Burden or Blessing? Both.

Sometimes a burden can be a blessing.  Sometimes a blessing can be a burden.  Often the two are one and the same.

There is an indigent jobless man who comes by the church frequently.  When I first met Joseph, I confess that I considered him a burden.  He interrupted my work; he always needed something; he was very persistent; and, being a large man, he was somewhat intimidating.  I learned from clergy colleagues that several had told him to leave the church and never come back.

But somehow, only by the sheer grace of God, I began discovering that I liked him. Joseph has a nice sense of humor and a very interesting story.  I’ve learned what it’s like to survive in his world as he does, and I find I’ve become less judgmental.  He’s persistent, yes, but gentle.  I sort of enjoy his company, and I think what he needs more than food or money is … well, someone who enjoys his company.

I’m beginning to claim burdensome Joseph as a blessing from God.

Some of these thoughts were stirred up by a conversation at our Wednesday prayer group.  We heard these words from the Psalms:  I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law.  This blessing has fallen to me, for I have kept your precepts.  (Ps. 119:55-56)

In Christian faith we’re taught that the law was a burden to people.  “God has all these rules,” we’re taught, “and people tried in vain to keep them all, and they couldn’t, and the law of God was a liability in their relationship with God.”  But Jews didn’t share that belief at all.  They saw it differently.

The law – the Torah, the teaching – was a gift from a loving God.  It was a source of inspiration, a source of guidance, ethics, and praise.  Obedience to it was a blessing, as the Psalmist states above.  Just a few verses earlier the same writer says, I find my delight in your commandments, because I love them.  God’s Word was clearly a blessing.

Yet the early Christians weren’t entirely wrong, either.  The law could and often did become an obstacle on the path to holiness.  Its words judged and convicted people; it set standards that were impossible to achieve; it prevented many Jews from experiencing God’s blessing because of its high demands and expectations.

It was both burden and blessing.

And so it is with much of life.  We’re burdened by a chronically ill child or an aged parent.  We have a medical condition that persists. We’re in a job that wasn’t what we dreamed of, but it’s too late to change now.  Many situations that feel like burdens are really opportunities to know God’s blessing. And we can grow inwardly because of the illness, or the caretaking, or the lost dream. 

We can instead reframe our sense of affliction.  We can name the gifts it has brought us, even against our wills.  We may have more patience, more compassion, more love than we would otherwise. We find unique inspiration. We can begin to see how God has led us by unconventional paths to a harder-won and more valuable wisdom. 

I hope you’ll ponder and pray over your burdens.  Some of them may need to be lifted and given to Jesus, nailed to his cross.  (Remember that he said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”)  But some burdens become lighter when we see them “from the back side” and recognize them as gifts from God. 

Then we can say gratefully with the Psalmist, This blessing has fallen to me.

 

Pastor Larry