Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light. - Matthew 11:28-30

Your king shall come to you, meek, and riding on an ass. Zechariah sees the king who comes without the apparatus of conquest - no war horse, no chariot, the warrior's bow banished. The dominion from sea to sea will not be taken by force but proclaimed in peace. This is not weakness. This is a different kind of power that the world does not recognize as power until it is too late.

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened. The invitation is addressed to the working and the weighted. The man who has been carrying the burden of his own achievement, his own identity management, his own attempts to be adequate - this is the man the invitation finds. I will give you rest. The rest is given, not earned.

Take my yoke. The yoke is not the absence of work. It is the exchange of teachers. Stop learning to be a man from the systems that produced the burden. Start learning from the one who is meek and humble of heart. That learning is the rest.

Name the specific burden you are carrying this week that does not belong to the easy yoke. Not in general - the specific weight, the specific exhaustion. Bring it to the Lord who said I will give you rest. And carry [name]: Lord, let him come to you with the specific burden. Let the exchange of yokes happen. Let him learn from you what it means to be meek and humble of heart.

Lord, I am laboring and burdened - here is the specific thing. Give me rest. Let me take your yoke and learn from you. Precious Blood of Jesus, save us. Amen.