"Wheat and Weeds" Given July 23

       I wonder how many of us have ever been really disappointed in someone? Oh, I'm not talking about the more than just feelings of disgust that many of us feel towards the latest politician or S & L executive oror trigger-happy fanatic,, or wall street mogul or even preacher who got caught doin' what they ought not to be a'doin'. I'm talking about something more severe than what some might feel about the latest set of broken promises coming out of Springfield, or Washington.

       I'm talking about how you or I might feel if someone we looked up to, someone we liked and trusted and admired suddenly "showed their true colors" and let us down. I'm speaking of the genuine feeling of betrayal we would experience if someone we know, someone you and I actually placed some store in, someone who was perhaps even our hero, suddenly failed to come up to the standards we expected of them in a profound way.

      If any of you ever watch the re-runs of the TV show MASH, you may have seen an episode that deals with a case of mild hero worship that Radar, the naive young company clerk, develops in regard to Hawkeye. Hawkeye is depressed and sickened by all the waste of war he sees around him. Along with the others, he is bored, frustrated, homesick, repelled, lonely in the face of the terrible hell of war in Korea. As a result, Hawkeye takes occasional refuge in the bottle.

       In the episode I'm speaking of, out of boredom in a slack time, Hawkeye has gotten drunk. Suddenly, totally unexpectedly, the choppers come in, bearing wounded. But Hawkeye is not capable of operating. The other doctors must cover for him. Radar is shocked. He has always looked up to Hawkeye. Radar feels betrayed by his hero's lapse.

        Radar later self-righteously confronts Hawkeye. This leads to an argument, alienation between the two men, and eventual reconciliation. The upshot of the episode was that Radar came to a more realistic view of Hawkeye as a person. As a result, a new relationship evolved between them. It was a more realistic, a more adult, a more equitable relationship.

The two men were able to leave behind the old unequal relationship that had been based on the idealized view of one person by the other.

        Now their relationship could be based on honest acceptance of one other, with more realistic recognition of the other as a real, live flesh and blood person, with all the strengths and weaknesses that make us human.

       There are a lot of people in this world who aren't as wise as the fictional Iowa farm boy Radar O'Reilly. Radar had learned that his hero had all-too-human feelings and failings. His hero admitted those, and assumed responsibility for his lapse and demanded respect for himself as a person-- respect based on reality. And as a result, Radar and Hawkeye eventually were able to come to like and respect one another as friends.

       There aren't many people in this world who are able to do that. There are so many people who sit alone and frustrated, disappointed, and wounded. They are locked into their own disappointment with others, disillusioned with the world, angry with life itself. As a result, they are unable to respond to any sort of legitimate needs or possibilities. As a result, they are unable to struggle for a better life, a better world, a better humanity.

       As they see it, everything is rotten, all actions are suspect, everything good is suspicious, all love flows out of self-interest, all motives are mixed, all spirit is dubious. These are people who would solemnly agree with the humorous novelist Dan Jenkins, who whimsically writes, "there ain't nothing in this world that's dead solid perfect."

      To be fair, I know we all feel that way at times. We all occasionally yield to the temptation to "throw the baby out with the bath water". A lot of us have been disappointed--hurt by life, by partners, by friends, by family, by other people. A lot of people have been hurt by the church.

I heard the story of the Pastor of a tiny congregation saddled with a big old building in Manhattan. His congregation was so small he didn't have a lot to do, so he placed a tiny ad in the classified section of the New York Times.

"Anyone who's been wounded by the church drop by on Tuesday night and we'll talk about it." He expected maybe twelve, fifteen people to show up. Come Tuesday night, four thousand people were lined up outside his door.

        Those people were telling that flabbergasted pastor that in one way or another, the church had let them down. But at least they were willing to give the church another chance by showing up that Tuesday night.

     Many folks aren't even able to do that much--and with less excuse. They can tell you everything that's wrong with the church--and nothing about what's right. They are shocked when church people get angry, or act in a petty manner, or act bossy, or gossip, or show their feelings or their failings in any way.

      They call us "hypocrites" if we're less than perfect. They tell us of their disappointment by walking away and never looking back. And they end up in effect, saying to devil with the church, to heck with this Christianity business. They maintain there's nothing to this religion business.

