Obedience, Silence, and Humility

In my previous post, I asked what project we are to complete with Benedict’s “tools for good works.” If the project is living a good life, then the project is never finished even though it is of the utmost importance. Since the project is so important, we must ask how we can learn to use the tools of the craft. Benedict claims that the “workshop where we are to toil faithfully at all these tasks is the enclosure of the monastery and stability of the community” (4:78). Benedict is preparing us for the next three chapters on obedience, silence, and humility, which are the stabilizing characteristics of the monastery. Yet, obedience, silence, and humility are the necessary conditions for learning in any community. Students must embrace these three virtues in order to learn what the community has to teach them about the good life.

Consider our own academic community. A colleague once lamented to me that too many college professors have been educated beyond all ability to learn. They have lost the humility necessary for learning. Yet, many of those same educators complain that their students lack the sense of obedience necessary for learning. The young ones in the community lack a set of virtues that their elders also lack. 

I think of Jesus’ exhortation, “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” (Mt 11:29 NRSVCE). Here we see an interplay of obedience, the yoke, silence, rest for the soul, and humility, perfectly expressed in the teaching of Jesus. One interpretation is that we are to be yoked to Christ. I have heard that in Jesus’ time a farmer would teach a young ox to plow by yoking the animal to another with more experience. As they walked together, the younger ox would learn from its elder. Many Christians have equated the older ox with Christ Himself. 

However, in keeping with the communal nature of monasticism and the Christian life in general, we may identify the older ox with an elder follower of Christ. As the younger ox walks with the older ox, it learns how to obey the farmer — the one who yoked them together in the first place. When yoked to an elder, I learn what my elder has learned about obeying Christ. To do this, I must accept the obedience of the yoke in the humility that admits my lack of knowledge and understanding while adopting an attitude of silence that can open a space for learning. This silence is becoming increasingly difficult in our modern society. Monastic life is geared specifically toward this kind of community, but such relationships and the virtues they help us cultivate are achievable anywhere Christ yokes Christians together.