In his book on aging Will Willimon includes a sermon he preached on the blessedness of being a burden.

I’ve got a couple of children; do I want to be a burden to them in my old age? Well, why not? They have been a burden to me. True, I did not give them birth, but I was there, close by, and I had to pay for it. Then the diapers, of which I have changed a few. And the sitting in sweltering hot sun at swim meets. And the PTA meetings! How many times have I had to rearrange my schedule to accommodate them. They were a daily burden to us for about twenty years. Even though they have fled the home, I still worry about them. Why should I bother being a burden to them for the couple of years of my dying?

Being a burden is what it means to be in a family. It’s part of the price we pay for loving and being loved. Love teaches us that we are never more human than in those moments when we joyfully burden ourselves with other people. To avoid or reject such burdens is to turn our back on our own humanity.

It is the nature of love to expose us to the needs of others, to have our lives interrupted, detoured, and, in general disrupted by another. We are at our best as we respond to such unchosen, undecided, unplanned demands, interruptions and encumbrances.

To say that your live is totally free of the bothers and burdens of other people is another way of saying, “I am lonely. I have no better purpose for my life than my life.” On another occasion, Jesus told us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt.11:28,30). I find it interesting that Jesus at that moment did not say, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will relieve you.” Rather, he said, “Come to me, and I will put a yoke around your necks, and place a burden on your backs that you have not previously borne.” Sure, his yoke may be “easy” and his burden “light,” but a burden is a burden. Jesus seems to have taught that the burdened life is the abundant life.

It means that Jesus compels us toward a deep awareness of the interdependence of human life. Not one of us is an island unto ourselves. Our children need adults who are willing to order their lives to care for the needs of children. We older adults need children who are willing, as adult offspring, to order their lives, so that they have the blessing of returning some of the love to us that we showed to them when they were dependent. And all of us need to be needed. It’s the way God put us together.

Christians are crazy enough, looking at ourselves and others through the eyes of the self-giving love of Jesus, to refer to such “burdens” as God-given blessings.

The last days of our lives are even more dependent and burdensome to other people than our first days as infants. I hope that my children, my spouse and my friends will have pity on me when I am in such circumstances. I expect they will be far more patient, and wiser, in caring for me in this state than I have been with them. My being a burden to them is the price they pay for love.

(Will Willimon, AGING: Growing Old in the Church, pp.106-108)