Let It Go!
Worship
And The Sea Lay Down
Sermons And Worship Services For Lent And Easter
Call to Worship
Jesus said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).
Processional Hymn
"God Of Grace And God Of Glory" (words: Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1930; music: John Hughes, 1907).
Children's Time
There is an old story that tells of three trees growing on a hillside, dreaming of what they wanted to be. The first said, "I want to be a treasure box and hold the greatest treasure in the world." The second said, "I want to be a strong sailing ship and carry the most powerful king in the world." The third said, "I want to grow tall and point to God who gives beautiful treasures and mighty seas."
Their dreams grew as the days passed until one day men came with axes and took away the three trees. The first tree became a box to hold hay for the animals to eat. The second tree became a boat to hold fishermen and their smelly fish. The third tree was sawed and planed and left a plank, and many years passed.
One quiet night the cows mooed softly as the young mother placed her sleeping baby in the box that held the hay. "It will be his manger," she said. Then the small box knew it held the greatest treasure in the world, God's gift of love in Jesus.
More years passed and one stormy night the waves rose high as the wind tossed the small fishing boat to and fro. Jesus' friends were frightened, but he stood up and said to the waves, "Peace, be still!" And the sea lay down. And the boat knew he was carrying the most powerful king.
Then more years and one dark night a crowd of angry men nailed Jesus to the cross that was the third tree. But on Sunday morning the sun shone and Jesus lived again and the tree knew that whenever people saw the cross, they would remember God, for the three trees' dreams had come true.1
Prayer of Confession
Dear Lord, we are "rich in things and poor in soul." Our fears and doubts have too long bound us. Free our hearts to work and praise. Grant us wisdom and courage for the living of these days. Amen.
Silent Prayer
Words of Assurance
Jesus said, "I know that and I love you." Amen.
Psalter Reading
Psalm 22:23-31
Old Testament
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Epistle Lesson
Romans 4:13-25
New Testament
Mark 8:31-38
Sermon
Long ago there was an ancient bell that was famous for its beautiful tone. It had been commissioned by the king. The king's advisors had told him that making a huge temple bell would secure the nation from foreign invasion. The specialist who cast the bell had produced several failures until he concluded that the only way to produce a great bell was to sacrifice a young maiden. Soldiers were sent to find and fetch such a young girl. Coming upon a poor mother in a farm village with her small daughter, they took the child away, while she cried out piteously: "Emille, Emille!" -- "Mother, O Mother!"
When the molten lead and iron were prepared, the little girl was thrown into the fire. At last the bell maker succeeded. The bell, called the Emille Bell, made a sound more beautiful than any other. When it rang, most people praised the art and the artist that had created such a beautiful sound. But whenever the mother whose child had been sacrificed heard it, her heart broke anew. Her neighbors, who knew of her sacrifice and pain, could not hear the beautiful tone without pain either. Only those who understand the sacrifice can feel the pain. Others just enjoy the sound.2
Pain and suffering are with us. Turn on the television, read the newspaper, listen to your neighbor or a member of your family. Suffering is part of authentic living and the greatest courage is the courage of suffering. When we face a fate that cannot be changed, an incurable disease, a broken relationship, the suffering of our beloved, what matters above all is the attitude we take toward our suffering. Yet how often we feel sorry for ourself or the suffering one. They do not want our pity, however, but our companionship.
Perhaps it matters less what we expect from life than what life expects from us. Our answer consists of action and responsibility.
Jesus taught them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected -- and be killed -- and rise again. Peter rebuked him, but Jesus to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." He called the crowd and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me."
Recently, I ran away like a child escaping the "no's" of life. Caught between a 93-year-old mother who wants to die and can't and a 42-year-old son who wants to live and can't, for two weeks I escaped. I pretended they could "do their work" without me.
Have you ever wanted to do that or done that, be it only a long walk to escape pressing problems, to gain a more positive perspective, to let nature heal? The last day of my escape to another's son's home, he read to me from Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I said, "I have to buy this book!" Searching his library, he found another copy and presented it to me.
Have you ever had that experience? A "coincidence," a "chance happening" of the right book or person appearing at the right moment? As a lover of stories I believe it is one of the ways God communicates.
Perhaps you are wondering, however, what was so important about the book. It is Frankl's account of his years in the concentration camps of the Holocaust, of his suffering and his survival. Given his experience, his words ring with authority: "If there be a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete."3
"If any of you wish to follow me, you must take up your cross," Jesus said.
All of us carry worries and burdens, desires and disappointments. All of us experience suffering and sometimes even ask, "Why doesn't God relieve pain and suffering? Where is God's power? Can God be all-powerful and all-loving? Where was God during Emille's sacrifice? Christ's suffering?" But what if divine power is not like human power?
Satan knew human power -- turning stones into bread, jumping off of the temple (or the cross), ruling the earth. God's power however, is in the sheathing of the sword, comforting the chicks, coming out of the temple to climb up onto the cross.
God's power certainly isn't used to do for me what I can do for myself, nor does it seem to answer my need for the healing of the suffering of ones whom I love. We live without the assurance of the power of God but in the promise of the presence of God.
"If you want to be my follower," Jesus said, "you must deny yourself." There are many things we have to "let go." One of them is the demand for answers and for God's power as we wish it. I think the poet said it correctly: "To live in this world/you must be able/to do three things:/ to love what is mortal;/ to hold it/against your bones knowing/your own life depends on it;/and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."4
Remember the final scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? The woman could not let go of her greed to obtain the Holy Grail and in that desire lost her life. Indiana too wanted to capture it and his father told him to let go. "I can almost reach it," Indiana replied, as his father gently reminded him, "Indiana, let it go."
There is new life in letting go. Unaware of the harm of holding on to bad relationships, life-denying perspectives, and self-defeating projections, we are like the bear that wandered into camp, seized the boiling pot, and, screaming with pain, was unwilling to let it go.
Sometimes we pray for God's power in our lives to ease or remove the suffering, while still clutching the habits and actions that cause them.
But these are abstract words. Hear then this story: A woman once wore a sword in her breast, but because she did not want to burden others with her wound and suffering, she covered it with her cloak. One day she met a woman, groaning and moaning and groping in the dark. "What is the matter?" she asked. The other told her that she was blind and in need of a staff, and the woman who could see looked around but could find no staff. At last she took the only thing she had, the sword in her heart, and gave it to the blind woman who, using it, exclaimed, "This is a good staff!" For the first time the woman understood the meaning of the sword and her suffering.
In the last twenty years there has been a doubling in the suicide rate. A sense of hopelessness, meaninglessness, boredom, or the desire for intense excitement has led to an increased use of drugs and alcohol. Affluency and lack of acceptance of "delayed gratification" are other reasons for suicide.
When you have lost your job, your spouse, the usefulness of your body, when you see suffering and injustice all about, what does it mean that "all things work together for good for those who love God"? Is Paul promising too much? Perhaps before the wounds of the world the best things would be to keep silent. Yet Job didn't. Paul didn't either. He interpreted his suffering through the cross of Christ and interpreted the cross through his suffering.
Jesus told us to take up our cross and follow him. The world breaks everyone but some become strong at the broken places. Do you remember the film Regarding Henry, in which a highly successful lawyer became a helpless vegetable of a man in a moment? We too are vulnerable, for it is a real world out there. I live downtown and get up in the dark, in the middle of the night for some of you. Hardly a night passes without the sirens of police, ambulance, and fire truck breaking the deep silence. It keeps prayer life active, as a friend reminds me, whenever I avoid the bad news of newspaper or television, "Then how do you know for whom to pray?" Because I do not know who suffers in those accidents outside my window, my prayer is "Thy will be done," for I believe that God wants the best for us, wants harmony and well-being for all of us. I believe in the love God pours into us through the Holy Spirit, for God does not send suffering but is with us in the suffering, in God's promise "I will be with you."
"My friend isn't back from the battlefield, sir. I request permission to go out and get him." "Permission denied," the officer said. "I will not have you risk your life for a man who is probably dead." The soldier went all the same and in an hour returned mortally wounded, carrying the corpse of his friend. The officer was furious. "I told you he was dead. Now I have lost both of you. Tell me, was it worth going out there to bring back a corpse?" The dying man replied, "Yes, it was, sir. When I got to him, he was still alive. And he said to me, 'Jack, I was sure you would come.' "5
Jesus came. And when he came he said, "Take up your cross and follow me." Amen.
Hymn
"In The Cross Of Christ I Glory" (words: John Bowring, 1825; music: Ithamar Conkey, 1849).
Pastoral Prayer
Lord, you know our pains and our prayers. In Christ's name give us the courage to carry our cross. Praise be to Thee. Amen.
Offertory
Doxology
Hymn of Consecration
"Take My Life And Let It Be (words: Frances R. Havergal, 1873; music: Louis J. F. Herold, 1839).
Benediction
Go now in the name of God who is with us in our suffering, and Jesus the Christ who shows us how to suffer, and the Holy Spirit who enables us to hope and endure in our suffering. Amen.
____________
1. If you wish to show children pictures as you tell the story, see Angela Elwell Hunt's illustrated The Tale of Three Trees (Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1989). (adapted)
2. John S. Pobee and Barbel von Wartenberg-Potter, New Eyes for Reading (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986), pp. 19-20.
3. Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Pocket Book, 1939), p. 106.
4. Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, l992), p. 178.
