Burdens Shared: The Courage to Need and the Call to Show Up

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Well, welcome to Foothills Fellowship this morning. I am not the normal pastor, or the normal interim pastor. He is away in Ohio at a conference today, and he asked me to give the message. I’m just one of you, a normal part of the congregation here, and so I’ll be sharing what God’s laid on my heart this morning about the topic, burdens shared.

If you can see on the screen—what do you call this? This is our vision statement? Is that what we call it? Okay. Our vision statement is pursuing God and reflecting the light of Jesus. You see, burdens shared, joys multiplied, and love bridging differences.

So we’ve been working through this and preaching through this, and this morning the topic is burdens shared.

And as I looked at that, I thought, well, I’m going to go to the great theological dictionary called Google and type in “burdens shared.” And this is what it came up with: “This is the law of Christ.” Wow. Galatians 6:4. So I looked at some of these verses. It says, “For the entire law was fulfilled in keeping this one commandment: to love your neighbor.”

And that Jesus said we should love each other just as I have loved you. You shall love one another. And in Galatians it says we should share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. So now we’re not in the abstract anymore—kind of getting down to where the rubber meets the road—to share one another’s burdens.

What is a burden? And so I looked up what the Greek word here is used for burden. And it’s interesting—it’s a weight. The word is a weight. And I also came across this word in 2 Corinthians. It says, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory.”

Well, we do not look at things which are seen, but things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. So what I found was this weight that it talks about—the same word for weight of our burdens—it’s also talking about our weight of the glory that we will receive, the eternal glory that we will receive.

We see this principle worked out in the life of Jesus. He suffered and died for the sins of the world, and all that weight came upon Him. But yet He is now glorified above every name and exalted above all. There’s a principle here: that when we share in the suffering of each other, and in the suffering that we experience, we also will share in the glory to come—that somehow that transfers over to the next kingdom.

I could do a lot more on that, but we don’t have time to get in depth in everything. I just wanted to touch on that because I thought it was kind of an interesting concept.

In 1998, we had the privilege—my wife and I—of going to Africa, serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators. Part of our duties was to go through the African orientation course in Cameroon. And as I thought about burden shared, I thought about going to the market with an African woman. And she got a lot of food and vegetables in a big, heavy bag, and she was carrying it.

And at that time I didn’t know enough—didn’t know if it was all right to ask her to carry the bag or not. We were coming up the hill, and I turned to her and I said, “Is it all right if I carry that bag for you?” And she said, “No, but if you want to take the other strap and carry it with me, we can carry it together.”

I thought, well, what an illustration of sharing burdens, right? She wouldn’t let me carry her burden, but she invited me to share the burden with her as we carried it together.

I don’t know how many here are familiar with Ted Scott, but Ted Scott’s probably the most successful caddie that the Professional Golf Association has ever known. He started out caddying for Bubba Watson and caddied for him during two Masters Tournament championships. He also later caddied for Scottie Scheffler in his Masters Tournament championship.

A caddie carries a burden, doesn’t he? He carries a bag for the guy. I never realized how hard these guys work. We attended the PGA Championship in Colorado a couple of years ago, my wife and I, and we saw these caddies going up and down these mountains carrying these heavy bags, sweating profusely and panting from the altitude. Those guys work. But fortunately, they share in the glory too.

Ted Scott has won more money in the last years than most PGA professionals earn themselves, from all the success he has had. A guy named Josh Berhow from Golf.com recently interviewed Ted Scott—a very fascinating interview. He writes this: “Ted Scott is a man of unshakable faith and passion and kindness. You learn a lot about yourself just being around him—not necessarily about spirituality, but about decency. Life is two things,” he tells me during our visit. “We all need help, and we all need helping.”

Ted Scott has started an organization called Who’s Your Caddie? and it’s been going for the last three years and expanding more than he ever imagined. What he started doing is bringing pastors, Christians, and teachers together for three days of golf. And he said, “We come together with this idea to spend time relating to each other and to share each other’s burdens.” And I just thought, it’s a beautiful thing.

