Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Can you believe what Jesus says to us in today’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew (Mt 11:28-30) — that His yoke is easy, and His burden is light? What? How can that be true? He bore the weight of all human sin. He was arrested, tortured, and crucified. What is easy or light about any of that? And yet he says it is. He also invites us to take his yoke upon us.
When I read this passage for today, I had to confess that I have room to grow. I think of the kinds of things that I take to be burdens and that I respond to with frustration. A common one would be trouble with technology. Whether it’s a website that isn’t working right, or a database that’s not giving me helpful results, or some malfunction of my word processing software—it can drive me nuts. I often start talking to the technology. Sometimes I get a little loud and occasionally a curse word slips in there. Of course, responses like that are utterly useless. “Talking” to my laptop isn’t going solve my problem.
My husband’s response is completely different. His favorite phrase, when he is having tech trouble: “I’ll just fool with it for a bit.” It’s as if troubleshooting technology is a kind of game for him. And he often has success! How I wish I could respond with such patience and good humor. All too often, I am afraid, I cannot.
Jesus’ says that His yoke is easy and his burden is light. And I too often lose my cool in response to a tech glitch. In those moments, I get even more frustrated with myself than with the technology. I really do want to follow Jesus. I’m just not always all that good at it.
I think I am going to print this passage out and post it near my computer so that the next time I experience the weight of a tech glitch “burden,” I will be reminded that my burden is nothing compared to what Jesus bore. Maybe that will put things into perspective for me and give me rest.
Sue Trollinger