Posted on: 22nd July 2025

In Matthew 11:16-19 and 25-30, Jesus was teaching his followers about the way they should live if they were to be his disciples. He compared the way many lived out their faith to children who refuse to play no matter what bribe they are offered. The people were very good at deciding how God operates, conforming to their plans and prejudices; they would go out of their way to crush faith by imposing religion.

But that wasn’t just a challenge for the generation Jesus was bemoaning 2,000 years ago. Still, too often people use their faith to create a religion of rules and rituals to maintain their “respectable club” rather than as a means of allowing God to transform lives.

Often we are fearful of change. We yearn for a faith which makes us comfortable. We lay impossible burdens on others to protect our church and our religion, even if that excludes others.  

The yoke that Jesus alludes to would have been borne by two oxen. That yoke would have in turn pulled a plough. The responsibility of establishing the kingdom of God rests with each of us, sharing with Christ in the tasks to which Jesus would have us do. We are to be part of the team, with Christ beside us, sharing the burdens and privileges of the kingdom.

Jesus is not offering a faith burdened by complicated rules and rituals. In the way that a farmer takes care of his animals by lining a yoke so that it does not damage them, Jesus is offering his followers a relationship with God based on love.

The burdens of the Christian faith are to try to be like Christ, and to take on the responsibilities of Jesus. To look at the World and our neighbour through the eyes of constant, unfailing compassion.

Imagine what your life would be like if you removed from yourself all the prejudices, the anger, the hurt that you have bottled up inside. Imagine what life would be like living without the fear of judgment, or where you do not judge others but view them as true brothers and sisters.

Jesus calls us to understand the world from his point of view (i.e. to take his yoke).

Let us stop making our faith unnecessarily complicated, where we beat ourselves and others up. Let us free ourselves and others for two main tasks: to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves.

By Rev Tim Nicholls, Leeds Sanctuary