If You're Going To Get There, You've Got To Leave Here
Sermon
Hope For The Weary Heart
Second Lesson Sermons For Lent/Easter Cycle C
Cokie Roberts, Chief Congressional Analyst for ABC News and a national correspondent for National Public Radio, can tell you more than the latest challenge facing the President and the latest on a crisis somewhere in the world. She can also tell you about how, if you're going to move on to where you want to be, you've got to let go of where you are.
She knows this out of both personal and professional experience, and Cokie Roberts has put this knowledge to use in an arena not as publicly known as her work with Sam Donaldson or Bob Edwards. Since 1994, Cokie Roberts has been the Moderator for Hospice Foundation of America's annual national teleconference. As you are aware, Hospice Foundation of America, and their local chapters, is committed to enabling persons and their families to deal with death and dying, the terminally ill, and especially with grief following the death of a loved one. Cokie Roberts has a stake in this and personal knowledge of the pain of grief. She knows the long transition one goes through in the grieving process, for she endured the premature death of her own sister in 1991.
So she has been there. She knows what she's talking about. She knows the journey. Cokie Roberts knows that a large part of living has to do with learning how to say, "Good-bye," so we can bring ourselves to say, "Hello," again.
You and I (at least implicitly) know it, too. We know it not only in processing grief, but we also know it in other dimensions of our life experience. The whole point in rearing children is to say, "Good-bye," to them -- to get them to the point where they can strike out on their own as independent adults. If you and I are to grow as persons, we have to grow! That is, we need to let go of one level of maturation -- and not be stuck there -- so we can grow on to another. This is true in our personal relationships with friends or with a life partner. No relationship stays the same; it either grows and develops -- moving on -- or it stultifies and dies. It is, of course, true in our professional lives: to move on to new challenges, new opportunities and advancement, we have to leave behind where we've been. We cannot say, "Hello," to something new without first saying, "Good-bye," to what was.
Indeed, this is one of those "rock bottom" truths we need to master in living if our lives are going to have any authenticity and growth, and it's one of those critical lessons in living parents need to teach their children: most of the time you have to let go of one thing to be able to grasp a new thing. Before you can say, "Hello," to a new, fresh, life-giving experience, you've got to say, "Good-bye," to what has been in its way. If you're going to get there, you've got to leave here!
We know this, even though sometimes we forget it, even though sometimes we are intentional about forgetting it. Sometimes we just plain resist the truth of it, stubbornly believing that -- one, we don't have to let go of what has been to experience what might be, or two, we don't have to go anywhere. That is to say, we've already arrived; we are perfectly complete -- and happy, and fulfilled, and everything else -- just where we are.
It is an illusion! It is an illusion that will impede our fulfillment as human beings in every dimension of our lives, and it is an illusion that will especially block our fulfillment in our spiritual journey.
Whether or not Cokie Roberts knows this, Paul did -- in both his personal and spiritual life -- and we can learn something from him, something important and useful for our journey. His own words strip away every mask behind which he might have hidden, and they are the intensely personal words we find in his letter to the Philippians.
There, Paul talks about the transformation which has taken place in his life. He lifts up his heritage -- what was -- and it's very impressive: born into Judaism (not a convert), of the leading tribe of Benjamin -- the tribe that gave Israel her first king; reared in a solid, orthodox family; a member of the sect in Judaism (the Pharisees) whose sole purpose was to achieve a righteous life by keeping all of the Jewish Law -- and Paul did! He had achieved this, and in his zeal committed himself to stamping out every heresy, every threat to his faith. This is what was, where Paul had been.
And then it happened. He encountered the Risen Christ, and in that encounter his life changed. Yes, but the transition did not come without letting go of what was. All of that -- even his exalted heritage -- was in the way. The privilege, status, and power he knew before was a roadblock to where Christ was calling him to be. Paul knew that the new life of joy and hope, of authenticity and meaning that Christ promises cannot come without some letting go; that kind of transition requires some "good-byes." To get there always challenges us to leave here.