He said that Scottie Scheffler—his greatest gift isn’t what he can do with a golf club. It’s his willingness to ask for help. He knows him, and he said he not only asks for help from other golfers, he asks for help from other people in all sorts of things. There’s a man that wants to learn from other people, and that’s what makes him successful.

Okay.

We all need help. We all suffer as a result of living in a fallen world. One of my favorite quotes is from the psychiatrist Scott Peck, who says, “Life is hard. When we accept that, life becomes easier.” Also, Jesus said about the same thing. He said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart—I have overcome the world.”

We all suffer as a result of living in this fallen world. We all carry a certain heaviness because of that.

What is suffering?

J.I. Packer described suffering as this: “Suffering is getting what you don’t want while wondering why you don’t get what you do want.”

He said that includes everything from a scratch to your child dying. It covers all forms of suffering. Isn’t that true? So many things we don’t want—we get them—and what we do want, we don’t get, right? And we suffer because of that.

Why is there so much suffering in the world? I wish we had more time to get into this. I’m going to touch on it briefly, but we live in a fallen world because we chose sin, right? Mankind chose to take the fruit in the garden and go outside of what God asked and what God provided.

And because of that, God says there’s going to be some results. A lot of times this is referred to as the curse. There are two things—three things really—but the two I want to talk about are the curse for women and the curse for men. They’re kind of different.

The curse for women says you will have pain in childbirth, and your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. So there’s angst between the sexes—angst between the genders—which is always a part of our life. If you look at the material comedians use, probably 90% of it has to do with that, right? The relationship between men and women and how we interact with each other—many times in kind of humorous and not-so-good ways.

The Gottman Institute says that 90% of conflicts within marriage are perpetual and cannot be resolved. If you’re married and you’re not having conflict, it’s probably because one of you gave up, right? We all have conflicts, and we have to figure out—especially within the man-woman relationship—we all have those desires from our mate. We’re not getting what we want, and we’re getting what we don’t want, and we have to find a way through that.

We carry a certain heaviness about that, especially with women. Because what I find—as I’ve done marriage counseling, as a retired mental health counselor—is that men often withdraw as soon as trouble strikes, and they don’t want to deal with things. And women kind of pursue. Women get into battle between the sexes.

Men—it affects us differently. It affects our work. We sweat and we labor. There are thorns and thistles. Even when we get what we want, we find it empty. Solomon talked about this in Ecclesiastes. He said, “What do people get from all the toil and anxious striving in which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain. Even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.”

Ted Scott said several days after Bubba Watson won the Masters Tournament, he called him and said, “What’s the point?” We see athletes—people that achieve what many consider to be the highest things in life—and it leaves them feeling empty and raw and unfulfilled.

It’s part of the suffering which we carry. It’s part of the burden we carry of being human beings.

We all need help. We all have rough edges.

We all suffer as a result of living in a fallen world and being harmed by others. But the sad truth is, we all harm others as well, right? We’re all sinners. We all have faults—things that easily beset us.

The Apostle John says, “If we claim we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” And then James also talks about the need to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. So there’s something about sharing the burden of even our sinfulness with each other, which is necessary and should be part of our lives—confessing our sins to one another and praying for one another to be healed.

Right before the verse that tells us to share one another’s burdens, the Apostle Paul talks about if you see somebody having a fault, that you should work gently and humbly to restore them, watching out lest you too be tempted.

We see him doing this in the book of Galatians earlier. He calls out the hypocrisy of Peter and Barnabas, who were hanging out with their Gentile friends until their Jewish friends showed up—and suddenly they stopped hanging out with their Gentile friends because they didn’t want to offend their Jewish friends. And he calls them out on their hypocrisy.

So even saints like Peter and Barnabas practiced hypocrisy within the church. And when we see that, we need to call each other out. We need to be accountable. We need to talk about it, and we need not to let things like that go.

We all need help, and we all need to be helping.

We cannot share our burdens if we cannot admit we have them.

