Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Pea Ridge, AR
The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 9A
July 5, 2026
Good morning! It’s good to be with y’all today. My name is Melanie Lemburg, and I serve as the Canon to the Ordinary on the Diocesan Staff. Part of my work includes accompanying congregations who are in transition or in search for their next leadership, so I’m grateful to have the opportunity to be here with y’all today, on this first Sunday in your time of transition.
Our gospel reading for today is one that might contain a favorite verse for some. The last two verses are contained in the list of verses known as “the Comfortable Words” in our Rite 1 service, and many of us who grew up using that service or the older prayer book may know them by heart: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
As I was in conversation with this text and others who have contemplated it this week, I came across this spiritual practice: “Write down…all the things that make up your heavy burden at this time in your life. Then reread Matthew 11:29-30. What rest is Jesus offering you? How is Jesus inviting you to learn from [him]?”
So, I want us to contemplate this scripture in this way this morning, and I’m going to offer it as a spiritual exercise, and then I’ll have a bit more reflection for us after it. So, let’s break it down with a bit of silence for you to contemplate.
If you have paper and pen, you can write this down. If not, just make a list in your head: list all the things that make up your heavy burden at this time in your life. (pause)
Now listen to these “comfortable words:” (slowly) “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (pause)
What rest is Jesus offering you? (pause)
How is Jesus inviting you to learn from him? (pause)
As I was contemplating all this in my own life this week, I noticed (maybe for the first time?) the connection between Jesus’s invitation around the burdens and Jesus’s invitation to learn from him. It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? What is Jesus inviting us to learn from him in and through the bearing of our burdens?
Because here’s what I also realized in this conversation with the text. In my spiritual practice, I was imagining naming my burdens and either laying them down or handing them to Jesus. But I realized that isn’t what Jesus is offering. He invites those of us bearing heavy burdens to come to him, and he offers rest. And he invites us to learn from him.
What will we learn in this? Gentleness, humility of heart, and how to rest. And there’s an interesting connection here earlier in the passage with the disconnect between what is hidden from the “wise and intelligent” but revealed to the infants—those who are weak, powerless, and even silent. Perhaps there’s a learning in that for us as well?
As we talked about this gospel reading in staff meeting, the bishop pointed out that our friends don’t take our burdens from us. But they bear witness to them, and they walk beside us, bolstering us up when we need it, bringing us casseroles when we’re really down and sharing others of their gifts to support us, and celebrating with us in times of celebration.
Do you have friends like this who do all this for you (and who you do this for)? I’m so fortunate to have this in my life, and I’ve realized this week how my friends have accompanied me through a difficult season, offering support to me in ways that are unique to their gifts and strengths. They are both really smart women—one is a doctor who helped me navigate the medical system with all of her wisdom, experience, and relationships. And the other is an organizational wizard and she helped organize meals for us and also some of the physical chaos of our home. Neither of them took away any of the burden from me, but they used their gifts to lighten my load in unexpected ways, and they accompanied me during a difficult season and made things a little less burdensome for me, and a little less lonely.
So in light of this, then, what is Jesus inviting you to learn through his friendship, through his accompanying you as you carry those burdens that you named earlier? For me, this week, his invitation to learn his gentleness has resonated with me.
I also think there may be a different sort of invitation for you, the good people of Good Shepherd Pea Ridge, in these comfortable words. You have had such a gifted leader in James, and now that he has been called to live into his ordained vocation in a different way, I suspect that you as a community may be feeling the weight of the burden of his absence, mindful of the burdens that he carried alongside y’all that he can no longer share in with you. I’m wondering where is Jesus coming to meet you in that? What is he offering to bear with you? What he is inviting you to learn in this season? And who are the friends who may be accompanying you already who can share their gifts in different ways?
“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
