Just Let Go, Rock Springs, WY May 1,2011

Just Let Go!
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY May 1, 2011
Based on John 20:19-31


One of the members of this congregation shared a little piece of information with me a few weeks concerning the nature of this body of believers. I was informed that the church membership doesn’t deal well with change, for the sake of change, but given solid reasons and enough time to digest, eventually do make changes. First off, this isn’t unique to First Congregational, almost all bodies of faith resist change for the sake of change, and when needing to change, move slowly in doing so. We both ended in laughing about the irony of the only thing that is constant is change itself!
Our last two worship services, which were Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, were conducted very differently than what we do a lot of Sundays. We were worshipping in forms that were not “the way we usually” worship. On Palm Sunday, there were lots of video on the screen, coffee cups were in the chancel area, and the pulpit had been removed. We left in silence two weeks ago, leaving our Palms and on Easter Sunday entered a dark Sanctuary. The lilies were not up front, we were not greeted by bright lights and up-beat music as usual on Easter Sunday. The pastor had really messed with Palm Sunday and Easter this year!
Yet these changes were not for the sake of doing something different, but were made to emphasize the messages of what we were celebrating. Both Sundays were celebration Sundays and less of what I think of as Sundays for Worship. Very much like the Passover Meal is about a celebration, rather than about worship. The first message that I wanted to present for Palm Sunday was that what Jesus was doing, “the triumphal entry” wasn’t just 2,000 year old history that we recite each year. I wanted us to experience it in a twenty-first setting. I also wanted us to be able to understand (at least have a sense) the thrill of Easter morning by going through the death of Christ, and how dark the disciples must have been feeling up to the point of discovering the empty tomb.
I should have asked the deacons to guard the doors this morning and checking everyone’s I.D. before letting you into the sanctuary this morning as a continuation of our Easter story, still having the lights down low, to help create that sense of “fear” that our story is describing. Almost like having bouncers at the doors of a speak-easy, helping protect those of us inside from the cops who were looking for gatherings of folks who enjoyed having a good time outside the boundaries of the law.
The reality of our situation is that as Christians we have only experienced Easter on this side of this marvelous event, not being able to understand all the fear, confusion, and pain of the these followers of Jesus who lived through the experience of the other side. Not only do we have the disadvantage of living 2,000 years after the fact, but we also live in a country where we do not truly understand fear from violent and intolerant governments or religious leaders as did those folks, or do people today in certain countries in Asia, Middle East, Africa, and parts of South America.
So for us to truly understand the impact of the assurance that Jesus was giving these people hiding behind locked doors, living in fear of what might happen next, with a greeting like “Peace be with you”, is near to impossible. I think the closest point in my life that I can relate to being fearful because of national events, was with the bombing of the twin towers in NYC. I recall after realizing that we had been attacked by terrorists, the need to be in contact with my three children, two of them lived 1,400 miles away from me and the third was not too far out of Washington D.C...
None of my children had by my standards any lessons on how to be cautious when in public spaces. Things like, while walking down a street of keeping a conscious view of the way people are acting; when entering into a building, of taking a quick look for where the exits are located; when in large crowds, looking for suspicious behavior. These are all things that a gay person quickly learns when going out in public. I was fearful that the shopping malls in particular were going to be the next target for terrorists and that they might find themselves at a possible location of danger.
As a country, we had the opportunity to do some self-examination as to why these types of actions were being directed at us, time to examine our life styles of excessive desires of self-indulging society that could possibly have triggered this type of hurtful retribution, a time to honestly look at our last 50 yrs of foreign policies and see what harm we might have created in other cultures in order to make our lifestyles more affluent. Instead we were encouraged to go shopping. We had an administration that took full advantage of our fear in order to justify more violence, plunging us into two wars and setting the stage for economic mayhem and anyone who questioned their motives, were verbally assassinated as being “unpatriotic!”
Fear is an ugly thing, and most destructive. Fear paralyzes, cripples, and brings general inability to reason clearly. It was imperative for Jesus to appear to his disciples not only to let them know that he had risen, but to give them assurance that they would be able to move ahead. “Peace I give to you” not just once but a second time, “Peace I give to you”.
Then, Jesus immediately gives them a directive of going out to do the same work that He had been sent to do, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”, and gives them the Holy Spirit in order to help them in their mission. Then a very curious thing is said by Jesus, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Eugene Peterson says it in this way, “If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?"
One of the hardest things for us to do is to “forgive”. We so love to hold on to every little and big hurt that has ever been done to us! My grandmother had a memory like a steal trap and she never hesitated to remind you of some wrong doing that you did thirty, forty, even fifty years ago.
Now does “forgiving” mean that we also forget? Usually not, and in some cases, we never want to forget, if only to never repeat the mistake, such as the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazi party, or of a whole population turning it’s head the other way, because of “fearing” their own Government.
Why are people or political systems that feed on fear so destructive? It’s because, it stops “goodness”, “kindness”, “civility”, “gentleness”, “sharing” and the ability to “love.” William Sloane Coffin, a great prophet of the United Church of Christ who died several years ago, fittingly, during Holy Week, once said: "As I see it, the primary religious task these days is to try to think straight...You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart's a stone, you can't have decent thoughts – either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind."UCC Sermon Seeds
The goal for any church should be to work toward “Truth”, and the only way that can happen is to rid itself of the “fear”, which holds it back. A basic component to “Fear” is the inability to “forgive.” By forgiving, we “let go” of the wrong. Once we let go of the wrong, we no longer have the need to hold onto “fear”. Jesus tells us to, “Fear not, for I am with you.” If we chose to live in fear, then we are disrespecting Jesus and not allowing him to be fully alive within us.
Every congregation could do with a dose of “forgiving”. When you hear comments like, “I don’t like this pastor or I didn’t like that pastor, or Pastor so and so made me mad, so I don’t come to church”, or “So and so did this to me, I will never forgive them for that”, these are obvious signs of an unforgiving heart. Jesus asked, “If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” This is a good question, “Why do we want to hold on to things that immobilize us, keep us from clear thinking, things that prevent us from moving ahead?” We don’t do “alter calls” in the UCC, but I wonder if we might not become healthier people if we were to do “alter calls” or even confessional booths, once in awhile.
A part of the resurrection Sunday is receiving the “Peace of Christ” and out of this “peace” comes the ability to “forgive”. It’s up to us, we can either hold on to fear and an unforgiving heart and whither on the vine, or we can prune ourselves by letting go of fear and the hurts that stunt us and become a bush that will abundantly produce. The chose is ours. Jesus tells us to, “Just let go!” Amen