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"Bearing and Being Borne"
"Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, The empire represented by these gods is on the verge of falling. And at the 11th hour an attempt is made to remove the gods' images from their temples where they are in danger. The statues are taken down from their pedestals and loaded on beasts of burden. The two supreme ones in the Babylonian empire have collapsed. Those who towered so mighty have had a fall! Now they are burdens to be borne
What a reversal of roles. The worshippers obliged to save their gods, for the gods can't save themselves. Instead of the gods bearing the people at times when pain and destruction threaten to engulf the people, the gods themselves require to be borne. They have become a burden. How true the picture is! There is so much to bear. We are children of this modern age. We take things as we see them: life is bearing one thing after another. Whatever bearing is to be done, you do it. It is a part of demonstrating your self-reliance, your freedom. Some do it well, some don't, and a lot are in the middle. But you can pick what you will and will not bear. But as life progresses, you bear some things because you have to. That generates no little resentment. Freedom of choice becomes all the more important precisely when the choice begins to disappear. And bearing becomes a great, crushing weight. Bearing can consume our lives. There are so many things that need to be done. The result can be intense frustration: you know what has to be done, but there is no time, no energy. We push our ability to bear a seriousness it can't bear. Life cannot be sustained by our consistency or efforts. We tell ourselves we have to be productive. We value ourselves and each other in terms of productivity, what we contribute concretely to our jobs, our tasks, our commitments (and they are many) in turn benefits the whole of society in which we live. We have convinced ourselves that the sum total of who we are, is the sum total of our own expectations of ourselves and other people's expectations of ourselves. What a load to bear! We can spend a whole life bearing that. We admire those who are realistic about what they can bear. They ask: Is this a thing I can carry? How much of it can I afford to carry? They are our heroes. But even for them the load is heavy. Some try to make it seem effortless and spontaneous. And they spend an awful lot of energy trying to hide the price being paid. So much energy can be squandered trying to keep up a good front behind which are hearts suffering, discouraged, and angry. That is so unrealistic and destructive and unnecessary, and so painfully true. Everybody has expectations of everybody else. We impose them on each other. There is a lot to bear. We get ourselves into a lot of bearing. No wonder we don't bear up well. We have forgotten that bearing is always coupled with being borne. Bearing is horribly destructive of our ability to love and to be loved. Too much bearing can so easily foster judgmentalism, envy, rage, masochism, and manipulative relationships. We hide our real feelings and motivations from ourselves and others. That brings death, not life. Bearing that demoralizes or makes you feel isolated from God, others, or yourself is not from God. Many people are accustomed to going through life reproaching themselves for what they perceive to be their failures: I was terrible; no one else is this irresponsible. You are taking on yourself the role of God against yourself. But you are not treating yourself as God in fact treats you. You are exercising violence, while God treats all of us gently, never forcing or bullying us, or riding roughshod over us. We need to cultivate the discipline of giving up violence to self in exchange for God's gentleness. In Isaiah's image we are those who bear, we are those trying to load the images. No, more, we are the weary beasts. We have forgotten that bearing is always coupled with being borne. We need to listen to the text. There is another story that asks you right now to be a part of it: one that will carry you.
You may believe that your life is a bearing life. It isn't, it is a borne, carried, shared life. Your life is shared by a living, lifting, loving God. Your own power and genius have never been sufficient. There is a mighty difference between the carried gods and the God who carries. Life is not a load, it is a lift. Our lives are a process of discovery that life is more borne than bearing. Think back over your experience: that solid help, support, insight, comfort that was not yours, not even carried, but given. You were borne, lifted, carried, saved. True of your whole life: brought, sustained, and provided - here. Our lives are fragile, our fortunes various, and we have to depend on God to preserve us. More than simple safety is at stake. There is giving and love which time and growth do not diminish. There is no voice more reassuring, no love more unconditional and embracing. God loves us freely, no strings, even when we are unworthy and incapable of reciprocal love. Even when humanity fails in its obligations of conduct and decency, it does not forfeit the divine concern. God still speaks, revives, cares. The good and caring God is enmeshed in the trials and triumphs of human life. This God looks on us and the world with love. No other force can so fill the night with presence; or hear unspoken fears, or calm uncertain stirrings when the darkness is so strong. God is love. God loves beyond our dreams, extravagantly without limit. Whatever we might imagine God's love for us to be, it is far deeper, steadier, gentler. It can't be manipulated or bargained with. It can't be earned or lost. It surrounds us as the mountains surround Jerusalem. It fills the whole creation with light. It illumines life, opening our eyes. It is the air we breathe, the ground we walk on, the food we eat. We are borne. God's love dismantles the structures of weariness and dethrones the powers of fatigue. Depressed people do not want to act, and despairing people think it does not matter if they do act. We are borne, carried. The first step out of the depression and despair of bearing is the clear embrace of a faithful, loving God who overturns our refusal of relationship. This God enables us to learn anew how to walk with God; to have the strength to know how weak we are and how much we are in need of guidance and love. God's love for us as human beings precedes, enables, and gives meaning to all human love. That goes back to our very creation. This is not the love of a dispassionate and just King for a distant subject, but an intimate, tender, vulnerable love. Not even sin can destroy God's love and yearning for us. A story from the Christians living in desert of Egypt in the 3rd century AD reveals the truth:
That is true of preachers and Presbyterians. To be borne is to realize that there is hope. To what end? To achieve that for which we are created and called: to love, to see and know one another, God, and even ourselves as more than an extension of our own needs, desires, and fantasies. The promise of the gospel is this: in God all things are finally healed. Some of the healing can only be accomplished in ways we cannot know. But much more than most of us are ever willing to imagine can be healed in the course of this life as well if we would but let God's love work. If the goal of the Christian life is love, that which destroys love is by definition not of God. Being borne gives us strength and compassion toward ourselves and other people. Being borne changes our ways of seeing, feeling, thinking and bearing. Bearing is for life. But it will change because we are borne. Bearing will not be or become an intolerable burden, it will become a joy. As Jesus says the yoke is easy, the burden is light. We will bear the things that really are worth bearing: the pain and need and suffering of our neighbors. This is the bearing that is necessary if we are to grow in love. This is the bearing that will bear us into love. If you are a Christian, you will have problems in this world, exactly as other folks do. However, you will deal with them differently. For remember being borne is for life too. It's forever. So as we move toward the busiest time of the year, find a few moments, look around you and remember and give thanks that you have been brought to this time and place by the efforts of so many others, by God’s grace. And while there are many things still to bear, we have all been borne thus far and we will be carried home. |
F.
Harry Daniel