It was all both clear and inescapable for Paul. He knew he had to set some new priorities in his living, letting go of what was, so he could grasp what might be. In his own words he said it this way: "For the sake of my relationship with Christ I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him" (Philippians 3:8-9).
You'll also notice -- and this is tremendously important -- that the "letting go" wasn't just a once-and-for-all act: it was continual; it was (and is) process. Paul knew that he hadn't arrived yet, that there was no place on the journey (because it is a journey!) that you could just sit down and complacently say, "Well, I've got this down." No. Paul uses the metaphor of a race, a race that doesn't end until our completion in the very presence of God, to describe the journey. Again, let the profound eloquence of his own words penetrate our thinking: "Not that I've already obtained perfection in Christ, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own. Friends, I do not consider that I've arrived; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining toward that which lies ahead I press toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14).
This was Paul's life; this was his experience. Searching for something that would give his life meaning and authenticity, he finally found it. Longing for joy in his life, rather than the nagging emptiness he knew (yes, "emptiness," for regardless of what he had achieved, Paul could not escape from his own feelings that there's got to be something more out there, something more to living) -- longing for joy and not emptiness, for hope and not despair, this was Paul's experience.
What about you and me? What about our experience? Are you stuck in a dead-end life, a life empty of joy and meaning? Do you struggle with boredom and weariness with it all, just seeing one more day melt into another? Has despair claimed you, claimed you to the point where your own life is absolutely void of joy and hope?
If this is where you are -- and most of us are either there, have been there, or are on our way there -- then God has a word for you today. In our own unfulfilled living, our own struggle with meaning, purpose, and direction, God has some good, life-transforming, hope-generating news for us: We can get there! We, too, can experience transition in our lives; we can move from emptiness to joy, from aimlessness and boredom to purpose and meaning, from despair to hope. It can happen! We, too, can have a life-giving, life-transforming relationship with Christ!
Yes, but we can't get there without leaving here, and the journey will always be a journey. Knowing this, know also how we can put it in place in our own living. There are four essential steps.
The first step is to recognize clearly and acknowledge where you presently are. Mark's story of the healing of Blind Bartimaeus in the tenth chapter of his Gospel is marvelously helpful to us here. When Bartimaeus hears Jesus is near, he cries out to him. He cries out to him because he knows he has a need -- he is blind -- and he knows Jesus can meet the need. And so when Jesus poses the question, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus does not hesitate. He says, "Master, let me receive my sight." And Mark goes on to say, "Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way" (Mark 10:52). Bartimaeus got it! He knew that the first step to seeing is to acknowledge your blindness. The first step to wholeness is to realize you aren't, and the first step to getting there is to recognize and acknowledge you are here. So it is for you and me: if we are to get there -- to the place of wholeness and joy and hope and all the rest -- we need to first recognize we are here. This is primary.
The second step once we realize and acknowledge we are here, we aren't there -- is to want to be there. This is the step of desire. It is the heartfelt, burning desire within to be somewhere else than where we presently are. And if we don't have the desire, we aren't going to go or be anywhere different from where we are now. To get there, you have to want to get there.
Then -- once we've faced where we really are, once we've decided we want to be somewhere else in our living -- then we have to act on it. This is the step of intentionality. You see, if we "see," and if we want to go to the new place we see, we've got to be intentional about it. We've got to do something, to act on our desire, to let go. It simply will not happen without it. No one else can take us there. We will not get there by wishing it or just hoping it. We move from here to there by moving: by the intentional choice to let go so we can go.
And the going -- this side of being in the presence of God -- never ends. The journey is a journey. We never get to the place when we can just sit down and complacently rest, thinking we've arrived. No, the fourth step from getting here to there is actually the fifth, sixth, and on and on -- because the journey is on and on, on toward completeness in Christ.
Not on ABC, nor on NPR, this is the news God has for us today. If you are stuck in your life -- stuck in the boredom and emptiness of your days, stuck in despair and hopelessness -- you can get un-stuck. God has something more in mind for you, something rich and good, something filled with hope and joy. But let me -- and Cokie Roberts and Paul and everyone else who's been stuck at one time or another -- let me tell you: If you're going to get there -- you're going to have to leave here.
