OUR BURDEN IS LIGHT

Isaiah 42:5-9, Luke 2:25-32

A Communion Meditation

The title of my communion meditation this morning really says all I want to communicate this morning; the message for today is a kind of one-liner. If I were to write theological bumper stickers, I would be I guess sort of proud of this one.

"Our burden is light." Some of you will no doubt recall the line of scripture in Matthew 11 when Jesus says, "come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest...for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." That has to be one of favorite lines in the scriptures, perhaps because I'm partial to paradox. It is a paradox; an oxymoron. It's like saying, "a gentle hurricane." A burden by nature cannot be light--it is a burden; it is heavy.

But the title for my meditation this morning uses the first person plural form of address, its possessive. Our burden is light. The question I want to explore, just briefly, this morning--as we celebrate World Communion Sunday, as we celebrate how Jesus Christ binds all nations together in one world-wide feast--is this: what is the calling of our nation? What is it to which God is calling us, if we are to apply the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition to our own national life? (Which is, I realize, a dangerous question.)

We can begin exploring that question as we think about God's relationship to the nation we read about in the Scriptures, the nation whom God has called: Israel. We understand the nation of Israel (as we sometimes I think are tempted to think of ourselves in America) as the chosen people. "I have chosen you, O Jacob, to be my people." And we might think about that--why did God choose these people? On the surface, it may seem to be a cause of pride. We must really be some hot stuff, that God would choose us. God must have chosen us because we are morally superior material to work with. And so on.

Well...those of you who are doing the Year of the Bible--those still on track with it--know that the scriptures show us a very different picture. God indeed did not choose this people for their moral superiority, or their superiority in any sense. God often gets exasperated with them--calls them a stiff-necked people; God is tempted so many times to wash God's hands of them. No--as Isaiah the prophet makes clear, the reason God chose these people is not that they are any great shakes--but that God might make an example of them. God says "I have chosen you...I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the peoples, a light to the nations." To be called by God is not a privilege; it is a burden. The reason God chose Israel was to take this raw human material and make of it a light to other nations. The objective of Israel is to display forth to others a nation that practices values that are vastly different from the rest of the world. In the words of Isaiah, the job of the nation is "to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon." The job of the nation is to cause other nations to say, "hey--look at them. They don't oppress people, they don't bow down to gods made of stone and wood. They are different."

"Our burden is light" would be a good bumper sticker for the nation seeking to practice the values of the Bible. Our burden is not to safeguard our national security at all costs--in fact, as the Confession of 1967 states, faithfulness requires our risking our own national security to practice these values. Our burden is to be light--a light to the world, showing forth God's justice and God's peace.

As Christians, we believe that light begins here, at this table. It begins with the unseen host of this feast of which we are about to partake. I wanted us to read this story of Simeon, this unnoticed saint who spent his life hanging out for his whole life in the Temple--who saw that in this person, Jesus, the calling of the whole nation was bound up. This is the person who is going to help us fulfill that calling to which we've been called--to be a nation not trusting in guns or military might, but a nation trusting in the light of God, a nation seeking to be a light to the whole of humankind.

Will we ever get there? Will we ever do any more than signifying and pointing to that true City of God to which we all belong? No. But we are called to bear the burden of light, all of us, to display as individuals and as a nation the light of God, as we know it in this person, in Jesus Christ, who is our light.

For our yoke is easy, and our burden is light.

Let the feast begin. Amen.

 

October 1, 2006