Aug 18th: Let It Go, with Rev. Kally Elliott.
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Rev. Kally Elliott
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Let It Go with Rev. Kally Elliott. Series: Re-Shaped A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: John 12.24-23.
Join Rev. Kally Elliott as she discusses the importance of embracing new life through the act of letting go. Kally shares personal experiences of releasing her child into God’s hands, letting go of her role as a parent, and letting go of negative self-talk to heal. Can we let go of the old to make way for new life, whether it be through embracing change, forgiveness, or spiritual growth?
Transcript:
Kally: Like most mothers who had young kids in 2014 I have a million videos of my daughter dressed in her light blue Elsa dress and cape, standing on our coffee table, belting out the lyrics, let it go. Let it go. Can’t hold it back anymore. And even if you haven’t had a young child in your life since 2014 you probably still know those lyrics, the else, the character Elsa sings in Disney’s movie, movie Frozen as she runs from her old life into the new when she begins her song, she doesn’t know how her life is going to change. She simply is running away from the prison in which her life has become. But as happens in Disney movies, as Elsa sings, there’s no going back. The past is in the past. Let it go. We watch her evolve and figure out how to well, let it go. Elsa is transformed, no longer the person she was at the beginning of her showstopper. Let it go. The great poet Mary Oliver says it this way to live in this world, you must be able to do three things, to love what is mortal, to hold it against your own bones, knowing your own life depends on it. And when the time comes to let it go, to let it go, Taylor Swift says it this way, shake it off. Jesus says it this way, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. And this may very well be the secret to life, full life, real life. It’s the pattern of loss and renewal, the pattern of transformation, of death and resurrection woven into the fabric of our lives. And if you’ve lived in this world, you’ve experienced it, sometimes by choice, soft, sometimes by chance, often against your will. It’s the tender, terrible truth that to find new life, we have to let go of the old. Consider the moments in your life that have required you to let go. Perhaps you fell in love and vowed to love from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death, do you part. Now, if you plan on keeping those vows, I can promise you, you will have to let go of a lot of expectations, some pride and the idea that you’ll ever win an argument. But in all of that letting go, you’ll find the grace that makes holding on worth it. Or perhaps you’ve faced the demands of parenthood, pouring out all of your time and your energy and your very heart so that your child could thrive, and then after all that giving, you’ve had to let go, releasing that precious child into God’s hand so that she can grow into the woman God is creating her to be. Recently, my 12 year old daughter told me she didn’t need me to put her to bed anymore. I’d been dreading this day for quite some time, having long said goodbye to the nights I read to and hugged my son’s Good night, those nights just kind of faded away as they moved into adolescence, and now here we were, my daughter, standing face to face with me, arms folded, looking me in the eye, not breaking it to me gently, but telling me sternly, Mom, I’m old enough to know When I’m tired and to put myself to bed. And yes, it kind of hurt, but honestly it is also kind of a relief. I mean, these teenagers don’t go to bed until sometime after midnight during the summer, and I’m far too old for that, so now I just yell upstairs, hey, go to bed as I tuck myself into my own bed. Or maybe the roles have switched for you and you, the adult child, are now caring for your aging parent. That is a letting go of a role you’ve played your whole life in order to step into a new role. How. Maybe you’ve lived with a story about yourself. You know you’re you’re too much, or you’re not enough, or you’re the responsible one, or maybe you’re the irresponsible one, and maybe you’ve had to let go of that story so that you can heal. Or what about the costs you paid for your career, what have you let go of so that you could provide for yourself or for your family? What have you said no to so that you could say yes to something else? For every choice we make, for every yes we say, there is at least one No, and probably many. We see this loss and renewal play out in the seasons of the year. Soon it will be fall, and seeds will literally fall to the earth, go dormant under the snow of winter and receive the nutrients of rain and sun in the spring, and then sometime between spring and summer, break open and be and emerge transformed into a new plant. And in the Scripture, we hear the story over and over again. I think of the first story in the Bible that I that has this, this, this image in it, Sarah and Abraham, the matriarch and the patriarch of our faith, whose very first word they hear from God is the word go, and then, in case they don’t understand the radical nature of the word go, God spells out exactly what they are to leave behind. Go from your country and from your kin and from your father’s house. That is to say, let go of of leave behind your nation, your family, the very home in which you have lived all your life and planned to die, pick up and move to a new place, and when you have moved I will bless you, imagine an elderly couple comfortable and secure in their daily routines suddenly hearing God’s call to let It all go, to step out into the unknown. This is the story. This is the story that sets the stage for the rest of the Bible. It is here that faith is born when God speaks into our settled lives, urging us to let it go. It’s an