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Zechariah 9:9–10; Romans 8:9, 11–13; Matthew 11:25–30

If we can, we like to be in control of things and even other people. It has become almost an obsession in our modern highly individualistic societ- ies where I must plan my life and have it all unfold according to plan, even if this may involve trumping the plans of others. But, this is just healthy competition, is it not? Rich nations spend enormous amounts of money and effort bending nature to their will and bending other human beings to their will. A theme that runs through the Bible is that the more we try to take control of our lives, to have things on our terms, the more entrapped we become. One can see it in the Garden Story. Adam and Eve are prom- ised by the serpent that they will be like God, supremely powerful and free, yet they end up hiding from each other and from God, powerless and afraid. We can see this kind of theme in each of this Sunday’s readings.

In our first reading, the prophet Zechariah sees the arrival of a king who will free the warring kingdoms of Ephraim (the north) and Jerusalem (the south) from the trap of war into which they and other nations have fallen. Neither Ephraim nor Jerusalem can do this; they are completely trapped by the weapons they have made and the wars they have waged— all in the name of gaining freedom from the ‘oppression’ of the other, of gaining control on their terms. Only someone completely free of this trap, the humble peace–bearing king, riding a donkey, not in a chariot or on a warhorse, can free them. He will not return violence with violence. If they do not cede ‘control’ to this king, they will remain trapped.

The reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans is about our futile at- tempts to control our personal lives and to have things on our terms. Paul knows that we will go to any lengths to try and banish the fear of death from our lives; it is after all the ultimate sign that we do not have control of life and that eventually it comes to and end no matter how hard we fight against it. Our desperate attempts to thwart death lead, according to Paul, to unspiritual lives. Living such lives ‘you are doomed to die’. Paul is not

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just talking about physical death here but the death of our spiritual self that is the fruit of unspiritual lives. The antidote is to welcome the Spirit of God who has made a home in us and to recognise that it is the presence of this Spirit in us that alone can enable us to escape the clutches of both physical and spiritual death. Paul’s conviction that the Spirit has made its home in us reminds me of Jesus visiting the home of Martha and Mary. Like Mary, we should sit and listen to the teaching of the Spirit about how to live our lives, rather than try and control things on our terms like Martha.

The gospel passage tackles our obsession with being in control in three moves. The first identifies the ones who can freely and openly receive Je- sus’ teaching. They are not the learned and clever who think they are in control but those who like children, accept that they need to learn from ‘the other’. The second identifies Jesus as the sole source of the teaching; the knowledge of the Father that alone can save. To whom does Jesus choose to reveal the Father? The answer comes in the third move where Jesus invites ‘all you who labour and are overburdened’.

Within the context of the interpretation that I am presenting here, the overburdened are not so much those who are crushed by others (although these are not excluded) but those of us who try to take control of our lives on our terms and who therefore have to keep acquiring more and consuming more (the more you have the greater the appetite). In fact we become trapped and in order to be free of this yoke we need to take on the yoke of Jesus. Doing this of course means becoming a disciple. Taking his yoke does not mean that he unloads his burden onto us, rather we form a team with him. The image that comes to mind is of a team of oxen yoked together and ploughing the land. One can come across some very unusual teams in the Middle East among poor farmers; a donkey and ox, a don- key and horse, occasionally even a farmer helping his ox along. This was probably the case also in Jesus’ day. Paradoxically, by taking on the yoke of Jesus, what looks to be the oddest team of all—myself the sinner and the Son of God—becomes the perfect team. What looks impossible becomes easy to bear (because Jesus is with us sharing the yoke) and gives rest and refreshment rather than exhaustion. The yoke of the cross that was im- posed on Christ by his apparent victors—the forces of evil—becomes the sign and instrument of his victory over these forces and salvation for all the overburdened and oppressed.

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