We must be bound to Jesus as part of his plan

Published: September 19, 2013

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered this homily during the profession Mass for two hermits Sept. 10.

One of the hardest things I had to learn as a child was to tie my own shoes. My parents got a big wooden shoe for me to practice on, but then I had trouble applying that knowledge to my own foot because everything was backward. Up to then I had depended on my parents to tie my shoes because it was important that they be bound to my feet.

One of the hardest tasks of adulthood is to decide what to bind ourselves to in life and today David Menkhoff and Judith Weaver bind themselves to the Lord as vowed hermits for the rest of their lives. And this has been a long time in coming! The word “bind” may give us the impression that David and Judith will now be less free than before. But quite the opposite is true. No one is less free than the person who refuses to be bound to things that give meaning and purpose to life. The unemployed and ignorant are not free — true freedom comes with commitment, living for something bigger than ourselves.

The word “religion” comes from a word meaning “to bind.” This is the same root found in our word “ligament.” Ligaments bind bone and muscle, giving us the freedom to walk or run; no one is less mobile than the person whose ligaments have been cut. Religion binds us to God; no one has fewer resources for life than the person with no religion, whose connection to the source of life has been cut.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us that he is so intimately bound to the Father that to know either is to know both, and he has come to provide us the means whereby we can be united intimately to the Father as well. Jesus describes this by using the image of a yoke. A yoke is a wooden frame by which two oxen are joined to enable them to work together.

There are three things about this yoke: 1) it exists — we can be bound, there is someone on the other side to whom we can be bound. Atheists don’t think there is anyone over there, 2) it is Jesus’ yoke — this yoke is both the person of Jesus and his teaching, and 3) it is not burdensome — one reason is that Jesus’ yoke is made for two and Jesus is there on the other side pulling most of the load.

In the course of life we end up bound to many things. When we were children, our parents not only tied our shoes, they also sought to bind us to particular values, a particular faith, particular relationships — for which I, for one, am eternally grateful. But there does come a time when we have to learn to tie our own shoes, to make those values our own, to take personal ownership for our relationship with the Lord. At a certain point each of us must slip our parents out of the other side of the yoke of religion, and freely and personally invite Jesus into our lives, making him and his teachings the yoke that binds us to God; putting him there on the other side of the yoke to help us bear the load. Judith and David already did that many years ago and that is part of their witness to us as hermits!

Sometimes we hear TV preachers contrast “faith” and “religion,” claiming that faith is a relationship of the heart with the Lord while religion is just a system of beliefs. But that is a very misleading distortion. You can’t just be married “in general;” in marriage you are always bound to a particular person. Well in the religious life, that’s the difference between being a hermit and being a recluse. Both separate themselves from the world to a degree, but only the hermit is bound by vows to the person of Jesus. Vows that are the concrete expression of the yoke of faith that binds them to the Lord.

Only a few people are called to be bound to Jesus in this specific way, but all of us are called to be bound to Jesus in one way or another according to our role in God’s plan — and this becomes a reality in our own lives when we invite Jesus to get in there on the other side as our yokemate. “Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.”

Audio files from Bishop Taylor’s homilies are regularly posted in English and Spanish on the diocesan website. Listen to them here.