      Why? Maybe they had a pastor they didn't like, or they were in a church fight, or someone said something, or someone did something that offended them. It might have been minor, or it might have been deeply traumatic. Or maybe it's because they feel the church is too liberal, or too conservative, or too catholic, or too evangelical, or too integrated, or too segregated, or to homophobic or too acceptingto suit them.

      Sometimes those of us who stay in the church, who even work in the church feel that way too. Sometimes we feel that way about other people. A lot of times, in point of fact. People just don't seem to come up to our private and personal standards. Perhaps we may even start to come to feel that way about working for the coming of Christ's Kingdom.

        There seems at times to be almost much wrong in the church as in the world around us. And there is so much pettiness in our own midst. And there seems to be so much focus on the petty, that true never seems to get addressed. And that's when, I think, this morning's Gospel reading has a special relevance for us.

        The Gospel this morning is about the field--the same field as last week we assume. It's the field in which God's good seed is growing. Seed planted by the Divine Sower--through us.             

       But, says Jesus, all throughout the field of God's world, there's other seed as well. All throughout the field of wheat seed, also lie weeds or tares. Zinzania is the Greek word used here. It refers to a kind of annual grass that looks very much like wheat and can grow wild among the rows wheat. And that's the heart of the parable's deep-rooted dilemma.

       "An enemy has sown weeds among the wheat" the farmhands report. Their instinct, like ours is to weed out these intruders.

        Many think that the parable is about the Judgment Day. Others think Jersus is pointing to all us individual good sheaves of wheat having to put up with all those people who are nasty weeds living among and around us. Others believe the parable tells us that the church of Jesus Christ as the field and the weeds are this wicked world that surrounds us. But I wonderr if the parable isn't also--on it's most basic level--about none of us being perfect. Perhaps Jesus also meant that we aren't the individual sheaves of wheat--we're each of us-- the whole bloomin' field.

       In our deepest selves-- good and bad, justice and injustice, love and hate, blessing and curse are so radically intertwined that we are unable to root them out on our own. Just like the field, just like this world, you and I are each of us, a mixture. We all have good and bad in us.

     Wheat and weeds, life and death, sin and saintliness, original sin and original blessing lie mixed together in all of us. And on the surface, at first glance, the wrong, the broken-ness, the imperfection, the evil in us, can often look so much like the good. The enemy who sows the weeds you see, is really us.

      "Should we go pull out the weeds from the field?" The farmer sees a potential for harm that the farmhands in their zeal have overlooked.

      "No, for in gathering them, you might accidentally uproot the wheat among them." The farmer was smart enough to know that good can also in it's zeal to weed out evil, unwittingly achieve great things on evil's behalf.

      Holy wars, crusades, inquisitions, witch-hunts, scapegoating, racism, fanaticism, fascism, homophobia, age-ism, sexism, and just plain every-day church fights are all examples. "He meant well" and "she thought she was doing the right thing" are among the saddest excuses in the church's vocabulary. (And in humanity's vocabulary as well.)

     None of us is perfect. And though we can expect the effort for good, though we ought to be striving after perfection in our own selves, we none of us, have any right to expect perfection from any one else. A wife, a husband, a child, a pastor, a friend, none of us are all wheat and no weeds. We are all imperfect, unfinished, incomplete, but hopefully still growing.

"Please be patient with me, God isn't done with me yet" reads a popular "T" shirt.

      And if none of us is perfect, how can any human institution-- governmental, financial, psychological, cultural or societal--be perfect? How can even the church, which despite the seeds of the Divine within her is still made up of human beings be perfect? To place ultimate faith in the goodness of anything less that the wisdom of the Divine Sower and Lord of the Harvest is to inevitability court disappointment and heartache.

        That's the spirit of the parable. That's an inherent part of who we are as human beings. That's inherent in the nature of the world. After all, why do you think pencils come with erasers? Why did God invent white- out?

       Jesus understood. The wheat and the weeds are often intertwined-- sometimes radically so, in their very roots. Jesus did not however, say that things would always remain that way. He spoke of growth, of final victory, of the good wheat that would come in at the Final Harvest--wheat fit to be eaten by all. Jesus spoke of the time when the wise farmer would confound the adversary by harvesting both the wheat to eat and the weeds to use as kindling.

