Lies My Pastor Told Me #1- God will Never give you more than you can handle

Sunday October 12, 2014- Lies My Pastor Told Me #1- Matthew 11:28-30, 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

                                                            God Never gives you more than you can handle

            Over times in our culture, there are quotes that are popularized that play a major part in our world view.  We see them all the time in movies, like in the Wizard of Oz…. name it “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.  Instead, it’s Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.  Ok.  No biggee.  How about Field of Dreams….”If you built it, they will come.” NO.  “If you build it, HE will come.”  And finally, the most famous of them all, from The Empire Strikes Back…. “Luke, I am your father….. NO, I am your father.”

            Words have important meaning, and sometimes we get those words wrong.  When it comes to the Bible, it becomes extremely important, especially when you look at how much respect many of us place upon the Bible. In the Bible, you hear all the time of these sentences that are important.  How about the one that says “The Lord helps Those who Help Themselves.  I’ve heard that one.  And the other one, God will Never Give you More than you can Handle.  Those are great cherry picked verses. 

There’s only one PROBLEM.  Those verses don’t exist.  No.  Don’t even open your Bible and try to pull it out.  I’ve looked, I’ve called people. It doesn’t exist.  And that might be a little problem. OK.  Actually, that is as big problem.

But what about the passage from Corinthians.  Good point, except that one must understand context.  See Paul is not talking about more than you can bear, he’s talking about temptation.  In the passage, Paul directly reflects on a situation that is happening with the Corinthians wherein they are getting caught up in their lust.  Paul says back, there is nothing that can tempt you more than you can bear.  You can be tempted by these things of the world, but it’s in your control.

But the problem is that some things are out of our control and beyond what we can handle.  Imagine a Jew in a Holocaust camp being told, well, God won’t give you more than you can handle.  How about the death of a loved one, a child dealing with the loss of a parent, a parent losing a child, an inexplicable tradegy, 9/11….

These are things beyond anything we can handle, not things that God sets before us and says, let me show you that you can handle this.  No God I know of would offer these things to the world, only to test us.  There’s no Biblical backing for that, and anything you might be able to pull would be out of context.  On the contrary, there is actually a fair amount of commentary about there ACTUALLY BEING more than one can handle within the scriptures.

Paul, in 2 Corinthians “Brothers and sisters, we don’t want you to be unaware of the troubles that we went through in Asia. We were weighed down with a load of suffering that was so far beyond our strength that we were afraid we might not survive.” (2 Corinthians 1:8 CEB)

Or in the Psalms…. “I’m worn out, completely crushed; I groan because of my miserable heart.” (Psalms 38:8 CEB)
“My wrongdoings are stacked higher than my head; they are a weight that’s way too heavy for me.” (Psalms 38:4 CEB)

And of course we shouldn’t forget about Jesus, the man who died a robbers death at the hand of the Romans. 

Where did this idea come from?  Well, in some ways it came from the fact that in modern Christianity, we’ve misconstrued many aspects of the faith and made them into some sort of security blanket.  My friend Mark Schaefer describes it as “sentimental Christianity” built on the concept that the Christianity we follow allows us to feel better because we imagine that nothing is more than we can handle and God is in charge of everything.  But that’s theology is dangerous, not just for those of us that follow it, but for the victims and all those who are suffering.

Perhaps you’ve felt down, felt as though your burden is more than you can bear, and theologically some one comes up to you and says, well God wouldn’t give you more than you can bear.  One is means God gave it to you, and two, if you can’t handle it, well then maybe you aren’t faithful enough, or something is really wrong, in which case we start thinking about the story of Job.

And if you are burdened with suffering, you may suffer in worry about suffering.  It’s a snowball effect that becomes worse and worse and worse.  And the problem is it stems from incorrect theology.

What is more accurate is what does next, when he explains to the audience that in fact that burdens do feel overwhelming and it does seem as though there is no way out.  This introduces us to the reality that God is not giving us the suffering and burden, but being present with us in the midst of the burden.  Why would a loving God want to give us burdens: that doesn’t make sense.  What a loving God would do is to respond by being with us, offering us hope and a place to find peace in the midst of terrible and awful circumstances.  And that’s what we see in Matthew….

“Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves. My yoke is easy to bear, and my burden is light.”

In this passage, Jesus never says anything about more than you can bear.  But Jesus does say, you can come to me when it’s a heavy load.  I’ll give you rest.  Comfort is not always the same thing as a cure.  In Parker Palmer’s famous work “Let Your Life Speak” he discusses a moment in his life that was a chronic depression, something he has dealt with most of his life.  In the midst of one of the worst he has endured, a friend begins coming each day to wash his feet. The friend does not try to give him advice, does not tell him it will be alright, that he should just snap out of it, or certainly that God wouldn’t give this to him if he couldn’t handle it.  The friend simply washes his feet, intent to be a presence in the midst of a challenging time.  And that is the closest image of God I can imagine.  It does not mean everything is going to be perfect, that by being a Christian, whether more devout or otherwise, that you are going to be rewarded with less burden or more burden, it simply means that bad things happen to each of us and God is present with us.

This brings me to my final point.  In the midst of challenges, these things that simply happen, there is something that God offers us that is restorative and even has curative properties.  God calls us into relationship with each other.  Christianity is not a do it yourself kind of thing.  Its work revolves around a communal understanding of oneself, acts which are selfless and repeated time and time again.  You should not feel as though you have to show up hear and have everything pulled together.  You need not be perfect or have everything in your life balanced.  In fact, just the opposite.  If we are truly to be a community which bears a Christian identity, we need to be able to come together and admit that there are times when life gives more than we can bear and offer that up to a community that is called to respond and help each other along this journey. 

If we take a step back in our theology and look for the reality of what we believe, we come to find that there is much more depth and at some points struggle with this faith.  We should not just accept Christianity as a security blanket which protects us from harm in the world.  Instead, we might see that we are offered new perspective in the midst of challenging times.  And that is what this entire sermon series is about.  Throughout this sermon series, we’re going to be concentrating on some of these passages which well, they don’t exist, or at least they are out of context.  I invite you to come along on this journey, not just because it will challenge assumptions, but because getting to the bottom of the Biblical Canon is one of the most important things anyone can do.  Whether you are atheist, agnostic, spiritual, religious, or anything else, there is most definitely a place within this sermon series that’s for you.  It might be hard, and it might challenge you, but that’s the point.  And when things get to be too much, we learn to remember that we community, and we have a God who says, Come to me, all you who are weary and laden, and I will give you rest.

May it be So.

Amen.