Noses are a sensitive subject in our family. None of us believe our noses are attractive, and we all live in a neurotic fear that our noses will continue to grow as we age. So you can see why my 8th grade government teacher's motto stuck with me. That, and the fact that, we heard it so many times. Keep your nose clean. As far as Mr. Morgan was concerned, this covered all the bases as guidance for human behavior. Keep your nose clean. What he meant by this was, "make sure you've done well before you start wondering if someone else is goofing off."This is what Paul means when he says, "All must test their own work; then that work rather than their neighbor's work, will become a cause for pride."

Paul is more sophisticated than Mr. Morgan. Not just in the fancy language he uses to say "keep your nose clean."These days we might say that Paul is talking to an audience of folks who have bad boundaries. You know, folks who spend a great deal of time minding someone else's business more than their own. You see this with brothers and sisters a lot. "Mom! He's pulling the cat's tail again!""Dad! She didn't brush her teeth!"Grown ups are more likely to advise each other how to drive or dress, to express horror at someone's smoking but not their own drinking. That's sort of a self-perpetuating cycle, because when you are more concerned about others, you really don't have much time left over to pay attention to keeping your own nose clean. Which means you need to concentrate more on other people's problems in order to distract folks from seeing your flaws. Keep your own nose clean, Paul says. "For all must carry their own loads."But he says this right after he tells the church how to help folks who find themselves in a situation of having sinned. Be gentle, Paul says, just as God's own Spirit is gentle, giving the church one of its most-beloved rules: "Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."That is so sweet. Help each other out. Be tender. If someone is limping, offer your arm. Be like Jesus. Paul concludes by saying, "Keep your own noses clean, for" (as if what follows is a logical conclusion) "For all must carry their own loads."

Don't those two things contradict? Bear one another's burdens, carry your own load. Try to see it this way: it's Paul's advice to the members of the church to make sure they aren't being harder on other people than they are on themselves. Help each other stay on the straight and narrow, he says, but make sure you do what you need to, to keep your own nose are clean.

And the reason we can do that is because of Paul's other point. Boasting. We all know boasting. Boasting is what happens in those Christmas letters we all hate to receive and wish we could write. "Our daughter was the star of the community play again this year while getting straight A's in college. Junior is giving his second solo pipe organ recital as he finishes 8th grade this year. Our middle child is passing up a scholarship to take a year off before college to feed lepers in Mother Teresa's hospital in Calcutta. Dad's invention just earned him majority stockholder in the firm, and Mom started the only dot-com in Oregon last year to make money in its first two months of business."

Paul wants to boast in the cross of Christ. Boasting. The ultimate in sticking up for our own accomplishments. Self-reliance. Pride. How can he boast in something that someone else did? How can he "boast" when it was Jesus who suffered, who went through the pain and disgrace? Isn't boasting about flaunting accomplishments? Kind of putting them in the face of other people? Notice how good I'm looking (and you aren't). Paul seems to choose this word, "boasting," to emphasize the utter extravagance of the claims of the cross. There are, apparently, appropriate and positive times to boast. And seen in the light of Easter, even the humiliation and gore of the cross is positive. The cross becomes positive in Paul's world because of what it does for the community of people who believe that God became a human being like them and died on that cross. And didn't just die, but descended into hell and on the third day he rose again from the dead. You remember those words. We regularly leap to our feet to make those boasts. What Paul is saying is that the cross of Christ does something that is just phenomenally unbelievably amazing. The cross gives meaning to suffering.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel survived the Nazi holocaust as a child in concentration camps in Europe. Of the many ways that the Nazis tortured their victims, one way was to make them watch others die. Eleven-year-old Elie Wiesel stood in the crowd forced to watch the hangings of several fellow prisoners, most of them adults, but also one little boy his age. The adults were heavy enough that the weight of their bodies ensured that their deaths would be quick. The little boy was too light for his rope, and the prisoners were forced to watch him suffering and dying for 20 minutes. In this hellish time, a man behind Wiesel cried out "Where is God?" The child Wiesel looked and knew that God was with that little boy slowly, slowly dying. Not just far away thinking objectively of the child, but experiencing that child's pain and lifting his sorrow in love.

That is what the cross of Christ means. God is with us. God is with us. God is with all who suffer, and the cross of Christ means that we, too, are with them. We no longer need to figure out how to earn God's love for ourselves. We can take that energy and those resources and lavish them on each other. No need to concentrate on being nice so that God will love us, because God already does. Now we can be nice to each other because we know we are loved and that makes us feel compelled to share that love. Because we know we are loved, it is possible for us to console someone who lost a parent. Not in terms of, "I know just how you feel."But in terms of "Let me offer sympathy and stand beside you."Because we know we are loved, when we see someone in the agony of divorce, we can say convincingly, "You are still loved, you are still treasured."Because we know we are forgiven, we can be gentle with someone who is having trouble kicking a bad habit or who finds they have done something they are ashamed of. We can put ourselves in the place of someone in trouble, because we have been in trouble. We can be gentle with someone in pain or in need of forgiveness, because we have been there, and we have experienced the forgiveness and comfort of a gentle God. Because we have been the recipients of a fellow believer's help and comfort. And so we can offer help to others. This is "mutuality" and it's about credibility in offering help as much as it is about knowing how to be gentle.

Paul warns us, "take care that you yourselves are not tempted."One of the things that statement warns against is boundary troubles. Don't get confused about whose lose is being mourned, whose responsibility it is for the troubles as well as for the solutions. As people who have been forgiven ourselves, we know that God will deal gently with this other child of God. We do not solve each other's problems. We just get to come along side each other. That's what is behind putting together those two contradictions, "Bear one another's burdens" and "all must carry their own loads."Keep your nose clean, but carry an extra handkerchief in case your friend needs one.

But what does this have to do with sowing and reaping? Or maybe you didn't read the sermon title. Paul says, "Do not be deceived; for God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow."That is such an obvious thing to say. Of course you reap what you sow. What? You plant potatoes and harvest corn? You plant strawberries and pick grapes? I hate this saying, but it's probably an interpretation of what Paul says: what goes around comes around. You sit on the couch all summer, you won't make the A soccer team. You refuse to practice the piano, you're not going to be ready for the recital. You do strengthening exercises, you'll be able to lift heavier objects. You feel free to gossip about other people, folks are going to feel free to gossip about you.

Another way of saying "you reap what you sow" is that you get what you count on. If you count on transitory things, things that don't last, that's what you'll get. If your bank account is the solution to your problems, you will only have things that money can buy. Have you seen those ads? It's always something really luxurious: "New designer dress: $850. Dinner on the town: $175. Champagne carriage ride: $150. Romantic evening with your beloved: priceless."

While we can see the falseness in the assumptions behind that advertisement, there is truth to it, too. There is something priceless about time spent with people we love. But that time does not need maxed out credit cards. That's sowing flesh. That's counting on transitory things. Sowing the spirit means time and emotional energy and resources, imagination and creativity. Love. Coming alongside each other in gentleness because you yourself have received God's gentle forgiveness. Bearing one another's burdens while carrying your own load. Keep your own nose clean. But carry an extra handkerchief in case your friend needs one.

Prayer: Help us, O God, to be gentle with one another. Give us the grace to take responsibility for our own growth. Grant us the compassion to look out for one another, loving each other as you yourself love us. Amen.

Benediction: You are precious in God's eye. You are God's wonder and delight. Carry God's love gently and firmly to all you meet. May God walk close beside you so that you may scatter seeds of love, sing songs of joy, shape communities of peace and build bridges of hope. Amen.