2nd Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 5C

2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 5C
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine with me. You are walking down a road in your own private funeral procession. You carry in your heart a secret burden; it is the burden of the loss of your dreams. It is the death of someone you hold dear; it is the loss of your independence as you grow older; it is the burden of never-ending work, of the constant demands of children, of an empty nest, of caring for an elderly parent. It is the burden of broken promises, of broken relationships. It is the burden of a lost job, of feelings of shame and worthlessness. It is the burden of always making things perfect. It is the burden of addiction; it is the burden of illness or the illness of someone you love. It is the burden of depression, of lost-ness, of loneliness. It is the burden of lost hope, of disappointment, of disillusionment.
Take a silent moment to examine and name your own secret burden, for we all walk through life carrying something.
As you stand there alone, under the weight of your grief, your secret burden, suddenly Jesus is there walking by. He looks at you, and he sees you; he sees your secret burden—your grief, your loss of hope. And he feels with you, and he walks up beside you and says in a whisper to your very heart: “do not weep.” Then he places his hand on you—on your head or cupping your face, on your shoulder or even a full embrace, and he speaks directly a command to your dead hope: “I say to you rise!”
Suddenly you feel it, your burden is not so heavy, and you feel the first stirrings of your hope, the green shoot of new life breaking forth out of the deepest darkness of your soul into the light of your awareness. It is your new life; your new hope. But you are afraid, because it is so sudden, and maybe you were not ready to set aside your grief, your burden; maybe you didn’t want your hope resurrected because you couldn’t bear the pain of being heart-broken and wounded all over again.
So you take a deep breath and your initial panic subsides, and you realize how good it feels to be free of your burden, how good it feels to be whole-hearted again. You realize the power and the gift of your newly-resurrected hope, and you taste in your soul a sweet dab of joy and freedom, like a dot of honey on your tongue.
This is the gift of Jesus’s compassion in your life. We are invited to come to God’s table, where we are looked at by Jesus in his infinite compassion, and we are invited to lay down our burdens there and to receive that compassion, to eat and drink it in until it heals our broken hearts and resurrects our dying hope. And then we are sent out from here and invited to share Jesus’s compassion with others. For when we show compassion and mercy to others, we are participating in Jesus’s own life-giving compassion. It is a resurrection compassion that gives dead hope new life and gives heavy hearts new joy.
May this be your gift this day. Amen.