In this way, Jesus reminds us that change is always possible. Jesus suggests that the wheat will one day come to over-grow the weeds. The crop is, after all, not yet ripe. Indeed, some of what we thought were weeds might even turn out in reality to be a different hybrid of wheat. And Jesus suggests that even the weeds too, may have an as yet undefined purpose in God's plan.

         The power to change, the power to overcome is in the Divinely sown seed. An alcoholic willing to yield to the Higher Power can stop drinking. A miser who turns his or her life over to God, can become generous. Someone lost can find their way--with the help of a guide.          

       Someone caught in the depths of depression and desolation can find meaning and purpose--in Christ. A smoker can find within themselves the willpower to quit--with the help of God. A lost sinner can be redeemed, and start growing toward sainthood—through the Spirit's touch..

     You and I can conquer our baser impulses eventually. Granted, usually only one fault at at a time. And not on our own and not necessarily without both human help and Divine strength to draw upon. But in the meantime, we can learn to live with them victoriously. We can change the direction of our lives--if we're sufficiently tired of the direction in they've been going under our own guidance.

      The narrow mind can expand. The bigot can learn to love. Even a grump can learn to smile. The future--our future as believers is open.

        All possibility, all opportunity for growth of the good seed lies in the power of the Lord of the Harvest. We can turn to our Redeemer for healing and growth, wholeness and hope. For it is true that in Him, and in His service, lies the power to transform our lives, our selves, and eventually our world.

       So while we perceive the wheat and the weeds growing alongside one another, we are by no means to be passive about evil. We are to nurture the good within our own selves and within our world--that it might prevail. We are to keep growing, keep striving, through our actions and attitudes to overcome, to literally over-grow the weeds arouns as well as within us. We are to leave behind, our disappointment, disillusionment and fanaticism.

       That's hard for us at times--we're so quick to judge, so quick to take offense, so quick to want to weed the field. But God reminds us after all, it's not our farm. The final disposition of evil is in the hands of the Lord of the Harvest.

     Evil's most formidable opponents in this world are not holy crusaders, not selkf-apppointed moraality police, not would-be Inquisitors who hack about at the weeds, uprooting tender young sprouts of wheat in their zeal to clean out the field. Those who do most to promote the cause of Christ's coming Realm in this world are too busy simply being good wheat--too trying to beco me exactly what God created us to be--the best person--the best field of God's good wheat that we can be. Amen.

"Gracious Wastefulness" given July 16

 A sower goes forth to sow. Seed, slung in all directions, leads to a good deal of waste. Some of the seed falls along the path where it is quickly ground into the dirt. There's a great deal of wasted seed in this parable of the sower.

Have you ever met one of those people who just can't stand to see a little waste? You know the type--they save bits of string, paper clips from letters received, rubber bands. Some folks simply have a thing about waste. Remember how President Lyndon Johnson ordered the White House staff to turn off the lights each time they left a room?

This morning's parable suggests that, in God's Realm there is a great deal of waste. When Jesus was born, according to the opening of Matthew's Gospel, cruel King Herod massacred hundreds of innocent Jewishbaby boys. Wouldn't it have been better if not so much had been made of Jesus being "king" so that Herod would not have felt so threatened? Perhaps the good news of Jesus' birth could have been toned down a bit.

But caution, toning down a bit is not what the gospel is about. So Matthew's magi show up at the manger with the costliest of gifts - gold, frankincense, and myrrh - and lay these most expensive substances at the feet of Mary and her poor baby.

This Gospel's exuberant extravagance continues. Jesus continually speaks to great crowds, "multitudes." But how many came forward to follow? Only the twelve?

Think of how many of Jesus' parables spoke of waste. There was the shepherd who risked the welfare of the 99 sheep in order to search for one lost sheep until he found it. A man gives an invitation to a banquet, but all of those invited rudely refused. There was the Samaritan who gave all that he had to bandage the wounds of a man lying in the ditch whom he did not even know. What are these parables if not parables of extravagance, recklessness, and waste?

And what could be more "wasteful" than for Jesus to lay down his life for people like us?

I'm not by nature the most efficient guy in the world. What skills I have in making my time and energy count for more, I've had to learn-- usually the hard way. My daughters tend to accuse me of being overly organized, however. That's not efficiency, it's testimony to how many times I've gotten my neck chewed in the past.