invitation to trust and to follow. Centuries later, Jesus of Nazareth calls his disciples from their settled lives to Matthew sitting in the tax booth a steady, profitable job. In those days, Jesus says, Follow me, and Matthew does. He lets it all go to follow in the dust of his rabbi. James and John left their father, their boats, their nets, to become disciples of Jesus and Fishers of people. To Philip and Andrew, Jesus says, Come and see. And they left everything to come and see what Jesus was doing, and then Jesus Himself. Jesus let go, he laid down his very life so that we might discover what it means to truly live. It’s a paradox, isn’t it, that in the act of giving up, we find ourselves more fully alive. We say it in our baptism, and we say it when we sit at the table together. We say, Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. What in your life do you need to let go of today? What might you need to leave behind? What needs to die so that something new can arise. It’s a question that nudges us gently yet persistently, inviting us into the sacred dance of loss and renewal. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that today’s Gospel is set in the context of the Passover feast. Remember the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt. They were in bondage for generations. The Passover is the celebration of the Israelites liberation from this bondage. It’s a time of remembering freedom and new life, a moment that invites us to let go of the past, to leave behind what binds us and step into a new beginning. And in the gospel that we read some Greeks come to Philip and say, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. And we in this, in this ask, we hear echoes of the first chapter of John, when Jesus invited Philip and Andrew to come and see what he was doing. For John to see Jesus is to know Jesus, to follow Jesus, to live like Him. And these Greeks, they they want to see Jesus. So they want to know Jesus. And I mean, who wouldn’t they had undoubtedly heard about him turning water into wine and giving sight to the blind, and, most recently, raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. I mean, if I heard about someone who could do all that, I want to see him to know him too. Philip tells Andrew about the Greeks and their request. Philip and Andrew tell Jesus, and Jesus says to them, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. That’s his response to those who want to see him. That’s his response to those who want to know Him, to follow him. But here’s the thing I’ve learned about seeds. Most of them don’t actually die when they fall to the earth. Instead, when they’ve been buried beneath the soil for long enough, at just the right temperature, the embryo within them begins to enlarge, then the seed coat breaks open and the root emerges, first, followed by the shoot that contains the leaves and the stem, once the leaves have sprouted, sunlight is the primary under energy source for growth. But here’s what I want you to know. What I wonder if Jesus knew when he used the seed as a metaphor for us, the seed has everything it needs within it to begin a new life. Inside the seed coat. Inside the seed coat is the embryonic plant. And in addition, the seed contains a food supply that is packed with nutrients to keep the seed nourished and allow it to grow. In fact, many seeds are able to endure long periods of drought, heat or freezing temperatures, yet are ready to spring to life when favorable conditions arise. If you don’t believe me, just Google it. That’s what I did. You have everything you need within you to begin a new life. Last week, Stephen reminded us of the verse from First Timothy, which tells us For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind that is the spirit that is planted within you. You have everything you need within you for a new life, but first you have to let go of the old. You have to let your shell be broken open in an episode of On Being Krista Tippett interviewed Dr Rachel Naomi Reman. Reman works with cancer patients at the end of their lives. She also lives with a chronic illness that has caused her to have many surgeries. She has lived with death around each corner of her life. Yet she says the way we protect ourselves from loss may be the way we distance ourselves from life. She tells the story of her grandmother, who every time an egg would fall out of her refrigerator and break on the floor, would exclaim, aha, today, we have a sponge cake. Throughout our lives, we experience countless little deaths, the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the fading of dreams we once held dear a diagnosis that changes everything. Sometimes we choose to let go to watch our child grow wings and fly, or to let go of the shame that has kept us small and hidden, to let go of the need for approval. Sometimes God has to pry our fingers open, releasing our grip on resentments and anger and addiction, things that keep us from the fullness of life that God offers in all of these deaths, though we have a choice to remain walled off, closed tightly, or to allow ourselves to be broken open, like the seed, like the egg on the floor, to be made into something new. Seeing Jesus isn’t just about sitting back and watching. It’s an invitation to follow, to embody a truth. To live a life that reflects his love. It’s about being that grain of wheat that falls into the ground, trusting that in the letting go, we will be broken open and new life will emerge. So what is the grain of wheat in your life today that needs to fall into the earth and die? What are the things you fear losing, convinced that without them, you might wither away. Perhaps those very places are waiting to bear much fruit in your life. Perhaps those are the very places you will encounter. Jesus, amen, [Rev. Kally Elliott]: all right, yeah, so that was 1548,
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