She knows this out of both personal and professional experience, and Cokie Roberts has put this knowledge to use in an arena not as publicly known as her work with Sam Donaldson or Bob Edwards. Since 1994, Cokie Roberts has been the Moderator for Hospice Foundation of America's annual national teleconference. As you are aware, Hospice Foundation of America, and their local chapters, is committed to enabling persons and their families to deal with death and dying, the terminally ill, and especially with grief following the death of a loved one. Cokie Roberts has a stake in this and personal knowledge of the pain of grief. She knows the long transition one goes through in the grieving process, for she endured the premature death of her own sister in 1991.
So she has been there. She knows what she's talking about. She knows the journey. Cokie Roberts knows that a large part of living has to do with learning how to say, "Good-bye," so we can bring ourselves to say, "Hello," again.
You and I (at least implicitly) know it, too. We know it not only in processing grief, but we also know it in other dimensions of our life experience. The whole point in rearing children is to say, "Good-bye," to them -- to get them to the point where they can strike out on their own as independent adults. If you and I are to grow as persons, we have to grow! That is, we need to let go of one level of maturation -- and not be stuck there -- so we can grow on to another. This is true in our personal relationships with friends or with a life partner. No relationship stays the same; it either grows and develops -- moving on -- or it stultifies and dies. It is, of course, true in our professional lives: to move on to new challenges, new opportunities and advancement, we have to leave behind where we've been. We cannot say, "Hello," to something new without first saying, "Good-bye," to what was.
Indeed, this is one of those "rock bottom" truths we need to master in living if our lives are going to have any authenticity and growth, and it's one of those critical lessons in living parents need to teach their children: most of the time you have to let go of one thing to be able to grasp a new thing. Before you can say, "Hello," to a new, fresh, life-giving experience, you've got to say, "Good-bye," to what has been in its way. If you're going to get there, you've got to leave here!
We know this, even though sometimes we forget it, even though sometimes we are intentional about forgetting it. Sometimes we just plain resist the truth of it, stubbornly believing that -- one, we don't have to let go of what has been to experience what might be, or two, we don't have to go anywhere. That is to say, we've already arrived; we are perfectly complete -- and happy, and fulfilled, and everything else -- just where we are.
It is an illusion! It is an illusion that will impede our fulfillment as human beings in every dimension of our lives, and it is an illusion that will especially block our fulfillment in our spiritual journey.
Whether or not Cokie Roberts knows this, Paul did -- in both his personal and spiritual life -- and we can learn something from him, something important and useful for our journey. His own words strip away every mask behind which he might have hidden, and they are the intensely personal words we find in his letter to the Philippians.
There, Paul talks about the transformation which has taken place in his life. He lifts up his heritage -- what was -- and it's very impressive: born into Judaism (not a convert), of the leading tribe of Benjamin -- the tribe that gave Israel her first king; reared in a solid, orthodox family; a member of the sect in Judaism (the Pharisees) whose sole purpose was to achieve a righteous life by keeping all of the Jewish Law -- and Paul did! He had achieved this, and in his zeal committed himself to stamping out every heresy, every threat to his faith. This is what was, where Paul had been.
And then it happened. He encountered the Risen Christ, and in that encounter his life changed. Yes, but the transition did not come without letting go of what was. All of that -- even his exalted heritage -- was in the way. The privilege, status, and power he knew before was a roadblock to where Christ was calling him to be. Paul knew that the new life of joy and hope, of authenticity and meaning that Christ promises cannot come without some letting go; that kind of transition requires some "good-byes." To get there always challenges us to leave here.
It was all both clear and inescapable for Paul. He knew he had to set some new priorities in his living, letting go of what was, so he could grasp what might be. In his own words he said it this way: "For the sake of my relationship with Christ I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him" (Philippians 3:8-9).
