“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.” -Matthew 11: 28-30

Today’s gospel reading may seem far-removed from the current awakening of consciousness around the racism and white supremacy in which the US is rooted. How often I have heard these words from Matthew in a comforting light, when what I need right now is not comfort.

This morning, I hear something new. I hear Jesus’ prayer for decentering. As he leans into his relationship with his Father in the preceding verses (“All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father…”), he reveals the relational dimension of reality from which the burden of white supremacy is cut off.

Jesus invites us neither to self-flagellation, nor into white savior complex. Both of these continue to center on whiteness as they assume an ability to self-justify. There is no self-justification in following Christ.

These words of Jesus offer a new heart (see Ezekiel 36:26: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”) They offer us participation in God’s gentle, humble heart by decentering from our privileged nest, our locus of power that oppresses. This is the decentered heart, the heart as God created it. This is the heart in relationship, neither ignoring nor glorifying pain, but opening steadily to it.

As I make my way through Richard Rohr’s Breathing Underwater on twelve-step spirituality and the gospel, I am struck by Step 7. We must ask God to remove our addiction to bigotry:

Humbly asked [God] to remove our shortcomings.

Decentering our hearts is God’s work, not ours. We of course must be active participants, but we cannot direct it. It is relational; it is humbling; it is gentle in the places we are addicted to pain, and painful in the places we are addicted to comfort.

May we take up the yoke of Christ.