The Good Yoke
The Venerable Joan Clark
1 Kings 19:1-8, 1 Kings 19:9-18, 1 Kings 19:19-21, Matthew 11:25-30
What kind of yoke are you wearing today?
Not this kind you say!
Are you sure?
Indeed, we may not get up in the morning and fit ourselves into a wooden harness like the one you see here –although sometimes our clothing may feel like we’ve gained a few pounds, no?
But we all do bear a yoke.
We yoke ourselves to ideas, concepts, issues, material things, relationships, belief systems. Our yokes in a sense bear the markings of those identities that we are willing to take on as our own identity, the stories we adopt and adapt as our own stories.
We all live in a yoke. Our yoke is our way of thinking and our way of being and talking and walking in the world. We all yoke ourselves to someone or something! And that can be good or bad.
But for many of us, our yokes become more burdens than blessings.
Has anyone ever gotten into a bad relationship? You know it’s not good for you. You know it’s tearing you down. But it’s hard to leave. Your yoke becomes even harder when it’s loaded up with guilt, shame, fear, anxiety.
Has anyone gotten involved in something maybe at school or at work that you wish you hadn’t. What you thought you could handle, you found out you can’t and it’s just is really getting you down. Or maybe you got mixed up in something you wish you hadn’t. But you are obligated now, and don’t know how to get out of it.
That yoke that once seemed like a life giver, now feels like an iron maiden.
Do you see that yoke in the photo? A yoke always contains two animals, two oxen. And one will always be stronger than the other, intentionally so. The idea is to yoke a weaker ox to a strong ox who knows the field and the direction to go. And the weaker ox will follow. Through walking side by side, the weaker will learn the ways of the stronger until he too becomes like his harness mate and will go that same direction.
Who or what we are willing to yoke ourselves to –that is the direction will we go and the identity we will become.
Which yokes define your life? Which story will you yoke your life to?
Yokes in themselves are not bad. But the world is filled with yokes that are deceptively pretty but can pull our lives in directions away from Jesus.
Often it’s not intentional. We can just get stuck. Sometimes it can feel right at the beginning. But then sometimes the things we yoke ourselves to can get weighty and start bearing us down. Sometimes what we at first see as a good and worthy thing ends up feeling like a noose around our necks. You all know what I mean.
Once you get stuck in that iron noose, and you become more and more immobile, your identity becomes more iron-like too! You don’t communicate as much. You avoid your friends. You don’t engage as you once did. You are stuck in a heavy, difficult place.
How many of you have been in that stuck place? You know what I mean.
But we all choose yokes. Even if we believe ourselves to be leaders, we still all follow someone or something –power, money, career, marriage, prestige, position. Or a life filled with Jesus.
We humans are relational beings. It is part of the human condition to seek out yokes. The ones you choose will in some way or another define your direction in life, and will affect your well-being, the well-being of your mind, body, heart, and soul.
Your politics, your spending habits, your relationships, your addictions….. your yoke becomes your identity. And the yoke you choose will either strengthen or weaken your authentic self.
Some yokes are stronger pulls than others. Some pull you in a direction you may not want to go. Others may guide you into good or not so good directions –and their resulting consequences.
We all know someone who has been smitten by an addiction of some kind? Doesn’t have to be drugs. It can be alcohol, prescriptions, shopping, porn, love addiction, a little OCD? Or maybe it IS hard drugs. The more that person follows the lure of the addiction, the less authentic he or she becomes. I often hear people say, “my daughter’s personality completely changed. I didn’t know her anymore.” “When my husband would drink, he would change into someone I don’t know.”
This is the kind of yoke that begins to weigh heavy upon your spirit and can actually break your spirit.
And we all know a lot of broken people, don’t we?
Well, here’s the news –we are all broken! We may not all suffer from serious addictions like drugs or alcohol. But we all can suffer from JDD –Jesus Deficit Disorder, which always leads to SIN (sick inner nature). Because your yoke becomes your identity. Who or what you follow, ascribe to, the voice you listen to, the things you put your heart and soul into –that will form the basis of who and what you become.
Throughout the scriptures, we read that Jesus has come to set us free from the burdens we are carrying, from the yokes we are bearing, from the slavery to sin and death we have ascribed to.
Jesus tells us, “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 light.” (Matthew 11:29-30)
Jesus “way” is the yoke He offers –a “way” of life in which we follow Him and He leads us into green pastures and by still waters, a way of life filled with adventure but also the promises of peace, love, and eternal life. Jesus offers us the yoke of discipleship with Him and the cloak of righteousness that will usher us into the kingdom of heaven.
In the Jewish rabbinic tradition, the rabbi’s “yoke” is the way of learning that transforms the student into a teacher, disciple into friend. It is the ultimate gift –the offer to walk side by side through life with your mentor and teacher, learning as you go.
We are all learners. We are all followers.
We all choose yokes.
Which will you choose?
The yoke that destroys? Or the yoke that saves?
The yoke that saves has a name: that name is . . J E S U S.