Can You Take A Yoke?
“Take my yoke upon you . . . for my yoke is easy.”
(Matthew 11:29a, 30a)
“Yes, and I ask you, loyal yokefellow . . .”
(Philippians 4:3, NIV)
A sermon by Siegfried S. Johnson on Promotion Sunday, August 27, 2006
(Volume 1, Number 10)
First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6th Street, Mountain Home, Arkansas, 72653
Twenty years ago, as Administrator at First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan, my office window looked across our back parking lot to the First Baptist Church. Once, when First Baptist celebrated the arrival of a new pastor, the local newspaper’s goof was worthy of being included in one of Jay Leno’s books of amusing headlines. The headline of the Ann Arbor News, announcing a special service, should have read, The Installation of Dr. Morikawa. Instead the headline read, The Insulation of Dr. Morikawa. My good friend and mentor, Dr. Donald Strobe, pastor of First United Methodist in Ann Arbor, sent the snafu to The Christian Century, which published it with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that perhaps it was one of those infamous “Freudian” slips, since we naturally prefer insulation to installation. There’s a sermon in there somewhere! Let’s see if I can find it.
Insulation implies protection and cushion. Installation is quite the opposite, a willing exposure to whatever element is risk is associated with responsibility. When someone is installed into an office, they are coming out from the crowd, taking the lead. First Baptist Church wasn’t recognizing Dr. Morikawa’s Insulation that day, but his Installation.
Installation and Insulation are confused in a cute story of a family sitting in church when the precious little girl, growing sleepy, made some room and laid her head down in her father’s lap. Seeing her daughter cushioned so gently, her mom leaned over and whispered to her husband with a smile, “There Henry, isn’t that sweet? You always did want to be a pillar of the church.”
The similarity between the words pillow and pillar are analogous to that between insulation and installation. The Pillow is insulated, cushioned. The Pillar, on the other hand, is installed and, acting in concert with other pillars, does the job of holding things together.
Insulation is a a buffer, a shock absorber, encasing something in a layer of protective softness. Insulation hides from exposure. To do a bit of etymological work this morning, insulation derives from the Latin word insula, which means, basically, “alone.” We derive peninsula from that Latin word. What is a peninsula? A piece of land stuck out there, all alone, buffered on three sides. Like peninsula, island is derived from insula. Aloneness is the idea, access on all sides naturally protected by the sea. For example, we insulate wires with live current so they will be distant, safe in buffered aloneness. Buffered aloneness, however, is not how we want our pastors.
Nor, our teachers. Today is Promotion Sunday, a day in which we have celebrated Christian Education, our Sunday School, rejoicing in children and recognizing and thanking teachers, those who have been willingly installed into places of responsibility. Our Sunday School doesn’t insulate our teachers, but rather installs them, exposing them to the needs of our church’s mission to instruct the children. Rather than safely tucking them away inside an insulated buffer zone of anonymity, teachers are willingly installed into a position of responsibility.
The installed person is, if I might stretch your etymological patience, quite literally, “in the stall.” The etymology brings us into the domain of domesticated animals, oxen and horses not working alone, but “yoked” together to accomplish a task. Installation, “in the stall,” places upon one’s neck the yoke of service. The idea of a yoke assumes community, that we act in concert with others, linked to the gifts and the energy of others. If you will excuse the pun, the question asked of us by Jesus in our text is, “Can You Take a Yoke?”
Now, to be sure, the image of a yoke on the necks of human persons is quite a demeaning and discomforting one. Yet this is the graphic image Jesus uses to encourage us to be installed into a place of Kingdom service. Imagine wearing a yoke. How disgraceful! The yoke is something worn by beasts of burden. Do you sense the vulgarity of this image?
When Jesus asks “Can you take a yoke?” he’s saying to a fashion-conscious world, “Do you look good wearing wood?” Such is the language of service. Do we find such an image a bit odd? One wonders, in our day of self-hug spirituality, if many might assume Jesus was just joking. We find today the shelves of book stores swarming with self-help books to build self-esteem, prescribe self-motivation, celebrate self-determination. Spirituality does not escape this emphasis on self. There is a brand of spiritual self-awareness that celebrates spiritual feelings divorced from the work of community, of the ecclesia (the church “called out” to be the ChristBody). It’s an anemic sort of faith, if you ask me. Spirituality is a hot topic. But religion, the institution of the church, is often held suspect and even considered detrimental to the development of one’s spirituality. The institution of the church, in many quarters, seems not much trusted as a vehicle for spiritual self-realization. I think we need both, that the institution of the church is that which gives traction to our spirituality, transforming spirituality from a self-contained island to a highway of involvement through service and mission which impacts lives beyond our little isolated oasis of spirituality.
