And that’s phenomenally good news.
We often hear people declare that they ‘didn’t want to be a burden’ to their loved ones, especially their immediate family. Right now, in the zeitgeist, people might be talking about why they might choose to commit suicide when they’re diagnosed with some sort of life-altering or life-ending illness. We hear it much wider than that though, often as an explanation for why someone didn’t ask for help before a problem got so bad someone else wanted to intervene.
In fact, those two things are connected. Thinking that ‘being a burden’ is a bad thing is upstream of thinking it’s a reason to kill yourself. Both are deeply wrong and confused understandings of humanity.
Sometimes we respond to the person who didn’t ask for help by saying ‘don’t worry, you’re not a burden.’ I’m sure I’ve said this. The impulse is understandable; what we mean is that we are really happy to help them and are not (right now) feeling burdened by it. Unwittingly we reinforce the idea that they might have been right to not ask for help if it would burden me. We also lay the road later for withdrawing when things actually become a burden for us.
I think that the church should push back against this. You are a burden. So am I. We are supposed to bear one another up.
Of course there’s a place for the imposing of boundaries, we don’t have to give everyone everything that they request. Except, I think we retreat there about as quickly as I shoved this caveat into my flow in this blog post. It’s a middle-classed attitude, of course I must protect ‘my time’ and ‘my resources’ for ‘my family.’ Well, sure. There are situations where that would be right and wise. I am suggesting we typically go there too quickly. We are supposed to be burdened with each other as we’re told to ‘bear one another’s burdens’ (Galatians 6).
I’m not a paragon here. I like helping people I like by doing things that I like. I reckon you’re the same. I don’t love helping people I don’t like and I don’t love even helping people I like by doing things that I don’t like. Which, to translate, means I don’t really like helping people, I like people that I like thinking I’m the sort of person that helps people. Self-knowledge is rarely a pleasant thing.
I wonder if you’re similar? I’m pleased if you’re not.
The church is not supposed to be like this. Did Jesus help us when we were likeable? And did he only do things he liked doing? Instead, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5). Well, that gives us our direction. However, that in itself isn’t enough to change our hearts. It’s the subsequent truths, applied by the Spirit, that we were burdens God bore and still bears, that we are in need of help daily, and that everything in our life is a gift, that free us to begin to actually offer ourselves to others.
You are a burden. That’s good news. Why? Because it means you aren’t meant to do this on your own. You are meant to need a community around you. Humans are made for cities not smallholdings, even if we haven’t figured out how to make cities humane yet. We need each other.
When someone in the church asks you for help, remember that it was probably hard for them to do so. Try your best to find a way to either help them or to get someone else to.
When you need help, ask for it. That’s easier said than done. I, like most people, don’t really like doing that. That’s mostly our pride talking.
The idea that we are meant to be some sort of all-conquering hero who doesn’t need help is almost palpable in the atmosphere of contemporary life. While we wouldn’t put it that baldly, it’s ingrained in us to see the world as though we were the protagonist in a story, it’s what the kids call ‘main character energy.’ Even if that were true it wouldn’t justify our hatred for asking for help, but it does explain our sense that we shouldn’t ‘burden’ another. We think that to impose on their lives would ruin their narrative, we dislike inserting ourselves into their lives and stories.
Of course, the Christian faith swiftly knocks the idea that we are protagonists out of us, Jesus is the hero of the story and we are the friends he made along the way. We’re the burdens he carries through the doors of death and into the heavens. It’s in following him and being empowered by his Spirit that we are able to take agency, to do things, to act ‘heroically’ because we know we’re not the hero; the freedom from the pressure to ‘win’ is what allows us to act.
All of that is to say this: allow yourself to be a burden. Allow yourself to be burdened by others. You aren’t responsible for them, sure, but you can give of yourself to help and comfort those who need it today.
Everything I’ve written is much easier to write than do. I think we start with the most heroic act I’m aware of: repentance.
Photo by S&B Vonlanthen on Unsplash
To subscribe and receive email notifications for future posts, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
Would you like to support my work? The best thing you can do is share this post with your friends. Why not consider also joining my Patreon to keep my writing free for everyone. You can see other ways to support me here.
nuakh 