Maybe you remember the movie or the book, Cheaper By the Dozen.

It's a lively account of the life of a large family that was presided over by Clarence Day, one of America's first professional efficiency experts. Mr. Day even taught his children how to bathe themselves efficiently, taught them a number of foreign languages by pasting words on the walls of the family bathroom (he computed that the average person expends x number hours of a lifetime in the bathroom, so why waste all that precious time?).

I'm not prepared to go that far, but I like to be able to move through my day confident that at least some of my time is being well used, not wasted. Yet it does seem, on the basis of today's parable, that waste is unavoidable in God's Realm. There's much wasted seed, and wasted words, and wasted time and effort.

The poor farmer in today's parable has a great deal working against him - lousy soil, rocks, weeds - and there's a great deal against the gospel. We live in a violent, greedy, anxious world, and the Gospel invites us to join Jesus in peace, self-giving, and grace.

We've got a great deal working against us. On this bright Summer Sunday, more people are at the lake, at the beach, or just taking it easy than are in church. Last Summer I recall seeing the sign in front of a church in Rockford that proclaimed, "God Doesn't Take a Vacation". The Almighty may not, but we sure do. The lures of summer always seem to take their toll on church attendance!

So I work on my sermon for the good of the few, and you faithful show up on Sunday, and we are disappointed by the absence of the many. There's much waste around here.

Our building is bigger than it needs to be most Sundays. At Second Services, we sing to the notes of an organ. We could do about as well with a small piano. Waste.

Someone said in the hearing of her pastor, "I only get something out of about one in three sermons." At first the preacher was appalled. Only one sermon in three? Two-thirds of his sermons wasted? But then the pastor reconsidered. When you think about it, .334 might not be too bad an average.

There is so much working against our hearing and receiving the

word. We are so easily distracted. Our minds are cluttered with many concerns and cares. The Christian faith is so large, our interests rather small. Is it any great wonder that most sermons don't hit home with us?

How much of the Bible do you know? How much of the Bible have you read or understood? All that Scripture wasted!

But that's not the whole story. Jesus' parable of the seed and the soil speaks not only of wasted, unproductive seed, but also of gracious Harvest. Jesus did say that most of the seed went to waste. But some of the seed, wonder of wonders, took root, grew, and brought forth 30, 60, 100 times over a rich reward.

Jesus says, If you've got ears, listen!

The parable ends in joy, celebration of great Harvest. There is waste, yes, much futile effort, ruined seed, disappointing results. But the storyends in astounding success and Harvest. The wastefulness

ought not surprise us. There's much bad soil out there. We speak truth in a world of lies. We call people to walk a narrow way when it's easier to wander.

Throughout Matthew's Gospel Jesus has spoken of a "higher righteousness," but most people are content with lower expectations. However, when the story ends, seed - just of the some seed - has taken

root and has rendered rather amazing results. The sowing is not efficient, but it is finally effective. There is great Harvest.

I confess that something in me has come to expect the waste, the futility and failure. I've been around the church long enough to become something of a reluctant expert in failure! Maybe there's even a little something in me that's kind of content with the failure. Waste can be reassuring.

Why prepare a sermon if only one in three will truly hear it? Why witness to your faith if most of our witness falls on deaf ears? Why do what's right when nine out of ten average Americans are quite content with "going along to get along"? The waste of it all, the failure in faith, can be almost reassuring--in a perverse sort of way.

Yet Jesus doesn't let us off the hook. He promises (maybe even threatens!) Harvest. Our work, his word, the church's witness are not in vain. The promise of Harvest is enough to keep us uneasy with our accommodation to defeat. There is waste, yes, and defeat. But by the end, some few seeds take root and there is rich Harvest. There is waste. But there is also grace.

One of the joys of this parable is learning that even if much seed is wasted, some seed falls on good soil and a great Harvest is sure. This should help encourage us when nothing seems to be happening.

As a young man, John emigrated from England to America. All predicted the brightest future for him as a brilliant scholar. He died after only one year. When he died, he left a little over 700 pounds and a collection of more than 200 books to a new university being organized as meager as that bequest might seem to us in our day and age, it was so abundant to this still being organized school, that they named the university after him. The death of John Harvard looked like waste, but it produced an abundant Harvest.

