“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared, the sea was also gone. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
The one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” Then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” He also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.” (Revelation 21:1-6)
“If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.” Luke 17:33
******************************************************************
In Buddhist practice, there is an exercise called “holding on and letting go.” It is based in the knowledge that all things are impermanent, that they cannot continue forever. The exercise consists of taking an object which is of great value to you - something to which you are strongly attached, something with strong memories attached - and throwing it away. You literally throw it, over your shoulder, and from then on it is gone.
In the Christian scriptures, a story is told about a young man who asks Jesus what he should do to enter the realm of God. Jesus says, essentially, go and get rid of everything you have - then you will be able to enter. The young man, unable to give up all his riches and possessions, goes away.
Jesus wasn’t talking literally about getting rid of everything, he was addressing that very fine line between holding on, and letting go - and when it’s the right time to do which.
In Roman mythology, Janus was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings. His most prominent remnant in modern culture is his namesake, the month of January. He is most often depicted as having two faces or heads, facing in opposite directions.
In general, Janus was the patron of concrete and abstract beginnings of the world, human life, new historical ages, and economical enterprises. He was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another.
There’s a fine line between holding on, and letting go.
To “let go” means not to worry about the future, but look forward to what might happen
Havelock Ellis once said, “All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.” It seems like the further you go in life the more you are faced with the decision of what to hold on to, when to hold on, and when to let go and trust. It becomes more and more important to consider what you need to keep and what you need to change.
Sometimes we have to do both at the same time. The word for this is “risk” . The Japanese character for “hope” involves danger and opportunity.
When it comes to change and risk, today’s successful organizations are traveling the super highway, schools are starting to get on the county highways, but the church is still trying hard to continue plodding down the old and familiar paths. So many congregations are reacting when it’s time to act. Reacting to choruses, reacting to different worship styles, reacting to the changing neighborhoods around their church. Congregations have somehow learned how to say no more than yes, and end up stuck on the same old cow paths.
Rev. Thomas Hall talks about the different stages of a church committee - and these stages can be applied to almost any activity we have in the church. Here are some of them:
Wild enthusiasm. “Let’s begin a new outreach to children in the inner city—I’ve seen so many kids on the street corners on Sunday mornings; we could bring them to church for Sunday School and a lunch, then drive them back.” “Yeah!” “What a great idea!” “All in favor, say aye!” “Can you believe it—everyone voted yes! “What an exciting idea!”
Disillusionment when things don’t happen yesterday. Three weeks into the new ministry . . . “We don’t have enough people signed up.” “I never intended to help out every Sunday, I just thought it was a really good idea for the church.” “We need to find volunteers to take on this job.”
Search for the guilty. “Whose idea was this?” “I just want to go on record that this was not my idea; I had reservations about this whole thing from the start.” “I think the pastor needs to step up to the table and take responsibility for this failure.” “I don’t think we really did this the right way, there was a better way to do it. After all, we are in a crisis.”
Over the last five weeks, Glen Ayr has been working at a stewardship programme. Maybe you weren’t sure, maybe you didn’t read all the material, maybe it just didn’t sink in because it wasn’t like a stewardship programme you remember. It wasn’t designed as a hard sell, it was designed to ask each of you to think about what you can offer to help support all of the ministries in which Glen Ayr is involved. Just as you are feeling the bite in your grocery bills, heating and hydro, gas for the car, all kinds of things - so this church feels that too. But we also believe that Glen Ayr is growing into a new role in this community, and that we have something vital to offer to the community around us. That’s the holding on part.
At the same time, we are called by faith to live out of a sense of abundance and gratitude. Without every single one of you here - and all of those who might be but cannot - Glen Ayr would not be here at all. We started out almost five years ago together, on a path into the unknown. We had no idea where this would take us, and to a large extent we still don’t know exactly where we are going. But we engaged a new and energetic musician who, with considerable talent and sensitivity, has brought a new dimension to our worship and our life together. We have begun to see a new group of people finding something here. We have many people who quietly give of their time and talent to the church; some have been here a long time, some are newer. In the process of that, there has been some letting go - there has to be.
The quote from Havelock Ellis says much to me. All of our endeavours have to be a fine mingling of holding on and letting go - of doing things a different way, and of not reacting if something doesn’t work. Everything we do is an experiment - there are no hard and fast rules for what will work and what won’t. There are no rules for how fast it is going to happen - because it happens in God’s time, not ours. In short, there are no guarantees - yet in the midst of no guarantees we are called to faith and hope.
Part of living a faith of gratitude is to celebrate what we have, even when we might see clouds on the horizon. We have to be willing to let go of certain concepts, and do something differently, in faith and trust that God will make something out of it. It may not happen, in which case maybe it wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s the danger. But there is also the opportunity: at the same time that we try to look to the future and do some responsible planning, we also have to look at who we are now, right here, today - and celebrate who we are and what we have. For part of this year we will be celebrating a lot of the past of Glen Ayr. We will also celebrate the future of Glen Ayr, unknown though that may be. In the midst of that danger and opportunity, we also have to celebrate each other - with gratitude and thanks. So today we come together around God’s table for the communion celebration, and then we go to lunch together - a lunch provided as a way of saying thank you to each of you, for who you are, and what you bring to Glen Ayr. Because there is a time for just letting go and being...right now. May it be so.
Sources:
1. “Trouble Back At Headquarters” a homily based on Acts 11:1-18 by Rev. Thomas Hall.
2. Henry Havelock Ellis 1859 - 1939 - physician and social reformer.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment