Wisdom and Freedom

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

Today’s gospel is made up of two parts. And if you really take a second closer look at both parts and consider the implications of what the Lord is telling us, both are equally inexplicable.

God does seem to be a Divine Troll who likes to play cruel tricks on us by “hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.” To find a clue to this paradoxical statement, one must go back to the primordial garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were permitted to eat all the fruits of the fruit bearing trees in that garden save and except, for the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Despite this warning, our first parents disobeyed the clear and unambiguous instructions of God and consumed the forbidden fruit.

One may think that God’s verdict is an overreaction to a petty crime. But when examined closely, the story reveals the same theme which our Lord wishes to convey in the first part of today’s passage. True wisdom, “knowledge of good and bad,” can only be arrived at by humbly submitting to God and never apart from Him. Adam and Eve sought autonomy from God in making future moral judgments and this was their biggest mistake, the height of human folly. As the Psalmist reminds us: “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God”” (psalm 14:1; 53:1).

St Paul draws upon this reasoning when he concludes in his letter to the Romans that those who live unspiritual lives (lives without God) will die, whereas those who live spiritual lives, will live. The former may think themselves clever and wise in the ways of the world but would be proven the fool when they stand before God spiritually bankrupt.

We live in two worlds, the visible and the invisible. But all too often we focus so much on what we can see and hear that we neglect the world of the Spirit. It is in this invisible interior world that we see God more clearly. I’m reminded of the story of how St Brigid, one of the three patron saints of Ireland, performed a miracle by healing the blindness of an old and holy nun so as the latter could view a most beautiful sunset. After having admired God’s creation for a few moments, the holy nun turned to St Brigid and made this request: “Close my eyes again dear mother, for when the world is so visible to the eyes, God is less clearly seen to the soul.”

So, when God conceals something behind the veneer of mystery, He does so not out of spite or cruelty. He hides that which is most valuable because the things which are easily accessible often lose their value in our estimation. Familiarity breeds contempt while mystery heightens our desire for it.

We must now turn our attention to the second part of our Lord’s teaching. Some may think that this second half is preferable to the first part, since our Lord has promised us rest and that He will remove our burdens if we were to only come to Him in trust. But a closer look at the words of our Lord will also result in something no less befuddling than the first part.

Don’t you think it’s a little bit strange that the Lord’s idea of getting us to rest in Him involves putting on a yoke? A yoke was not created for rest; it was created for work. It literally has nothing to do with rest at all. When our Lord invited the weary and heavy laden to come to Him and find rest, we would expect Him to say something like; Take off that yoke you’re wearing — you don’t need it anymore! But Jesus’ solution for yoke-weariness was not to cast off the yoke entirely; it was to yoke ourselves to Him, to walk in step with Him, to work in sync with Him.

What is the yoke of Christ? The yoke came to be understood by the Jews as a metaphor for the Law. The Jews would use the yoke of the Mosaic Law to pull their life and everything in it along. It left them, however, tired, worn out, and burned out on a religion which laid on more burdens than lifts them. The yoke of grace which our Lord offered was contrary to the yoke of the Law. It was a move from depending on one’s own efforts and ability, to depending on God’s grace and power. This is a different kind of yoke, one perfectly fitted to support and aid us in fulfilling His purpose for our lives. That doesn’t mean being yoked to Christ will always be comfortable, but it’s not supposed to crush us either. You see, that when we are yoked to Christ, He carries most of the weight. He makes Himself become a beast of burden, a donkey like what we heard in the first reading, to bear us and lead us to victory and rest.

Today, most of us don’t suffer under the yoke of the Law like Jesus’ listeners did, but we have other yokes. Chief among these I would suspect is the yoke of performance, the yoke of living up to other people’s expectations, real or imagined. For example, we want to be the best parents possible, so we look for the ideal parenting methods. How our kids turn out is the measure of our parenting success (we think), so we stress out about every little thing they do wrong or might do wrong. Or perhaps we want to be the best at our jobs, so we take on more and more responsibilities because we are afraid that saying no means we might fall behind, lose some of our perks, or be overlooked for the next raise or promotion. Eventually, the overwhelming demands on our limited time and energies render us incapable of hearing the voice of God because we don’t even have time to stop and listen.

When we pull the burdens of life by the yoke of our own performance, then performance sets the pace. We race faster and faster, trying to outdo our last personal best or to measure up to the expectations of others. But when we take on the yoke of Christ and let Him lead, He determines the pace, and we find that His grace makes up what we lack.

So, in these two principles laid out in the Gospel, our Lord presents us with the paradox of Christian discipleship in a nutshell. The wisdom of God may seem foolish in comparison to all the cunning wiles of the worldly and unspiritual people of this world, and yet it is the only wisdom that can guarantee our salvation. The man who counts himself wise in the ways of the world may end up the fool in the after life because the wisdom of God has been hidden from them, as a result of their own choice in pursuing worldly riches.

Likewise, in wishing to be truly free, we must not cast off everything in pursuit of libertine hedonism but instead humbly submit to the yoke of Christ which is light and easy. The yoke of Christ is perfectly fitted to support and aid us in fulfilling His Father’s purpose for our lives. It’s not always comfortable, but that’s not the point. It is always what I need for the path He wants me to walk. Under the yoke of grace, I rest content with where I am right here, right now, weaknesses and all — as long as I am walking close to the Lord Jesus, knowing that with Him, in Him and through Him, I will be led to greater heights.