"Come to me,
all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in
heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my
burden is light."
The poet WH Auden
once wrote that if he had his way, all books of literary criticism would be
banned from libraries, we would all memorize poetry, and anyone wanting to be a
poet would have to “look after a
domestic animal and cultivate a garden.” [1]To
be a poet would not be an academic exercise, in other words. It would be living
the experience, particularly by being a part of the natural world. To be a poet
would be an experience of all the senses, and all the emotions, that are in the
real world.
The same thing
could be said of the practice of theology: if I want to be a theologian, one
who seeks a deeper understanding of God and religion, I need to experience God
with all my senses and all my emotions in the real world. And Auden’s
prescription of looking after a pet and cultivating a garden would be equally
applicable, wouldn’t it?
Pets. They are a
vital part of our lives, and they certainly cause us to use all our senses and
all our emotions, in every possible way.
A few weeks ago,
several of us were staffing the parish’s booth at Glen Allen Days, telling
folks about our church and inviting them to come and check us out. There were
lots of folks walking through with their dogs. Big dogs, little dogs,
purebreds, mutts – just about every kind of dog you could imagine. So we called
out to them and asked them about their dogs, because people always love to talk
about their pets, as much or more than they like to talk about their children
or grandchildren. And we talked to folks
about this pet blessing, and I’m hoping that one or two of you who are
newcomers joined us today because you heard about this service there, and wanted
to come and ask for God’s blessing on your beloved pet.
At one point in
the afternoon a woman walked by with a beautiful collie. I called to her and admired
her dog, who she said was called Connor. The woman had a pink cap covering her
bald head. I told her about this service and she said, “I would love to come,
but I’ll be in the middle of another cycle of chemo, so I don’t think I’ll be
able to join you.” We continued to talk about her illness and the challenge of
treatments, and I said, “I’ll bet Connor is a real comfort to you when you’re
feeling bad.” She said “Wait a minute…” and pulled out her smartphone. She
started scrolling through it as I wondered what she was looking for. She found
what she wanted, and wordlessly handed the phone to me. On it was a picture of
her, stretched out on her couch, obviously feeling pretty low, and stretched
out on top of her, covering her almost completely – Connor was a big boy – was that
beautiful collie. “He’s with me whenever I’m stuck on that couch. It’s like he
knows I need him.” And her face was aglow with love for Connor, her companion
who stayed with her through her hardest moments.
It’s a story I’ve
heard so many times before. It’s one I’ve experienced as well. When I’m feeling
bad, my cat Spooky comes and snuggles up next to me, comforting me. Time and
time again, I hear stories of pets who seem to sense when their owners need a
little unconditional love, and offer it by crawling alongside or on top of
their human.
And it is that
unconditional love, that beautiful comfort, that is the gift we receive from
our pets. Even when they misbehave, or do something they shouldn’t on the rug,
they still love us, and we love them.
In a world where
love almost always comes with strings attached, our pets offer a different
equation. Here’s my love. Give me a little love back, nothing more. A treat
would be nice, but I’ll still love you. No matter what, I’ll cover you with unconditional
love. What would we do without that unconditional love?
In today’s
gospel, Jesus says “come all you who weary and are bearing heavy burdens. I
will give you rest.” It sounds impossible, doesn’t it? Someone would willingly
take us at our weariest, when we are tired and messy and broken and angry and
confused, and say “hand over all that bad stuff to me. I’ve got you covered.” We
would not think it possible, if we hadn’t already experienced the way that
works when we came home from school with a broken heart and cried our eyes out
into the furry neck of our dog, or when we were terrified at the possibility
that we might have an awful illness and our cat curled up next to us and
purred, or when we didn’t have the strength to get up because our spouse died
and we were depressed and the dog crawled right up in bed alongside us, as if
to say “I’m here, you’re not alone. I’ll cover you….”
I’ll cover you,
when you need it most, without question, without exception.
In the musical “Rent”
a young man tells his lover:
“I've
longed to discover Something as true as this is,
So with a thousand sweet kisses, I'll cover you,
So with a thousand sweet kisses, I'll cover you,
With a thousand sweet kisses, I'll
cover you,
When you're worn out and tired,When your heart has expired,
If you're cold and you're lonely, You've got one nickel only,
With a thousand sweet kisses, I'll cover you,
When you're worn out and tired,When your heart has expired,
If you're cold and you're lonely, You've got one nickel only,
With a thousand sweet kisses, I'll cover you,
With a thousand sweet kisses,
I'll cover you.” [2]
And how can we
hear that song and not remember the lick on the face when we walk through the
door, the warming purr on our lap, the sweet song when the morning light enters
the birdcage? “I’ll cover you.”
We wouldn’t
understand what Jesus says – come to me, lay your burden on me, I will give you
rest - but for the taste of that love we had already gotten from our pets. We
wouldn’t understand how Jesus would love us enough to take on our burden, but
for the fact that our pets so often do precisely that. Whether they are aware
of what they do, I don’t know – perhaps animal behaviorists can say – but it seems
that our pets are willing to be our comforters, with no expectations in return.
I’ll cover you…
Is that why God
made cats and dogs and horses and hens and turtles and such? Simply to show us
how God loves us? I think it is more complicated than that…the assumption that
animals were put on this earth simply to do something for us is challenged by
God’s own comments about the created world. This is interconnected web, this
created world. We are all gifted by the things that God created, be they
animals or flowers or waterfalls, and each element of the created world has an
obligation to support each other element.
So if that is the
case, where does this leave us when we contemplate our pets? They give us
unconditional love, but what do we give them? Are we capable of learning to
offer that kind of love to each other, and to the rest of creation? Can we cover all of humanity, and even all of Creation, as our pets have
so often covered us, with a selfless love?
Perhaps the
answer is found in the Gospel – it so often is. Jesus says “Take my yoke upon
you…my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” If we need to learn the lesson of
how to love our fellow human beings, we get our first lesson in love from our
pets. Our pets, who cover us. Our pets, who love us. Our pets, who give us a
kind of love we rarely get from each other. They are our teachers, these dogs
and cats and turtles and hens and horses and ferrets and cockatoos and guinea
pigs. They cover us, and they teach us and they remind us that the yoke of love
is easier than we think. Covering each other, animal or human, is no burden. It is the gift and the lesson we learn from
Jesus and from our pets.
Amen.
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