Such spirituality, an insular, isolated spirituality, risks becoming unattached. The very word religion (from the Latin, religio, to link back) implies that we are linked, yoked to others and to a tradition of faith. When Jesus asks, “Can you take a yoke?” it’s language that we understand, even though it doesn’t quite fit our cultural way of saying things.
The Los Angeles Times once published a sampling of signs from around the world which become humorous in their attempt to communicate with English speaking tourists. We, of course, know what is meant, despite how odd they sound. For example, a hotel in Paris has the sign, “Please leave your values at the front desk upon check-in.” We chuckle, but we know what they mean.
Many Americans have been warned about drinking the water in Acapulco, and a sign in the restaurant was meant to make tourists less concerned about getting sick from drinking the water. It said, “The manager has personally passed all the water served here.” With smiles on our faces, we’re sure we know what that means!
In Bucharest, a sign announces a broken elevator. “The lift is being fixed. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.” And, again, we think we know what they’re getting it, but perhaps, in a Freudian way, they got it right, knowing that Americans can become pretty unbearable after walking up a dozen flights of stairs to their hotel room.
Perhaps that’s how our post-modern culture hears Jesus’ challenge to take a yoke. We know where Jesus is heading, but the language somehow doesn’t fit our language of isolated spirituality. One pastor tells about doing some work with his church’s non-resident membership list, contacting those families that had moved away and encouraging them to become active in a local church. One family wrote back, “Pastor Colaw, we now live near a university campus and we go most Sundays to the chapel service there. They have unusually fine music and nationally known preachers often visit and speak.” Sounds good. But the letter went on. “But the best of all is that there is no membership, no pledging, and no women’s society asking me to work. So if you don’t mind, we’ll just leave our membership at Hyde Park and continue to enjoy what we have here.” Now, if you ask me, that’s experiencing church without the yoke. No commitment. No membership. No pledging. No women’s society in which to be installed. No one asking you to teach Sunday School. No involvement. No crosses. No wood to wear.
A yoke places us in community. Paul, in Philippians 4:3, called those who labored with him in the gospel his “yokefellows” (New International Version). The Revised Standard Version translates the Greek, “those who labor side by side.” Today, Randy and I are wearing robes and stoles, and these stoles link us into a clergy community. The stoles are a visible symbol of the yoke, of our willingness to be yoked together in our calling. We are yokefellows, not only with each other, but with the entire Arkansas Annual Conference and, especially, with you. You’re not, of course wearing a stole, but the spirit of connectedness is with you.
The church has many ministries. Christian Education is celebrated today, but that’s only one segment of our ministry. Worship. Missions. Fellowship. Pastoral care. Women’s and men’s ministries. Youth. The list goes on and on. Our church has four different worship services, and I love them all, each with their different emphases. Yet we are all One in Christ, yoked together in service.
Thinking of four worship services reminded me of the story of a young couple boarding a horse-drawn carriage for a ride through the city square to see the Christmas lights. The young lady asked the name of the horse, and the driver told them the horse’s name was Jim. Moments later, as the carriage began to move, the drives said, “Giddy-up, Jim. Giddy-up Sue. Giddy-up Sam. Giddy-up Joe.”
“Mister,” she laughed, “there’s only one horse.”
“You and I know that,” the driver whispered with a smile, “But if old Jim thought he was the only one pulling this buggy, he’d never budge an inch.”
Thank God, no one of us is the only one pulling this buggy. We are yokefellows in the mission of the Kingdom of God.
In the name of the Triune God; may the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be forever blessed. Amen.
Sources and notes:
The original inspiration for the writing of this sermon was the sermon, “Can You Take A Yoke?” preached by Dr. Donald B. Strobe at First United Methodist Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan on August 2, 1987.
“Do You Look Good On Wood?” a sermon by Dr. Leonard Sweet, in HOMILETICS, Volume 8, No. 3.