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Holy Gospel according to Matthew, the eleventh chapter. Jesus spoke to the crowd, saying, To what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We wailed and you did not mourn. For 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, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. 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. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 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 any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who 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. This is the gospel of the Lord. You may be seated. Let us pray. Lord God, may the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts and minds be acceptable unto you, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Come to me, take my yoke, learn from me. Jesus says these things in the gospel reading, but this generation writes him off and doesn't listen. Who wants a leader who is advocating for being gentle and humble? This generation isn't looking for someone who banquets with sinners. Come to me, Jesus calls to the little ones for whom things have been revealed, while the wise and intelligent are left behind. Left behind, maybe, because they cannot admit that they are powerless and they do not have the ability to know all things. Come to me, Jesus says, and I will help redefine what success means. Come to me and I will give you rest from the burdens of this world. Come to me. Do you remember as a child that one kid on the playground that really wanted to be the boss of everybody? Maybe there was more than one kid like that. I remember one time in particular on vacation with my family, camping vacation in the Black Hills. We were staying in Custer. It was Flintstones Park. Maybe you remember that place. And we had time to play before lunch. And that one kid, that little girl, was the one who decided she was gonna be the boss of us. My sister, my brother, and myself. She came over and she's like, Well, you're gonna play with me. And this is what we're gonna play, and this is how we're gonna do it, and this is what each of you are gonna do. We thought, well, okay, let's play. It was fun for a little bit, but then when you get bossed around and they're she just decided that, nope, that wasn't right, you have to do it this way. So when our parents called us for lunch, we're like, yep, we're ready to eat. Well, that little girl was like, Nope, it's not time for you to eat yet. So her hands on her hips, and she pointed at my parents, and she's like, They're not coming to play yet because we're not done here. And that did not go over well, that unruly little girl. And we even have these beautiful photos of that time of our family and that little girl pointing her finger and scowling off on the side of the picture of us playing at Flintstone's Park. Well, this generation often acts like an unruly bunch of children that Jesus is mentioning. They can't seem to get along, they don't want things to happen unless they get their way. And they may be wise in the ways of the world, but often they are placing their trust in the wrong thing. So Jesus says, Come to me, take my yoke. Jesus calls us to put our trust in the one who promises to be with us. While in seminary, I trained with a friend, Dana Lee, to run my first marathon. It was grandma's along the shores of Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. So we arranged our schedules so that we could train together and increase our runs to do those really long runs together. And then we were going to run the marathon together, at least through mile 15. We just figured at that point, if one was doing better than the other, just to split off and finish up the best way that we could. Well, the day of the race arrived, and we lined up at the starting line, and the nerves, of course, are there. And then they made an announcement over the speaker. We're going to have a half-hour delay to the race because there's an impending storm. Please seek shelter. And of course, we're all looking at each other thinking, we were bust to the start. Where are we going to seek shelter before when the storm passes? And of course, there was a semi that everybody put their stuff on, so some people were underneath that. The rest of us just kind of stood around in clumps while the rain poured on us. And then finally the start began. So we looked for each other and we lined up, and in that soggy start, we began running together. And with the excitement and the adrenaline, the miles began to fly by. We got to that mile 15 marker, and we were both like, let's keep going, let's go together. We need each other along this way. We got to mile 20, the longest run we'd run ever, and we were still going the same pace. Mile 21, well, it wasn't flying by, but we were still ready to encourage each other. Mile 22 called Lemon Drop Hill. I was ready to stop, and Annalise said, Let's go, let's go, let's get up this hill. Mile 23, mile 24, I'm ready to be done. And I'm thinking, why did I sign up for this? And exhaustion is definitely hitting. And then I'm thinking, mile 25, where is the finish line? Now I'm in the city of Duluth and we are on the highway and we're making our way towards that finish line. And I realize that Dana Lee is still beside me. And we make that finish line together. Not in first, second, third, you know, we just we finished. That was the accomplishment. We had been yoked together in our training. We had encouraged one another, and we made that race bearable. And we found ourselves finishing that first race, which I'm thinking if I was on my own, it would have looked quite a bit different. Now it might have been wonderful for us to be yoked together and encouragers in a running race. And yet, thinking about what Jesus promises being yoked to us, his being yoked to us is much richer and much deeper experience when he says, For my yoke is easy and my burden is light, or my yoke is useful and my burden is light. Because Jesus's yoke is rooted in love, and we know that he wears it with us. It's not about removing the valleys in life that we go through, but it eases our spirits to face the burdens, knowing that the presence of Christ is with us. And Jesus offers us rest for all who are weary and all who may find themselves carrying heavy burdens. Now, when I hear the idea of receiving rest, maybe you as an adult crave simply that ability to take a literal nap during a busy week or during a busy day. You just can't wait and you're thinking, oh, I look forward to that nap. While on the other hand, I think of children who get to a certain age, those unruly kids, when all of a sudden they're struggling to take a nap, when you ask them to go take a nap, and they fight back and they don't want to take that time of rest. My own children tell tales of those moments when they had gone beyond that time where they needed a nap or thought they needed it, and they used to fight about it, and then they decided mom needs us to take a nap. So we'll just be quiet in our room so mom can have her time in the other room, and they would play quietly instead of actually taking a nap. Well, the rest that Jesus offers us may not be a literal nap during the day in our busy schedules. And it might not even remove difficult decisions and giving us rest from those. Those are still there in front of us. But I read somewhere recently that the council of scripture looks at the future not through the eyes of the present time, but it looks through the eyes of God's future. And when we think of that, think of that rest that Jesus is offering when we're being yoked to Christ. For Jesus offers us rest that is a peace of mind and a peace of spirit that gives us the ability to keep going, to make those difficult decisions, whether we make the right ones or not. It brings us strength in what we face in our daily lives, no matter what it may be, because our lives are held together by the eyes of God who looks towards an eternal future for his children. What does it look like to be yoked to Christ, to know that Jesus is there to make our burdens light? There's an old story about a little boy helping his dad do yard work. The dad asks him to pick up rocks and clean out a certain area of the yard. And so the dad looks over and watches while his son is doing that and picking up rocks until he suddenly finds a very large rock and struggles with it. And he tries different ways of trying to get it out of the yard and pull it up on his own, but it's buried in the dirt. And he struggles and he struggles until finally he kind of throws his hands down and he gives up and he tells his dad, I can't do it. And the dad asks him, Well, did you use all your strength? Now the little boy's a hurt. I did, didn't you see me? I tried everything that I could do. I can't do it. And the dad smiled and said, No, there's something else that you could do. You could ask me to help you. I can be your strength. So the father and the son walk over and pull out that big rock out of the dirt. No matter what your burden may be that you're carrying today, and no matter what rest it is that you need, hear Jesus say those words to you. 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 of heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Amen.