Sermon 10-7-07
Jim Burklo, Sausalito Presbyterian Church
“I Release....”
The Soul Year Prayer:
“Dear God, I feel... I want... I release... I accept... I thank. Amen!”
In my days as the director of the Urban Ministry homeless program on the Peninsula , I got to know a big bearded guy named Buck. He was a biker, a drug dealer, and an addict who got HIV by slamming dope with dirty needles. This was in the early days of the AIDS epidemic and the available care for people with the disease was limited. One day he showed up at our drop in center and he couldn’t talk. We figured out that he had suffered a stroke or had some other brain problem related to AIDS. We got him to the hospital and later checked him in to a residential hotel which we managed and got him on hospice care until he died.
A strange and wondrous thing happened as Buck went through his transition. This big, burly, macho guy turned into a kind, patient, sweet soul. He wasted away physically, becoming a thin, delicate looking person with warmly radiant eyes. The other people in the hotel, most of them suffering from mental illnesses or other troubles, would go to his room and he would listen to them and comfort them for hours on end. He became something like a chaplain to the other people on the streets as his life ebbed away.
Jeanne, our social worker, spent a lot of time with Buck. She was there when he died at Stanford Hospital . Here are Buck’s last words, which she recorded just before he slipped into his final unconsciousness:
“Let me go
Let it go
Let me go,
Let me know.
He knows.
He always lets me go.
Let me go now.
It works.
I’m really sure. It works
Like that.
Um hm. Um hm.
Um hm. Yeah.
It’s quiet.
Awfully quiet.
I need to go.
I’m scared.
It’s okay.
Do it now,
Right now.
Let me go for it.
Let it go.
Let it go instead.
Let it scare.
Everybody’s scared of that place.
Let’s go.
They’re scared all the time.
Why?
I don’t know.
Let it show.
They say let it go.
The skull.
They don’t know.
I’ve got to go.
We’d better go.
Let’s go.
Children make me smile.
They always let me go.
They always let me in there.
They let it go.
It’s going.
It makes sense.
All right!
I love it.
Let’s go!”
It took dying of AIDS to get Buck to the place where he was ready to let go, but finally he got ready, and he released his addictions, his grudges, his violence, his bad habits of body and mind. He released his demands, his expectations, his pride. Finally, he released enough that there was room inside of him for an awareness of God.
We are here today in worship to do the same thing – hopefully without having to go through what Buck went through to get to this point of release.
Without having to go through what Jesus went through, either!
We can do what St. Paul commended to us in the second chapter of Philippians:
[5] Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
[6] who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
[7] but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant....
We’re invited to empty ourselves, to release all that is within us which gets in the way of the boundless love that is God. Maybe we can get to this point of release without AIDS or crosses. Right here and now.
What do you need to let go?
What is weighing you down?
What is dragging behind you, slowing or stifling your progress on the way of compassion?
The Soul Year Prayer puts “releasing” before “accepting” – so that we will release the lesser in order to be able to accept the greater. Release what holds us down so that we can accept what lifts us up.
You may have something to release that you don’t even know is weighing you down. I’ve been backpacking with a heavy pack, and after a long hike, having grown used to the weight, I’m shocked when I take off the pack. For a while I’d feel like my body was made of helium – even though my weight hadn’t changed a bit. You may have something holding you down, a weight that’s been there so long you forgot about it, and you won’t even know how heavy it is until you let it go – when you release it you may be shocked at how light and free you feel! Worth exploring within, then, to find the ballast of your life, and lift it up to God, and drop it overboard, and see how much better your boat floats as a result...
A few years ago, when Roberta and I moved into our little 620 square foot house in Mill Valley, we had to get rid of 3/4 of our stuff in order to fit into the place. We had a big barn sale – we were renting a place that had a barn at the time – and we sold a ton of stuff. You know, I would be very hard put to tell you what it was we sold off. I don’t even remember that stuff. But wow, what a feeling of lightness followed. I didn’t even know that thinking about that stuff in the back of my mind was a burden, but it was – and I didn’t even know it till we got rid of it all. I still feel lighter, freer inside since we purged our lives of all those boxes and crates of – God knows what?!
Maybe it’s expectations you need to release. You might expect more than it is reasonable or healthy for you to count on. Let go of certain expectations in your career or relationships, and you might be liberated to enjoy what you’ve already got, which might be enough…
Maybe it is a grudge you need to release. Maybe you’ve held onto a resentment for way too long. Just to punish the wrongdoer – except by holding a grudge you mostly just punished yourself. Time to let go, let God take over, let the universe work out what you can’t resolve with your own desire or willpower. How much lighter would you feel if you released these grudges?
Maybe it’s a person in your life that you need to release, and let them go do life for themselves. Oh, this is hard sometimes – we love people, we hold them in our hearts, we want the best for them, we start to think that by grasping for them, holding on to them emotionally and spiritually, this will magically make things better for them when they are in trouble, or in danger. But mostly it doesn’t work. People need to be free. Our loved ones need to be liberated – not just physically, but spiritually. It is so hard to let go and honor their independent relationship with God – but if we can do it, we can be lighter, more joyful presences in their lives. We often best serve others by releasing them from the strings we attach to them.
Maybe it’s an idea or an opinion that you need to release. In my opinion, opinions are overrated. Opinions get us in trouble. We feel entitled to them, and we sometimes feel like it is our responsibility to declare our opinions to others. I’m a blogger – I am adding to the soup of opinions out there in internet land. But opinions can get us in trouble if we grasp onto them too hard. It can be important to take a stand, but hopefully not a last stand. Our judgments need to be held more loosely, so we can be ready to have our minds changed when new insight and information comes along. Releasing our viewpoints about things can make room in our hearts and minds for further enlightenment.
The story of Jesus is the story of a person who gave it all up, so that he could be emptied, so that he would have room for other people, and for God, in his heart. The ritual of communion reminds us that he released his body and his life for the sake of serving the world. He let It go, he gave it all up, so that he could be lightened, and enlightened, and so that we would learn to do the same!