jarring and deeply connecting.  And so perhaps Jesus responds most to this incredibly authentic naming of him.

And like the walls of Jericho tumbling down, Bartimaeus responds to the summons by throwing off his cloak.  Not folding it over his arm and walking slowly towards Jesus.  No, he THROWS off his cloak, as if to throw off the chains that have bound him for who knows how long.  He springs up and goes to Jesus.

What Jesus does next is equally radical.  By asking Bartimaeus “what do you want me to do for you?” Jesus gives him agency.  He gives him a say in his own future.  Jesus responds as a servant.

Various translations give Bartimaeus’ request a slightly different feel, but the essence is that he wants to see.  Some say “again.”

So many layers here!  There is the physical sight.  There is the insight of wisdom.  The sight of understanding, the sight of discernment.  For him to say “I want to see again” speaks of a yearning for a return to a place of belonging and welcome.  Of emerging from the shadows into the light.

Let us put ourselves into Bartimaeus’ place for a moment.  It need not be a place of blindness, but simply a place where you are thought of as less than.

Imagine hearing that Jesus would be passing by, and you do the one thing you can to catch his attention.

And it works.  And he calls you to come to him.

And THEN imagine Jesus asking you the question:

“What do you want me to do for you?”

What would your answer be?

I have to be honest: I’ve thought about this all week, ever since it came up in a study group last Monday.  I’m still pondering it, and I’m still not sure what my answer is. 

It is an amazing question to reflect on.  In many, many ways.

We might think that if Jesus is really Jesus, he shouldn’t have to ask.  But he asks anyway; he doesn’t presume.  He doesn’t reduce us to whatever it is that might be holding us back.  Instead, he honors our fullness and complexity – we, who are real human beings with many desires, many longings, and many needs. 

In asking the question, Jesus invites us into the honest self-reflection essential to growth and healing.  What is in your heart?  What do you long for?  What do you imagine I desire for you?  Where in your deepest desires might we find each other?

It is at once a lovely and a terrifying question.  It calls for radical honesty.  Radical vulnerability.  Radical trust. 

This is not an easy thing for us, because stories like this can hit us sideways.  We may not really know what to do with the fact that Jesus sometimes heals “immediately” in the Gospel stories.  We might find ourselves wishing for some immediate healing on our end. 

But as we hear so frequently in Scripture, we cry out that desire to God.  For the question Jesus asks is an essential one, and by hearing it and answering it over and over, we make room for whatever may be.

“What do you want me to do for you?”

In his compassion, Jesus will not stop asking.  

May we continue striving to answer that question.  Amen.

I Wanna Be In The Room Where It Happens

James and John THINK they want to be where the action is. Is it the action they’re not seeing clearly – or what leads up to it?

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Mark 10:35-45

³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; ⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

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Dear beloved of God, grace to you and peace from God who is love, through Christ whose power is that love.  Amen.

Again this week, we are hearing of someone just not quite getting what Jesus means by “power.”

And before we cast stones at the sons of Zebedee, tempting though it may be, we should remember that in the ancient world, as is the case today, power came from strength, position, hierarchy, wealth, and other top-down sorts of things.

So for James and John to ask what they do – well, you can’t really blame them.  In Mark, the disciples are portrayed as rather slow learners, slow to come onboard with the full nature of Jesus’ message.

But maybe they’re not slow, so much as they are reluctant.  Maybe they DO see the fullness of what Jesus is saying, and it’s not pretty.  It’s certainly not what they thought they signed up for.  The disciples in Mark seem to take turns trying to convince Jesus that he needs to shift his plan over to the conventional way of doing things.

Which of course is not going to happen.

And I think we can all take some comfort from this as well as see the challenge.  It can be so tempting to take the low road, to answer insult for insult, to scramble to the top and grab all the power so we can call the shots.  Even as we know in our hearts what Jesus actually calls us to do and be.

Jesus indeed speaks to us in these stories, here towards the end of the year of Mark’s brutally direct, no-nonsense gospel.  These are stories of people like us, still captive to the ways of the world that keep us perpetually in some sort of competition.

