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The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians
6:2 Bear ye one another's burdens [and so fulfil the law of Christ].
6:5 For every man shall bear his own burden.

All my belongings are in storage. I have no books save a Prayer Book and a bible, and that an AV. You may imagine my reluctance to preach anywhere, and more especially to this seasoned and discriminating congregation. That I am here this morning is simply a matter of the Dean pushing my arm so far up behind my back that I had to acquiesce in his "request".

And so I opened up the lections for the Holy Communion and Morning Prayer for to-day, and my heart sank. What could I possibly find to say to such a straight up and down and so strictly and particularly instructed a congregation that you had not heard before?

When homiletics are taught in theological colleges to-day, students are told there are inviolable rules of preaching. First, say something about yourself so the congregation can relate to you and second tell a story. When faced with this morning's challenge I was tempted to fall into line and tell you a story, in this case rather a good story on charity and the leprous Samaritan told to me as a school boy by Mr. Champion, Rector of Petershaw, an assistant chaplain at my school. All I remember now of Mr. Champion is his story, and his peculiar fascination with suicides. "Another gas oven this week, boys" he would say as he swung his once athletic, but now amply upholstered, frame into the room, and all the gory details of the gas oven or the exhaust pipe, or the slashed wrists would come tumbling out. The Parish of Petershaw seemed to teem with suicides. Perhaps it was due to the all permeating odour of hops from Britons Brewery, an institution which was in constant and noisy rebuilding which diverted us and moved our Latin Master in particular to distraction. Alas, Briton's Beer is no more, swallowed up by Millers, and with Britons went its unofficial advertising slogan - Briton's Beer Builds Bouncy Bouncing Babies.

Well no, I have put the temptation to be a modern preacher behind me and I shall save Mr. Champion's story for an even rainier day. And you will be spared anything personal.

Instead I shall inflict on you some reflections on the apparent conflict - or do I mean dichotomy? - between verses 2 and 5 of the sixth chapter of Galatians. There is at least contrast there that I always found to be in need of explication. This may be all old hat to most of you, but perhaps it puzzled a few of us. The cognoscenti have permission to tune out and contemplate Thanksgiving Dinner or some other recondite feature of the lessons.

If you would take up your Prayer Books at page 239 and look at the bottom of the page, we read "Bear ye one another's burdens . . . for every man shall bear his own burden."

We need, I think, to begin by placing this Epistle passage in its context in the Prayer Book system. Again, at the risk of teaching one's grandmother to such eggs, let me say something about that system. A prime purpose of the Prayer Book is to open up the Scriptures to us in a doctrinal or credal way. The Prayer Book is deliberately didactic. One of the ways the Prayer Book teaches us is to see that every year at the Holy Communion we hear what we need to know to be saved. It's like learning scales when we learned to play the piano. We go through it time after time after time, year after year after year. The Holy Communion readings are complemented by the Sunday office lections for Morning and Evening Prayer, At times, it's hard to see the connection between a particular Morning or Evening Prayer lesson and the Epistles and Gospels for the day, but there is always a connection, which is of course very obvious once someone else explains it to us!

The Epistles and Gospels, the Eucharistic Lectionary, fall into two great divisions. In the first half of the year, we are instructed in the saving doctrines of the faith, principally through the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord. In the second half, in the long Trinity tide we are instructed in the sanctification of our lives, in the Faith.

The Trinity tide lectionary itself falls into two parts. The first is about Grace, about God's love to us, and our duty in response. And there on Trinity XIII, last Sunday, we change gears and begin a weekly series of instruction on Christian character. Last week we had love of neighbour, next week is trust, Trinity XVI is patience and so on.

To-day we are instructed in holiness, a summary, as it were, of the teaching of the half term we have just entered. It is all there: faith, hope, charity, in the Collect, thanksgiving or gratitude in the Gospel, and the precondition to all four elements in the Epistle. To-day's Epistle, then, is a short instruction in how to comport ourselves that we may allow God to lead us in holiness, to that new covenant Jeremiah promises in verse 31 of the first lesson at Morning Prayer to-day.

