Text: Galatians 5:22-23; Matthew 11:28 – 12:8
Speaker: Mark Rupp

A couple years ago I heard a story that stuck with me. It was a Buddhist koan, which is kind of like a parable, and I’ve been thinking about it this week. The story goes:

There were two monks traveling through the countryside, one younger and one older. Their path was long and muddy after a night of heavy rain. The older monk walked with a quiet steadiness, used to the rhythm of the journey and the unpredictability of travel. The younger monk was more anxious, his robe already muddy and his body still soaked and cold.

As they turned a corner, they came upon a river swollen with rain, the current rushing, the banks slick with mud. A well-dressed woman stood at the edge, clearly frustrated and trying to figure out a way across. She looked at the water, then at her nice clothing, then back again. There was no bridge in sight. She was stuck.

Without saying a word, the older monk approached her. He bowed slightly and held out his arms toward her. After a moment of hesitation, the woman understood and allowed the monk to gently lift her into his arms. He carried her across the river one step at a time, carefully, quietly, and then he set her down on the other side with another bow. She acknowledged him briefly before hurrying off down the road.

The younger monk followed silently as the two monks continued on their way. But he was obviously agitated, mulling something over in his mind. After nearly an hour, he finally burst out, “Why did you do that? You know that in our order we are forbidden to touch women. You broke that vow. You risked everything!”

The older monk looked at him quizzically and said, “I put her down at the riverbank. Why is it that YOU are still carrying her?”

That story has stayed with me not just because the simple beauty of parables and koans invites deeper engagement, but because of what it says about the burdens we carry.

The older monk showed kindness. He saw someone in need and responded without hesitation. But even more than that, he was able to offer kindness and allow the moment to be what it needed to be while releasing what it did not need to be. 

The younger monk, on the other hand, carried the weight of judgment, anxiety, and confusion long after the act of kindness had passed. In a sense, he was the one carrying a burden. 

This week’s fruit of the Spirit is kindness.

Not just niceness. Not just passive agreeability. Not just the kind of politeness that never rocks the boat or that allows others to walk beyond our personal boundaries. But true, Spirit-shaped kindness is the kind that Jesus lived and breathed. The kindness that lifts burdens and brings rest. The kindness that frees us from carrying things we were never meant to hold. This is a kindness that is a way of being that eases burdens, both for others and for ourselves.

I have to admit that when I was assigned the week to preach on “kindness,” I was at a bit of a loss about where to start. In Paul’s great list of the Fruit of the Spirit, kindness sits in there among virtues like joy, peace, patience, and love. In the midst of these, kindness can feel like it fades into the background, trying to be polite, very demure, very mindful, keeping out of the way of other more important things. 

I decided I wanted to understand a little better what this word meant in the original language, so I did a little digging into the Greek word that gets translated as kindness: chrēstotēs. What surprised me was that it shares a root with a word found in Matthew 11:30, where Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” That word “easy” can also be translated “kind.” It describes a yoke that is good, gentle, fitting, not harsh. Which is quite the juxtaposition when you remember that a yoke is what was used to tether animals like oxen together in order to do the work of pulling heavy loads like carts or plows. 

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

“Easy” doesn’t mean effortless. It means kind, gentle, fitting. It means that what Jesus asks of us is not meant to grind us into the ground. It’s meant to relieve the crushing weight of shame, striving, and religious performance.

Before Jesus starts talking about yokes and burdens, he tells the people, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened.” And let’s be honest, how many of us are weary? Weary from trying to be good enough. Weary from trying to carry everyone else’s expectations. Weary from a world that demands more than we have to give. Weary from living up to capitalistic notions of self-worth where our value is based on production rather than belovedness. 

But the yoke of Christ is not like that. It is not another crushing burden. It is kindness embodied, a way of being that brings rest, ease, and lightness of spirit, both to ourselves and to others. 

Now, right after Jesus says all this about his easy, kind yoke, the writer of Matthew tells a story. It’s the Sabbath and Jesus and his disciples are walking through a field. The disciples begin to pluck heads of grain because they’re hungry. They’re not harvesting, not gathering. Just eating. Listening and responding to the needs of the world around them, including their own bodies, and responding in kind.

