GOD REVEALS SELF TO THE SIMPLE
One day, Jesus surprised everyone giving thanks to God for his success with the simple people of Galilee and for his failure among the teachers of the law, the scribes and the priests. «I bless you, Father…for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children». Jesus appears happy. «Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do». That is the way God must reveal God’s «things».
The simple and ignorant people, those who don’t have access to grand knowledge, those who don’t count in the religion of the temple, they are opening themselves to God with a clean heart. They are ready to let themselves be taught by Jesus. The Father is revealing to them God’s love by means of him. They understand Jesus like no one else.
However the «learned and the clever» don’t understand anything. They have their own learned vision of God and of religion. They believe they know it all. They learn nothing new from Jesus. Their closed vision and their hard heart keep them from opening themselves to the revelation of the Father by means of God’s Son.
Jesus ends his prayer, but keeps thinking about the «simple people». They live oppressed by the powerful and find no comfort in the religion of the temple. Their life is hard, and the doctrine that the «learned» offer them makes their life all the harder and more difficult. Jesus gives them three calls.
«Come to me all you who labor and are overburdened». This is the first call. It’s directed to all who feel religion as a weight and those who go about overburdened by norms and doctrines that keep them from grasping the joy of salvation. If they encounter Jesus vitally, they experience an immediate comfort: «I will give you rest».
«Shoulder my yoke… my yoke is easy and my burden light». This is the second call. We must change our yoke. Abandon the yoke of the «learned and clever», since it isn’t light, and carry the yoke of Jesus who makes life easy. Not because Jesus demands less. He demands more, but in another way. He demands what’s essential: the love that frees and brings life.
«Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart». This is the third call. We must learn to fulfill the law and live religion with his spirit. Jesus doesn’t «complicate» life, he makes it simpler and more humble. He doesn’t oppress, he helps to live in a more dignified and human way. It is a «rest» to encounter him.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
