Hearts Weighed Down
Luke 21: 25-36
I know very few people who would claim that being human is easy. To be sure, life for most of us, isn’t difficult every second of the day, but on the whole, a life lived well requires effort and at the very least some amount of intention. Most of those people throughout history who have left their indelible mark on the human map- lives that were full enough to illumine the lives of those around them, have walked through the passing of each day with a focus. I suppose that some people get lucky, but it seems to me that most of us who care about living a good and full life, feel the burden of our hearts weighed down because we have to try quite hard to live the kind of life to which God calls us each and every day.
In spite of the worlds we craft as children, the gems that come our way throughout our lives, the really good experiences or relationships, the genuinely precious parts of life, tend to appear after a million small and often boring every day decisions. Most of us have to choose each step in order to see some kind of holy fruit from our labor. We have to think about what we say before we say it, if we want to put our best selves forward. We have to exercise, eat right and take our vitamins if we want our body to be kind to us in our later years. We have to be willing to be wrong and to change course if we want to grow. We have to be open to forgiving those who hurt us, especially family members, if we want to be the kind of people Jesus asks us to be. We have to make a point of staying in touch with friends if we want to have them around for a long time. We have to be patient with our brothers and sisters in Christ even when it feels impossible because this is what we promised when said we wanted to follow Jesus. For most of us, living a good life, a life in God, isn’t easy.
My oldest nephew Phoenix started preschool this year and even though my telephone conversations with him are usually limited to talk about Thomas the Train and his behavior on the tracks, I have started to imagine how shocking it must be to learn that being human requires work, or at least being the kind of human that God calls us to be. Before we know very much, we know nothing of the reality that awaits us. Before we are introduced to life fully, we are fed when we are hungry, we are tucked into our beds when we are tired and we are held tightly when life is just too much.
But the world awaits us and the introductions at some point must begin. Phoenix is just starting to face those myriad vulnerabilities that make being alive what it is: the truth that our pets and the people we love will die, that we really do need to share, that the good stuff isn’t found in a package, that our actions have consequences, that bees sting and that suffering is unavoidable. And when we begin to learn these facts of life, many of us can start to feel like we have things somewhat figured out. Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “Year after year we add to our experiences of the world, pushing against our limits to find out what will budge and what will not, and gradually we gain a sense of our own power. We find that we can make certain things happen and we can prevent other things from happening; we can make friends and we can make enemies; we can say yes and we can say no.” And despite what we learn when life sticks out her hand and introduces herself and says, “Hello, nice to meet you, most of what is thrown your way is out of your hands, you should know that now,” we can fool ourselves into thinking that we have more power than we do.
I remember coming home from summer camp when I was just beginning that painful process of differentiating myself from my parents. I was somewhere between adolescence and teenage years and I had begun to fool myself into thinking that I was already an adult. On the advice of my sassy young camp counselor, I came home to announce to my mom and stepdad that I didn’t have to listen to them and that I in fact could do what I wanted. My announcement was received as one would expect. I was sent to my room and reminded that if I was living in their house and being supported by their hard work, then I would indeed live by their rules.
And often it can feel like life does this to us again and again- just when we think we’ve got things under control, just when we think we have enough information to move ahead with boldness, just when we feel like our destiny is entirely in our hands, we are stopped in our tracks and reminded of how small we really are. We carefully prepare for retirement or plan for the kids’ higher education or plot out when particular things will happen at a given time and for a moment we can pretend that we have it all under control and that we really can map out our lives as easily as hitting home on the GPS in the car. But then, the 401k collapses or something unexpected appears on an x-ray or dear friend moves away and we remember that what the world painted for us was an illusion. We remember that no matter how much planning or prayer or picking out exactly how we want our lives to go, we cannot control exactly what will happen. Life will continue to toss us what it will, and we are left with discerning how to respond to whatever comes our way. It seems to me that most of us who care about living a good and full life, feel the burden of our hearts weighed down because we have to try quite hard to live the kind of life to which God calls us each and every day, especially given how little is really in our hands.