5. Anthony de Mello, Taking Flight (New York: Doubleday, l980), p. 147.
Jesus said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).
Processional Hymn
"God Of Grace And God Of Glory" (words: Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1930; music: John Hughes, 1907).
Children's Time
There is an old story that tells of three trees growing on a hillside, dreaming of what they wanted to be. The first said, "I want to be a treasure box and hold the greatest treasure in the world." The second said, "I want to be a strong sailing ship and carry the most powerful king in the world." The third said, "I want to grow tall and point to God who gives beautiful treasures and mighty seas."
Their dreams grew as the days passed until one day men came with axes and took away the three trees. The first tree became a box to hold hay for the animals to eat. The second tree became a boat to hold fishermen and their smelly fish. The third tree was sawed and planed and left a plank, and many years passed.
One quiet night the cows mooed softly as the young mother placed her sleeping baby in the box that held the hay. "It will be his manger," she said. Then the small box knew it held the greatest treasure in the world, God's gift of love in Jesus.
More years passed and one stormy night the waves rose high as the wind tossed the small fishing boat to and fro. Jesus' friends were frightened, but he stood up and said to the waves, "Peace, be still!" And the sea lay down. And the boat knew he was carrying the most powerful king.
Then more years and one dark night a crowd of angry men nailed Jesus to the cross that was the third tree. But on Sunday morning the sun shone and Jesus lived again and the tree knew that whenever people saw the cross, they would remember God, for the three trees' dreams had come true.1
Prayer of Confession
Dear Lord, we are "rich in things and poor in soul." Our fears and doubts have too long bound us. Free our hearts to work and praise. Grant us wisdom and courage for the living of these days. Amen.
Silent Prayer
Words of Assurance
Jesus said, "I know that and I love you." Amen.
Psalter Reading
Psalm 22:23-31
Old Testament
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Epistle Lesson
Romans 4:13-25
New Testament
Mark 8:31-38
Sermon
Long ago there was an ancient bell that was famous for its beautiful tone. It had been commissioned by the king. The king's advisors had told him that making a huge temple bell would secure the nation from foreign invasion. The specialist who cast the bell had produced several failures until he concluded that the only way to produce a great bell was to sacrifice a young maiden. Soldiers were sent to find and fetch such a young girl. Coming upon a poor mother in a farm village with her small daughter, they took the child away, while she cried out piteously: "Emille, Emille!" -- "Mother, O Mother!"
When the molten lead and iron were prepared, the little girl was thrown into the fire. At last the bell maker succeeded. The bell, called the Emille Bell, made a sound more beautiful than any other. When it rang, most people praised the art and the artist that had created such a beautiful sound. But whenever the mother whose child had been sacrificed heard it, her heart broke anew. Her neighbors, who knew of her sacrifice and pain, could not hear the beautiful tone without pain either. Only those who understand the sacrifice can feel the pain. Others just enjoy the sound.2
Pain and suffering are with us. Turn on the television, read the newspaper, listen to your neighbor or a member of your family. Suffering is part of authentic living and the greatest courage is the courage of suffering. When we face a fate that cannot be changed, an incurable disease, a broken relationship, the suffering of our beloved, what matters above all is the attitude we take toward our suffering. Yet how often we feel sorry for ourself or the suffering one. They do not want our pity, however, but our companionship.
Perhaps it matters less what we expect from life than what life expects from us. Our answer consists of action and responsibility.
Jesus taught them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected -- and be killed -- and rise again. Peter rebuked him, but Jesus to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things." He called the crowd and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow me."
Recently, I ran away like a child escaping the "no's" of life. Caught between a 93-year-old mother who wants to die and can't and a 42-year-old son who wants to live and can't, for two weeks I escaped. I pretended they could "do their work" without me.
Have you ever wanted to do that or done that, be it only a long walk to escape pressing problems, to gain a more positive perspective, to let nature heal? The last day of my escape to another's son's home, he read to me from Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I said, "I have to buy this book!" Searching his library, he found another copy and presented it to me.
Have you ever had that experience? A "coincidence," a "chance happening" of the right book or person appearing at the right moment? As a lover of stories I believe it is one of the ways God communicates.
Perhaps you are wondering, however, what was so important about the book. It is Frankl's account of his years in the concentration camps of the Holocaust, of his suffering and his survival. Given his experience, his words ring with authority: "If there be a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete."3
"If any of you wish to follow me, you must take up your cross," Jesus said.
All of us carry worries and burdens, desires and disappointments. All of us experience suffering and sometimes even ask, "Why doesn't God relieve pain and suffering? Where is God's power? Can God be all-powerful and all-loving? Where was God during Emille's sacrifice? Christ's suffering?" But what if divine power is not like human power?