You'll also notice -- and this is tremendously important -- that the "letting go" wasn't just a once-and-for-all act: it was continual; it was (and is) process. Paul knew that he hadn't arrived yet, that there was no place on the journey (because it is a journey!) that you could just sit down and complacently say, "Well, I've got this down." No. Paul uses the metaphor of a race, a race that doesn't end until our completion in the very presence of God, to describe the journey. Again, let the profound eloquence of his own words penetrate our thinking: "Not that I've already obtained perfection in Christ, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own. Friends, I do not consider that I've arrived; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining toward that which lies ahead I press toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14).
This was Paul's life; this was his experience. Searching for something that would give his life meaning and authenticity, he finally found it. Longing for joy in his life, rather than the nagging emptiness he knew (yes, "emptiness," for regardless of what he had achieved, Paul could not escape from his own feelings that there's got to be something more out there, something more to living) -- longing for joy and not emptiness, for hope and not despair, this was Paul's experience.
What about you and me? What about our experience? Are you stuck in a dead-end life, a life empty of joy and meaning? Do you struggle with boredom and weariness with it all, just seeing one more day melt into another? Has despair claimed you, claimed you to the point where your own life is absolutely void of joy and hope?
If this is where you are -- and most of us are either there, have been there, or are on our way there -- then God has a word for you today. In our own unfulfilled living, our own struggle with meaning, purpose, and direction, God has some good, life-transforming, hope-generating news for us: We can get there! We, too, can experience transition in our lives; we can move from emptiness to joy, from aimlessness and boredom to purpose and meaning, from despair to hope. It can happen! We, too, can have a life-giving, life-transforming relationship with Christ!
Yes, but we can't get there without leaving here, and the journey will always be a journey. Knowing this, know also how we can put it in place in our own living. There are four essential steps.
The first step is to recognize clearly and acknowledge where you presently are. Mark's story of the healing of Blind Bartimaeus in the tenth chapter of his Gospel is marvelously helpful to us here. When Bartimaeus hears Jesus is near, he cries out to him. He cries out to him because he knows he has a need -- he is blind -- and he knows Jesus can meet the need. And so when Jesus poses the question, "What do you want me to do for you?" Bartimaeus does not hesitate. He says, "Master, let me receive my sight." And Mark goes on to say, "Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way" (Mark 10:52). Bartimaeus got it! He knew that the first step to seeing is to acknowledge your blindness. The first step to wholeness is to realize you aren't, and the first step to getting there is to recognize and acknowledge you are here. So it is for you and me: if we are to get there -- to the place of wholeness and joy and hope and all the rest -- we need to first recognize we are here. This is primary.
The second step once we realize and acknowledge we are here, we aren't there -- is to want to be there. This is the step of desire. It is the heartfelt, burning desire within to be somewhere else than where we presently are. And if we don't have the desire, we aren't going to go or be anywhere different from where we are now. To get there, you have to want to get there.
Then -- once we've faced where we really are, once we've decided we want to be somewhere else in our living -- then we have to act on it. This is the step of intentionality. You see, if we "see," and if we want to go to the new place we see, we've got to be intentional about it. We've got to do something, to act on our desire, to let go. It simply will not happen without it. No one else can take us there. We will not get there by wishing it or just hoping it. We move from here to there by moving: by the intentional choice to let go so we can go.
And the going -- this side of being in the presence of God -- never ends. The journey is a journey. We never get to the place when we can just sit down and complacently rest, thinking we've arrived. No, the fourth step from getting here to there is actually the fifth, sixth, and on and on -- because the journey is on and on, on toward completeness in Christ.
Not on ABC, nor on NPR, this is the news God has for us today. If you are stuck in your life -- stuck in the boredom and emptiness of your days, stuck in despair and hopelessness -- you can get un-stuck. God has something more in mind for you, something rich and good, something filled with hope and joy. But let me -- and Cokie Roberts and Paul and everyone else who's been stuck at one time or another -- let me tell you: If you're going to get there -- you're going to have to leave here.
