By Reverend Laurie DeMott

"It's very naughty of you to speak so about Mr. Bell," said Marilla severely. "Mr. Bell is a real good man."

"Oh, of course, he's good," agreed Anne, "but he doesn't seem to get any comfort out of it.... I can just feel that Mrs. Allan is glad she's a Christian and that she'd be one even if she could get to heaven without it."

Are you glad you are a Christian? Is your faith a joy or a burden? Does it feel like a blessing or a curse?

We spend out our adult lives coping with innumerable pressures and stresses. Just getting through the day can feel like a challenge only for the strong of heart. You may face tensions at work with your colleagues or your boss, or maybe you are the boss and it is your employees who drive you to distraction. Perhaps it is children test your wisdom (and patience) or you are trying to cope with the needs of aging parents. There is housework to be done, snow to shovel, errands to run, snow to shovel, groceries to buy, snow to shovel, and always -- whoever you are -- bills to be paid. The sheer act of living can wear us out. And so on Sundays, the day of rest, we come to church to find some peace for our weary spirits. In Anne of Green Gables, when Superintendent Bell came to church, however, he didn't experience the church as a peaceful place -- his faith was not a source of comfort and strength for him. Instead he received here just one more burden to add to his heavy load: the burden of being good. "Pay bills, shovel the driveway, be good."

Is Christianity -- and I'm not talking about cultural Christianity that requires only sporadic church attendance and an easy profession of faith, but real Christianity in which the believer sincerely attempts to follow Christ in his or her life -- is Christianity a burden or a blessing to the believer? If you read try to follow the way of life Jesus described, will you find yourself stooped over with fatigue or bouncing along with a spring in your step?

In Matthew 11, Jesus says to the crowds of people, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I shall give you rest... for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." In these words, Jesus appears to come down on the side of Mrs. Allen in the debate -- "Take heart," he assures the people, "Christianity is an easy burden to carry, much lighter than any load you bear now." What a relief this must have been to those listening, those who, like people today, had too many bills and not enough money, who fought with their children, sometimes argued with their spouses, and wondered whether they would have a job to go to the next day. "I need some peace for my soul," they must have thought, "and thank goodness that I at last have found a man who is offering the solution to my problems."

But there were among the hungry ears in that crowd that day, twelve who were not so sure that they believed what they were hearing. Look at them there in the back of the crowd. The disciples had been traipsing along after Jesus for seven chapters now and in town after town, they had listened to him preach to the crowd, answer questions, and repeat his views on God's desires for the people. In the beginning they had been quite attentive but now, when the crowds gathered and Jesus began to talk about God's realm, the disciples sometimes nodded off or daydreamed about dinner. After all, they had heard Jesus' words so many times, they had much of it memorized. So I can just imagine them suddenly nudging one another awake and saying, "Did you hear what he just told them? He said his yoke his easy, his burden light!" Eyes wide in disbelief, stifling a desire to laugh, the twelve ticked off everything they could remember Jesus telling them over the past months.

"Easy?" Thaddeaus questioned. "Didn't he just say a couple of towns back that not only should you never kill anyone, you shouldn't even be angry at anyone?"

"That's right," agreed James. "and if someone hits you, you're supposed to turn the other cheek so that can hit that one too if they want."

Andrew added, "Just yesterday he told the people that they are to give to everyone who begs from you and if someone takes your coat, you're supposed to give them your shirt as well."

"And pray for those who persecute you," added Simon.

"And don't judge anyone," tacked on Bartholomew.

"And don't worry about tomorrow," Simeon rolled his eyes.

"And love your enemies," Judas growled.

The disciples watched the crowd eagerly hanging on Jesus' promise that his yoke is easy, his burden light, and thought to themselves, "Yeah, right. Easy? Have any of you tried to live up to the standard he's setting? This takes a lot of work." And the disciples hadn't even gotten to the worst of it yet. In the following months, Jesus would tell them to deny themselves; to take up their crosses, to lose their lives for his sake, to feed the poor, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick. In a book called The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith prays, "Lord Jesus, I believe that thou art able and willing to deliver me from all the care and unrest and bondage of my Christian life." An ironic prayer -- Jesus, deliver me from the bondage of following you.

