"MY YOKE IS EASY..."

Today I’m going to reflect on the Gospel for 14^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Matthew 11. 25-30.    This begins with Jesus exclaiming, “I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.”

What has God hidden from the wise and revealed to little ones? Here Jesus wasn’t just speaking about young boys and girls, but all the poor, the under-privileged, the marginalised and the destitute. And what has God done for them?  

Quite simply, some Jewish religious leaders claimed that to enter Good’s Kingdom people needed a very detailed knowledge not only of the 613 Laws given to Moses, but also the multitude of additional minute precisions made to them.  What is more, they were expected to observe every one of them.  Only religious legal experts could possibly do that.   The majority of people would be dismissed as ignorant sinners and excluded.  

But Jesus tells us that the so-called experts have got it wrong.   He has come to remove the crushing, impossible, burden of so many petty rules and regulations.   To each of us he says, ‘Come to me all you who labour and over-burdened, and I will give you rest.”   Jesus offers those, who would be dismissed as ignorant and unimportant, freedom from trying to carry such an impossible burden; now they -we -can rest in the Lord, in a happiness which had seemed impossibly.

But Jesus goes on to say, ‘My yoke is easy, my burden light.’   That removes any complacency we may feel.   We can’t yet sit back and relax.   Following Christ is demanding and at times difficult.   But the demands are not meticulous observance of petty man-made regulations, but something far more serious.   That is the command to love God above all else, and our neighbour as ourselves.   The command to love covers everything that really matters.  It touches every corner of our lives.   Laws are only good in so far as they protect and foster real love.

And what about the yoke Christ mentions in this Gospel?    Well, as you probably know, a yoke is a piece of wood, shaped to rest comfortably on the shoulders. Loads are attached to each end and are easy to carry because their weight is spread.  The point is that we must carry our crosses and follow Christ on the difficult journey of love, if we are to find the eternal rest which He promises.  But Jesus here tells us that with His help we can carry the weight of our crosses.  He can transform carrying our burdens into labours of love.  We couldn’t begin to do that without Him.  But, with His assistance we can do what would be humanly impossible.

There’s a tradition that, as the son of Joseph the carpenter, Jesus would have known how to make a well fitting, comfortable yoke, custom-designed to fit each one of us.  In other words, He gives us the special help we need to carry our own particular crosses.

There’s a beautiful story which shows that this can transform drudgery into a labour of love. Someone, seeing a lad carrying his young brother on his back, sympathetically remarked, “That’s a heavy load you’re carrying.”   To which the lad replied, “That’s not a load; that’s my little brother!”   That came from the heart and was, indeed, a labour of love!

So, while the so-called wise thought they could reach heaven through their detailed knowledge of rules and their own efforts in observing them,  Christ has a completely difference approach.   The law of love is the only way to heaven.  The wonderful thing is that with God’s help that is possible for all of us.  That’s what’s been revealed to us little ones!

Isidore O.P.