Gal 6: 1-10 “Bearing One Another’s Burdens”

As I was preparing to leave my last appointment, one of the churches that I served was knee-deep in visioning, which is essentially the process of discerning who we are and who God is calling us to be as a particular local church. One of the things I did during this visioning process was ask a lot of questions. Why do people need Jesus Christ in their lives? Why do people need the Church universal? Why do people need this particular local church? How would the town we were located in be effected if this particular local church no longer existed? But one my favorite questions was what makes the local church different from any other club or organization. We took time to really dig deeply into that question before my lay leader started talking about her experience as part of a local knitting group. She said the difference was that the church was family. While she though she could probably call on her knitting group if she was going through a tough time, she knew that she could call on her church to respond. 

This is our last week of learning from the churches in Galatia. We have talked about leaning on what the word of God says about who we are and whose we are. We discovered what it means to have true freedom in Christ - a freedom marked by the grace of God who will not let us stay where we are in our faith journey. This week we are going to delve into what the lay leader was trying to describe - bearing one another’s burdens. 

Show of hands - how many of you have at least one person in your life that you know you can trust and turn to when times to get hard? A burden bearer? Someone who loves you unconditionally? If you raised your hands know that you are in the minority. Most people have a hard time identifying a true friend they can trust in their lives. I have been blessed with three such friends, who I know would be here in a heartbeat if I needed them, and I would do the same for them. They are my confidants. My prayer warriors. My burden bearers. 

The truth is the Church struggles with this idea of bearing the burdens of others because we often take it to extremes. Some churches function as if they need to know everyone’s business in detail before they can respond. They function more like gossip mills then burden bearers, and the result is often a breech in trust. Such behavior often leads two of the pillars of the Church to come tumbling down - love and unity. Is it loving to talk about someone behind their back? Do we hold the struggles of our brothers and sisters gently in our hands, or do we try to beat them down with advice?

The opposite is true of other churches - they believe that everything is everyone’s own business and don’t trust one another enough share anything. But this is just as detrimental to relationships within and outside of the Church because we aren’t living into the example of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ - who showed us what it looked like to bear one another’s burdens on the cross.

I think we struggle as churches with what it means to bear one another’s burdens because we haven’t really taken the time to look into what Paul meant when he wrote about bearing one another’s burdens in a way that fulfills the law of Christ. What is Paul talking about when he wrote about the law of Christ and how does it apply to us today? 

Different folks fall into two different camps when they study the law of Christ. The first set of folks believe that Paul is trying to make a distinction between the law of Christ and some of the Jewish law found in the Torah. Those things that can be described as the work of the law about ritual eating and other things that separate Jews from Gentiles. Whenever Paul would enter into an area to raise up disciples of Christ he would preach both to Jews and Gentiles, not about the things that make them different under the Jewish law, but more importantly, what unifies them in Christ. So the law of Christ was that which unifies not that which divides. 

The second camp of folks who study the Scriptures think that the law of Christ is that which Christ summed up in his teachings: love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength (which came from the scriptures in Deutoronmy) and love your neighbor as yourself (found in Leviticus). That was the law of Christ that was seen on the cross, of being obedient ever to the point of death and loving those who persecuted and killed him for the sake of their salvation and ours. 

Whether Paul was writing about building up those things that seek to unify people in Christ or loving God and neighbor with all we are and all we have, Paul goes on to say that we need to be about the work of the law of Christ. This doesn’t mean that we seek to live into the law of Christ because we believe that works can save us, instead he is saying that what you work at is a reflection of who you are. 

But here’s another place that churches can start to falter when they study about bearing one another’s burdens. Paul says that we need to be about our own work and people need to carry their own loads - and some have used this to justify ignoring the needs of others. A test that I use with scriptures like this, or others that can be confusing, is to ask is this a reflection of the love of Christ? Would it be a reflection of the love of Christ, as written in scriptures and experienced in our own lives, to ignore the needs of others? Or to assume the worst about people? Or to tell someone that they need to help themselves? No.

There are some cultural adages, or sayings, that we have confused with scripture - like we need to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or God helps those who help themselves. Is that a reflection of Christ’s heart? If not, then it shouldn’t be a reflection of ours!

We cannot read a verse or two of scripture in isolation and use that to justify our thoughts and actions if it is contrary to the way of Jesus Christ. If the Church would read on, we would find Paul writing about reaping what we sow. Are we sowing that which represents our own wants and desires or the heart of God? Will we reap our own flesh or the Kingdom of God? What example are you using to live your life and what do you hope that it will produce? Author of Leading the Way through Galatians, Michael Yousseff sums up this teaching on sowing and reaping by stating, “We cannot sow jealousy and hatred, then reap love and friendship”. 

But here’s the thing about bearing one another’s burdens and sowing and reaping that which reflects the love of Christ, it takes time. It isn’t instantaneous. That’s why there are times that the church would rather leave it alone. But all good things take time. And all good things take risk. 

In his book Fields of Gold, Pastor Andy Stanley tells the story of one man, Jeremiah Clay’s, worry. Maybe you can identify with it...

Jeremiah was a farmer during the Great Depression and was lured west by promises of fields being ripe for the harvest. So he packed up his family and headed out to a new life - only to find out those fields were more like a dust bowl. From year to year he didn’t know if there would be enough water for his crops, or if they would be flooded out, or blown away. Each month, for five trying years, he could spend an entire salary on seed - seed that he didn’t know would take or not. Jeremiah was now finding the courage to replant hard to summon. He hadn’t made a profit in five years. He found himself worrying each day about the next storm that may come and blow away his investment. He wondered if he should even bother planting another bag of seed.

If we take time to examine our hearts, many of us probably can identify with Jeremiah Clay. We don’t know is sowing into relationships where we are called to bear another’s burdens is worth our time and energy. In fact, we don’t know if any relationships are worth our time and energy. We worry that we won’t see fruit. Or that we will be hurt or taken advantage of. But we are called as the body of Christ to take that risk. To be there for other people. Fully there. We are to show others the love of Christ. Who are you being called to show that love to this week by bearing their burden? Amen.