So, in your life and in mine, in your ministy and in mine,in your relationships and in mine, in your hopes and efforts and prayers and in mine-- results, though delayed-- will still come. The Harvest is sure.

Jesus says, If you've got ears, listen.

'Lay It Down" given July 9

"What did you learn in Church today?" the little boy’s mother asked.

"I dunno...." was the reply.

"Well, did you learn about Jesus?"

"Not much."

"Did you learn about the Bible?"

"Not much."

"Well, what did you learn about?"

"Well, we did learn a song about a bear."

"A bear-- what bear?"

"A bear that has a funny eyes."

"You learned a song about a bear with funny eyes?"

"Yeah, it' name was Gladly."

"Gladly the bear with funny eyes?"

"Naw, Gladly the cross-eyed bear."

I recall the new pastor who came to a church, and on his very first Sunday, had the congregation sang that very same Gospel song-- "Gladly the cross I'd bear." Then he stood up for his sermon, and the first words out of his mouth were

"There are more liars behind hymnals than anywhere else in the world."

That sounds harsh-- or at least foolhardy in a new appointment. But wait a minute. Stop and think about the words of that song. Gladly the cross I'd bear. How many of us could honestly make that affirmation?

Yet in last week's Gospel Lesson, that's precisely what Jesus called upon each and every one of us to do-- "beer our cross". Jesus spoke of the cost and effort of true discipleship. Bearing a cross is a very real fact of life for many of Jesus' followers. We choose to bear that cross. And our cross is ours alone-- it is individual-- it us totally personal.

Another old Gospel song asked "Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free? No there'd a cross for everyone, and there's a cress for me," was the answer. The cross is the cost you and I must pay for our faith. For some that might mean rejection by our family, or ridicule, or the pain of losing a friend, or even arrest, persecution or martyrdom because of a witness we make.

Any of these can be our cross. They come to us precisely because we try to live as a Christian in a non-Christian world. They come precisely because we try to preach Christ in a society that claims His Name, but finds His teachings uncomfortable. As a result, that world, that society will ruthlessly crucify Jesus, His teachings and His followers anytime they become inconvenient or too persistent in their witness.

Yet this Sunday, speaking in the very same discourse as last Sunday, Jesus speaks about our burden as well as our cross. Jesus speaks about His own willingness to bear that burden alongside us-- to bear it with us-- to beak it for us. That might sound like a contradiction-- until we realize that our cross and our burden are two very different things.

How many of you can remember Aunt Lizzie or Uncle Ned complaining loudly to one and all about their arthritis and then proclaiming--

"Well I guess I shouldn't complain. I guess this dratted arthritis is just the cross I have to bear."

I had a relative--deceased now-- who firmly believed that the cross she had to bear was that no food loser she was married to. And she gas not afraid or embarrassed to let him and everyone else in earshot know what a good Christian she was-- because she had borne the cross of being married to him for so many years. She bore that cross. She suffered for her faith-- and she let you know doubt it. And the neighbors know about it. And the people in her church know about it. And the family knew about it. Und the people in her work know about it. And anyone she ran into on the street knows about it. And last but certainly not least, she let that terrible, awful bum she was married to know about at-- boy, did she let that poor slob know about it!

That's a common misunderstanding. We think that the frailties of our human flesh, that the unhappy relationships we get caught in, that the fights, the times ox depression, the losses, the disease, the miserable jobs and false friends, and periods of unemployment and generally lousy circumstances of the world we live in are our cross. They aren’t. God did not impose those upon us. They did not come to us as a result of our faith.

Those sorts of things come to us simply because we are broken and imperfect people living and making mistakes in a broken and imperfect world. Those sorts of things come to us simply because we are, by our very nature, heir to all the weaknesses, and pitfalls and sins and troubles that are an inescapable consequence of our human condition. Those sorts of things are our Burden, not our cross.

That's an important distinction. It's a distinction that Jesus is making here because, you see, we choose to carry our cross when we become a follower of Jesus. We choose the possible ridicule and the inconvenience and the hard work and the call and the challenge and the occasional uneasiness. You and I chose it all-- when we chose to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. We choose to bear our cross --and ultimately we must bear it alone-- just as Jesus bore His.

