The Weight We Cannot Lift
Proper 16, Year C – August 24, 2025
Some burdens weigh us down no matter how hard we fight against them. Anxiety, grief, exhaustion, and injustice press until our backs ache and our eyes stay fixed on the ground. This week’s Gospel tells us of a woman who had carried that kind of weight for eighteen years. She could not stand up on her own. And that is exactly where God meets us: in the places where our strength runs out.
Jeremiah knew something of that helplessness. When God called him, Jeremiah’s first words were of disqualification: “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord pushes back: “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 1:7–8, NRSVUE). Then the Lord reached out, touched Jeremiah’s mouth, and said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth” (1:9). God does not erase Jeremiah’s weakness, but neither does God allow it to define the calling. Jeremiah’s vocation will not depend on his eloquence but on the presence and power of God. What Jeremiah could not do, God does for him.
The psalmist takes us deeper into that reality. “From my birth I have leaned upon you, my protector since my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you” (Psalm 71:6, NRSVUE). Dependence on God is not a stage or phase we eventually outgrow but the truth of our whole lives. From the very start we have been carried, held, and sustained by God. Trust is not an emergency plan when our strength fails. It is the posture of life itself.
Hebrews continues to push the idea. The writer tells us that the kingdom we belong to is not one we achieve, but something we receive. “Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude” (Hebrews 12:28, NRSVUE). Our footing is secure not because of our effort, but because of God’s great gift. Gratitude, not striving, is the proper response.
Then we come to Jesus, teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath. He sees a woman who has been bent low for eighteen years under a weight she cannot lift. “When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your ailment.’ When he laid hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God” (Luke 13:12-13, NRSVUE). What apparently no effort, no discipline, and no community could accomplish, God does in an instant. Jesus sees her, speaks freedom, and restores her life by lifting what she could not.
Her story is personal, but it is also a reflection of the world’s story. Entire communities are bent beneath the weight of injustice, pressed down by the crushing power of oppression. Creation itself groans under wounds we easily inflict but struggle to heal. These are not burdens we can lift on our own, but neither can we ignore them. Faithfulness means joining in God’s work of justice, standing with the vulnerable, and refusing to make peace with what is broken. We cannot, however, bear these burdens by ourselves. Only God’s power can sustain this work and carry it to completion.
These heavy realities do not stay “out there.” We also know the weight pressed down on our own lives. We are measured by productivity and performance. We are told our worth depends on what we achieve, how much we produce, and how strong we appear. Even in our churches, the lie sometimes takes root, telling us that faithfulness is a matter of output. These too are burdens we cannot carry on our own. They will crush us if we try.
This is why the Gospel story matters so deeply. Jesus heals the woman on the Sabbath. Sabbath is not about showing restraint for its own sake but about remembering who truly works. It is the weekly confession that the world does not turn because of our labor but because of God’s. To rest is not to quit. It is to confess that even the heaviest powers of this world, and the deepest weights in our own hearts, will not outlast the God who raises those who have been pressed down and gives a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
So maybe the invitation this week is simple:
Lay down the burden you were never meant to carry.
Let God speak when your voice runs out.
Let God uphold what you cannot sustain.
Let God raise you when you are bent low.
This is the heart of Sabbath. However we choose to practice it today, Sabbath is not a relic of the old covenant but a witness to the living God, a God who still works where we cannot, who still gives what we cannot secure for ourselves. Stopping, resting, and trusting is how we confess the good news that the world is held together not by our striving but by God’s mercy.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Image Credit: Healing of the Crippled Woman. By Theophylact, Byzantine Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria. 1055 AD.