And just as in last week’s story of the rich young man – when Jesus did not ridicule the man but rather looked at him and loved him – in today’s story, Jesus does not tear down the disciples, but teaches them.

When they come to him with this very cheeky and brazen demand – “we want you to do for us WHATEVER we ask!” – his response is that of his servant self:  What do you want me to do for you?

Even this answer is not what we expect of the Son of God, the King of Kings!  I can’t think of a boss I ever had that if I had come barging into their office with that kind of demand, wouldn’t have fired me on the spot.

But thankfully Jesus is a teacher and a servant, not a boss.

And his teaching continues when he tells them they don’t really know what they’re asking for.

Actually, I think they DO know what they’re asking for – they just don’t understand how to get there from here.

When I was in 4H as a kid, I raised sheep and pigs.  I’m sure that was trial enough for my urban-raised parents, but I wanted more.  I wanted a steer, a beef cattle project.

All the cool kids raised steers.  I wanted a steer.

And I’m sure every time I asked, the picture in my mind was me holding the perfectly-behaved steer’s lead while it stood placidly in the show ring with me.

My parents, however, likely saw a staggering amount of grain and alfalfa to purchase and an equally staggering amount of cow waste to clean up.  So the answer continued to be no.  My parents could see the road much clearer than I.

The disciples see themselves on either side of Jesus, living their best life.

But Jesus has a keen awareness of what lies on the road ahead.  He asks if they can drink the cup he will drink, and of course they answer yes.

This is like the difference between “may I” and “can I.”  Of course they can drink the cup.  They do have what it takes, and will eventually find themselves in that spot.  Jesus acknowledges this.

I wonder if this is something for us to make sure we consider as we discern where God is calling us.  Are we seeing the end point, the place we want to be?  How do we work backwards from that, making note of the steps along the way?  Are we selling ourselves short when it comes to what it takes?

In our book group this week, we considered a quote that spoke of the difference between a tourist and a pilgrim.  The tourist might make the very same trip as the pilgrim.  The tourist reaches the destination, likely gathering plenty of souvenirs along the way, and returns unchanged by the journey.  Kind of like that old movie, “If This is Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium.”

The pilgrim, however, might set a destination but is just as interested in the journey itself.  The pilgrim resolves that the person who returns will not be the same one who sets out – they expect to be transformed by the journey. 

This is the voyage of transformation to which Jesus invites all his followers.  It’s not necessarily about whether we are willing to die, but rather that we might be willing to be transformed into a people willing to lead in the spirit of diakonos – servants of all.

Finally in this story we come to the word translated as ‘ransom.’  In our contemporary understanding of ‘ransom’ we think of it as a sum of money paid to someone to release something – most recently, a princely sum to hackers so that one’s compromised website or network can be released from its digital lockdown or annihilation.

Medieval theologies held that this ‘ransom’ Jesus mentions was payment by Jesus to an angry God, to redeem we pathetic sinners from that wrath and anger.

But a close reading of Mark’s gospel challenges this way of thinking.  Rather, Jesus comes as a ransom to release us from bondages in this world.  There are so many stories in Mark of people in bondage: A man in captivity to demonic powers (1:21-28). A man in captivity to leprosy (1:40-45). A man in captivity to sin and paralysis (2:1-12). A woman in captivity to a twelve-year flow of blood (5:25-34); and others. [p. 163]

The religious structures of the day did not release these people from this bondage.  But Jesus did – and those same religious structures were incensed.

In some translations, the Greek is understood to mean “liberation.”  And this strikes me as very good news indeed.

Jesus has come to liberate us from suffocating forms of oppression and behavior.  To liberate us from societal expectations that crush the human spirit.  To liberate us from all that would conspire against the love and grace of God.

The fact that this act of liberating sets Jesus on the road to the cross speaks to the depths to which the forces of evil have a grip in the world – and the lengths to which God will go to turn those forces upside down.

When the disciples make this demand of Jesus, they are still associating being on the way to Jerusalem with being on the way to seize power.  James and John see this as their chance to be “in the room where it happens.”

