What yoke are you carrying? Do we all know what a yoke is? A yoke is a wooden harness made by carpenters that was placed around the neck of animals mainly oxen with a rope tied to the yoke and the other end to a plough so that the oxen could pull the plough. Now who would make a wooden harness, a carpenter, a carpenter like Jesus. Jesus is using an analogy from his life’s work. He knows the importance of a good yoke. A bad carpenter would make the yoke unnecessarily heavy for the oxen. A bad carpenter wouldn’t round off the edges and the corners. The yoke would hurt and cut the oxen’s neck. Jesus the master craftsman tells us that his yoke is easy.
We all have yokes to carry in our life. But sometimes the yoke is unnecessarily heavy and rough. One of the unnecessary weights we carry is perfectionism. We hold ourselves to an incredibly high standard. Everything must be perfect. And when we fail, not if we will fail, we punish ourselves. We base everything on conditional love and our god is a slave driver and it’s no wonder that we judge other people harshly. I wonder if instead of carrying the yoke of perfectionism, we can carry the yoke of Jesus. Jesus does not expect perfection. Just look at his own disciples. Jesus loves us the way we are right now. Jesus does not punish. He is not a slave driver, but He shows us a compassionate father who loves his children tenderly.
God Bless,
Fr. Chris