Jesus Yoke is Easy

 Matthew 11: 16-19; 21-30 July 5, 2026

 

To what did Jesus compare this generation to?

Come Unto Me
Wayne Pascal

Like children sitting in a marketplace calling out

to one another:

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn”

In other words, everyone didn’t do

what we wanted when we wanted it.

You were supposed to dance and be happy.

I’m a little disappointed.

You were supposed wail and cry.

I’m a little disappointed.

Nothing is good enough.

 

Jesus uses the example of he and John the Baptist.

John fasted and didn’t abstained from drinking,

and everyone complained saying he was weird or possessed.

Jesus came eating and drinking

and everyone complained and said he ate and drank too much

and besides that he hung out with the wrong people.

John was too cranky. Jesus was too friendly.

Nothing is good enough.

 

It seems like Jesus generation has a lot in common

with our own generation.

Everyone has an opinion, and everyone feels like

it’s their responsibility to share it.

 

It’s called Judgement. We judge people all the time.

We talk to them, or hear them for a few minutes

and we think we know their life and understand

all their motivation and objectives.

We judge people just by their looks and

what they wear and how they speak.

And people in the church have decided that they

can tell where you will spend your eternity.

 

Judgement has been an issue in religion definitely.

We and our ancestors have used judgement

to control and criticize people.

We’ve been slinging rules around for generations

trying to make people afraid for their mortal souls.

The church has judged people for their impure thoughts

and actions, for the things they say and the company they kept.

 

The church before the Reformation, the church used judgement

basically to blackmail people. They told people if they would

donate enough money to the church, the judgement against them

the judgment against their deceased relatives would be reduced.

The fear was real.

It garnished enough money to build St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome.

Martin Luther’s main point of the Reformation was basically

to take away the power of that judgement.

 

And we think the church has come such a long way since then.

But we haven’t really. It just takes different forms.

 

I remember when I was about 9 years old,

so almost 50 years ago now,

there was a new girl in the youth group.

She and her family had just started coming,

they seemed very involved, and then they stopped.

And I don’t know how it started,

but the rumor got around that she was pregnant.

She had a boyfriend who was not part of the church.

She was the topic of whispers and rumors.

I even heard them at 9 years old.

It wasn’t concern. It was judgment for her and her family.

I don’t know why someone didn’t call her.

I guess they were new enough that no one had their number.

Remember, it was the 70’s.

 

Well, she came back to church a month later

and her leg was in this nasty metal halo

and she was walking with crutches.

She had been in a car accident and badly broken her leg.

Now, no one let me know that the nasty rumors they started

were not true, so I remember looking at her going up to 

communion and thinking, “Wow, she’s got a broken leg

AND she’s pregnant? That’s awful.”

The church judged her and delighted in the rumors.

 

And 50 years later, we might even believe that we’re

outside of the age of oppressive Christianity,

and away from that kind of judgement,

but we have replaced this religious morality

with the constant hum of opinions.

We impose our own arbitrary rules on everyone.

Without even appealing to a higher power or tradition.

 

Look what he’s wearing,

I don’t think it flatters her,

that’s really not appropriate for someone like them,

She’s too skinny, he’s too fat,

I’m just concerned for their health

She’s too old, he’s too young.

I can’t believe she said that,

I can’t believe she didn’t say that.

They didn’t pay enough attention to me,

they paid too much attention to me,

 

Why didn’t you include those people

why didn’t you exclude these people,

You focus too much on work,

you don’t spend enough time focusing on work,

you should save more,  you should spend more,

seize the day, but don’t make such foolish choices.

 

He needs to loosen up, she needs to plan ahead

She needs to be more forgiving,

he needs to have more of a back-bone and stand up for himself.

She should be more serious,

he should have a better sense of humor.

We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance,

we wailed and you didn’t mourn.

 

We’ve all had these judgements placed on us,

and we’ve all placed these judgements on others too,

if not aloud with other people, then in our heads.

If everyone would just do everything like I wanted,

everything would be great.

Nothing is good enough.