But that is not work that Jesus will do.  Jesus came as a servant of all, and that includes God.  Jesus does not upend the work that is God’s to do.

Who do we eventually see on Jesus’ right and left, and where do we see them?

It is the two criminals, crucified on either side of Jesus on Golgotha.  Whether this is the cup and baptism to which Jesus refers is debatable.  But it is an indelible picture, that gives us much food for thought.

And as biblical scholar Pheme Perkins has observed:

The self-denial associated with the cross does not always mean martyrdom, even in Mark. Another form of self-denial has been emphasized throughout these chapters: denying the human demand for honor, power, and status. The repeated struggles for honor among the disciples show what a difficult task that reversal of values is. 

Dear friends, we are no different.  The struggle is real.  But Jesus patiently, repeatedly shows us what it looks like to be a servant.  To upend our idea of power.

We are not called to take Jesus’ place in the world today.  His role is to be the ransom, or rather the liberator of all.  But we are called, both as individuals and as Shepherd of the Hills, to be self-sacrificing (not always preferencing ourselves) in this journey that is our mission to serve each other and be servants to all the world.

We make this journey not for what we might gain, but because it is the way of Jesus.

Martin Luther put it so well:

“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”

On this journey with Jesus, these are indeed our traveling mercies.  Amen.

Give It Away

Jesus gives the rich young man quite the challenge. Does the young man turn away because he doesn’t want to follow it – or because he needs to sit with the incredible liberation that challenge will bring?

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Mark 10:17-31

¹⁷As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” ²⁰He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

²⁸Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

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Dear friends, grace to you and peace this day from the God of abundance, through Christ who urges us towards the abundance that is God’s love.  Amen.

Oh, it is so easy to sit in judgment on the rich young man, isn’t it?

To take on an air of superiority.  To think, or even say out loud, “maybe if you didn’t have so much STUFF you’d have a better idea!”

And it would be so simple for me to stand here and do what’s called “virtue signaling.”  To relate my story of downsizing over the last several years and talk about how somehow that work has kicked me up a few levels on the holiness scale, because now I don’t have as much stuff to distract me.

It might be simple.

But it would be so untrue to the direction of this gospel lesson.

It would be awfully arrogant of me.

And it would be very unfair to the rich young man too.

Because even with all his possessions, even with his status and wealth – this man is still seeking.  He doesn’t just happen to see Jesus, no, he comes RUNNING to him.

Jesus reminds him of some of the commandments. And the young man affirms that he’s kept them all, throughout his whole life.

Maybe he’s been told that that is the key.  IF you keep the commandments, THEN all will go well and you will be happy.

Sounds a lot like today’s advertising, doesn’t it?  IF you buy this product, THEN your life will be complete.

You may not have known that your life was utterly pathetic and incomplete without said product – but now you know.

And perhaps the young man has bought into all this, and he’s bought the stuff and done the things.  And still – he feels empty inside.

In a way, he reminds me of that old Simon & Garfunkel song, “Richard Cory” – based on the poem of Edward Arlington Robinson – where Richard Cory has it all but is still despondent.

The difference with this young man, though, is he knows something is missing.  That what he’s been told, and all that he’s done – is ringing hollow.

And so he asks the Teacher.  And Jesus knows the longing of his heart, that he seeks what cannot be bought.  And when he looks at the young man, he loves him.

Have you ever had someone give you advice or counsel that comes from a place of deep and authentic love?  It makes a huge difference.

And so when Jesus tells him the one thing he lacks, the young man “is shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”

We might assume here that the young man doesn’t want to sell his stuff, he wants to keep it.  He wants the best of both worlds.

But maybe that’s not the case.

What if he hears the deep truth of what Jesus is telling him?  What if he realizes that he has staked his life on things that don’t last?

Maybe it’s the sheer size of the task of selling ALL he has.

I would encourage us to give this young man the benefit of the doubt, and consider that his encounter with Jesus has begun to transform him.  It might take him some time to really live into what Jesus has told him; it might take him some time just to get his head wrapped around it.  But think of this lesson not as one about money or things, but rather about transformation.

