THE FIELDS ARE FULL; WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
Amos 8: 1-12
LUKE 10: 25-37
JULY 20, 2025
It certainly feels like I should be sharing tales about my brother this morning … yes, I am the better-looking brother and I am by far the most intelligent of the two Delaney boys who Ethel and Bob brought into the world … those facts are rather obvious but the truth in having Mark with us in worship today is the fact that two brothers ARE IN worship today together loving each other … and that God and Christ matter to us both and that we have made it to our early 30’s realizing that church matters.
There is a familiar song from the era of Classic Rock music that often resonates in my mind whenever I hear the Hollies or Neil Diamond singing it … Mark, I have to admit that I think of you first when I hear the opening chords … “[1]the road is long with many a winding turn that leads us to who knows where. Who knows where. But I am strong … strong enough to carry him. He ain’t heavy he’s my brother so on we go. His welfare is of my concern no burden is he to bear we’ll get there.” Now, yes I am obviously the brother who has this gym-created body … but I do think of Mark in this song because in this life he matters/you matter … to me. And, for all of my days I will be there for him and I know he will be there for me.
But there is much more to this song … it originates back in 1884 when a book entitled ‘The Parables of Jesus’ was published in Scotland. It tells the story of a little girl carrying a big baby boy. The author focuses readers on her near juggling of this big boy in her arms as she walked forward. Their parents or the boy’s parents were not in the scene, and someone sees her struggling to take another foot forward with the child in her arms and asks her, “Little girl aren’t you tired?” With surprise she looks up at the inquisitor and replies, “No, he’s not heavy; he’s my brother.”
That story carried forward over the next 80 years. Some of you remember Father Edward Flanagan’s Boys Town. Father Flanagan adopted the phrase, “He ain’t heavy, Father, he’s my brother” as the slogan for Boys Town. Father Flanagan said it refers to a moment in 1918 when one boy was carrying another boy up a flight of stairs at Boys Town. The boy being carried was said to have had polio and wore heavy leg braces.
So, another child picked up the boy … probably almost his own size but in need of someone’s arms … lifting the boy up … he was no burden because carrying for another mattered more than the challenge of the lifting up of the boy. The little girl picked up her brother and carried him. Flangan said the boy told him, “Father, He ain’t heavy … he’s my brother.”
And, the prophet Amos calls out a reality that we can easily discover here in the 21st century … “The days are surely coming, says the LORD God, when I will send hunger and thirst on the land … neither a hunger for bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the LORD’s words.”
And, friends … just what are you going to do for those struggling folks … is their burden … their disconnect from God and from Jesus Christ … is that too much for you to bear? In Jesus’ reflection on what it takes to gain eternal life He shares the story of the Good Samaritan clearly pointing out that the two men whose life images as a Pharisee and a Levite would imply that they were close to God … Jesus declares that they are not true neighbors … that they were not on a path for eternal life … that they actually were not aligned with God because they crossed the road … the turned their back on the one stranger who was hurting … was beaten … was near death … they were not about to carry that man much less carry him because their welfare was their concern … but Jesus agreed with the legal expert who shared God’s expectation that, “You must love your neighbor as yourself.”
There seems to be a common focus throughout Scripture but perhaps as Christians we need to remember that the common focus of carrying for one’s brothers … carrying for one sisters … carrying for one’s neighbors is a Jesus mandate.
Next week we will celebrate Christmas in July remembering again God’s loving gift through Jesus Christ but today and tomorrow we need to remember that we were not a burden too heavy for God … that God’s love in a remarkable and amazing manner does not encumber God but is an open opportunity for change and reflection. That God’s love is an always open book for all of humanity but that with God’s love comes our responsibility to be the faithful.
I can always reflect on the Easter story … all of you know how I celebrate Palm Sunday as if we can see Jesus walking down that hill towards Jerusalem with the palms waving and the shouts of Hosanna echoing in the air … last night milliseconds after a round white ball with a circumference of about 9 inches left Kyle Schwarber’s wooden baseball bat heading in flight into the right field stands of Citizen’s Bank Park 43,000 of us rose with a resounding sound that echoed to the Delaware River and beyond … I like to imagine the shouts for Jesus Christ were that loud on Palm Sunday … I would like to think that people who today claim that they are the faithful would wave palms and cheers in today’s world if Jesus appeared reminding us of the opportunity to link arms together to help the poor and broken who are on our streets … who live so close to us … telling us to ensure that all of God’s people are kept safe because that’s God’s call to us.