And the religious leaders immediately object: “That’s not lawful,” they say. 

Jesus responds to them with a reminder that the law was made for the sake of people, not the other way around. And then he quotes the prophet Hosea: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

Jesus seems to be saying that the law, while having its place, should not be used to make things heavier for people. Use it to show mercy. Use it to offer relief.

This brings us right back to Paul in Galatians. He lists the fruit of the Spirit and ends with the injunction: “Against such things there is no law.” Against such things—there can be no law. You can’t outlaw kindness. You can’t overdo gentleness. You can’t legislate away love.

The Spirit isn’t interested in rule-keeping for its own sake. The Spirit is interested in how we live and move and relate to each other. In how we ease burdens. In how we become more like Jesus, the one who we as Christians name the embodiment of the law and the fullest revelation of the will of God. 

And as we begin to understand kindness in this way, I hope it begins to crawl out from the shadows, asserting its place next to love, joy, peace, and the others. 

But let me say this, because I think it is important to be clear: Kindness is not weakness.

Kindness doesn’t mean letting people walk all over you. It doesn’t mean avoiding hard truths or tolerating injustice. Sometimes kindness looks like boundary-setting. Sometimes kindness looks like naming what’s wrong without flinching.

As we cultivate the fruit of the Spirit, we become more like Jesus, and Jesus was never cruel, but he was clear. Kindness is clear about what is worth holding on to and what needs to be released. Kindness is about understanding which burdens are worth bearing and which need to be cast aside because they only serve to drive ourselves or others into the ground. Jesus showed kindness even as he overturned tables. He showed kindness even when he said “no” to the expectations of others by offering corrections and rebuke. He showed kindness when he refused to let shame and death have the final word. 

Kindness is not being a doormat. Kindness is knowing what is ours to carry and what needs to be laid down.

And all of this feels especially relevant on this Fourth of July weekend. This weekend, our country was full of fireworks and flags. There were speeches about freedom and independence. And yes, there might be some things about our country worth celebrating. But there’s also quite a burden we carry.

We live in a time when public discourse is so often harsh and anything but kind. When cruelty has become a form of currency in politics and on social media. This is a society where strength is too often equated with domination, a society where kindness is dismissed as softness or naivety.

But the Spirit is not interested in domination. The Spirit is not interested in winning at all costs.

The fruit of the Spirit is kindness. The type of kindness that doesn’t avoid conflict, but approaches it with compassion. The type of kindness that tells the truth in love. The type of kindness that refuses to play by the world’s rules of power and dominance.

The kindness that the Spirit nurtures in us finds ways to ease the world’s burdens with compassion and grace, helping it and ourselves to become who and what we are meant to be, to find a yoke that fits squarely on our shoulders and points us toward good work that doesn’t just drain us but energizes and humanizes us. 

And when this fruit grows in us, when we receive and extend that kind of ease, then the yoke of Jesus really does feel light. So maybe kindness is less about adding something to our plates and more about removing what doesn’t belong. Maybe it’s about tuning into the Spirit’s whisper that helps us to know, “You don’t have to carry all of this.”

And in reality, a yoke is typically used to tether animals together, so this yoke of kindness we are called to take up alongside Jesus is one where the work is made lighter by community. It is one where the effort is light because we carry it out alongside those who can strengthen us when we need it, comfort us when we need it, and allow us to do the same for them when they need it. So much of the un-kindness of the world that we show to ourselves or others is rooted in a sense of individuality, of feeling like we need to do all this alone. 

But we were never meant to be completely alone. We need one another. 

So, friends, we are not called to carry every burden of this world. We are not called to make things heavier than they already are. We are called to walk with Jesus and to take up a yoke that is kind and a burden that is light.

May we be people who put things down that don’t belong to us. Who let go of bitterness, shame, fear, and performance. Who offer mercy instead of judgment. And finally, may we be people who show kindness that is brave, generous, and grounded in the Spirit.