Greeneville, TN
6th Sunday after Pentecost
July 5, 2026
There was a time in the Episcopal Church when, after confession and absolution, the priest would turn to the congregation and speak the words from Matthew 11:28. Many of us still carry these words deep in our hearts: “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.” Or in the modern language we more often hear today: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
These words after the absolution were words of assurance… They were called “The Comfortable Words.” What a fitting name... They came at that holy moment in the liturgy after we had listened to the Scriptures proclaimed... After we had heard the sermon and reflected upon God’s Word... After we had professed our faith using the words of the Nicene Creed and prayed for the Church and the world... And immediately after we had done something both difficult and deeply human... After we had told the truth... and confessed to God that we had fallen short. That we had not loved God with our whole heart... That we had not loved our neighbors as ourselves... That we had failed in thought, word, and deed.
Having laid down the burdens that we carried... we then heard the absolution and the priest proclaiming the forgiveness... that God, in God’s great mercy, through Jesus Christ, receives and forgives those who repent and desire to be restored to God’s grace. Immediately after that came the words of Jesus, “Come to me.” Come to me… Not “Fix yourself first.” Not “Try harder.” Not “Come back when you’ve earned it.” But simply, “Come to me.”
For generations, those words have been a refuge for weary souls. And perhaps we need to hear them now more than ever. Because we live in a weary world. A world where people carry burdens that can’t be seen. Grief. Anxiety. Loneliness. Fear about the future. Folks are exhausted from trying to hold families together, pay bills, care for aging parents, raise children, or simply make it through another week.
Many folks carry spiritual burdens as well. Burdens of guilt and of shame... Burdens of wondering whether we are enough... Good enough… whether we are worthy… The burden of believing or thinking that God’s love must somehow be earned. And into all of that, Jesus says, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.”
However, if we stop there, we miss something important. Because Jesus doesn’t say, “Come to me, and I will remove you from the world.” He doesn’t say, “Come to me, and you will never struggle again.” Nor does he say, “Come to me, and you will never be asked to change.” Instead, he continues, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.”
Now, that phrase sounds a bit strange to modern ears. After all, who comes to a weary person and offers them a yoke? A yoke is something you put on a work animal. It is not usually associated with rest. But in Jesus’ day, a yoke was a familiar image for a way of life, a pattern of discipleship, a commitment to live according to God’s purposes.
Everyone carries a sort of yoke. The question is never - whether - we will carry one. The question is whose yoke we will carry. Some carry the yoke of achievement, believing their worth depends upon success. Some carry the yoke of perfectionism, convinced they can never afford to fail. Some carry the yoke of anger or resentment, never letting go of what weighs them down. Others carry the crushing burden of public opinion, endlessly seeking approval from people who can never give enough of it. Our culture offers countless yokes... Many of them promise freedom, but most deliver only exhaustion.
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had created burdens of their own. They had taken God’s beautiful gift of the Law and turned it into something complicated, intimidating, and inaccessible. Faith became less about loving God and neighbor and more about mastering regulations and avoiding mistakes.
Religion became a heavy burden, and Jesus came to make it light again. Not easier in the sense of requiring nothing, but simpler in the sense of returning to what mattered most. Love God. Love your neighbor. Show mercy. Seek justice. Forgive. Serve. And walk humbly with God. The yoke of Jesus is not the absence of responsibility. It is the presence of grace.
Taking on the yoke of Jesus means that you have the right tool to help you move the heavy load. That you are able to deal with the burden, with God’s help. It is a way of living in which we no longer have to prove our worth because our worth has already been declared in our baptism. It is a way of living in which our obedience to God grows not from fear… but from love.
It is a way of living in which mercy matters more than performance. That is comforting, but it’s also challenging. Challenging, because if we have received Christ’s rest, then we are also called to become His disciples… people through whom others may find their rest as well.
The world does not need more Christians adding burdens to already burdened people. Amen? It does not need more voices spouting outrage, condemnation, suspicion, and fear. It does not need churches that make God’s love harder and harder to find. It needs followers of Jesus… Followers of Jesus whose lives make the Gospel believable. People who offer grace instead of judgment. Mercy instead of contempt. Patience instead of anger and Hope instead of despair.
The Church is called to be a community of folks where weary people discover they do not have to carry the burdens of life alone. A place where forgiveness is real. A place where dignity is restored. A place where strangers become neighbors, and neighbors become friends and family. A place where people encounter - not our demands, but Christ’s invitation, “Come to me, and I will give you rest.”
That invitation remains open to us today. Bring your grief. Bring your questions. Bring your failures. Bring your fears. Bring the burdens you have carried for so long that you no longer remember what it feels like to set them down. Bring them to Christ. And having found rest in him, take on his yoke. Learn from Him. Walk his path of mercy and compassion.
For in the end, Christian discipleship is not about carrying heavier burdens than everyone else. It is about learning to carry the right burden… the burden of love, the burden of grace, the burden of becoming, by God’s mercy, the kind of people through whom others can finally hear and believe those ancient, beautiful, and comfortable words, “Come unto me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you.”
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