Letting Go

Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church

On April 3, 2005

By the Rev. Thomas C. Davis, Ph.D.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-6  (King James)

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:  a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.

Psalm 131 (New Revised Standard)

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,

  My eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

  too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted

  my soul,

Like a weaned child with its mother;

my soul is like the weaned child

  that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

  From this time on and forevermore.

John 20: 11-23 (New English)

So the disciples went home again; but Mary stood at the tomb outside, weeping.  As she wept, she peered into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.  They said to her, 'Why are you weeping?'  She answered, 'They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have laid him.'  With these words she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but did not recognize him.  Jesus said to her, 'Why are you weeping?  Who is it you are looking for?'  Thinking it was the gardener, she said, 'If it is you, sir, who removed him, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.'  Jesus said, 'Mary!'  She turned to him and said, 'Rabbuni!' (Which is Hebrew for 'My Master').  Jesus said, 'Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to my brothers, and tell them that I am now ascending to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'  Mary of Magdala went to the disciples with her news:  'I have seen the Lord!' she said, and gave them his message.

Sermon Text

I will preach this morning about letting go.  The topic was prompted partly by events of the past week:  the regrettably divisive and controversial death of Terri Shiavo ; the passing of our dear friend and member of Hanover, Brenda Billingsley, who fought colon cancer and its complications for six years; and finally, the passing of Pope John Paul II, whose caretakers wisely and compassionately decided not to resist his body's demise. 

I have looked and looked, but still not found any explanation for what Jesus said to Mary of Magdala, when she recognized him in the garden on Easter morning:  "Don't cling to me," Jesus said to her, "for I have not yet ascended to the Father."  I can picture Mary hugging Jesus for dear life, a life she never expected to get back.  "Don't cling to me," Jesus said.  If you were directing a re-enactment of that scene, how would you require the line to be spoken?  What tone of voice would Jesus have used?  I hear him pleading, not ordering:  "Please Mary, let me go.   I'm on my way to God.   Don't hold onto me anymore.  Let me go."

Letting go can be so very, very hard.  Hard for those staying, and hard for those leaving.  We can fight death and hold it off, as Brenda did so valiantly for many years.  But eventually every one of us must give in to the demise of our bodies, and let go of everything we know, trusting in God's everlasting arms.  "To everything there is a season," says our scripture, "and a time for every purpose under heaven. . . There is a time to be born and a time to die. . .There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. . .There is a time to keep, and a time to cast away." 

Perhaps "casting away" is too strong a term for our topic this morning, but I suggest we might hear this passage saying to us:  There is a time to hold on, and a time to let go.  There is a time to resist dying with all our might, and there is a time to give up the effort.  As painful as letting go can be, it does not signify a defeat.  It is a natural part of God's beautiful creation. 

Unless we die suddenly, the spiritual challenge for all of us, of course, is knowing the right time to let go.  If you take that challenge apart, you'll find a host of sub-questions.  For instance, the one leaving may ask: Should I try to hang on for my loved ones' sake?  Or, will they be hurt if I seem too ready to let go?  And the ones staying may ask:  Whose needs are more important here:  mine or my loved one's?  By hanging on to him or her, am I being helpful, or selfish?

It's hard to answer such questions in the abstract.  Let me try to address them by reflecting on my own experience. 

At forty six my mother died of stomach cancer.  In 1968, the year she died, there had't yet been much written on death and dying.  Our family doctor was a personal friend, and I guess he had trouble informing even the family that she hadn't long to live.  He advised us not to tell her that she had cancer.  She would have some good days, he advised.  Let's not to dash her hopes.  Nowadays,  full disclosure is the medical norm, but back then people couldn't face "the big C."  And so, we kept the terrible secret. Mom did have some good days, but gradually she began to realize that her health was not improving . Still we kept the dark secret, far beyond the time when our family desperately needed to work together toward the letting go.  The last time I talked with Mom, I had come home from Navy leave.   Before I went to her bedside Dad said:  "She knows.  In fact, she has known for quite a while; and she thought she was the only one who knew."

The doctor did what he thought was right, but I regret his decision.  My family could have had more time for letting go.  That would have been better.  It takes honesty and time to be together in a way you've never been before, in order finally to let go in a beautiful and satisfying way.

In his eighties, after exploratory surgery,  my Dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.  For various reasons, the doctors didn't advise operating. My brother and sister and Alice and I and my stepmother were at his bedside as he was coming out of the anesthesia.  I took his hand and said, "Dad, you have cancer in your throat.  Very serious cancer."  I barely got this out when I heard from behind me a gasp, and "You shouldn't tell him!"  I turned around to them and said, "Yes, he needs to know!"  My Dad looked me in the eye, and said, "Thanks.  You're a man for telling me that." 

Dad lived almost two more years, and had many good days.  When I was visiting, I let him decide whether we would talk of his dying.  He almost never did, and I would wonder whether he remembered that day or not.  Eventually I recognized that he did.  He would speak of dying in subtle, metaphorical ways.  I could see that he was letting go confidently, serenely, even creatively.  It was sad to see, but beautiful too.

Letting go requires all our strength, all our ability to be honest about our own needs, and compassionate about the needs of others.  Parting with a loved one, the final letting go, is always sad; but in time the sadness wanes, and a death may be appreciated as a good death.  In our culture death is the arch enemy who must be fought at all costs.  In most of our scriptures,  death is portrayed as the frustrater of God's intention for creation.  The Easter good news is that "Jesus tramples down death;" and many Christians look forward to a time when all the saints will be resurrected and there will be no more dying.

Well, that's the major voice in our tradition.  But a minor voice, such as we hear today from Ecclesiastes,  maintains that death is part of God's intention.  Death is sad for the living, but death is not bad.  There is a time to be born, and a time to die.  Death is not the mark of a perfect creation that has gone wrong.  Rather,  death is a necessary part of a creation that is already beautiful, if we but have the eyes to see it.

One more comment about letting go before I close:  letting go of a loved one to death requires a good deal of maturity.  If you haven't matured enough to let go of a loved one peacefully, the letting go will train you in that direction, most likely.  I find Psalm 131 a very helpful meditation for people trying to let go.  Let me read it again:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,

  My eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

  too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted

  my soul,

Like a weaned child with its mother;

my soul is like the weaned child

  that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord

  From this time on and forevermore.

If you are facing the death of a loved one, the first helpful thing you may notice in this psalm is that you don't have to be certain of what's ahead to trust that things will be all right.  You don't have to have heaven figured out.  The psalmist says that his eyes are not raised too high.  He's not going to bother about things that are too great and marvelous to comprehend. He's just going to quiet his soul, like the soul of a weaned child.  A weaned child has begun to let go, you see.  A weaned child has left mother's breast, and has just begun to walk a life of separateness, individuality, and vulnerability.  Notice that the psalmist says he has the calm soul of a weaned child.  Being separate, individual, and vulnerable (as all mortals are) does not frighten him.  He is calm.  Why?  Because he trusts in God, that's why.  Letting go is scary, sure.  But one can be calm about it, because underneath all the uncertainty of living or dying are God's everlasting arms. 

The psalmist might say, as many recovering addicts do,  "Let go, and let God."  Let go and let God.  Let your soul be like the weaned child, and hope in the Lord.