This is what happens as Jesus then turns to his disciples to explain further what he means, using a really delightful example of a camel and the eye of a needle.  It’s hyperbole, meant to take things to extremes so his hearers might land in more familiar territory.  And all of it is explained by the last sentence in the next-to-last paragraph: “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

Notice that the conjunction WITH is not in the sentence.

How many times have we heard this said as “for WITH God all things are possible”?  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  But the point here is that until the young man realized something was missing in his life, he believed it was all up to HIM.  That it was HIS efforts that made all the difference.

Jesus’ words here are the reminder that the point is to release that control.  It is GOD for whom all things are possible.  If we insert the word “with” then we haven’t fully let go of that control.  We haven’t completely opened ourselves to God’s redeeming and transforming word and work in our lives.

The disciples are struggling with this too, and they are likewise in the process of being transformed.

For so many people today, what we might have understood to be the way things work has come unraveled in the last 40 years.

Many, many factors have either combined or followed one another for the last few decades to upend the idea we all grew up with that if you worked hard and saved your money, you could buy a house and raise a family.  You would have a job that paid a decent wage and had a retirement plan.

The years I spent in the legal field showed me the dark underbelly of all that conspired to decimate what we all called the American Dream.  We accompanied dozens of people through the bankruptcy courts, victims of fraud, the subprime lending market, or an overly optimistic assessment of how long a real estate upswing could last.

Looking back at those situations, and comparing them with this story – I wonder if Jesus sees that one who puts their trust in the things of this world will indeed have a very hard time entering God’s peaceable realm, because the one thing they lack is putting all their trust in God.

It’s rather wryly expressed in a sign that used to be in every Shakey’s Pizza Parlor when I was growing up: “In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash.”

But there’s another detail that I want to point out: Jesus hints at what is important when he recounts the various commandments to the young man.

Notice these are all commandments about how we live with and relate to one another.  Perhaps this young man has become so preoccupied with his stuff that he’s had no time to be in community with anyone.

By selling all that he has and giving the money to the poor, he would be thrust into community – not only through the transactions, but eventually in his dependence on the community for his basic needs, and ultimately on God for his salvation.

This story is a reminder to us that our works do not save us.  They do not “earn” us anything in God’s eyes, because we are already beloved in God’s eyes.  As Luther said, God doesn’t need our good works, but our neighbor does.

Jesus calls us today to look deeply at our lives, and look for where the trust is.

What do we trust?  Whom do we trust?  What do the answers look like in our lives?

Jesus looks at us and loves us, and gives us the answer.   Amen.

Facebook is Down: Could this be TRUE freedom?

My text study that meets Monday mornings on FB Live had to pivot quickly to meet on another platform this morning.

But as everyone scrambled to improvise – something we pastors have gotten pretty good at the last eighteen months – I began to wonder how the absence of Facebook and Instagram for a day (or more?) might be a really good thing.

Don’t get me wrong – I appreciate FB for its ability to serve as a simple social media platform for things that are important to me, and certainly for the congregation I serve.

But I’m also aware of its addictive nature. Just yesterday, a former FB manager appeared on “60 Minutes” about her massive leak of internal documents; she will testify on Capitol Hill this week about the apps’ harmful influence potential.

This coming Sunday, the gospel story is that of the rich young man who asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus’ answer, of course, sets him back on his feet: sell everything you’ve got, and give the money to the poor.

it invites the question, to what do we cling, instead of Jesus?

What are we loathe to give up?

I’ve spent the last four years downsizing, and these questions mean more to me than ever.

And on this morning when Facebook is down, these questions take on new meaning.

Soul Rest

On this Feast day of St Francis, we appreciate the idea of creation and particularly that God had the good sense to REST when God was done with all that creating.

Matthew 11:25-30

²⁵ At that time Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; ²⁶ yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. ²⁷ All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸ “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ 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. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

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Dear beloved of God, grace to you and peace this day from God our Creator, through Christ who gives us rest.  Amen.