Now let us return to the once leprous but now cured Samaritan. The turning back of the cleansed Samaritan as recounted in to-day's Gospel is not just a lesson in gratitude. It is not the equivalent of teaching a child to say thank you, or of reading us a lesson in how to treat those who help us along life's path. No, the Samaritan's turning back is symbolic of a deeper turning back to God. In other words, it is symbolic of conversion.

We are, in our natural state, unfit and unable to bear one another's burdens without self-righteous hypocrisy; all we can manage is the occasional, gratuitous act of kindness. We must first turn back to the source of grace to be fit to bear the burdens of others. By that grace we are enabled to answer for and deal with our own shortcomings, our sins, a necessary prerequisite, as they say these days, to fulfilling our duties to others. This dealing with our sins and shortcomings is the burden each of us must bear, and must bear alone, even if we receive help from others in the faith when we later fall into sin. When we have dealt with our failings, when we have identified and plucked the beams from our own eyes, when we have accepted God's grace, then we shall be able to rejoice in what we have accomplished by that grace.

In short, bearing the burdens of another is not just an act of obedience to the law of charity. It requires an attitude, rather a life, of holiness. It requires an end to self-deception, - thinking we are something when we are in truth nothing, nothing but miserable sinners.

It requires a turning back to God. The Apostle's injunction to bear one another's burdens is really directed to those who now walk in the Spirit, who have already borne their own burden and who rejoice in their turning to and acceptance of God's grace. In this context the apostle is preaching to the converted, but goes on immediately to emphasize the need for conversion.

Beloved, the purpose of the Christian faith is to unite God and man. There are therefore two directions involved Godwards and manwards, and both are reflected in the matter of burdens. Bearing the burdens of others requires first a Godwards direction on our part, and a manwards direction, turning ourselves out to others. If we ignore our own burdens, our own sins, we shall never get to the manwards direction. Above all we must deal with our infinite capacity for self deception. We must bare our souls naked before God. Thus is our work tested, and not through any other man. And thus is corrected our vainglory and envy. To obtain a clear understanding of ourselves is vital. There must be an honest acknowledgment of our worth and of our unworth. Paradoxically, we are used to the idea of our unworth, however much we cloak it, but we must also catalogue honestly our virtues and abilities. Otherwise our assistance to others will amount only to meddling.

Galatians is said to be the Epistle of liberty. Indeed Chapter 5 begins with the remarkable admonition, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." But the freedom St. Paul commends is freedom towards something, not freedom from something. We are free to actualize our virtues and abilities in Christ. In the Gospel lesson the Samaritan leper gave thanks freely. He participated in the Son's thanksgiving to the Father.

Beloved, the greatest freedom is to give thanks. What more free act is there? Blaise Pascal wrote that it is the heart that experiences God, not the reason. Did the cured Samaritan reason through to a duty to be thankful? No. He experienced God's grace in his heart, as Collect after Collect in Trinity tide begs God to allow us to do. He experienced God in his heart, he turned to Him and gave thanks. What more free act could there be? What other way is there to participate in the Son's thanksgiving to the Father?

Last week we learned that it is not possible to love our neighbour apart from loving God, a lesson repeated and refined in to-day's Collect - "make us love that which thou dost command".

To-day we learn that any thanksgiving to God is willed by Him, but can be frustrated by us. But if we allow it, if we turn to God's grace, we can deal with our own burdens. And then, with clear eye we can reach out to others who struggle without fear of that ringing condemnation, "Thou Hypocrite".

Beloved, let us use our freedom in Christ to bear our own burdens, to turn ourselves to Godwards, to rejoice in His grace and to give thanks. Then loving what God commands, and growing in faith, hope and charity we may seek to bear one another's burdens. So be it.

Graham Eglington, Deacon