Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Take My Yoke

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.”

We are all in this together—yoked with others, carrying each other’s burdens, or at least making them easier to bear. A yoke is a wooden beam normally used between a pair of animals to enable them to pull together on a load when working in pairs. The yoke is a discipline, a way of being present, a way of cooperating, and an enormous equalizer. Are we yoked to one another? What does that look like? What are we learning about our dependency on each other? About our interdependence?

Jesus doesn’t just teach about being yoked. He also asks us to learn from him, to be meek and humble of heart. Meekness is a deliberate choice not to be greater, or stronger, or more powerful than someone else. Meekness invites us to see every person as human, just like each of us. It is up to us to open our hearts and be humble of heart. It is up to us to pull together, different as we might be—differing in status, in political affiliation, in skin tone, in religious beliefs and in values. How could meekness put an end to racial discrimination, solve the climate crisis, and end wars and conflicts?

Love makes burdens lighter. Love is a yoke—a practice of disciplined care for each other’s health, happiness, and well-being even when we feel we have nothing left to give. Who is in need of my love? How can I recognize the burdens of others and lighten the load? What can I learn from Jesus’ example of meekness?

The photo image that accompanies these words is also worthy of study. What do you see? Feel? What might be some important messages from this visual lectio divina?