Letting Go

Again He entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. [The Pharisees] watched Him to see whether He would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.”

Then He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?”

But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; He was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”

He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him [Mark 3:1-6].

Several days before Dad’s death on November 22, 2014, I sat with Mother in his room at a nursing facility. We all knew we’d have him for only a few more days. In a real sense, however, due to dementia’s patient pace, we’d already lost most of the witty, engaging, active Dad we had known for so long.

Mother and I reminisced a bit. She joked that a lot of water had passed under the bridge since they’d married almost 72 years earlier. Seven months after graduating from Gastonia High School—Class of ’42—they’d “tied the knot” in the Olney Presbyterian manse.

She recalled that most of the first two years of their marriage, they spent time trying to get used to each other. Trained as a tail-gunner on a B-29 bomber at a time when the average lifespan of such a gunner was three missions, Dad had escaped his scheduled trip to England by volunteering for warehouse duty. Then keeping his head low, he and Mother had settled into a nice, although still somewhat tenuous, life in Sioux City, Iowa.

As we sat there that evening, she continued that love had a funny way with humanity. Just when you were comfortable loving someone, something would happen to upset the cart, even if that disruption was a good thing, like the birth of brother, Terry, in June 1945. She laughed that just when they were accustomed to being a couple, they became a trio. They had to give some things up. And yet, through God’s Grace, they received much more.

Returning to Gastonia after the end of the war, she said they settled into a rather long routine. But then, in ’51, of course, Todd and I came along. That was truly unsettling. And two years later, Jeff completed the household. At each point, she stressed that they had been required to give up a little here, a little there. And yet, love, as Mother and Dad always taught us, was never diminished when it was divided or shared. In spite of what they had given up, the expansion of love was what really counted. Along with the expansion came compromises and adaptations. Indeed, love often demanded surrender. But love was always adequate.

I remember that evening, as she and I sat near Dad, who was peacefully sleeping, she said, “Mercy, and now you and Jane have four grown children of your own. You’ve had similar experiences as your dad and me. You know, standing in the church manse that cold and clear January day so long ago, I never realized what love would require. For better or worse—we’re in the ‘worse’ part right now—we vowed to love and care for each other. If I was in that bed, I know he’d be sitting here with one of you boys right now.”

I’ve pondered the implications of that evening conversation now for 12 years. Young couples—Jane and I met that criteria long ago—think they know what love will require. They think they’re equipped for anything. Yet more is required than one might imagine. As I will tell a wonderful nephew and his bride at their wedding in July, marriage is a vocation, literally a “calling” (that’s what the word “vocation” means).

And yet, to be true to that vocation, indeed, to be true to any vocation, be it marriage, friendship, parenthood, life in the church and—dare I say it?—even love for God, we will always be called upon to adapt and let go. We will be called upon to surrender.

When Jane and I became parents, particularly when the size of our brood began to expand, we discovered that we had to let go of some privileges, some habits, some ideas, some freedom. We had to surrender to extend our love. When we decided to move to Durham, to pursue God in a different direction, we discovered there had to be an even more radical surrender.

You might think that this is an awkward segue, but in the Gospel reading that is appointed for this Sunday, the Second Sunday after Pentecost (RCL, Year B), Mark 2:23-3:6, Jesus is trying to tell the Pharisees that if they desire to be true to their vocation—the vocation of loving God—then they too will have to let go of some privileges and some habits that they hold dear. They’ll need to give up some freedom. In short, they’ll need to surrender.

Pharisees are often unfairly criticized by those who preach the Christian faith. We see how they observed the minutia of “the Law,” and we write them off as being too legalistic.

We cry, “How could anyone complain when a man with a withered arm is healed [Mark 3:5]? How can anyone complain when the woman who had been bent over for 18 years is suddenly allowed to look her friends in the face [Luke 13:10-17]?”

And yet, the Pharisees were trying to do good. They wanted to love God with all their heart and mind and strength. They read Holy Scripture, recognized that God gave the law to Moses for their own good, that God’s commandments came out of love for humanity, not disdain for it. When they said medical care shouldn’t be dispensed on the Sabbath, they weren’t trying to be cruel; they were trying to show their love and respect for God.

Then came Jesus. He also spoke about the love of God, but when He spoke, the words sounded different. People were swayed. They flocked around Him. They saw His miracles and signs. They began to believe. Even some of the Pharisees were intrigued by the messages of this upstart named Jesus.

But as they listened, the Pharisees began to see that if they were going to embrace Jesus’ teachings, they would have to change. If this new message of love for God was true, then they’d need to let go of some of their privileges, let go of some of their traditions, indeed, they’d need to surrender.

And so, when they criticized Jesus for allowing His disciples to gather grain on the Sabbath [Mark 2:24], Jesus pointed them to Holy Scripture, of a story in which David had allowed his own men to eat some of the bread that had been dedicated for sacrifice [1 Samuel, ch. 21]. God did not desire David and his men to go hungry. Jesus said the same applied to Jesus’ disciples.

And so, the Pharisees came to understand that if they were to partake of this new wine Jesus offered, they might need to discard their old skins. They’d need to change. They’d need to surrender. Were they willing to do so?

Jesus assured them that He had not come to abolish the Law, but rather to fulfill it [Matthew 5:17]. Jesus wasn’t telling them that the Sabbath was an ordinary day. He wasn’t teaching that it lacked importance. Instead, Jesus was teaching that every day is a day for healing. Every day is a day to alleviate hunger or thirst. Every day is a day to alleviate suffering. But to take that new concept into their souls, the Pharisees would need to surrender.

I suspect that many of us think we know what love for the Lord looks like. After all, many of us have shopped around for congregations where many folks believe and act as we do. We’ve studied Scripture on our own or in groups. We think we’re sure about what God thinks about women pastors, about what roles are properly set aside for men, about whether Yahweh created humanity as male and female. We may think that love for the Lord assumes a particular type of church school curriculum. We may think that we know what the love of God looks like because we’re sure that God shares our progressive agenda. There used to be circulated a joke that if Jesus decided to go to seminary, He’d go to Duke, not Yale.

And yet, Jesus wants to show us more. Jesus wants to expand our vision. Just as Mother looked back and recognized that her own perspective as to her calling as a wife had changed over many years, that in order to continue to love, she had sometimes been required to let go and, yes, even to surrender, so I suspect many of us, if we are serious about experiencing God’s love, and particularly if we are serious about sharing that Love with others, we will need to surrender. We may even need to give up a belief that we call dear. We will need to trust Jesus Christ and let go, even when doing so is difficult.