Letting Go

Matthew 6:25-34; 2 Timothy 4:6-8

If you took a foreign language class in high school or college, you undoubtedly had to conjugate verbs. In seminary it was required that every student take a minimum of two semesters of Biblical Greek in order to be able to find our way around the New Testament in the language in which it was written. We had to memorize the conjugation tables of Greek verbs. The first verb we learned was the verb luo, because it was the most regular of the verbs. It followed the rules, and therefore was the standard. Every minister in the first week of class had to memorize the Present Active Indicative of Luo: luo, lueis, luei, luomen, luete, luoousi. I still remember it. My Greek professor, Dr. Culpepper, would be proud of me. Although I would not be able to tell you what the aorist passive subjective forms are to save my life. It so happens that the definition of this simple verb is one of the most important concepts in the spiritual life. It means “to loose” or “to let go.” If one learns to let go, one has learned a great truth.

A man was hiking up a mountain, lost his footing and tumbled off a cliff. He managed to grab onto a root sticking from the side of the mountain and he hung there. He could not go up, and below him was a 300 foot drop and certain death. He was hiking alone and had seen no one for hours so he thought he was a goner. Just when he thought he could hold on no longer he heard a voice call out to him from above, “Dave.” Dave replied, “Yes. Yes, is someone up there?” “Yes, there is. I am here.” “Help me!” “Of course I will help you, Dave.” “Who is this? How do you know my name?” “It is me, God.” “God?” “Yes, God. I am here to help you. You do believe in me don’t you?” “O yes, God. Throw me a rope.” “No, Dave. I am God. I don’t need a rope to save you. Just let go of the root and I will catch you.” “Dave was silent for a while. Finally God said, “Dave, you do believe in me don’t you?” “Um, yes,” replied Dave. “Then just let go, and I will catch you.” Dave thought for a moment and then yelled, “Is there anyone else up there?”

My message this morning is on letting go.

1. First, let go of worries and fears. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, which is our Gospel Reading for today: “Do not worry.” Some translations will use the words: “Do not be anxious.” This is easier said than done. Jesus says, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on.” He says, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” And he adds, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

My wife and I had a conversation while traveling in the car the other day. Jude was saying she was worried about our kids. I said, “I don’t worry about them.” She said, “I know. You could stand to worry about them more than you do!” I am not saying I don’t worry! But I don’t worry about our grown kids. I figure I did my job and got them into adulthood in one piece, and now they are on their own! And their kids are their worry, not mine. I am not saying I worry any less than my wife. We just worry about different things.

But Jesus is telling us not to worry, to let go, to loosen up. The primal sin of human nature, perhaps we could even call it our original sin if we want to use that term, is that we hold on so tightly rather than giving it all to God. Worry is really nothing more than fear, when you think about it. When we worry we are afraid of something that might happen or not happen. A lot of the anguish and emotional suffering of life stems from our inability to let go of fear.

2. Second, let go of sin. Here I am talking about forgiveness. The Greek word for forgive means literally “to let go.” It is an image of a clenched fist which is relaxed. Forgiveness is the centerpiece of biblical religion. Every religion in the world defines what they see as the essential problem of human existence and proposes a solution. The Judeo-Christian tradition defines the root problem as sin, and the solution is forgiveness. There is a human need to be forgiven and to forgive.

People have a real problem with forgiveness. People have a problem with guilt and sin. They might not use those words. But they will talk about people doing something wrong to them or to others. They will speak in terms of anger, injustice and resentment. They will not let go of that sense of being wronged. They will remember some wrong done for years. Their lives and relationships are governed by something that happened long ago. Or it might be something that they have done, and they have not felt forgiven nor can they forgive themselves. They carry around guilt with them poisoning their hearts. The genius of the gospel is that we can be freed from this. We can be loosed. We can let go of the past and be set free from it. That forgiveness is found in Jesus Christ. Through faith in Christ we can experience forgiveness for what we have done and we also receive the ability to forgive others for what they have done to us.

It is possible to forgive and forget. I have heard people say that they can forgive but they will never forget. If that is the case, they have not really forgiven. They have not been set free from the sin. They are still attached to it. All they have done is loosened the rope that binds them to the sin a little. But they have not cut the rope and been freed. We are able to forget. God has given us that ability. We just need to practice forgetting. Some of us do not need any practice forgetting things. We are getting better at forgetfulness as the years progress. I walk into a room and forget why I went into it. My forgetter is getting better and better. We can use that gift of forgetting when it comes to forgiving others and forgiving ourselves. We can let go.

3. Third, let go of possessions. We have our annual stewardship emphasis coming up soon. Some pastors dread preaching about money every autumn. Personally I have never had any problem with it. My experience is that most people ignore whatever the preacher says about money anyway. Jesus has a lot to say about money, and people did not take what he said seriously. Why should my experience be any different than my Lord’s?

My experience is that people get tied in knots about money. Money destroys families and friendships. When a parent dies, the kids will fight over the inheritance. That money can permanently damage that family. From doing marriage counseling I know that finances is one of the biggest issues of contention between husbands and wives. Friends will get all bent out of shape about money that is passed between them. If you want to put stress on a relationship, just borrow a big sum of money from that person. That will change everything. This is true of property. Property lines seem to be a big deal to many people. People get upset over a few feet of dirt. Who cares? If somebody borrows something and doesn’t return it, it is a big deal to people. People’s lives, relationships and happiness are all tied up with things and money. Their sense of self-worth and happiness is tied to what they own.

