“The Burden We Bear”
Luke 7:36-50
Sanbornton Congregational Church, UCC
June 17, 2007
(Please do not re-print or re-use without permission of the author)
Let’s take a minute and really try to enter into the scripture passage Ralph read a moment ago. Let’s set the stage, visualize the scene. Jesus has been invited to share a meal with the Pharisees, the religious authorities of his time. This is a gathering of men who view themselves as righteous, proper, holy – living in accordance with the Torah. It is somewhat of a big deal that Jesus is invited to dine with them. Jesus’ teachings have mostly been of great confusion to the Pharisees, if not disgraceful. To them, Jesus’ practices, the way he teaches and the people he hangs out with are definitely not worthy of a holy man, a religious authority. Their inviting Jesus to dine is a bit of risk really – for by being seen with him – the Pharisees either risk legitimizing Jesus’ ministry, or disgracing their own.
And then! This woman – and let’s be clear – any woman’s appearance would be scandalous at this point – but this woman of ill-repute no less, shows up at the scene and performs a most intimate act right before their very eyes. She anoints his feet with expensive oil, with tears, with her hair. Imagine this! They want to avert their eyes; they want her to leave. Even more, they want Jesus to throw her out, to make her stop.
The Pharisee’s burden at that moment – is one we can all connect with – what will people say? Her very presence tarnishes their reputations. That they tolerated this act, watched it even! They might as well hang up their robes and forget being seen in respectable company ever again.
What gall this woman has! To barge into to this gathering of holy men and dare to touch Jesus in this way! What has happened to her? What has taken hold of her?
To understand, we must remember her burden: the weight of a difficult and painful life; the weight of being used and abused; of being viewed as unclean, the lowest of the low. She has no status, no standing, no self-respect.
Yet something has changed her, something lifted off her to embolden her to enter this distinguished gathering of respectable men. We will never know the story behind the story. She must have heard Jesus’ teachings or been in his presence before to be so transformed. Jesus, somehow took away her burden prior to this scene. And what we see is her outpouring of gratitude for realizing that her life does have value, that she is worthy of love, worthy of forgiveness. We see before our very eyes what it means to be given new life. We understand now her exuberant and extravagant act of love.
Surely we know what it means to have burden lifted off us – that feeling of lightness and well-being – when the cause of our worry has resolved itself: the test that comes back negative; the surgery that is successful; the job offer that finally comes through; the safe return of a loved one who has traveled far away.
Oh, the burdens we carry without even realizing it some times!
I was reminded of this on Friday when I attended a workshop given by the keynote speaker of the annual meeting of the UCC NH Conference on Friday. She was talking to us about the power of prayer and how she has seen it transform churches.
She asked us if we’d be willing to try an experiment with her and we all agreed.
(DESCRIBE praying for each other)
…describe your experience.
…describe some of the feedback from the group – “terrifying and luscious” “uncomfortable”
Praying need not be hard. All we need do – is to hold the person, as the Quakers say, to hold them in the light and love and God. We don’t even need words. We just hold them in love and support, in hope and faith.
In a recent article in the journal, Weavings, the author suggests that we go even further – that we actually take literally the admonition of Paul in Galatians to “Bear one another’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” To bear each other’s burdens in prayer as a spiritual discipline.
How to do this? We can offer to a friend, a relative something concrete – tell them –this morning or this night – I will hold the burden for you. I will hold it for you with God – you can give it over to me and know that I am carrying it for you.
Or I think of the Buddhist practice of Tonglen – when we dare to take in – to breathe in the suffering we might read about in the paper. Breathe it in, feel it and then breathe out peace; breathe in loneliness, breathe out companionship.
We do it – because Jesus did it for us in his death on the cross and holds us still.
To me, what I loved most about praying for the two people in the workshop – is that we cut right to the chase of what is most important. Without even knowing one another – we went right to what was weighing on our hearts – without pretense, or defensiveness. Without having to pretend that everything is alright and perfect in our lives. We went to the very stuff of life and living. There was no concern, no burden to carry about what the others would think of us.
And sometimes I think this is the greatest burden of all. We worry – about what our neighbors will say, what our family will say, what our co-workers will say – if we dare to share what is really going on with us.
This certainly WAS NOT a burden Jesus carried. He received the woman’s act of exuberant and extravagant love – with grace, without a hint of embarrassment. He allowed her to express her gratitude – and this was itself a huge gift. He did not shame her. He did not say – oh no, no, no, you do not need to do this for me.
He received her love with gratitude and was himself touched by it. Some say that her act of anointing was a preparation for Jesus’ trial and suffering. She ministered to him in a way no one else in the Gospels ever did. She washed and touched his weary, sore feet – she lifted for him, for a brief moment the burden of ministering to so many people who needed his love and his care.
And this too is an example for us.
It is one thing to pray and yet another – to allow others to pray for us. Can we be gracious, accepting that we are in need of prayer? Can we release our pride to acknowledge that we need the help of another, that we cannot go it alone one more day? Can we express our vulnerability to each other?
Quoting the mystical writer Charles Williams, who was part of C.S. Lewis’ literary circle from his novel Descent into Hell when a friend offers to carry another’s fear for her
“If you want to live in pride and division and anger, you can. But if you will be part of the best of us, and live and laugh and be ashamed with us, then you must be content to be helped. You must give your burden up to someone else, and you must carry someone else’s burden. You’ll find it quite easy if you let yourself do it.” (Weavings, July/August 2007, p. 32)
Who knows, when we let another bear our burdens for us what weight might be lifted off us? Who knows what extravagant and exuberant act of love we might be moved to share?
Amen.