On this day, we remember St Francis as a fellow traveler on the road and an example of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Francis’ early life and adulthood was spent in a very wealthy family; his encounters with the Divine led him to renounce that wealth and live a life of poverty.  That decision led him to a sense of oneness with all of God’s creation; along with the Prayer of his we know so well, Francis is the author of the canticle “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.”  The idea of interconnectedness of all God’s creation may not have begun with Francis, but he embodied it to the fullest.

And so to have this particular first lesson and gospel set for this day seems so right.  We hear one of the creation stories from Genesis, including God’s resting on the seventh day.  And we hear Jesus’ words of promise that we shall find rest for our souls.

Rest.  It’s the kind of word that works best if you exhale while you say it.

Rest is something that seems to have evaded so many of us these last eighteen months, even when the pandemic forced us to stay home.

I hear from so many people that they are bone tired.  Dog tired.  Whatever kind of tired is your most tired.

And it’s not the kind of tired that I call a “good tired”, one that comes after a day of working in the garden.

No, this is a tiredness of the soul.

Jesus’ words “come to me, all you who are weary” are indeed a balm for that tiredness, a balm for the soul.

To hear the first lesson, and to realize that even God rested – reminds us that if the Creator of All That Is needed (and likely still needs) to rest, then so do we.

I’m not certain if St Francis was a champion of rest, but I think of the way he moved through life as a way of dwelling in all that these two lessons hold for us today.

God took a good look on that seventh day at what God had created, and God called it good, and God kicked off God’s shoes and had a cool drink.

God rested.

St Francis lived and moved among all that God had created.  In his own way, he took Jesus’ yoke upon him, learned from him, and found rest in him.

I don’t know that there is any kind of step-by-step, prescriptive Way That We Take That Yoke Upon Us.  No rule to follow in order to receive that rest.

And I’m not sure Jesus is concerned about that.  Rather, he wants us to come to him so that we might find rest.  Each of us will find it in our own way.  The only thing he urges us to do is to take his yoke upon our shoulders – and that yoke is easy, the burden light.

That stands a bit over against so much that we’ve heard from Jesus this year in Mark’s gospel, though, doesn’t it?

It makes me wonder if we are grouping everything that seems to be involved in following Jesus under the “yoke” category.

But what if we were to keep Jesus’ yoke for us as something much more like a warm, cozy shawl or blanket?  What if Jesus’ yoke for us is, quite simply, his love (and God’s) for us?

Think about that, and consider his words “take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”

Learn from me.

Let me show you what it means to be a force for good in this world.  Let me show you what it means to take good care of yourself as well as others.  Let me show you love.

For learning those things is essential when you go out into the world.  We remember Jesus’ instructions when he does send the disciples out, a heads-up that not every town will welcome them.  Don’t stress over it, says Jesus.  Shake off the dust and move on.

But I think that learning from Jesus first about love makes those forays into the world a bit easier to bear.

We can all agree we’re in an incredibly difficult time in human history, one of deep division and tension and mistrust.  Layer a global pandemic on top of that, and you really do have the perfect storm for those levels of soul tiredness, of exhaustion that goes beyond the physical.

Don’t rely on human attempts to overcome that kind of tired, says Jesus.  Only soul love can help soul tiredness.  Come to me, says Jesus – I will give you the rest you need.

Come to me and just be, he says.  I am the one who will listen and comfort and give you rest.

We don’t need to perform anything.  We simply need to dwell in the presence of the Creator of the Universe, wrapped in the love and grace that is Jesus.

There are as many ways to experience that as there are people.  Some folks find that presence deep in the forest, or on the water.  Some find it in meditation or spiritual devotions.  Some find it in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and still others the music of John Coltrane or Stan Getz.

What is certain is this: following Jesus can be exhausting, difficult, and painful.  But Jesus’ yoke is the warmth of his love surrounding us, that invites us to step away from the hurt and be enveloped in the abundant grace of God.

I have many musical places like this, but one that I’ve loved for years is a setting of this text by the a capella group Take 6.

May you be surrounded by the easy yoke that is the love of Christ.

Amen.