No one can help you if you don’t think you need help. “I need help.” I think that’s the hardest three words to say, right?

They did a little study—MythBusters—on who has a harder time asking for directions, men or women. You know what they found out? It’s equal. None of us like to admit we need help. None of us like to admit somebody needs to help us, right? We all like to kind of be self-sufficient.

I remember the first time I really said, in a deep way, “I need help.”

A very difficult time in my life. I was about 16 years old. I grew up in a home in which there was terrible physical, emotional, and other types of abuse. And I had become a Christian about that time, and I decided that I shouldn’t be cussing and fighting and doing all the things that were bringing me relief.

And so I started stuffing all this stuff inside myself and not knowing how to handle it. And I got to the point where I was sitting around just shaking like a leaf a lot of times, that I finally went to my dad and I said, “Dad, I need help.” And he said, “You don’t need help. You’re crazy.” Well, he thought about that for a while—how crazy that sounded—and he ended up connecting me with a doctor who had some counseling expertise.

And I went to him. This doctor also was part of starting and developing a mental hospital in our area, which became, over the years, one of the biggest mental hospitals in a three-county area. Years later, I had the satisfaction of going and working at that mental hospital, and it was a great satisfaction knowing, here’s a man that helped me, and now I’m going back to help others at the same place.

But the first thing he taught me, as I met with him, is something I had never heard of before. It was called vulnerability. And he said, “We all need to be vulnerable.” To be vulnerable is to be loved.

Brené Brown says, “Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spirituality, vulnerability is the path.”

Reaching out for help is not weakness—it is courage. It is courageous. While being the hardest thing to do, it is the most courageous thing to do.

How do we share each other’s burdens?

First of all, we need to be present. We need to be available with each other. We need to take time for each other. We need to show up. We need to show up together here on a Sunday morning. We need to show up at small groups. We need to find people when we need help—and we all need help.

I like to try to, in my life at least, have one person I’m meeting with almost on a weekly basis just to share my life with them, and they can share their life with me, and we can be accountable to each other.

Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am with them.” I thought Jesse last week, in his message, did a really good job saying we need each other, right? We’re a community. We need each other.

I got to thinking about this this morning. We have a little saying about somebody being a lone wolf, right? There are no lone wolves in the church. If there are, they are sheep in wolves’ clothing.

Think about it—we are sheep, right? We’re a flock. We need to support each other, gather together, and care for each other.

Okay. We need to practice presence.

Only through presence can authentic communication take place.

How to be present with each other? It’s interesting that God just didn’t leave us on this earth alone. He sent Jesus to us. And what is one of the names for Jesus? Emmanuel—God with us. God present with us.

And then He left, and He didn’t leave us alone again. What did He send? His Holy Spirit—to be present with us. God’s presence with us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus is present with us.

My presence is the most powerful gift I can offer someone. Your presence is the most powerful gift you can offer someone.

Presence is a tricky thing.

As I was preparing for this sermon, probably about two weeks ago, I was laying in bed with my wife one morning, and we were talking about a number of things. I had my head on her shoulder, and her arm around me, and we were kind of cuddled up together. And after a bit I heard this little voice go, “Yeah…”

And when she says that, I know she is saying, “Carl, where are you?”

Right? I’m laying next to her, but I am gone. I am not there. And I started laughing. I said, “You know, I’m thinking about how, in my message, I could describe presence—and I’m not there. I’m not being present. I’m somewhere else altogether.”

Right? Presence involves us being connected. We can be right next to somebody and not be present.

Right?

How do we truly be present with each other?

All right. So—yeah. So I’m back where I was before. It’s kind of hard to look back and forth sometimes.

Okay. Presence is being fully engaged and attentive in the moment by offering my heart, mind, and soul to another in order to be empathetic and compassionate toward another person. It is listening to another’s heart and soul while offering my own.

Parker Palmer is a wonderful author that I love—a Quaker man. He wrote a little book called Let Your Life Speak. A Presbyterian minister out in Seattle told me about this book. I’ve read it many, many times, and I don’t have a copy of it because I’ve given so many away. I went to look for it and couldn’t find it—I had to get on the internet to find a quote.

