A sermon on Matthew 11:16-19,25-30 & Romans 7:15-25a by the Revd Dr Curtis W. Freeman
Research Professor of Theology & Director of the Baptist House of Studies
at Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC, USA

Brothers and Sisters: Good evening to you in Melbourne or wherever you are, as you approach the ending of the day, and good morning from North Carolina, where I greet you in the wee hours of the morning, even though the sun has yet to shine on this Lord’s Day. Despite the earliness of the hour, I am delighted to be your preacher this morning, and I want to express my gratitude to your pastor, Rev. Nathan Nettleton, for the invitation. On behalf of the Faith Formation Sunday school class of the Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, of which my wife Debra Freeman is one of the teachers, I would like to express appreciation for the wonderful liturgical resources that your congregation provides to the wider church.

As the world gradually emerges from the global pandemic of the past several years, I have noticed a recurring theme, and I suspect you have noticed it too. People seem to be more tired than ever. A recent poll of adults in the U.S. confirmed the widespread sense of exhaustion, finding a variety of causes that include long work hours (53%), staying indoors during lockdowns (52%), excessive screen time (46%), and the lack of a regular routine (41%), to name but a few. More than two-thirds of the respondents (69%) said working from home has disrupted their sleep schedule, but what’s worse, more than half (55%) reported that no amount of rest seems to help them feel more focused (One Poll, Jan. 14, 2022). I don’t think this sense of weariness is unique to Americans, but just to be sure, I checked the website for the Victoria Department of Health and learned that around 1.5 million Australians each year see a physician about fatigue, which the website described as “a feeling of constant exhaustion, burnout, or lack of energy.” The causes of which, it suggests, can be physical, mental, or a combination of both.

It is important to recognize that fatigue is a symptom, not a condition. There is no medical diagnosis for a disease or disorder called “fatigue.” Nor is there a pathology that can identify its causes and effects. Fatigue is a sign of a deeper condition. Often times it can be traced to one or more lifestyle issues, such as lack of sleep or exercise or an unhealthy diet. Sometimes it can be caused by medications or linked to depression, and sometimes fatigue is a symptom of an illness that needs medical treatment. All of this attention to the physical, psychological, and social aspects of fatigue is well and good, but I want us to consider the possibility that there is a deeper spiritual condition of restlessness, which the lectionary texts for today point to. For there is a sickness of the human soul that remains untouched unless it is treated by the gift of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

If any church should be receptive to such a spiritual diagnosis, surely it is a community that affectionately refers to itself as “Sick Baptists.” You are not alone, for in truth, we are all sick and in need of the medicine of grace. So I ask you to lift up your hearts to the Lord, and join with me as kindred minds reflecting on the theme of rest for restless souls. Would you pray with me? Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer (Ps 19:14). Amen.

I

The Gospel text confronts us with a scandalous invitation to come to Jesus that we might find the way to God which is the way of life. We are invited to come to Jesus because of something very special, something unique about him. Jesus invites us to come to him not simply because he is a great prophet, or a brilliant teacher, or a miraculous healer. The Gospel tells us that we come to Jesus because he opens up for us the way to God. Listen again to this remarkable statement: “No one knows the Father except the Son” (Mt 11:27). Matthew’s Gospel here echoes the high Christology of John’s Gospel that the “Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, has made him known” (Jn 1:18). We come to Jesus because it is Jesus the Son, who alone makes it possible for us to know God. To put it differently, we come to Jesus because God has come to us in Jesus. God speaks one true word to the whole world in Jesus. It is Jesus the Son alone who reveals God to those who come to him. This revelation of God is personal, not propositional. It is not merely a matter of knowing about God. It is a matter of knowing God.

Some may worry about what it means for people of other faiths or no faith for Jesus to make such a claim that he alone reveals his and our Abba/Father-God. Matthew’s Gospel does not speculate about that, nor are we encouraged to either. We are simply invited to come to Jesus with the conviction that in him we come to know God—his Abba and ours. And in knowing God, and Jesus Christ, whom God sent, we enter into life eternal (Jn 17:3). We come to Jesus because Jesus show us the way to God, and in knowing God we are united with the source of life. For to know God is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (Mt 22:37). This is what missionary and theologian Lesslie Newbigin called the “scandal of particularity,” that the universal claims we make as Christians all have their origin in Jesus of Nazareth (The Open Secret, 66). To the extent that anything we have to say about truth, justice, or salvation makes any sense, it makes sense only insofar as we come to know it in and through Jesus. We come to Jesus because Jesus show us the way to God.

