Slideshow image

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me, and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me, and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” – Matthew 11:28-30, The Message 

A few years ago, I led a clergy retreat in the Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador called “Rest for Your Soul.” It focused on this passage from the Gospel of Matthew. You may recall a piece of this passage in more traditional language from the service of Holy Communion in The Book of Common Prayer: “Come unto me, all that labour and are heavy laden and I will refresh you” (Matthew 11:28). You may have heard it in its entirety at a funeral, perhaps for someone whose life was heavy or hard. It is an invitation to take on the yoke of Jesus, that he might share and shoulder life’s burdens with and for us.  

While I realize the image of a yoke in Jesus’ time would have been something known and familiar (and perhaps still is to those who grew up in or near a farming community), for me it always sounded clunky and heavy and, well, if I’m honest, burdensome. I can tell myself it means something entirely different, but the image remains. While we considered and prayed with a variety of translations of this passage at that clergy retreat, this version from The Message that I shared above has stayed with me; in particular, the line inviting us to “learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” 

Hearing this passage in a new way with different words invited me to contemplate what it might be like to live more deeply into this notion of walking and working with Jesus, matching my pace to his, especially during Lent. My friend, Melanie, however, highlighted an obvious contradiction. Reflecting on that connection between rhythm and Lent, she pointed out that “Jesus both profoundly disrupts rhythms and also brings us back into rhythm.” Well, that made me stop and think!  

Drawing from her own spiritual practices and the Indigenous cultures that have nurtured and formed her over many years, she continued by saying that while Jesus invites us into a rhythm of practice: “of life, of breathing, of drum beat, of heart, and solidifies and strengthens that rhythm and creates something that we can really rely on and trust,” at the same time his life was very much about “uprooting and going against established rhythms.” 

Melanie reminded me of the time Jesus was on pilgrimage with his parents. He disrupts that rhythm by going and getting himself lost, but is found in the temple.” And what about the rhythm of the disciples’ lives – the fishermen? This was profoundly disrupted by Jesus. “They had a rhythm of life; they thought they had it figured out. They were the sons of fishermen; they were gonna be fishermen; that was their life. And Jesus comes along and just profoundly disrupts and upends that rhythm,” she says. 

With Melanie, I find myself wondering as I step into Lent: what are the ways Jesus enforces and reinforces good rhythms – of life, and breath, and community, and worship, and study, and prayer? And what are the ways Jesus is actively disrupting rhythms that have turned into weights? I invite you to ponder these questions with us. 

During this season, we are invited to walk with Jesus as his ministry unfolds. We are invited to pay attention to the rhythm of his life – the spiritual practices, the people, and the places that ground and nurture him, as well as all that challenges him in living out God’s mission as the Messiah, the Chosen One, the Word made flesh – the practices, the people, the places and the power structures that work against the Kingdom (or Kindom) of God about which he is called to bear witness. As we consider our own call as Jesus’ disciples in this time, what are the unforced rhythms of grace that will sustain us, and how might we step into them so that, with him, we will have the courage and the confidence to disrupt those rhythms that weigh us, God’s people down?  

May God bless us in this time as we walk and witness in the footsteps of Jesus.  

Bishop Sandra  

(with thanks to Melanie Delva for her words and inspiration)