"Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me: for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." - Matthew 11: 28-30
This set of verses are probably some of the best known and most quoted in the New Testament. They speak to what it is like to have Christ as our Master. The usual thing that is pointed to (I suspect) is the contrast between what we would expect from God and what He is actually like.
But this being a series about kindness, we are looking at something a little different today.
My focus is on that part of the reading that says...."learn from Me: for I am gentle and lowly in heart..."
The first aspect - one I have not really ever thought about until reading the verse for this posting - is the idea of "learn from Me". Learning is not something I typically think of in my relationship with Christ. Obedience, yes. Confession, yes. But learning in the sense that we learn from a teacher or mentor? I have not ever thought of it this way. It almost seems presumptuous, this "learning from God".
And what are we to learn? "Gentleness and lowliness of heart".
If you are thinking that gentleness and lowliness of heart are aspects of kindness, you would not be wrong.
Christ was kind - infinitely kind to those around Him (with the exception of the presumptuous of heart and mis-quoters of Scripture, of course). "A bruised reed He will not break", spoken of in the prophet Isaiah, aptly describes His relationship with both those seeking God as well as sinners who knew they were sinners. He practiced kindness in a way that might have struck folks as revolutionary: the association of religious teachers with "kind" does not come across any more frequently in Scripture then than it does in modern life.
Learn, says Christ, from me.
Are we gentle and lowly of heart (humility is not a bad synonym here) when we deal with others? "Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" says Paul in Philippians 2. Or do we practice the "kindness" of the world, a self-interested set of actions that somehow always manage to set us up for success first and foremost or leave others feeling less heard and attended to and more used?
To be gentle and lowly of heart is a world that values this more in theory than in practice is, frankly, hard. You will get ignored. You will get over-run. You will get stepped on. And yet...
You will also make a difference in someone's life. You may be the one good thing that happens to that person that day. You, in the practice of lowliness and gentleness of heart, may give someone the one glimpse of Christ they may see in a day, a week, a month, or even a year.
Learn, says Christ, from me. And then go do what I did and still do, practicing gentleness and lowliness of heart.
Go, and practice kindness.
Amen.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anon. Amen indeed.
DeleteThere is definitely a disconnect between what most people say the believe and how they act. The puzzling thing is that there is a blind spot that accompanies the disconnect.
ReplyDeleteYour musings about learning from Christ as Master are spot on, I think. And it pairs well with my observation that people learn from example, rather than information.
Edit: ". . . what most people say they believe and . . ."
DeleteLeigh - I am as guilty as anyone of this - maybe more so, as I should know better after many years, but I still fail.
DeleteIt is interesting to me that as a practitioner of Iaijutsu, I understand the Master/Pupil relationship better than perhaps many. In that relationship, my job is to copy precisely the actions of my master and conform my moves to his teaching. Yet I do not think of the same with Christ. I wonder, why is this?
(And yes, I wish Blogger allowed edits. Sigh....)
"Do nothing from selfishness"...."count others better than yourselves"......words to remember and live by TB.
ReplyDeleteAnd more often than not, observe in the breach rather than in practice rather sadly, Nylon12.
DeleteI like the term meekness, too. Meek and Lowly. In my mind's eye, meekness is best seen as a mighty stallion, thoroughly capable of terrible destruction, obeying his rider perfectly via the reigns and gentle nudges of the knees and spurs. Strength under control. We are capable of horrible things, but under Christ's control, following His example, He can use us to do His perfect work. What a privilege to be on His team, in His family. And it's a time limited offer. He will return one day, not meek and lowly, but HIGH AND HOLY. That Jesus will be terrifying. Every knee will bow, I'm glad I'm learning how now...
ReplyDeleteMeekness is another good term, STxAR. I had never heard that example before, but it is a good one.
DeleteAs C.S. Lewis said (paraphrased) We will all one day tell Him "Thy will be done". It is just a question of when and under what circumstances.
Well written!
ReplyDeleteThanks John! If only I could live up to what I write.
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