Thursday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today Jesus invites us to rest. Paradoxically this rest comes by submitting to carrying a yoke. But rather than heavy and burdensome, Jesus’ yoke feels easy and the accompanying “burden” is light. Our Lord presents us with an opportunity today to take off whatever heavy yoke we may be carrying and to trust in his promise to lead us into rest by the way of meekness and humility.
Farmers team two oxen or cattle together under a yoke so that together they can pull a wagon, plow, or other implement. A young, inexperienced ox is paired with a seasoned animal who knows well what to do and can effectively train the younger one. That’s why Jesus invites us to take up his yoke so that we can learn from him. Many of us feel burdened today, weighed down by heavy yokes. A yoke is different from the difficult situations of our lives. We may feel burdened by crises that we find ourselves in, situations that are outside our control. That’s different from a yoke. A yoke is something we choose to take up and with which we burden ourselves. A yoke might be our inner need to control situations and manage other people; another yoke might be the weight of over-functioning, consistently choosing to do more than what is ours to do; a different yoke might be religiosity, fervently following a legal code of conduct. Those are just a few examples. What are we learning from these artificial yokes under which we labor? We develop really bad habits and unhealthy patterns by being yoked to the wrong things and learning accordingly. In these situations, our teacher may be fear, pride, anxiety, false piety . . . What is your yoke? Consequently, what is your teacher? I’m asking myself these questions today.
Jesus knows our struggle. Our Lord understands how easy it is for us to become unnecessarily burdened by the yokes of our own making. Listen for his voice today calling to you, “Come.” Today, will you take off whatever false yoke you’re staggering under? Will you allow Jesus, your Friend and your Shepherd, to place his gentle yoke around your shoulders? I think sometimes we are afraid to take up Jesus’ yoke because we fear that following him is too difficult. The exact opposite is true. We make our lives difficult by taking matters into our own hands. Picture yourself taking some steps forward with him today, allowing his yoke to guide you, listening to his gentle instructions, asking him to teach you what you need to know. Under Jesus’ yoke, gentleness and humility become our teachers. Those virtues become our GPS toward rest. It’s impossible to carry two yokes. Let us today exercise our free will in taking off whatever we’ve allowed to control our life and our journey and let us answer Christ’s loving summons. Let us allow Jesus to assume greater control of our lives; let us experience relief from our burden and let us, perhaps for the first time, find rest. Amen!
- Elizabeth Wourms