Hello friends.
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in dogs.
Welcome back.
As we continue our series,
Stay here.
Today,
Let's talk about.
The weight you're carrying,
Because sometimes I think we don't notice how much we are carrying.
Until we stop.
And in those moments where we stop.
We notice the things that we carry in our minds and our bodies.
We notice the things that we're carrying for other people.
Things like responsibilities and expectations and worries and regrets.
Our minds are in the future,
Our minds are in the past,
And both of those can be weights on us at times.
And I think we've become so used to carrying all of these things.
That we begin to think that this is just what life feels like.
But in Matthew chapter 11 in verse 30.
Jesus makes this statement that,
Again,
We've turned into signs that we put on the walls of our homes and print on greeting cards,
But Have we really thought this through?
About the extent and depth to which these words go.
Matthew records Jesus saying,
"'My yoke is easy.
'" And my burden is light.
A yoke.
As some of you may be aware,
If you're agriculturally minded,
Was.
.
.
Something that was placed across the shoulders of animals so that they could pull a load,
But it was also the name given.
To a rabbi's teaching.
It was called his yoke.
And so when Jesus speaks about a yoke,
He's talking about something that directs the way we live.
Something we carry.
Something that asks something of us.
But it's important to see what Jesus says about a yoke,
Because often we talk about beasts of burden.
We put these yokes on and they pull these heavy loads,
But Jesus says,
My yoke is easy.
And my burden is light.
So when we look at.
.
.
Jesus.
And Jesus Yo!
It's not a question of can I carry this burden.
But perhaps if we're feeling weight,
The question to ask is what am I carrying that I don't need?
Need.
To carry.
Because we can pick up burdens that were never meant for us.
To carry.
They were never given to us in the first place,
Some of them.
We've just picked them up.
Things like the need to make someone happy.
Or the idea that we get that everything depends on us or the responsibility for someone else's choices.
The pressure to know exactly what comes next,
The demand to get everything right.
Some of these things can.
.
.
Be so familiar.
That we just stop questioning them.
And we just put them on our shoulders.
And just keep walking.
Under the weight.
But let's take a moment now.
Imagine setting down,
Just for these few minutes,
Everything that you've been carrying.
Just take a nice deep breath in.
And out.
And just for this moment,
Remove the load.
The load of the unfinished conversation.
The load of the thing you can't control.
The load of the expectation you've placed on yourself.
The load of the expectation that someone's placed on you.
The future that you're trying to arrange and have all worked out before it gets here.
Put them all.
Down.
And do you see what remains?
What's still here?
When you stop carrying all that,
It's you.
Not just you.
Breathing.
Here.
Jesus doesn't promise a life with nothing to carry.
There's always going to be things that ask something of us.
People we love,
Work that matters,
Choices that we need to make.
There'll be moments of grief.
Things that we do need to be responsible for,
Love itself.
Can sometimes be a weight,
But there's a difference between carrying what's ours and carrying what's everybody else's,
Carrying everything.
My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Maybe Jesus is inviting us into a different way of moving and living through and in the world.
Unburdened by the things that were never ours.
So let's spend a moment sitting with the question,
What am I carrying today?
That I could put down.
And in this couple of minutes of silence,
If you notice something that you can put down,
See if you can put it down.
You can pick it up again later if you need to,
But right now perhaps you just need to discover that you don't need to carry quite as much as you thought.
Let's just spend some time doing that now.
As we stay here.
You you Take a nice deep breath in.
And out.
And feel the space where the weight was.
How much lighter it feels.
My yoke is easy and my burden is light.
So for now,
Friends,
Just carry only what's yours.
Let the rest go.
And you can let that go.
As you stay here.
Until tomorrow.
Bye for now.