But it’s a wonderful book in which he talks about us being who we are and letting that speak to other people. Parker Palmer went through a deep time of depression in his own life where he became nonfunctional, and he talks about that experience in the book. And he writes:

“One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present with another person’s pain without trying to fix it—to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person’s mystery and misery. Standing there, we feel useless and powerless, which is exactly how the depressed person feels.

In order to avoid these feelings, I give advice—which sets me free, not you free. If you take my advice, you may get well, and if you don’t get well, well, I did the best I could. If you fail to take my advice, there is nothing more I can do. Either way, I get relief from distancing myself from you, guilt-free.”

I’ve read that many times.

How do we be present with people?

Well, oftentimes we have trouble. We don’t feel comfortable, so we start giving advice and saying things—which destroys our ability to be present with people. Our culture teaches us to be fixers, problem-solvers, debaters, advisors. And sadly to say, the church has often adopted the same sort of culture—telling us we need to be able to debate and argue and defend every position. And that’s the way we relate to people.

Fifteen years ago, I, in my early 50s, decided to go to college. And I studied under a really brilliant man named Michael J. Murray, taking a philosophy course from him. He was known as one of the top Christian philosophers in the nation, taught at Franklin and Marshall College, and was willing to come over to the Bible college I was a part of and do a philosophy course there.

Brilliant man. Brilliant.

And a lot of what we talked about within our class was arguments against atheism or arguments against agnosticism—how to counter all those types of arguments. And at the end of the course, I went up to him because I didn’t want to say this in class. I didn’t want to sound—well, in front of everyone.

I said, “Michael, I’ve listened to all what you’ve had to say, but I’ve also read a lot of writings of atheists, and I always see within their writings a woundedness. Something has caused a deep wound in their life that has led them to their atheistic beliefs. I’m wondering if we would take time to try to address that woundedness and empathize with them, whether we wouldn’t have to argue so much.”

And he really surprised me. I thought he was going to give me a really good rebuttal. And he looked at me and he said this: “I think you’re right. I think you’re right.”

We need to learn to have empathy with people.

Empathy involves active listening without judgment, validating the other person’s emotions, and trying to imagine their perspective.

I worked at this mental hospital for five years. I did group therapy two hours a day with people in the mental hospital. I love to tell them this—and they always loved when I told them this:

“I failed group therapy.”

Which was true. When I went into graduate school, I didn’t go there to be a counselor. I went there for a Christian studies degree, and part of what you had to do was go through what they called practicums, which were really like group therapy. And I failed it the first time around. I had to go repeat it.

The reason being—I thought how I helped people was through giving insight, sharing my wisdom, and advising.

I had been taught to listen to others mainly to determine where they were wrong and what I needed to say to correct them and convince them of my correct biblical perspective. Or if they were struggling, what insight or principle I could give them to apply to help alleviate their suffering. Better yet, if I struggled with a similar issue, I could share my experience and how I had remedied it.

I had little to no idea how to be present with another person.

And in the next several years, I was to start to understand that people find healing through connection—through offering my presence, extending compassion and empathy, and letting my heart connect to their pain and their suffering.

It is empathetic love that brings healing—not philosophy or theological arguments.

In other words, burdens are shared by connecting with my heart and soul instead of my head. And this requires active listening.

It requires me to listen to a person’s nonverbal communication. What are they really saying to me? Sixty to seventy percent of communication is nonverbal.

It requires me to feel what they are feeling. Remember what Parker Palmer said—when we sit with someone depressed, what do we feel? Hopeless and helpless. I’ve sat with many depressed people, and we take on their feelings of hopelessness and helplessness and bear their burdens with them.

Hard work.

It’s listening to understand what the person is experiencing. Feelings—facts and details—often have little relevance.