Jesus says that we should follow him and in doing so prescribes what appears to be a very difficult and tiring lifestyle, and yet in the next breath he says, "Come to me and you shall find rest". What exactly is this rest that Jesus offers?

In order to solve the puzzle of that paradox, we need to back up a moment and ask another question: what is it that makes us as human beings feel most at peace, at rest? Jesus is offering rest for our souls; when do you feel that deep calm, that inner peace, that profound sense of happiness and wholeness?

On Wednesday, the children and youth came out to my house for a winter fun day, and after they had conquered the slopes and come in to get warm, we sat around sipping our hot chocolate and playing a game called, "Would you rather?" In the game, you are offered two choices and you have to decide which choice you would make while everyone else guesses what your choice will be. Most of the choices are disgusting ones like, "Would you rather eat worms or used cigarette butts?" but some are more profound. One that kept us talking for some time was the choice, "Would you rather love and never be loved, or would you rather be loved but never love?" The kids turned that question over and over, inspecting it from every side, unable to decide which was the worse fate -- to go through life capable of feeling compassion and love for others but never receiving love yourself, or to be an unfeeling rock incapable of loving anyone yet being the recipient of other people's compassion.

"To be loved is the most important," the kids initially argued, and certainly we crave the knowledge that there is someone out there who cares about us, who will comfort us when we hurt and share our laughter when we feel joy. How empty our lives feel when we have no one to share them with.

"On the other hand" the kids continued, "it would be horrible to never love anyone." What emptiness we would feel if we could never summon a shred of sympathy for another person. What torture we would endure if we lived our lives in complete self-absorption, unable to move out of our own tiny world of selfish needs and petty grievances and seeing others only as obstacles to our happiness. In giving ourselves to other people, whether it be to family, to colleagues, to friends, or even to the stranger, we gain a sense of purpose in the world knowing that our lives have meaning and that the world is much bigger than the narrow confines of our own concern.

In a recent New York Times column, Nicolas Kristoff wrote about an experiment done by neurologists in which a research subject was hooked up to a brain scan and then encouraged to think of giving money to a charity. The parts of the brain that lit up are those parts that are normally associated with pleasures like eating or sex. The implication, Kristoff said, is that we are hard-wired to be altruistic. 1 Which means that in order to be truly happy, we have to love -- we have to learn to give of ourselves to others in acts of unselfish caring. Doing good literally lights up our brains.

In a simple game that asked whether you would rather be loved but never love, or love but never be loved, the kids confronted the profound question of what it means for us as human beings to be happy, because at the end of the day, the only answer we could agree upon was that the loss of either would be a curse. To be whole human beings -- to be most fully who we created by God to be, we need both to be loved and to be capable of loving others.

"Come to me, and I shall give you rest," Jesus promised the crowds. Jesus knew that if we are to find wholeness and peace, we must let go of all of those things that weigh upon our hearts and keep us from being loving and from being loved.

Don't be angry"; he said, knowing that anger weighs us down as surely as a boulder sitting upon our chests.

"Give freely to others", Jesus commanded, knowing that greed gnaws and worries, leaving us ever restlessly snatching for more.

"Forgive those who hurt you," he taught, knowing how our bitterness and our grudges hold others at a distance, leaving us awash in loneliness.

Pray for those who persecute you; do not judge; feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick: light up your brains by loving and being loved.

"My yoke is easy, and my burden is light," Jesus said. The disciples thought of all of the commands they had heard over the months of their journey around Galilee and they wondered if following was really the light burden their Savior promised. And over the next months and years as they walked closer and closer to Jerusalem, certainly they would come to wonder again and again. Yet beyond the cross and the darkness there lay an empty tomb and light, and one day they would come to know with certainty the joy of being loved so deeply that a man would give his very life for you, and the blessing of learning to love as deeply in turn until you knew the wholeness that comes of being the person God created you to be.

"Come to me," Jesus said, "and I will teach to you love. Come to me and you will know what it is to be loved. Come to me and you will finally discover the rest you seek for your weary soul."