II

Jesus invites all restless souls to come to him with their burdens, and he promises those who come that they will find rest for their souls (Mt 11:28). Part of what this means is that we don’t need to have it all together to come to Jesus. We come as we are—weary, fatigued, exhausted, and burdened. Recognizing the difficulty and beauty of life, God gave the Jews the Torah (the Law) to show them the way. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 7, “the law is good” (Rom 7:16), but when the law becomes animated by the powers of sin and the flesh, it becomes a burden. It tells us what we should do, and like Paul we may even desire to do it, but we lack the power to do what we desire (Rom 7:15). We human beings are overcome by what Francis Spufford calls the “human propensity to mess things up” (Unapologetic, 27). (Spufford actually uses a stronger phrase than “mess things up,” which I will leave the curious to look up for themselves.) As Leonard Cohen reminded us, “There is a crack in everything,” but “that’s how the light gets in.” Or as my Duke colleague, Kate Bowler puts it, “Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard.” Paul says that’s why we come to Jesus: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25). We come to Jesus not because he promises to take our problems away, but because he promises to make them bearable.

Coming to Jesus isn’t an escape from the struggles of life and faith. Instead, he offers us rest in the journey, as the Psalmists says:

The Lord makes me lie down in green pastures;

The Lord leads me beside still waters;

The Lord restores my soul (Ps 23:2-3).

Coming to Jesus does not free us from the messiness of life, from struggles and questions. Coming to Jesus means that Jesus is the answer. But just because Jesus is the answer, doesn’t mean that we get all the answers to all our questions. Indeed, when we come to Jesus, he has a lot of questions for us, and they are the kind of questions we can’t answer with simply a true or false or multiple choice. We come to Jesus not to get an easy fix. We come to Jesus because he helps us learn to ask the questions that really matter in life, in death, in life beyond death. And when we come to Jesus he promises us rest for our restless souls.

III

We come to Jesus because he shows us the way to God, because he promises us rest in the journey, and because he offers us the opportunity to serve: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me” (Mt 11:29). The Jewish Rabbis often referred to their “school” as a “yoke.” Even though the law was difficult to keep, they assured their students that it was a burden to be gladly endured. Jesus invites us to join his school, to come to him, to commit ourselves to follow in his steps. He calls us to be his disciples, to learn from him, to join in this journey of faith. And in following him, he promises that we will discover a way of life that exchanges our heavy burdens for a lighter load. It is a yoke lined with love, but it is a yoke. It requires work and struggle. We come to Jesus because, as Bernard of Clairvaux said, his burden makes all burdens light, and his yoke bears the bearer up. We come to Jesus because in following him we gain freedom through obedience, and in yielding to his leadership we find life in service.

Coming to Jesus is the beginning, not the end of the journey. John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, opens with a man clothed in rags, holding a book in his hand and bearing a burden on his back. What he reads and what he feels causes him great distress. He cries out, “What must I do?” With the help of Evangelist he flees the City of Destruction, but he soon falls into the Slough of Despond, and then turns from the way to seek the advice of Mr. Legality. Finally, with the help of Evangelist again, he makes his way through the Wicket Gate, to Interpreter’s House, until he comes to the place where there stood a cross. There at the cross, his burden rolled away, and fell into a grave, and was never seen again. But the story doesn’t end there. He still has to climb the Hill of Difficulty, come to House Beautiful, escape from Doubting Castle, and finally cross the River of Death. Then, and only then, is he able to enter into his rest, as he is welcomed into the Heavenly City.

And that’s why we’re here today. Because we’re weary and heavy laden, fatigued and exhausted, burdened and restless souls. But the good news is that Jesus invites us to come to him and find our way to God, our promised rest, our way to life. Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord! Amen!