The road is long, with many a winding turn;
that leads us to who knows where,
who knows where . . .
Congratulations if you managed to recognize those words, since I decided not to sing them. These are the opening lyrics to the song “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”, which was a huge hit for the Hollies in 1969, and a hit again for Neil Diamond in the following year. It’s been a hit over and over, most recently as a charity single in 2012, raising funds for causes connected with the Hillsborough disaster.
This is a song with a story to it, and indeed with a story behind it. The title “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” was the motto of Boys Town, a community formed in 1917 by a Catholic priest named Father Edward Flanagan, in Omaha, Nebraska. Boys Town was a place where troubled or homeless boys could come for help, and its good work continues to this day, as probably one of the most significant children’s charities in the USA - girls have also been accepted since the late 1970’s. The work of Boys Town has been celebrated in two Hollywood films, the second of which, “Men of Boys Town”, included the Hollies’ version of the song when it was remade in the 1980’s. The phrase “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” had been used for the first time in the first version of “Men of Boys Town”, released in 1941, and it was in that year Father Flanagan decided to adopt the phrase as the motto for his work, as he felt it summed up so well what his work aimed to achieve.
And that was because Father Flanagan had been impressed by the story behind the phrase, a story not from America but from Scotland. It can be found in “The Parables of Jesus,” a book published in 1884, written by the then Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, the Reverend James Wells.
James Wells told the story of a young girl who was seen carrying a baby boy along the street. She was only small, and the baby was big and bonny, and a minister, passing by, said kindly to her, “My, but that’s a fair burden you have there, lassie; you must be tired.” And her reply became the title of the song: “No, sir: he isna heavy, he’s my brother!”
But I’d like for a moment to move from that story to the traditional story of St Christopher, remembered as the patron saint of travellers. Christopher was a big strong fellow who decided to devote his great strength to the service of the greatest king. So he entered the king’s service, but one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil. If the king was afraid of the devil, reasoned Christopher, the devil must be a greater king, so off he went to serve him. He came across a mob of bandits, one of whom claimed he was the devil, so Christopher joined them. But one day he saw his new master shrink away from a wayside cross - the devil was afraid of Jesus Christ. So Christopher decided to serve Jesus.
He met a hermit who instructed him in the Christian faith. “How can I serve Jesus?” asked Christopher. The hermit told him he served Jesus by fasting and prayer, but there was no way a big lad like Christopher could serve his Lord in such a way. So the hermit suggested that he might use his size and strength to serve by carrying people across a nearby river. There was no bridge, the water was deep, and some had died, swept away by the water. This, said the hermit, would be a service pleasing to Jesus.
So Christopher made it his task to carry people across the river. Then one day a little child asked him to take him across. As they crossed the waters rose, and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much so that Christopher could scarcely carry him and found himself in great difficulty; but he prayed for strength and managed to press on to the other side.
“Child,” he said to the boy, once they had made it across, “Of all the people I’ve carried across this river, you’ve been that hardest to bear. I began to fear I wouldn’t make it across; surely if the whole world had been on my shoulders it could not have been as heavy as you.” The child replied: “You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work.”
And so Reprobus, which had actually been the man’s name until that time, received his new name of Christopher, which means “The one who has carried Christ.”
I was reminded of both these stories when I read through the passage of scripture set for today in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Two places particularly in that letter - firstly, when in chapter 8 verse 26 Paul speaks about the Spirit coming to the aid of our weakness; and then in verse 29 when Paul describes Jesus as choosing to be the eldest in a large family of brothers (and sisters, of course - elsewhere Paul makes it clear that in Christ both male and female find equal acceptance and worth).
At first listen, the song “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” just tells the story of that little girl helping her brother, and that in itself is an inspiration, as we think of how important our families are and of how we belong to each other; but in the middle eight of the song the lyrics lift us onto a higher plain, and remind us that the whole world should live as family: “If I’m laden at all, I’m laden with sadness, that everyone’s heart isn’t filled with the gladness of love for one another.” It’s this relationship that Christ calls us into; how sad that so often religion divides when it should unite, and narrows our vision when it should be widening and enhancing it. How sad when the Church itself is not immune from these failings.
