July 9, 2017              Lightening the Load
                                                                                                                                                                    

         About 35 years ago, I was a student at SIU-Edwardsville, and while I was there my student job was as a catering supervisor, setting up coffees and breakfasts, lunches and dinners for meetings at the university. Over six months, I got pretty good at that job, and when the old student manager left, I applied for and got the job of student catering manager.

         Now the first month of being the student catering manager wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. The difference between being a supervisor and being a manager is that a supervisor takes instructions, while a manager is supposed to think for themselves, see problems that arise, and solve them before they become a problem. The problem was that I kept thinking like a supervisor, and kept asking advice, and seeking instructions, which really didn’t help me to anticipate problems and keep them from happening.

         Well, after a month, I had my first review, and it wasn’t particularly good. I felt like a heavy burden had been laid upon me, that I wasn’t doing the job correctly, and that the demands of the job were overwhelming. It was at that point that one of the civil service managers told me to stop looking for advice, and simply start doing what I thought would be the best job that I could. And so I did, and I began to think more and seek advice less, and the job became easier, and I ended up spending the last two years of college in that position.

         The reason I focused on this experience this morning is because of Jesus saying in our gospel lesson this morning, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

         When Jesus speaks about a yoke, he isn’t talking about the yoke that are placed on oxen. He is speaking about the yoke placed on the people of Israel by the law of moses. In Jesus day, that yoke had evolved from the ten commandments and the laws in the book of Leviticus, to over 600 laws that those who sought God had to follow in order to be considered righteous and holy. And so, for those who were seeking to know God in their lives, they were encouraged to always seek the advice of the Pharisees, to make sure they were living according to the law. Which of course, with some 600 laws, had become an impossible task. And when people are weighed down with impossible tasks, then life becomes a heavy burden to them. And so Jesus, sought to lift that burden from the lives of the people, to help them instead focus on what it means to love God and to love neighbor, for that in itself fulfills the law.

         Way back in Seminary, I remember reading a book about the struggles of adolescents becoming adults. Many times, adolescents, in their teens and even twenties, suffer under the heavy burden of getting things right. They have parents who have rules for them, teachers who have rules for them, and society which has rules for them. And every time they make a mistake they have their failures pointed out to them, and after a while, they feel like they are being asked to do the impossible – to grow up and live their lives perfectly in the eyes of those who have power over them. And of course, they can go through a stage of resentment, and they begin to act out, even at times in self-defeating or self-destructive ways.

         But what adolescents often don’t see at this stage in their lives, is the love that their parents have for them. Or the care that their teachers actually have to help them learn their subjects and move on. To them, everyone is out to get them, not on how people are actually working to help them. And so, the book I read focused on helping people to recognize these gift that had been given to them in life, and to seek for them to live not under the heavy burden of authority, but in the lighter burden of blessing and gratitude for what they have accomplished.

         The reason I bring this up is because heavy burdens don’t just happen to adolescents, but to all of us in different stages of our lives, in our work relationships, in our marriages, in the passing of a loved one, with our families, and friends. Many times we feel out of our depth in life, and we seek advice. Sometimes that advice is constructive and helpful, at other times it is oppressive and burdensome. But the key to escaping these heavy burdens in life, is not to focus so much on the failures, but to look always to the presence of love in our lives, and to the people who are a blessing to us.

         And I think that is what Jesus is talking to us about in our gospel lesson this morning. Because Jesus says, that only the Son knows the Father, and only those who know the Son, have the father revealed to them. For it is the Son, who is the full expression of God’s love for us, and to all who hold fast to that love in their lives, they are set free from the heavy burdens that the world places upon us. And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ!