6 Pentecost

 July 5, 2026

Matthew 11:16–19, 25–30

+ Let’s face it.

We’re all kind of weary right now.

We have all been through a lot

Certainly in our own personal lives.

Certainly as a country.

(Happy 250, by the way!)

Just in general.

There is just a kind of weariness that comes from simply being alive.

It’s not always physical exhaustion, either.

Sometimes—oftentimes—it’s a spiritual weariness.  

Sometimes it’s just a weariness of trying to get it right.

Trying to be the right kind of person.

Trying to say the right thing.

Trying to believe the right things.

Trying to live up to the expectations of other people.

Trying to live up to our own expectations.

And sometimes—if we are very honest—it is the weariness of trying to live up to what we think God expects of us.

That, I think, is the kind of weariness Jesus is talking about today.

But first, Jesus says something rather strange.

He says the people of his generation are like children in the marketplace:

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

we wailed, and you did not mourn.

Of course!

Nothing is ever quite right.

John the Baptist came fasting, living ascetically in the wilderness.

And people said what?

He has a demon.

Then Jesus came.

Jesus ate with people.

 He drank wine.

 He sat at tables with sinners and tax collectors and all the wrong people.

 And what did they say?

 Look, he’s a glutton.

 He’s a drunk.

 John was too severe.

 Jesus was not severe enough.

 There’s no winning.

 I think we all get that.

 We live in a world in which everyone seems to have an opinion about how everyone else should live their lives.

 You’re too much of this.

 You’re not enough of that.

 You’re too religious.

 You’re not religious enough.

 You’re too traditional.

 You’re too liberal, too progressive.

 Nothing is ever quite right.

 And if we spend our lives trying to satisfy every voice calling to us from the marketplace, guess what?

 We’re gonna get exhausted.

 We’re gonna be. . . weary.

 And that is what Jesus is talking about.

 Come to me, he says. All you who are weary.

 Notice what he’s not saying.

 He doesn’t say, get your act together first.

 Be more religious first.

 Figure it all out out first.

 Stop doubting.

 No. He simply says, Come.

 Come to me, all you who are weary.

 Come to me, all you who are tired of trying to prove yourselves.

 Come to me, all you who have been carrying things you were never meant to carry.

 And what happens if we do?

 “I will give you rest,” he says.

 Jesus is not promising that life will suddenly become easy.

 The rest Jesus offers is something so much deeper.

 It is the rest that comes when we finally understand that we don’t have to earn the love of God.

 We don’t have to work to get God to love us.

 We don’t have to get everything right.

 We don’t have to prove our own worth.

 We don’t have to carry around every judgment someone has made about us.

 We don’t have to keep punishing ourselves for just being who we are or what what we are.

 But, we should be clear.

 We’re not promised an easy life.

 There will be things we just have to carry in this life.

 We don’t get to have no burdens.

 There are burdens we are actually called to carry.

 We are called to carry one another.

 We are called to carry the needs of the poor.

 We are called, sometimes, to carry a cross.

 But the other stuff?

 God never asked us to carry all those thing.

 Like the burden of shame.

 The burden of perfection.

 The burden of pretending we’re something we’re not.

 The burden of trying to make everyone happy.

 The burden of believing that God is somehow perpetually disappointed in us.

 Those are dangerous burdens, especially if you’re already weary.

 Those burdens will crush us.

 What does Jesus say to us?

 Put them down.

 He says instead, Take up my yoke.

 Now, that’s an interesting turn of images if you ask me.

 Put down your burdens.

 But take up my yoke.

 But there’s something very enlightening about that image.

 A burden is something carried alone.

 A yoke however is something shared.

 You’re yoked to something else.

 Jesus doesn’t promise us a life without difficulties.

 He promises us instead that we will never carry these burdens alone.

 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, he says.

 Walk with me.

 Move with me.

 Let me carry this with you.

 For I am gentle and humble in heart.

 That may be one of the most beautiful things Jesus ever says about himself.

 Because by saying that he is telling us what the heart of God truly is.

 The heart of God is gentle.

 The heart of God is not cruel.

 The heart of God is not waiting for us to fail.

 The heart of God is not expecting us to be. . . perfect.

 The heart of God is gentle.

 Jesus says, Listen to my voice.

 I am gentle.

 Come to me.

 Perhaps today we need to ask ourselves:

 What am I carrying that God never asked me to carry?

 Whose voice am I listening to?

 What am I still trying to prove?

 And to whom?

 And what would happen if I simply came to God as I am?

 Not as I think I should be.

 Not as someone else thinks I should be.

 But as I really am.

 Tired.

 Weary

 Imperfect.

 Hopeful.

 But still afraid.

 Faithful.

 But still doubting.

 Human.

 Come to me, Jesus says to us.

 Not tomorrow.

 Not when you’ve figured it all out.

 Not when you’ve become the person you think you should be.

 Now.

 Come to me.

 And when you do, bring your weariness.

 Bring your burden.

 Bring the whole complicated truth of who you are.

 And when we do, it is then that we will find our rest.

 Amen.