Learn from Me
July 9, 2023: A reflection for the 14th Sunday in OT, Yr A
Matthew 11:25-30
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 11:16-17)
Who doesn’t appreciate rest?! Even God is all for it. In the creation story, it explicitly says that on the seventh day God rested. And in the commandments, we are told to rest on the Sabbath and refrain from servile work.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus himself teaches about rest – the rest that he embodies, true rest. Jesus is the blueprint for humanity. He is all that the Father had in mind in creating us.
Jesus knows of what we are made through his own experience as a human, not just in theory. He is like us in all things, except sin. That is why he can tell us to learn from him, to take his yoke upon us, to have the receptivity of the meek and humble of heart. He knows the burdens each and every person carries, inner burdens and the burdens that life presents us with. And he proclaims that even in the midst of the burdens we carry, we can find true rest.
We don’t have to be tossed about willy-nilly on the storms of life. We can be at rest, the kind of inner rest that is the fruit of receptivity. The fruit that recognizes in Jesus the letting go of our own ego-driven burdens that we, through our unintentional blindness, place upon ourselves.
Sometimes we can be our own worst taskmaster. We don’t mean to, but we make ourselves miserable by putting our ego in the driver’s seat. When the ego drives, it makes for a very scary ride because it never passed the driver’s test and never will. It was not meant to rule the roost alone and unguided. It is meant to be the servant of the true self, the self that Jesus is talking about today.
Ego is necessary but it must learn to live at the behest of our true self, the self guided by God. But it takes a while to convince it to take second place to our deepest self and the word of God. Therein lies the unrest that can push us around.
If we’re honest about it, this struggle to be a learner, to live the word not by force of will but by the receptivity born of love and relationship with God, is where our most heavy and painful burdens lie. At least, with physical burdens we can lay them down at the end of the day. The burdens our ego forces upon us cannot be put down at the end of the day, because they come from places within, of which we are unaware and which yank us around with their unreasonable demands. There is no rest.
“Learn from me,” Jesus counsels. Learn by taking my yoke of upon you in receptivity and meekness. You will find rest in keeping to my ways, for it is a much easier yoke than the demands of the ego. Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. For this yoke of mine is easy and light. Enjoy true rest, the kind only I provide.