Satan knew human power -- turning stones into bread, jumping off of the temple (or the cross), ruling the earth. God's power however, is in the sheathing of the sword, comforting the chicks, coming out of the temple to climb up onto the cross.
God's power certainly isn't used to do for me what I can do for myself, nor does it seem to answer my need for the healing of the suffering of ones whom I love. We live without the assurance of the power of God but in the promise of the presence of God.
"If you want to be my follower," Jesus said, "you must deny yourself." There are many things we have to "let go." One of them is the demand for answers and for God's power as we wish it. I think the poet said it correctly: "To live in this world/you must be able/to do three things:/ to love what is mortal;/ to hold it/against your bones knowing/your own life depends on it;/and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go."4
Remember the final scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? The woman could not let go of her greed to obtain the Holy Grail and in that desire lost her life. Indiana too wanted to capture it and his father told him to let go. "I can almost reach it," Indiana replied, as his father gently reminded him, "Indiana, let it go."
There is new life in letting go. Unaware of the harm of holding on to bad relationships, life-denying perspectives, and self-defeating projections, we are like the bear that wandered into camp, seized the boiling pot, and, screaming with pain, was unwilling to let it go.
Sometimes we pray for God's power in our lives to ease or remove the suffering, while still clutching the habits and actions that cause them.
But these are abstract words. Hear then this story: A woman once wore a sword in her breast, but because she did not want to burden others with her wound and suffering, she covered it with her cloak. One day she met a woman, groaning and moaning and groping in the dark. "What is the matter?" she asked. The other told her that she was blind and in need of a staff, and the woman who could see looked around but could find no staff. At last she took the only thing she had, the sword in her heart, and gave it to the blind woman who, using it, exclaimed, "This is a good staff!" For the first time the woman understood the meaning of the sword and her suffering.
In the last twenty years there has been a doubling in the suicide rate. A sense of hopelessness, meaninglessness, boredom, or the desire for intense excitement has led to an increased use of drugs and alcohol. Affluency and lack of acceptance of "delayed gratification" are other reasons for suicide.
When you have lost your job, your spouse, the usefulness of your body, when you see suffering and injustice all about, what does it mean that "all things work together for good for those who love God"? Is Paul promising too much? Perhaps before the wounds of the world the best things would be to keep silent. Yet Job didn't. Paul didn't either. He interpreted his suffering through the cross of Christ and interpreted the cross through his suffering.
Jesus told us to take up our cross and follow him. The world breaks everyone but some become strong at the broken places. Do you remember the film Regarding Henry, in which a highly successful lawyer became a helpless vegetable of a man in a moment? We too are vulnerable, for it is a real world out there. I live downtown and get up in the dark, in the middle of the night for some of you. Hardly a night passes without the sirens of police, ambulance, and fire truck breaking the deep silence. It keeps prayer life active, as a friend reminds me, whenever I avoid the bad news of newspaper or television, "Then how do you know for whom to pray?" Because I do not know who suffers in those accidents outside my window, my prayer is "Thy will be done," for I believe that God wants the best for us, wants harmony and well-being for all of us. I believe in the love God pours into us through the Holy Spirit, for God does not send suffering but is with us in the suffering, in God's promise "I will be with you."
"My friend isn't back from the battlefield, sir. I request permission to go out and get him." "Permission denied," the officer said. "I will not have you risk your life for a man who is probably dead." The soldier went all the same and in an hour returned mortally wounded, carrying the corpse of his friend. The officer was furious. "I told you he was dead. Now I have lost both of you. Tell me, was it worth going out there to bring back a corpse?" The dying man replied, "Yes, it was, sir. When I got to him, he was still alive. And he said to me, 'Jack, I was sure you would come.' "5
Jesus came. And when he came he said, "Take up your cross and follow me." Amen.
Hymn
"In The Cross Of Christ I Glory" (words: John Bowring, 1825; music: Ithamar Conkey, 1849).
Pastoral Prayer
Lord, you know our pains and our prayers. In Christ's name give us the courage to carry our cross. Praise be to Thee. Amen.
Offertory
Doxology
Hymn of Consecration
"Take My Life And Let It Be (words: Frances R. Havergal, 1873; music: Louis J. F. Herold, 1839).
Benediction
Go now in the name of God who is with us in our suffering, and Jesus the Christ who shows us how to suffer, and the Holy Spirit who enables us to hope and endure in our suffering. Amen.
____________
1. If you wish to show children pictures as you tell the story, see Angela Elwell Hunt's illustrated The Tale of Three Trees (Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1989). (adapted)
2. John S. Pobee and Barbel von Wartenberg-Potter, New Eyes for Reading (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986), pp. 19-20.
3. Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (New York: Pocket Book, 1939), p. 106.
4. Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon Press, l992), p. 178.
5. Anthony de Mello, Taking Flight (New York: Doubleday, l980), p. 147.