 

This generation is not much different

than the generation Jesus was talking about, really.

The judgement just takes different forms now.

 

I was reading a story.

About 15 years ago the actress Demi Moore, had saved a woman

who had messaged her on twitter and was threatening suicide.

She kept talking to her and found out where she lived

and then called the police go to her house

and it saved her life.

 

Well, I read the comments under the article

(never read the comments by the way.)

And someone said,

“Demi Moore’s plastic surgery looks terrible.”

 

We are constantly being rated and judged.

Even if the judgement is not directed at us,

we’re internalizing it.

Even if we say, “I don’t pay attention to that sort of thing”

it’s getting in there. It’s shaping us and changing us.

 

 Especially our young people

When we hear criticisms of celebrities looks

or other things about them, we internalize them.

We hear that no matter what good we do,

we’re not good enough.

 

Just like I internalized that judgement of that girl

with the broken leg, I learned that there was a limit

for my church community’s love for me.

She was not good enough, I might not be good enough.

 

This is the wider harm in churches being so vitriolic

against LGBTQ people. It does great harm to LGBTQ people,

and young people who are negotiating their own paths

AND, it tells everyone that our love and God’s love for

them is very conditional.

 

And yet some churches are putting so much of their effort

into judging people, based on only six passages in the bible

But there are well over 40 passages in the bible

about not judging other people. It’s ironic.

 

Even without the influence of religion, we are all judged

on so much and so many big and small things.

We are basically treated like products,

and everyone has their own Amazon review section.

And nothing is good enough.

 

It’s kind of exhausting.

Not just to be judged, but to do the judging.

Making sure that everyone meets up to our

definition of what’s good and right and proper.

If only everyone did everything the way that I wanted,

this world would be a much better place.

That’s a lot of weight to put on ourselves.

Imaging that God has put all that responsibility on our shoulders.

 

 When we base people’s worth

on some outside expectation,

some set of rules and regulations

it leads to an endless hole of dissatisfaction.

 

No one will ever live up to those standards we set.

We live in frustration.

So we end up yelling at each other in the marketplace,

“I played the flute for you and you didn’t dance.

I wailed and you didn’t mourn.”

Nothing is good enough.

 

And, in fact, we don’t make ourselves happy either.

we end up living with shame and guilt

we set up hopeless expectations

and burdens we’re unable to carry.

 

Even though Jesus was living in a very different

generation than our own, I bet the people

around him were living with the same burdens.

The same heavy weight of judgement,

both external and self-imposed.

 

And this is where Jesus comes in.

Jesus yoke is easy. And Jesus’ burden is light.

Jesus teaches us another way to be

in this generation and in this world.

And to follow Jesus yoke

actually lets us put that burden of judgement down.

 

The Kingdom of God is like this:

The worth of a person is not determined

by what they do, it is only determined by God’s love.

 

Our self-worth is not determined by our achievements,

or other people’s opinions.

It is only determined by how God loves us.

And God loves each one of us unconditionally.

The Amazon review just says: “Beloved child of God.”

 

Everything we do as a church,

every task we might have

as members of this church is focused

on understanding, and reiterating, and living that truth

for ourselves and others.

 

The truth of God’s love that Jesus proclaims -

the gospel in other words -

lifts us out of that hole of dissatisfaction

that the world’s laws, standards, and expectations put us in.

The yoke of God’s grace guides us and frees us for new life.

When we become a servant of Christ,

we unbind ourselves from being servant to anything else.

 

With Jesus “yoke” on us,

we are not only freed from the burden of judgement on ourselves, 

we’re freed from the burden of bearing judgement

on others.

 

Martin Luther understood it.

He wrote these beautiful words:

"The Law says, 'Do this' and it is never done.

Grace says, 'Believe this' and everything is done already."

 

God’s love is not based on what we do, achieve, or succeed.

It’s not based on how we look, or who we love.

God’s love is given to us and each person absolutely freely.

This is the yoke that should guide us daily.

Jesus yoke is easy and his burden is light

And with this to guide us, we can finally find our rest.