Those of you who know me well now that I get depressed on Good Friday … I can’t explain how a date in the 21st century whose calendar mention changes year to year gets to me but it does. The day that Jesus, the Son of God, was brutalized for me … and for you. But then we know the extreme joy of Easter, which in those early morning hours was one that found the men who followed Jesus hiding but the women were making the most important discovery of history at first merely whispering to one another “He is Risen” <<HE IS RISEN INDEED>> and yes, I love the celebratory call of this church family … the essential nature of that simple phrase HE IS RISEN INDEED.
But acknowledging that reality is easy … it’s just like claiming to be close to some baseball player whose autograph some pay millions of dollars for but that’s not what it means to accept that life’s road is long with many a winding turn not knowing where it will lead but being dedicated enough to be strong … strong enough to carry the weak … strong enough to show concern for the poor and the broken … strong enough to declare the welfare of every person is our concern and no one’s burden is too great to bear because accepting those winding roads … being strong enough to carry the weak … strong enough to show concern for the poor and the broken … strong enough to accept the LORD GOD’s requirement to DO JUSTICE … EMBRACE FAITHFUL LOVE and MERCY FOR ALL, and to WALK HUMBLY with GOD.
That’s the Christian responsibility … that’s the lesson of the Good Samaritan … each day you and I should be singing with an energetic kinetic force the words of that song “He aint’ heavy … He’s my brother” until that becomes the message of the land … the message of the world. James, one of Mark and my pastor growing up’s favorite Biblical authors, wrote “Claiming to have faith can’t save anyone can it? Imagine a brother or sister who is naked and never has enough food to ear. What if one of you said, “Go in peace, stay warm! Have a nice meal!? What good it is if you don’t actually give them what their body needs? In the same way, FAITH IS DEAD when it does not result in faithful activity.”
That comes from Jesus’ brother … he spent his entire life around Jesus and in that short passage he affirms Jesus’ teaching from Matthew’s Gospel … he shouts to the world through his words that the message of the Good Samaritan matters to the faithful as a reminder of who we are to be … how we are to live because frankly, THE FIELDS ARE FULL of humans in need of Christians to step up and to give a hand, to wrap our arms around them to lift them up and to carry them, to shower them with the love of neighbor truth that is missing from so many lives. To live as if Jesus command in his last words is relevant to us and matters to us and is our focus in life because our faith is alive … “YOU … YOU THE FAITHFUL …. YOU MY FOLLOWERS … will be MY witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and Swedesboro and even until Paulsboro and to the end of the earth.”
With our Vacation Bible School now just 7 days away perhaps the call of the prophet Amos has a connection to you …knowing that children in your circle of life have a hunger for hearing the LORD’s words … take a poster and put it up in a store or a restaurant … hand a flyer out to a friend or a neighbor and tell them NEXT WEEK VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL is happening here … it is free just like God’s love is!
Maybe … just maybe … you are willing to give up a week of your OH SO BUSY LIFE next July to go to RED BIRD with us. We know the dates right now … JULY 5th until JULY 10th … don’t say your schedule is full for that week right now because we all know it isn’t but think of the difference you can make for others while growing your faith in a new and special way.
Or perhaps today you are realizing you just need to get closer to God. The warning from the prophet hit home, “Hear this you who trample on the needy and destroy the poor of the land so that you may sell grain and enlarge the shekel and sell garbage as grain … the Lord God has sworn SURELY I WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY HAVE DONE … I will make people wear mourning clothes … and the end of it like a bitter day.”
But the joy of the Lord … the cause for singing and celebration in heaven comes from the moments we humans connect or reconnect with God’s truth … when we cross Jericho’s dirty road to care for those who are hurting … when we align with Jesus Christ to share the Good News … when we restore our souls beside the still waters and out of the chaos of the world … when we realize each day that through God’s love Jesus Christ is our light and is risen <<HE IS RISEN INDEED>>.
Red Bird … the Food Pantry … Family Promise … the neighbor across the street … and as the song goes the only reason to be laden at all with sadness is that everyone’s heart isn’t filled with the gladness of love for one another but you and I can help bring the light of Christ into this world … just step and realize that those out in the world ain’t heavy … they are our brothers and sisters. AMEN