It’s listening with your heart and soul and learning to respond out of my heart and soul. As I sit with hurting people and I give my heart and soul to them, I very seldom think about what I’m going to say. As a matter of fact, a lot of times I say very little. And when I do say things, it comes from a place not from my head but from my soul.

And when I say something, it’s like, “Why did I say that?” And it ends up connecting exactly to something else that’s going on in their life that needs to be talked about.

Because we’re dealing now in mystery and in spiritual things.

I found statements are more powerful and less threatening than asking questions.

Things like, “You’re feeling confused. You’re feeling sad. You’re feeling angry.” The beautiful thing about trying to guess what somebody is feeling is they love to correct you if you’re not right.

They actually call it in psychology “misreading intentionally,” because then people will tell you what’s really going on. “No, I feel this.” Well, that’s good—let’s unpack that. Let’s talk about that.

It’s expressing empathy:

“That must be hard for you.”
“That must be devastating.”
“Wow, that’s difficult, isn’t it?”

And then there’s what I call—so often I experience this in my own life, I see it in small groups, I see it here—I’ve had it happen to me here—what I call presence killers.

Really—presence killers.

The first one is interrupting and telling your story or sharing similar experiences you’ve had. I was at a pickleball court the other day. A guy was telling me something that had happened to him. Another guy came up—he’s actually a Christian—and right in the middle of it butted in and said, “Oh, I had a friend that the exact same thing happened to him,” and went off for five minutes.

And after a bit it’s like, okay, would you just—stop. I was able to get him back there—“Okay, and then what happened?”—and get back to the conversation.

Often we do that, right? We’re tempted to share our own story or somebody else’s story.

Here’s another one that’s really hard to understand—it’s attempting to make the person feel better. And we often do that because we don’t feel comfortable with ourselves.

Often my goal is to make a person feel worse—to talk more and deeper about their pain, their suffering, and what’s really happening. Often people just tell you what they tell you—they’re just scratching the surface.

To be present with them and to listen to them—and kind of ask, “Is there more?”—there’s always more.

Using spiritual clichés or just quoting scriptures at them—oh man, how many times in my life I’ve just felt like, “Would you stop?” What I need is somebody to feel with me, not somebody to quote me scriptures I already know.

It’s giving advice and telling people, “You should do this. You need to do this. You have to do this.”

Well, here’s the one—I’ve told my wife this so much—she does this to me. I have to try not to react badly. It’s, “If I were you, I would…” You’re not me, right? And when we do that, we disconnect. We lose presence. We make it about ourselves and not about the other person.

I volunteer a day a week down at the Good Shepherd Center in downtown Albuquerque. I met a guy there, and I asked him if I could share some of his story with you this morning. When I did, he lit up—“Yeah, I like that.”

His name is Toby. Toby’s been at the Good Shepherd Center for a number of years. He’s the head chef down there. Toby’s a 60-year-old man that’s homeless, with nowhere to go. He’s been forsaken by most of his family. Very lonely man—but the most tremendous cook you’ve ever seen.

Everybody says, “We’re having ribs today.” It goes like—Toby makes the best ribs in Albuquerque. He’s a fantastic cook. Guys down there eat better than you do at a restaurant. Wonderful cook.

But he works in the kitchen, and he gets tired because a lot of his helpers are homeless people coming in and going through the program.

He talked to me one day—I’ve talked to him many times before—and I came early because I was scheduled to talk with him. He sat down and he told me, “I get so tired of watching these guys cut each other up and say things that hurt each other and injure each other. I get so tired of it and frustrated. Sometimes I just want to leave here. I’m sick of it.”

And I said, “Toby, that shows me something so beautiful about you. It bothers you when people hurt each other. It shows me you have a kind, sensitive heart, and that disturbs you really deeply. And that’s a beautiful thing.”

And he looked at me and smiled and said, “I never thought of it that way.”

And we went on unpacking that for some time.

And then he said, “I feel so alone. I have no one. I have nowhere to go. And I get so alone at times.”

And I empathized with him for a while. And then I said, “Toby, turn to your left. What’s on the table?”

