'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.