I’ve always been rather impatient with dogmas and doctrines. Of course, they’re important; they’re part of the process of being Church together, and understanding what we believe and how we are called to act and behave. But in the end it isn’t the way we describe or define God that’s important, but the relationship we have with him: what he does with our hearts. We are people of Christ, and therefore people of the Holy Spirit, and, to quote again from Romans 8 verse 26, the Spirit is the one who comes to the aid of our weakness.
As I listen to the song “He ain’t heavy” I’m inspired by the refusal of the little girl in the story to admit that her brother could ever be a burden to her. He’s her brother, and therefore it isn’t only her duty to carry him, but also her delight. It’s an act of love. And it’s the love she has that makes her strong enough to carry him.
But the story of Christopher the Christ-bearer reminds us also that the service of our Lord is also the place in which we recognise and confront our weakness. Being aware of our weakness is a vital turning point. Christopher knew how strong he was, and he was eager to use that strength in the service of his King. But on that fateful day when he carried the child across the flood, he also realised how weak he could be. Sheer strength was not enough. On the verge of losing his footing and being swept away with his precious charge, he prayed for help, and that help was given him - not help to take away the pain and challenge and sheer back-breaking slog of his task, but help enough to go beyond the limit of his own powers and still to reach the other side.
Serving our Lord is a co-operative venture. That’s the promise Jesus made when he told his disciples they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Give all you can give; it won’t be enough, but you’ll not be left like that. For when you pledge yourself to give, you will also receive.
Many of the stories Jesus told have within them a sense of a secret that can be hard to find and discover, but which when found is of infinite value and preciousness. So in the story we’ve heard this morning a merchant finds a pearl of such great price that he sells everything he has in order to buy it. Or we hear about the farmer who finds treasure buried in a field, so he sells all his other land to buy that field.
Just think a moment about those two stories. In simple human terms they don’t make sense. What farmer gets rid of all his land in order to buy a single field that he’s not going to be able to do anything with, for fear of disturbing what’s buried there? A merchant gets rid of all his stock in order to buy a jewel he’s never going to sell; what sort of a merchant could ever do something like that? You’d say of both of them that they’ve gone a little mad, that their heads have been turned.
Jesus I think liked to shock and puzzle people like that, but the nonsense element in those parables (nonsense in everyday human terms, anyway) was exactly his point. Once you’ve grasped the secret, it becomes so important that nothing else matters. And the secret is that we are known and loved and treasured; that we for all our unworthiness are saved; that we are weak and unable to save ourselves, but the Spirit is ours to help us in our weakness, to open our eyes and our hearts, and to give us prayers to pray. That God who could destroy us our ignore us chooses in Jesus Christ to be our big brother.
Solomon, when he became king in place of his father David, took possession of the nation that had become powerful and prosperous. But his first act is to go prayerfully to the shrine at Gibeon, and to acknowledge that the people of this nation are not his, but God’s. Out of all the things he might have asked for, he asks for wisdom and for a discerning ear and heart, so that he might not only govern but serve the people placed in his care.
Whoever we are, high or low in human terms, our call and our mission under God is to serve. Because we know Jesus, we know also that we’ll find in him the best model of service. He’s our great example, he’s the Servant-King. Paul expresses it like this: “We have the mind of Christ.”
So it would be good like Solomon to pray for the gift of discernment and the ability to listen deeply; and like Christopher to be ready to offer all we have in the service of our King; and like the little girl in the story, may we too have perseverance and love so we can bear the load gladly. And may we have as our own the precious jewel that lies at the heart of it all: that though we’re too weak and too short sighted and too lacking in faith and though we can’t manage to do in our own strength anything like enough to qualify for heaven, none of that matters, because we’re already there we’re already citizens of that place. For our God knows us and loves us and saves us and strengthens us, and in Jesus he chooses to call us sisters and brothers, family.
So we have the holy task of doing loving and lovely things not our of fear or duty but as a thank you and an act of love, because we know we are loved, and because we see the face of our big brother Jesus in all kinds of people who need and merit our help and our care. And so these words become not only inspiring words but holy words too: “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”
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