Jesus told story after story about such people. He said on one occasion, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." Paul said, “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” The advice of the NT is to loosen up. Let go. You have probably heard the old illustration of the monkey trap. The way that people used to catch monkeys in the wild was by carving a hole in a coconut just big enough for a monkey to get his open hand into. Then they put some food in the empty coconut and chain it to a tree.  The monkey will put his hand inside and grab the food. And he cannot pull his hand out when it is in a fist, but he will not let go. So he is trapped by his own clenched fist, and supposedly the trapper can come up to him and capture him. I am not so sure that old story is true. I think that monkeys are probably smarter than that. But I am not so sure about humans. My experience is that humans will not let go of money and possessions. They are willing to give up an awful lot to keep ahold of things. Just let go. You can’t take it with you anyway. As Jesus taught in the parable of the Unjust Steward: “make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon,” meaning to use money and things to develop relationships and not harm them.

4. Fourth, let go of self. This is the fundamental issue. The inability to let go of money, possessions, sins, resentments, guilt, worries and fears all comes down to our inability to let go of self. We are the problem. The solution is to die to self. Jesus said, “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, but who loses his life for my sake will find it.” He is not talking about being a martyr. Any half-crazy jihadist can be a martyr for a cause. He is talking about something much more radical and profound. Jesus is talking about dying to self. To get back to the original language of the NT again, the Greek word translated life, or soul, or self is the word psuche or psyche. It is our psychological self. It is what we normally think of when we think of our personal identity.

Some people call it the ego, but it is much more than what Freud or modern psychology means by the term.  Self is the mental construct that we have created in our brains by which we define who we are. The truth is that we are not who we think we are. We are not the collection of thoughts and emotions inside of our brain, walking around in this physical body. That is what we tend to think we are. We hold on to that personal identity with all our strength, like the monkey clenching his fist in the trap. We really think we are the sum of our personality traits, our ideas, our beliefs, our histories, and our relationships. But the truth is that we cannot take any of this with us when we die.

We hold on to these so tightly because we are afraid that if we let go there will be nothing left. Who are we really if we are not ourselves? If we are not the “self?” I cannot give you the answer to this question in a sermon. If I tried to do that, it would simply be another idea to add to your collection of ideas in your head about who you think you are.  All that does is confirm the self, whereas we are trying to die to self. The only way we will ever find the answer to this most important question is to let go of self. 

Jesus talks about dying to self, losing self, and even about crucifying self. The apostle Paul says that he is not his self. When Paul discovered who Christ is and who he really was while on the Road to Damascus, he would later describe it in the earliest of his letters saying, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) We discover ourselves only when we lose our self and live to God. What we normally take ourselves to be is really nothing more than a temporary phenomenon. No more real and permanent than an eddy in a river. When doing yard work I saw a miniature whirlwind pick up some dead leaves and twirl them around for a few seconds like tiny tornado in the corner of my back yard.  As I watched that little display I realized that is all I am. Our personal little whirlwind of physical molecules just lasts a few decades longer than the autumn leaf variety.

What we really are is the wind, which happens to take physical form for a little while. The Greek word for wind is the same as spirit. Jesus explained this to Nicodemus. He said, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) When we let go of self and surrender to the Spirit of Christ, then we find ourselves.

5. Fifth, let go of body. The apostle Paul talks about his own death in our epistle lesson for today. “The time of my departure is at hand.” (2 Timothy 4:6) The Greek word he uses that is translated “departure” is a word for casting off the mooring lines of a ship as it sets out to sea. It means to untie a rope so that the boat can go on its way. That is the apostle’s understanding of the end of physical life. Death is letting go. But we do not like the idea of letting go, do we? Not when it comes to our death. In fact we hold on to this physical life for as long as we possibly can. Some people hold on for too long or they try to hold on to their loved ones for too long, keeping ourselves or our loved ones alive on so-called ‘life-support” when there is no longer any personal consciousness. In such cases that is not life-support; it is death-denial.

The best thing we can do is let go. We cannot hold on to these bodies forever. They say that every cell in the human body is replaced every seven years. That means we get a whole new body every seven years. This new model I have is not any better than the old one. It is a lot worse than the one I had 7, 14, 21, or 28 years ago. A lot of people trade in their cars every few years. They will upgrade to a newer model. But when it comes to our bodies, we keep getting older models in worse condition than the one we traded in!  I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The cover story of Time Magazine recently was on Google’s attempt to cure death so we could live forever. That will not happen in our lifetime. And if it did, I do not think I would buy into it.  Who wants to physically live forever?

We are not our physical bodies. To cling to them is to deny our true nature as children of God, born of the Spirit and not the flesh. It is to trade our birthright for a mess of pottage like Esau did. People cling to physical life because they fear death. So we cling to what we know now as long as we can, instead of letting go into the unknown. Jesus says, let go. Why worry about something that is inevitable? To worry about something that is inevitable is a waste of time. You can’t do anything about it. Let go now, so that when the time comes you can let go of the body for good. As that time approaches we can face the inevitable with equanimity like the apostle Paul. He says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:7-8) When we let go of all, we gain all.