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14th
Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
Aisling
Retreat House
Manchester,
Maryland
July 9,
2017
Of Yokes
and Ploughing
By (Rev.
Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
The Amish and Jesus
The Amish farms in York and Lancaster Counties
in Pennsylvania often present a warm and pastoral picture for us.
The Amish farmers work their fields with
horses. Since there is no use of
combustion engines, you’ll never see any John Deere farm equipment.
Instead, you’ll find two horses pulling a
plough. In Jesus’ day, it was very much
the same.
However, they used oxen to plough the fields,
not horses. And the oxen were yoked,
that is, two were bound together at their shoulders by something called a yoke
– spelled Y-O-K-E.
The double yoke was a wooden collar that fit
around the necks of both oxen and connected them to the plough. The yoke had to be made carefully so that it
would fit the oxen just right and not hurt or create bruises.
If the yoke fit well and was comfortable, the
oxen could go on ploughing for hours, but if it did not fit well, it would dig
into the animals keep them from working.
Obviously, it would sap their strength and
they would diminish their ploughing time.
This then, is the image that Jesus has in mind in today’s gospel.
“My yoke is easy”
Jesus says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
So I am thinking: how can the yoke of Jesus be
easy? Can we really say that living the
way he calls us to live is easy?
Practically speaking, (1) Is it easy to love
our enemies and to turn the other cheek?
(2) Is it easy to forgive seventy times seven times, and (3) Is it easy to
share what we have with people who are in need and whom we do not even know?
And add to that, Jesus makes it clear that
following him means taking up our cross?
So it seems to me to be a bit of a stretch to him to say that, “My yoke is easy?”
Why Is It Easy?
Maybe the best way to evaluate how difficult or easy
it is to live the way of Jesus is to compare his style of living with other styles
of living.
For example, (1) Do we really think that a
dog-eat-dog approach to life is easier on our nerves than working together and
caring for the well-being of everyone? (2)
Are we better off emotionally by holding on to our resentment rather than
forgiving?
Again, (3) Is war really more beneficial than diplomacy
and compromise – an important point to think about right now with North Korea? (4) Is it easier to fall asleep at night
trusting in the stock market rather than trusting in God’s providence in our
lives?
Again, (5) Do we feel inner peace by going along
with whatever looks like fun or by sticking to what we believe is morally
right? (6) Does it make me feel better
about myself when I look down upon others I live or work with and judge them as
less or when I refrain from judgment and instead put myself in their skin and
life situation?
(7) Does racial, religious, or gender prejudice expand
me as a person, or am I bigger as a person when I am open and try to understand
and include? And finally, (8) Is it
really easier to live with myself when I don’t tell the truth or when I
truthfully own up to what I did or did not do?
Conclusion
Jesus assures us today that his “yoke is easy” and his “burden
is light.”
He is gently, but clearly calling us to try his way of
living. And if we do, we just might find
that it contributes more to our happiness in the long run and is even lighter
in the short run of living.
