What to Let Go - 21st Sunday after Pentecost
Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
October 13, 2024
When I began seminary in 2007, the Pennsylvania Turnpike
had instituted EZ Pass which made my commuting life inherently easier. No
longer would I need to wait in line, have money, be stuck behind someone who
was also asking the toll booth attendant for directions. I didn’t need that in
my life. Later I wondered, how many people lost their jobs for the sake of
“progress” and convenience?
Nowadays, I go to the grocery store and am seemingly
unable to use self-checkout without needing the person who oversees the lanes.
Maybe there is a weird barcode that doesn’t scan, or it doesn’t like that I
brought my own bag, or I chose my payment method too soon. There, despite the
technology that is supposed to make life easier, I find that I need someone.
And the light on my lane is going to keep blinking announcing “Help is on the
way.” It feels like a long time, but I remember that I need others and think of
how they must put up with us over and over. Sometimes I remember the day a
couple years ago that a guy who had always helped with bagging, whose highlight
of the day was talking to customers, found out he didn’t have a purpose in a
self-checkout world where business told us our time was too important. What a
way to be let go.
This is the breakdown of the Myth of Progress, an idea
that has been around for over a century, that we humans, or at least some of us
humans will have the technology and resources to keep marching ever forward,
adapting and improving until we make life and nature bend completely to our
vision of perfectability. It is said to be our collective destiny. In the
1900’s this destiny was about moving from horses to cars, and modernizing
warfare and factories and communication. Today, although horses are not a part
of the equation, I cannot help but think about how the world collectively
continues on this march of what we hear is progress. But that forgets about
each of us individuals in the picture. As if we don’t need each other.
The man in the gospel has already acquired many things. To
those around him, the fact he has so much means he is not only blessed he is
powerful. He decides he is missing one thing. Eternal life. It is as if he is
in the “Lord of the Rings” and he just needs the ring. He runs right up to
Jesus about it. Do you think this man noticed anyone else?
Jesus has just finished speaking to crowds who have
gathered around him, including little children. Jesus is starting out on his
way. He has been taking little children into his arms and blessing them, after
first having to tell his followers to stop trying to shoo away the kids because
they had it wrong. The kingdom of God is not exclusive.
The crowd and these children are probably still gathered,
and here comes “Mr. EZ Pass” on a quest without regard for any of them. He wants
to know about eternal life but has somehow missed Jesus just teaching that
eternal life is not earned. It is received. He has not grasped that Jesus
speaking of receiving the kingdom of God like a child is not about humility,
because children are too young to possess humility. Receiving the kingdom of
God like a child, Mark 10:15 tells us, is about possessing a trusting spirit
and a willingness to be dependent upon God and one another. Go, sell, give,
come, follow. Be willing to let go. Let go of “you” and see others. Let go and
trust God.
The man is sad because he cannot let go. What he is
holding on to has a hold on him in a way that makes the kingdom elusive. He
cannot imagine another possibility. Whether it is material things, or money, or
something else, we too can find ourselves here. Sometimes we tell ourselves the
march of “progress” is inevitable, forgetting people matter more than money.
Sometimes we tell ourselves we have to take care of ourselves first before we
can see others. Sometimes we tell ourselves stories about others to justify not
seeing them or worse, denying them the life we all seek because we are told we
deserve to be great. Beware anyone who tells you life goals that do not to love
others.
Since way back in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in
Chapter 1, he says that the kingdom of God has come near, and we should believe
the good news. The way God sees it, each of us matters and all of us matter
together. God’s kingdom binds us in a different way that asks us to let go.
Jesus’ disciples in the gospel contend this message of
Jesus doesn’t pertain to them. They are already here and they are following. “I’m
better than that other person who is not even here, Lord.” So I want to live
that “blessed” life. But that heart work is still the hardest.
The kingdom is a kingdom of love for everyone. Many
things we hold onto can get in the way of us experiencing and proclaiming the
good news of the kingdom. Some days we get it and some days we need grace and a
reminder.
Are there things you hold onto that you don’t let out of
your grasp? Is there something you are holding too tightly to follow
Jesus? News flash- we all have
something. C.S. Lewis once wrote, “Every step of the common journey tests (a
person’s) metal; but the tests we fully understand because we are undergoing
them ourselves…”[1]
What I notice is what we hold onto seems to fade when
actual life and death are at stake. We see each other then. We fight beside
each other, read, argue with and pray with each other. We remember we are all
struggling in some way, and we really do need each other. It is how God made
the world to be. The challenge comes when we are able once again to refill our
hands and our things allow us to not have to be so “needy.” Just because the
kingdom is not as fully possible for us, we should not declare it impossible.
We all want the good life. But we cannot achieve it but
treating everyone else like we have EZ Pass and they don’t or by assigning God
a supporting role. There are many places and struggles here and around the
globe, that none of us can ignore, nor can we individually solve, but as a
community of believers, we are gathered and centered in Christ for the sake of
the world God loves. The kingdom is a kingdom of love. The kind of love Jesus
has for the man as he looks at him and tells him what he truly needs to hear, and
now he tells us. To follow Jesus, and hold his hand, we have to let go of our
resources, and our priorities and our biases, and let Jesus call the shots even
if it looks inconvenient at best and frightening at the worst.
It reminds me again of the “Fellowship of the Ring,”
where part of the attraction of the story is watching a contentious assembly of
hobbits, dwarves and elves put their differences aside and fight alongside each
other amidst joys and silliness and threats and danger. They move beyond their
own individual sense of the world, to seeing the world, and they move beyond
whatever myths they told themselves that they now see are not true.
Perhaps most importantly they who may have started as
reluctant allies, are transformed into a fellowship of the noblest kind. They
reach that place where they set themselves aside and tell Frodo, “You can trust
us to stick with you through thick and thin. But you cannot trust us to let you
face trouble alone.” The kingdom is greater than anything we can possess. I
think that is the kind of good news Jesus can use us to embody in this world.
Letting go of ourselves instead of letting go of people, come what may. With
Jesus at our side, we too can say, “We may be horribly afraid, but we are
coming with you.” [2]
Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2024 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
Citations
[1] Laconte, Joseph. A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and a Great War, Nelson Books, 2015, p. 176.
[2] Ibid. p. 177
Sermon Text: Mark
10:17-31
17 As [Jesus] was
setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him,
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 Jesus
said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19 You
know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery;
You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud;
Honor your father and mother.’ ” 20 He
said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” 21 Jesus,
looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own,
and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then
come, follow me.” 22 When
he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many
possessions.
23 Then Jesus looked around and
said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter
the kingdom of God!” 24 And
the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again,
“Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is
rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 They
were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27 Jesus
looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for
God all things are possible.”
28 Peter began to say to him,
“Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus
said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or
sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake
of the good news, 30 who
will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters,
mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come
eternal life. 31 But
many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
BACK