But we don't choose our burdens. They home to us. But we need not bear them alone. Jesus speaks of his yoke in this morning’s reading. We rarely see yokes anymore but I think we all have an idea what a yoke is. A yoke is designed to allow two people, or two beasts of burden to more equitably share the task of pulling a load that they could not bear alone. The symbol of a yoke probably had more meaning in agricultural, pre-mechanized Palestine than it does in ours. But the image has remained--indeed it is even symbolized in the liturgical stole worn by those ordained an Elder, or Priest, or Presbyter.

Hardly anybody uses yokes anymore. But everybody knows what a burden is. On the streets, in stores, in town or in country, we see people carrying burdens-- shopping bars, backpacks, sacks, buckets, boxes. We see and we all of us, in our lives borne burdens.

Our lives are full of burdens-- all kinds. The burden of making a living. The burdens of making ends meet on social security. The burden of meeting a payroll. The burden of someone who makes us angry or upset no matter what they do. The burden of anger for a past wrong. The burden of sending one, two, three or more kids through college. The burden of parents who "just don't understand". The burden of emotional illness, or widowhood, or loneliness, or sexual confusion, or just coding up with something to say to the boss in order to explain why we were late to work this morning.

Jesus says to us in this morning's Gospel reading.

"Take my burden, the burden I offer you-- because it's easier and lighter than your own." Jesus speaks of burdens here as if to imply that there are some burdens we have no business even trying to bear alone. These are burdens we can get rid of-- if we want to. Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus gives us an idea of what some of those unnecessary burdens might be.

Jesus accused the priests and Pharisees of the established religion of having placed such burdens of the shoulders of the people. Burdens that oppressed-- liturgicals burdens, ridiculously rigorous, fundamentalist interpretations of the laws of Moses. You couldn't work on the Sabbath-- even heal, even help, even swat a fly off your own nose. You had to wear certain things, act in certain ways, pray in certain ways, and even eat certain things.

And to them Jesus said,

"Throw that burden away. The Sabbath was made for men and women-- not vice-versa."

Jesus accused the powers-that-be of His time, of having laid the burden of political exploitation and taxation on the already overly burdened backs of the people.

"You know," He said. And they all did--having all suffered under Roman colonial power. "You know how your rulers lord it over you. They call themselves your masters. Throw that burden away. No one ought to be able to call themselves a master over you... No one ought to weigh on the shoulders of another."

But Jesus didn't only speak of the burdens others place upon us. He also spoke of the burdens we place upon our own tired and terrified shoulders. Remember when the rich young man came up to Jesus, stepping out of this brand new four-wheel drive sport-utility chariot? Remember how he flicked that imaginary speck of dust off his brand new robe with the alligator embroidered on his chest, and asked Jesus what he should do to be saved?

And Jesus looked at him, and knew him, and liked him at first sight.

"Take that burden of wealth off your shoulders." He said. "Sell everything you have and start a new life. Follow me. Take my burden, for its light."

We all of us carry so many burdens. Some are unavoidable. But some are not. We assume unnecessary obligations. We carry around guilt we can't purge ourselves of. We hear the burdens of anger, bad habits, wrong-headed ways of looking at the world, addictions, grudges, hates and prejudices.

Maybe we think we ought to be driving a certain type of car, or living in a certain sized house, in a better neighborhood. Maybe we think we ought to be earning more money. Maybe we think someone has wronged us unjustly. Maybe it's the age-old desire to keep up with the Joneses, or show up that cousin whose achievements mom was always throwing into our faces.

Sometimes a desired object or goal can become a new burden. When we finally get that BAW, the upkeep becomes a burden on us. When we get that promotion, the new responsibilities are more than we can handle. When we finally buy that condo, the repairs and maintenance and taxes are more than we were paying in rent.

Advertising burdens us to eat nutritionally valueless foods--breakfast cereals that are all sugar, fat-free chips that make us nauseous, so-called convenience foods that take as long and are twice as expensive as cooking from scratch. Ads can burden us to buy un-needed clothes because a certain style or look is the popular look of the moment. Somebody makes a movie and we all have to have cowboy boots. Then the Cubs win the World Series and we're all wearing blue jerseys and baseball hats. Somebody makes a TV show and all of the little kids have to wear purple dinosaurs to school. Right now I think the style for young people is hip-hop--fashion based on the clothes they issue you in prison. All sorts of useless things get paraded before our eyes in an attempt to force upon us the useless burden of being "with it", or "in".

