Unbuckling Our Packs and Lightening Our Loads

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, October 10, 2021

Fr. Tom Seitz, Jr.

 In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.

 One of the highlights of my summer, and indeed, of my entire life, was going on a weeklong backpack adventure, up and down the hills of West Virginia along the Allegheny Trail, with my son, because it gave each of us the opportunity to come to know each other better as grown men, and at sixty-nine years of age, I don’t have any time to lose.

 Preparing for this adventure was almost as exciting as the journey itself. I drove to a store in Winter Park to get fitted for a backpack and to select a sleeping bag. I visited Amazon to order a two-person tent and an air mattress, water purification tablets, a bear bag to protect my food and bear mace to keep potential bears at bay, a first aid kit, a nighttime headlamp, compass, and rain pants. I collected insect repellant, sunscreen, and toiletries from my bathroom. I purchased ten pounds of hard cheeses, beef jerky, protein bars, peanut butter, trail mix, dried fruit and freeze-dried dinner entrees from Publix, along with my hat, shoes, water bottles and hiking poles: roughly forty pounds in all.

 When I hoisted my pack on my hips, back and shoulders and buckled it onto my waist and chest, I was a rich man, because I possessed everything I needed to enjoy a unique and memorable adventure with my son, who, as an experienced backpacker with several prior adventures under the wing of professional guides, reassured me that I could follow his lead.

 Even though I was familiar with this area of West Virginia, I was not prepared for the grueling nature of the terrain, both the severe changes in elevation and the often rocky and demanding left-to-right camber of the trail itself. Even with the help of the hiking poles, I lost my balance and tumbled three times, not breaking anything, thank God, but straining my knees and ankles and wounding my pride. On one occasion, I was not able to get back up on my feet, even with my son’s help, without first unbuckling my backpack.

 That’s when I was reminded of what Jesus is saying to us, his disciples, this morning. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” In my case, it wasn’t so difficult to let go of all my worldly goods, because I was pretty sure my loss would only be temporary. My backpack wasn’t going to plummet down the mountain side into an irretrievable ravine. But what I did realize was the fact that as precious as all my worldly riches were and are, my relationship with my guide and rescuer, who in this case was my son, was infinitely more vital. My backpack and all its contents could be replaced, but my relationship with my guide was irreplaceable. That’s why Jesus is reminding us that it is impossible for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God, because when you’re rich, you forget how vital your Lord and Savior is and you overestimate how valuable your riches are. It’s hard to let go of our possessions, but with God’s help, we can do what would otherwise prove to be impossible, thereby avoiding the loss of our life and our relationship with God.

 The letter to the Hebrews makes this same point when the author states that we must hold fast to our confession. Our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior is our most precious possession. When we face a moment in our earthly adventure when we must choose between our confession and our wealth, or even between our relationship with God and our loved ones, we must be willing to give up our riches, in whatever form they may take, trusting Jesus’ promise that we will receive a hundredfold more as well as the gift of eternal life, if we do.

 So when the church invites us to make a pledge of support for the mission and ministry of Christ in this community and in the larger world, it is God’s invitation to us to unbuckle our pack and to appreciate once more our vital relationship with Christ, and to lighten our load of the stuff we don’t really need that is weighing us down and making our life’s journey less rewarding for ourselves, sharing our “can live better without it” stuff with others so that we can make their journeys more rewarding too.

 I took an online backpacking course as part of my preparation for my adventure, which is roughly what we do when we take time each week to gather to hear God’s word to us for our spiritual journey. My instructor taught me to put everything I wanted to bring on my trip into three piles – the essentials, the want-to-haves, and the luxuries. She then advised me to take the essentials, one luxury item and no want-to-haves. What want-to-haves do we have in our packs that are just weighing you down, that we aren’t really using, that we don’t really need?

 Now that I have my first significant backpacking adventure under my belt, I realize that I can share one cook stove and fewer fuel cannisters with my fellow travelers. I don’t have to have an additional ground cover under the floor of my tent; that’s what my duct tape is for. I know now that I don’t need so much food: eight or nine pounds, and not ten, is more than enough for a six-day hike. I can also pack a lighter battery backup for my one luxury item – my smartphone – rather than the combination battery and recharging solar cell that I carried that weighed twice as much. My clothing bag can double as a pillow, so I don’t have to bring my inflatable pillow along.

 I am willing to do this, and in fact I am happy to do this, to make these kind of sacrifices, because the purpose of my trip, as my instructor put it, is not to rough it, to put unnecessary strain on my back, ankles and knees, but to smooth it – to smooth my life by reducing the burdens that would distract me from knowing my son better.

 The same is even truer in our spiritual journey in seeking to deepen our relationship with Christ. The Bible teaches us that we can reduce the weight of our pack by ten percent and discover that our adventure is even smoother than before. That may seem like too much at first, and if it does, then start with a one or two percent weight reduction, from forty pounds to thirty-nine or thirty-eight, if not thirty-six. Even eliminating one redundant item, like choosing between waterproof matches or a butane lighter, will trim a few ounces, which adds up over a lifetime of ups and downs.

 Jesus wielded a sharp, two-edged sword in issuing his invitation to the rich young man to drop his pack altogether because Jesus perceived that this young man was especially fond of everything in his pack, but he also had the potential of discovering that if all you have is Jesus, you have everything you need. Dropping his pack altogether was what he needed to do if he wanted to experience where Jesus’ love for him would lead. That young man went away sad because he knew he was passing up an incredible opportunity to spend not just a week with a precious son, like I did, but a lifetime with his Lord and Savior, who is infinitely more valuable than any pack, no matter how large it may be, a guide who knows the way to the kingdom that the young man was seeking, who is, in fact, the very kingdom that he seeks.

 So when you receive your pledge card sometime in the coming weeks, consider your backpack. Consider how heavy it is. Consider how it can weigh you down and wear you out. Consider how it can throw your life out of balance and cause you to stumble and fall, even with good boots, hiking poles and strong muscles. Unbuckle your pack and consider what it feels like to be free of it altogether. Open it up and take an inventory of what’s inside. And then consider how important your relationship with Jesus is, how he wants to smooth out your life, how he will guide you to springs of living water and green pastures if you let him and he will offer you his rod and his staff, and indeed, his very life, to rescue you when you stumble and fall, and even carry you if your body or your spirit is broken by your falls. And then, by his grace, let some of your pack go. Lighten your load. Let him share your load. And trust that the coming year will be a rich adventure because following Jesus has become that much easier, that our sacrifices are no sacrifice at all, but the very means of drawing closer to Jesus. AMEN.