What’s in your backpack?

Luke 13:10–17 (children's sermon for Blessing of the Backpacks Sunday)

The bent over woman in today’s scripture must have looked a little odd and she must have had a hard time.  How would she have cooked? Or got food from a top cupboard?  I wonder what made her so bent over?  I wonder if she had a backpack that was full of too many heavy things to carry around.  When my kids went back to school, I would lift their backpacks to make sure they didn’t get too bent over from carrying the supplies around.

How heavy is your backpack? Is it weighing you down, hurting your back, bending you over, keeping you from feeling good about yourself and your life, preventing you from looking people in the eyes or having joy in your life?

Let’s take time to look at what is in our backpacks and whether we can lighten our load a bit.  Sometimes that means leaving my favorite book at home.  I can’t take all 7 Harry Potter books to school every day, that would hurt my back for sure.  But we can look at our backpacks as something more.  Let’s play pretend and look at what might be too heavy for our backpacks!

I think we all have an imaginary backpack that we use to carry around some pretty heavy things.  I have my imaginary backpack right here.  Why, it’s full of rocks! No wonder it’s so heavy!

The first rock says ‘pain and suffering’.  I can imagine that this would have been what the Bent over woman had in her imaginary backpack.  Some people might wonder what the difference is between pain and suffering.  I like to think of it as like when a three-year old hurts its finger.  It cries for mommy, who puts a bandage on the finger.  But the three year old doesn’t really stop crying until mommy kisses it better and gives it a hug.  Now we older people know that a kiss won’t fix pain, that’s what a bandage does.  But a kiss reassures the child that it is loved and cared for.  The kiss helps ease the suffering.  People who teach how to take care of hurting folks in the hospital say that when people have caring gentle friends, they can handle the pain, because the friends care.  That caring can ease the suffering.  A gentle hug or a nice joke or even a drawing can be the most helpful medicine.  Jesus knew that and that’s why he was so kind to the bent over woman!  Jesus helped her with both pain and sorrow.  Today we can use bandages, but we also can use doctors and nurses.  Back in Jesus’ day, only the rich could have doctors, but because Jesus healed this woman who was probably poor, now we have hospitals that anyone can go to no matter how much money is in the bank.  I think that’s awesome!

The second isn’t a rock, it’s a brick!  What does it say? Anger!  Anger is tricky.  Like the brick it can be used to hurt or it can be used to build up.  Anger can be a great teacher.  Sometimes we get angry because we are feeling hurt, or in fancy language, our boundaries are being disrespected.  Boundaries are kind of like imaginary fences.  If I am hungry, my plate of food is inside my imaginary fence.  If someone takes my food from my plate, I may feel angry, and like my imaginary fence has been disrespected.  It may be something as simple as food or as complicated as freedom.  When that happens, we can feel angry.

The leader got angry because he thought Jesus was breaking the fence of what was okay for church and what was not okay.  Maybe he felt that Jesus was not respecting him as a leader should be treated.

Jesus got angry back.  Not because the leader was breaking Jesus fence, but because Jesus thought that there was something more important than the leader and that was helping someone not suffer.  They could have gotten into a fight and thrown bricks at each other, but this didn’t happen.  Instead it was a chance for Jesus to teach the leader about kindness.  Sometimes if we can take a breath or say our ‘Be Still’ prayer, it can help us take a moment to ask if our fences are being broken or do we need to teach something?  When I was a kid, I was told to count to 10, but I like praying more.

Here are two little rocks that are very similar.  One is guilt and one is shame.  Those are hard to get out of the backpack.  Sometimes they are so hard that we need help to pull them out.  It’s okay to ask for help to do that.  Sometimes people come and talk to me, and sometimes if the rock is really heavy, they need to talk to a counsellor or coach or psychiatrist.  I have had to get help to pull out my rocks from time to time.  It’s okay!

What’s the difference between guilt and shame?  They can look very similar, but can you feel this?  It’s sticky!  That’s shame.  It’s really sticky because shame says ‘I am bad.’  Guilt says ‘I did bad’.  If I think I did something bad, like I broke a glass, I can fix it by saving my money and buy a new one or use the glue to fix the broken glass.  Once I have fixed what I did, I probably won’t feel bad or sad about it anymore.  But shame says, ‘I am bad’ and that is very sticky.  That takes time and help to fix.  We’re not bad, we’re God’s beloved children who make mistakes and aren’t perfect.  That’s why I like Jesus more than Santa.  Jesus loves us and never says “have you been good?”

Here’s the last one and it’s the heavy one.  What is this one?  Fear!  When we are afraid, we can get angry, or jealous or worried or ashamed.  Fear is terrible to live with.  Jeremiah felt fear.  But God said, ‘don’t be afraid, I am with you’.  Now I think that there are times to be afraid, like when I am walking across the road and I see a loud fast truck coming towards me.  Fear can give me the energy to get out of the way.  But sometimes fear can be more about what might happen than what actually is happening.  Is it real? Will it always happen?  Can I find a way to keep it from happening?  I can look for trucks before I cross the road.  I can listen for trucks before I cross the road.  I can use the cross walk light.  I can walk with other people on the cross walk.  All these can help me be less afraid.  Jeremiah didn’t have to be afraid, even though he was a kid.  God was with him.  And when we are with others who love and care for us like Jesus cared for us, God is with us too and we don’t need to be afraid.  Thanks be to God!