So many of our stories in the Bible are about this heavy human truth: being the kind of people God asks us to be requires a lot of us. And most of the time the only decision we can really make is not how our life will go, but how we will respond to what life offers us. I am sure that Mary would have preferred, at least in the beginning, not to have had to face the consequences of being an unwed teenage mother. I am sure that Joseph would have rather had his life unfold in the right order: courtship, marriage, then a baby. I am sure that most of those who were part of welcoming God in the form of a baby, would have preferred that God stuck to their plans instead of messing everything up and turning the world upside down.
The Gospel of Luke that we read today records the kind of confusion found when our worlds feel as if they are spinning out of control. It speaks of the pain experienced by those who were waiting for life to change and for God to bring some comfort. The scripture is shouting to the people in Jerusalem to lift up their heads because their redemption and liberation is just around the corner (21:28). The scripture feels like a first century way of saying, “Don’t worry good things are right around the corner!” And immediately before this passage, we read of Jesus speaking about Jerusalem being trampled underfoot by Gentiles until their time is up (21:24). The Gospel of Luke begins this way too, as we read of songs of liberation from Mary, Zechariah and Anna. Many of the people who hung around Jesus were waiting for things to change, to get easier, more comfortable and they thought that it would happen right away. The writers of the Gospel of Luke seemed to hold an expectation that the climax of history would include the liberation of Jerusalem from its enemies and the creation of the kingdom of God with Jesus the Son of Man as its Messiah. In other words, they thought that life would be something entirely different, something more palatable and controllable.
In some ways it feels a bit odd that our scripture for the beginning of the holy season of Advent begins with such apocalyptic and cosmic language, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
But even if these are words are written long ago, they are words of profound longing, words of deep human yearning for a fulfillment of the kind of life of which Jesus speaks- words of a world that moves in the mind of God, words of a world perhaps we can only glimpse on occasion, words of a world where in just a minute things will turn around. The Gospel writers tell us that the Temple will be forsaken and destroyed and we know that they were putting these words together in a period of profound violence and destruction. We know they were hurting, that their hearts were weighed down by the world and they were looking for God to break in and offer another way.
And into this pain and frustration, into this world where we seem to be able to control very little, into this life where things change and it hurts, where our plans fall apart, where our best intentions do not help, Jesus breathes these words, “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Some scholars claim that these words are about the suffering that will find those who have let God down in the end, and we could come to that conclusion given their apocalyptic nature. But we know that this account is about how hard life was for those who put these words together. We know their cries because they are also our own. Like them, we know that even as we love hard and live with hope, none of us can escape the pain that life brings to us. We too long for God to break in and offer another way. And I wonder if these words for the beginning of our walk through Advent are words for us now, messages about God’s promises to be with us now, right amid the cold hard facts of life. William Loader writes, “The point of <this scripture> is neither to scare us nor to lead us astray into calculating particular dates and events. Instead, “when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (vs. 28). The promise is that in these events, God’s gracious purposes are being worked out; the divine promises are being kept. Even though it may seem like the world and our lives are out of control, God’s word of promise is given to us so that we will not be drawn into despair or cynicism. And God’s word will not pass away. A future hope given by the creator of the world will not lead us away from life in the present but will anchor us more firmly and faithfully within it…”
In this season as we find ourselves amid busyness and craziness, grouchy people and overworked cashiers, what would it look like to remember Jesus’ words? “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down…” Because when our hearts are weighed down, it is easy to miss what we were waiting to see all along. Maybe this is the core of Advent, the very meaning of the word is “coming into view.” Even when our hearts our weighed down, even when life is hard and our best laid plans unravel, “there will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars…” Even when chaos roars all around us, God comes into view, not in the ultimate, final sense, but perhaps God comes into view in the tiny glimpses. God comes into view when we aim to try each and every day to do those little things- the mundane and boring things that are part of what we promised when we said we wanted to follow Jesus. God comes into view when we remember that God came into view in a baby, an unplanned pregnancy, with no savings account, no nursery painted and ready, no baby shower with perfectly wrapped packages. God came into view, amid hearts weighed down, when life was hard, but God came anyway. May we make space for God to come into view right where we are. Amen.
The Preaching Life by Barbara Brown Taylor. (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1993) 90.
William C. Loader First Thoughts on Year C Gospel Passages from the Lectionary
Advent 1 www.textweek.com