Fear of Fastening - the Story of the Yoke

Lent is a time of lengthening, of growing toward our truest desire, the source of our fulfillment. And as the word Lent finds it source in the slightly longer word length, the word fast takes its meaning from the slightly longer word fasten. Fasting requires us to “stick to it”, to that something we’ve decided to do for Lent, and that can be punishing.
There's a part of most of us that fears attachments. Perhaps that is why we during Lent we would rather struggle with our will by pushing ourselves to do something than by fastening ourselves to our desire. Why are we afraid to belong?  Perhaps we're afraid of being hurt.  In Matthew’s good story, Jesus invites us to “Place my yoke over your shoulders, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble. Then you will find rest for yourselves.”
Remember that a good story is not a blackboard on which words are written, but a doorway, an opening. And the word YOKE provides just such an opening, one of the most illuminating words Jesus speaks. His listeners in an agrarian culture knew exactly what he meant. He could tell a long story in a single word to people whose ox was their tractor, without which they could starve. Jesus knew what a yoke was. Here’s the untold part of the story that was written in the memory of the hands of his listeners.
The yoke is a wooden bar that is fastened across the shoulders of the ox, to which ropes are tied. Those ropes then pull the plow, or cart, or whatever the farmer needed to grow food for the family. By tilling the soil and bringing in the crops, the ox was essential to the success of the farm and thus the survival of the family. That yoke transferred all of the weight of the plow or the cart to its shoulders, to its bones and muscles and skin. As the ox pulled, those shoulder bones and muscles would move, squeezing the skin between themselves and the wood of that yoke, with it burden tugging on the ropes. The farmer with a new ox would cut a block of wood that would receive the ropes and fit the shoulders of the animal. Then he would harness the ox to it and take it for a short pull with a light load, as we would take a short stroll in new shoes, to break them in, to let their pliable materials take the shape of our feet, to avoid blisters and injury.

Now please read this part of the story with your imagination. Apply your senses. See, smell, feel, taste, listen.

After each session of work, the farmer removes the yoke, and then places both hands gently on the shoulders of the ox. With sensitive touch he feels for heat, his eyes following his hands to look for signs of chafing, places where the new yoke pinches, irritating the ox’s skin. When he finds these chafed areas, he massages them with ointment. Then he turns to the yoke. With his chisels, the changes the shape of the yoke where it has irritated the ox, making the rough places smooth, gouging deeper to mate more gently with the protruding bones and muscles of his particular animal. The memory in his hands feels the changes in the now smoother wood of the yoke, matching them to the contours of the ox’s warm shoulders. This ritual is repeated each time the farmer and the ox finish their work. The yoke, by the daily adjustments of the farmer, comes to conform more perfectly to the shoulders of the ox, becomes easier. The ox comes to know more and more each day the healing hands of the farmer and the increasing ease of the work. The farmer comes to know more and more each day the fit of the yoke and the natural capability of the ox.
Imagine someone who loves you, at the end of each day, touching your skin where you carry your burdens, a touch that somehow knows more and more each day where your burdens "rub you the wrong way", where they pinch, where they chafe, where they bruise you. Imagine them gently massaging soothing ointment there; feel its cooling relief. Imagine them helping you to chisel away the yoke of your work, smoothing out the rough places, rounding out the places where your skin or your psyche protrudes. Jesus calls this learning.
Lent calls us to fastening, but not to a heavy rough rope over our bare shoulders pulling a punishing load for the sake of suffering, a no pain – no gain fight with our will. The good story of the yoke calls us to fasten ourselves to the teacher who promises us a yoke that fits, a burden within our capacity, and a daily ritual of being taught by what touches us.

Tomorrow, the Examen as this daily ritual of learning from what touches us.



FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.