And I was able to say, “Toby, Jesus has always been with you. He understands your suffering. He understands all you’ve been through, and He longs just to hold you and love you and show you His kindness and compassion.”

We talked about that for some time. And then Toby said, “I have a Bible up in my room I haven’t touched in years. Could you give me some suggestions of where I could start reading?”

So I did.

And then we started talking about love and how we all just want to love and be loved. And I said, “A couple months ago I gave a sermon at our church about how love is connected.” We talked about loving each other, loving God, and loving ourselves.

And all of a sudden Toby’s whole face lit up and he said, “I get it—it’s like a recipe. When I put ingredients together, they all work together and make the food good.”

I said, “Oh, it’s beautiful, Toby. Can I use that?”

It’s like a recipe, right?

And I said, “Jesus said something very similar. He said the kingdom of God is like when you put yeast inside of bread.”

And he goes, “Yeah, I make that bread sometimes—and that’s exactly what happens. You put the yeast in there and it grows.”

And I said, “Toby, that’s why God put you here. You’re like the yeast in that kitchen with those men that are so hard to deal with—to show them God’s love and compassion. And when you do, the kingdom of God grows, and that starts affecting everything in a beautiful way. You can be part of that.”

Toby got to pray with me. He held out his hands and grasped my hands, and we prayed together.

And I went down to the cafeteria where we meet as staff with all the people involved in the program. Staff gets a chance to say what they need to say, and we interact with each other about what’s going on.

And I said this: “This morning when I came in, I had a hard time getting out of bed. I really did not feel like coming here. But I came here, and I was so blessed meeting with the guy I talked to this morning. And I feel alive, and I feel on top of the world right now. You know, I need you guys more than you need me.”

And that’s true, isn’t it? It is in giving that we receive, right?

After the meeting, I walked into my office, and the next guy walked in. On my desk was this book with that picture on it, and the guy said, “Where did you take that picture?” And I told him. I said, “Yeah, that’s a book—I write some poetry sometimes—and that’s my book I keep my poetry in.”

And he said to me, “Would you share a poem with me?”

Now, I knew this guy—six foot five, forty-some years old. I knew some of his story. He grew up in a home where, from the time he could remember, he was told he was not wanted, that he was an accident, that he was worthless. And all his life his family has treated him with nothing but contempt.

So immediately I knew which poem to read him.

And I’d like to read this poem to conclude.

It’s called The Light.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot extinguish it.
Enters from the darkened womb, exits to the world.
Enters from the darkened room, exits to a world of gloom.
Blinded by its brilliant light, lost within the darkest night.
Gropes for love, seeks affection, tastes the air and finds rejection.
Entered now, his darkened cave—hiding, he becomes its slave.

Who will enter this dark place, sit with him within his space?
Be a candle in his night until his eyes can bear the light.
Walk with him out of his gloom, resurrect him from his tomb.
Lead him to a brighter land, tenderly holding his trembling hand.

Dawn is breaking, the darkness grows dim as the light of God reflects from him.
Enters from the darkened womb, exits the cave, and starts to bloom.
Love and kindness give direction, learns of love and finds affection.
Another light is now in place, beaming forth transforming grace.”

Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your only Son to be present with us—that you became human through Him so that you could empathize with us and understand our suffering and experience our temptations.

Jesus, thank you for your willingness to obey your Father, to suffer and die for us, to conquer sin and death on our behalf. That you ascended back into heaven and now make intercession for us.

Thank you that when you left us, you did not leave us alone, but you sent your Holy Spirit to indwell us, comfort us, and be your presence in us—that we can now be your body, the church, and continue your ministry here on this earth.

You have commanded us to love each other as you have loved us, to share our burdens with each other, and to suffer on behalf of others as you suffered on our behalf.

Grant us the love, faith, and courage to take up our crosses daily and to share in the suffering with those around us—to be your hands, eyes, and ears in this dark world.

Let us be the yeast in the bread of your kingdom so that your kingdom could grow on earth.

May your kingdom come and your will be done here on earth through us.

We ask in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.