“My yoke is easy and my burden light”. (Mt 11:30) Today, I wish to point out a right and a wrong way of interpreting this beautiful passage of Our Lord. We all have burdens, but let us be honest and admit that some people have heavier burdens than we do, and some have lighter burdens. Let’s pile them all together whatever their weight and call them all the reasons for “stress”. Our financial burdens, our medical burdens, our relationships and the burden of being a good Catholic. The first three of these four categories vary. Wealthy people have fewer financial burdens than poor people, healthy people have fewer medical burdens than sick people and people with loving family and friends have less burdens than those surrounded by jerks. We probably don’t stress too much about the burden of being a “good Catholic” today, unless our well-formed conscience informs us of some unresolved, unrepented sin. But even when we recognize, as most of us probably do, that “we are all sinners” the prevailing theology of “soteriology” (that’s a fancy word for the study of our salvation) comforts us with the iffy belief that everyone goes to heaven. So, when we hear Our Lord telling us not to stress out too much, we mostly think of our financial, medical or relationship burdens. But don’t you think that Jesus would probably have it the other way around? Don’t you think that Jesus wants us to not worry about our worldly worries so much as to worry about the state of our souls? Don’t you think we have it backwards? Jesus is preparing us for heaven. He knows, certainly better than we do, what constitutes our heavenly joy and happiness. He knows we won’t have financial or medical worries in heaven. Can I get an “amen, praise the Lord” from you on that?

So here is where we must see the right way to interpret Jesus’ admonition. The wrong way emerges when we consider what the great Lutheran writer Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace”. When Jesus says, “my yoke is easy” he didn’t mean, don’t worry about stuff. Don’t worry about your finances, your health or relationships. Don’t worry about whether you're on the road to salvation or perdition. Bonhoeffer was a German living in the era of World War II. He was a faithful Christian pastor and saw a lot of other Christians going along with the evils of national socialism. To always comfort ourselves with the idea that nothing should bother us, nothing should cause us worry, to him was a big reason why things got worse and worse under the Third Reich. Paradoxically, he knew Jesus' comforting words should not be interpreted to mean, following him doesn’t require much effort. “My yoke is easy” doesn’t mean sacrifices are not necessary. My yoke is easy, does not mean, society’s moral fabric doesn’t matter. I say, Bonhoeffers’ counter cultural preaching is paradoxical because they pretty much contradict Martin Luther’s axiom, solo fide. (faith alone). That is, if Luther’s “faith alone” is right, then it really shouldn’t matter what rules, what crimes, what moral offenses are done in the name of the state’s greater good. To ignore the social ethical order in our lives subtly produces “cheap grace.” Something we need to think about in our own day and age, especially as we celebrate the United States of America and our independence from England. How important it is for us to avoid cheap grace. Independence doesn’t mean independence from God’s commandments. So, to correctly understand “my yoke is easy” we need two things. First, how quickly Our Lord forgives, when we repent and seek his mercy. Jesus loves repentant sinners. What he doesn’t like are sinners who turn sins into virtues. The second thing we need to know is how much help God can give us. Our burdens are lighter when we constantly offer our sufferings to God.