What I want to know is-- in with what? In what? Some of us lay upon ourselves the burden of a full calendar, working so many hours that our children wonder who's that stranger at the breakfast table. Some of us lay upon ourselves and our loved ones the burden of gambling, or substance abuse, or compulsive behavior, or living someone else's life for them.

And Jesus keeps telling us,

"Get rid of those burdens! Throw them off. Throw them away-- religious, political, materialistic, economic, emotional, or physical. Get yourself free of them and follow me. Take up my lighter burden."

In his letter to the Romans, Paul writes that "there is no need for any of us to open our unspiritual selves." When we do that, we burden ourselves with more than our inevitable human burden. We find ourselves worried sick, overworked, exploited, stressed out. Sooner or later, when we keep obeying our unspiritual selves, we find ourselves dyad--early.

The answer is clear and simple and straight-forward. We need to learn to relieve the strain, or better yet, avoid it. No more eating wrongly. No more drinking wrongly. No more smoking, no more over-working ourselves, no excess worry-- no more. We need to learn to shake off those unnecessary burdens-- be merciful to our bodies and spirits-- that we might live.

The answer is straight-forward and clear and simple. And Jesus is saying to us,

"Take my yoke. Let me share the load with you. Mine is the yoke of love. Carry my burden-- for it is light, it is healthy, it is joyful. Mine is the burden of faith."

Jesus calls us to understand the distinction between cross and burden.

Ultimately, none of us can bear all our burdens alone. Some, of course, can't be shirked. We can't get rid of arthritis, or the need to make a living. But our faith can lend us strength to bear them. That's what Jesus means when He speaks about yokes and sharing our burdens.

The plain fact is, we all have more than enough burdens to bear in this sinful, imperfect, fallen world of ours. We all have more than enough to deal with without adding more. Sooner or later our natural, human, inevitable burdens will catch up with us and grind us down. Sooner or later we'll fall under the weight of them. But it will definitely be much sooner than it will be later if we continue to insist in trying to bear all our burdens alone. It's only when we understand and acknowledge that fact of life that we can begin to recognize and discard those extraneous, unnecessary burdens we've been hauling around and discover the lighter burden of Christ.

I recall many years ago, when I was a young pastor in Rockford. One of my members was a ER nurse at St. Anthony's Hospital. She told me of seeing men in their twenties admitted with heart attacks. Working men, skilled tradesmen, suddenly out of work in a local economy with the second highest unemployment rake in the country at that time.

These were hard-working family men who could not bear alone the burden of being out of work through no fault of their own, with no immediate prospect of work. Who could stand up to that sort of stress? Who could bear that burden? Alone, with no help, no one to share, no one to unload our emotions to-- none of us.

Yet together we can bear such a burden. It becomes less onerous. That's the point about yokes. None of us can make it alone in this life. We can’t bear all our burdens, all our misfortunes, all our sins, all our trials alone.

But yoked together with caring brothers and sisters, we can.

United in support groups, working in mutual cooperative efforts, joined in self-help groups, yoked alongside one another and our Savior, we can bear any burden. Not just our own, but the other person's as well. And we can bear it lovingly, and joyfully, and gladly.

If the our Gospel hymn is right-- if we must bear our cross alone, we can find courage and power through the Holy Spirit to accept that and to even persevere. And as another, equally beloved hymn asserts, we are also able to "... share each other’s woes, our mutual burdens bear."

Thanks be to God who gives us the Spirit to strengthen us, and sends our Savior to bear with us, along with our brothers and sisters, the yoke of love-- that we might all bear our burdens together. And Jesus says to us,

"Take my yoke--the yoke of love. Carry with me, my burden-- and yours as well. Let us bear them together. For my burden is the burden of faith, and together we will find that my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and healthy, and joyful. Amen.

Ray Charles - America,The Beautiful (LIVE) HD

Let America Be America Again

Ain't No Grave Can Hold My Body Down, by the MSU Singers