Thriving in Letting Go

July 4, 2021 • 6th Sunday after Pentecost
Reading: Mark 6:1-13 (adapted from the New Revised Standard Version)
Pastor Alexis Lillie

A few years ago, I went to a book launch event for Lutheran pastor and rabble rouser, Nadia Bolz Weber. She invited the audience to write down something they were ready to let go of that had been weighing them down. She collected hundreds of these notes, and picked a handful to read out loud. After each one, the whole group of several hundred of us yelled, "Let that sh*t go!"

There was a cathartic release in writing down your secrets, and then screaming this out. It's important to ritualize letting go which we see in our story today, but it doesn't always mean, poof, immediately you've let go. It's a process.

This passage speaks to that reality. It tells us that as we embark on a journey, whether literal (as in the case of the disciples) or our day-to-day journeys of experience, we need to engage a process of letting go. As he sends his friends out, Jesus has surprising advice to start them off on the road of letting go. He says, don't embark on your journey over-prepared: Don't take two tunics. Don't take a bag, or food. Don't pack to an excess.

This practice didn't originate with Jesus, itinerant philosophers practiced it and there's a timeless wisdom to it. Both in the in literal interpretation (less is more, Marie Kondo, minimalism, St. Francis, etc.) and in emotional interpretation -- releasing the things that weigh us down and keep us from traveling lightly, and unarmored .

And yet, even if we start out with every intention to travel lightly, to remain unarmored and open to receiving hospitality and grace from the world around us... it doesn't always work out the way we'd like.

Our story today tells us, you don't have to go far to figure this out. That even if you travel lightly and openly, you may not get the reception you're hoping for. The passage is partly about Jesus sending out his friends,  and it's partly about what happens when you stay put because -- a prophet is "not without honor -- EXCEPT in their hometown." One commentator says, Jesus' family and hometown friends are "too convinced of his ordinariness" to perhaps see the prophetic truth in his life. That a prophet would be rejected by those closest to them was so true and common in Jesus day, that it was a proverbial saying!

The people closest to us will often give us the most opportunity to "let go." Over the last month of Pride we've talked or heard a lot about chosen family. It speaks to this reality. That sometimes the people closest to us are "too convinced of our ordinariness" to see the vibrant, prophetic wisdom we are. And so we choose to let go of our "hometown" and to surround ourselves with others.

It doesn’t mean that we did anything wrong! Sometimes the hometown only sees what it wants to see - whatever "hometown" means for you. And, as we travel, sometimes the people we meet on our journey DON'T offer us hospitality.

As Jesus engages his disciples in our story, he's telling them these things WILL happen, no matter how you show up. And Jesus has a plan for this, whether folks are in their home town, or on the journey. Sure, he's hoping that when his friends show up, open, unarmored, with prophetic wisdom to share that they will be welcome. They will be providentially taken care of.  But he's also not expecting that in a way. He has a "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" kind of plan.

Because he knows as he commissions his friends, rejection may happen. Just like it's happened to him. He knows that in spite of showing up openly and generously and whole-heartedly people may still not be able to hear them - whether in their home context or on the road. Just like, when we show up with our full, whole, vibrant selves -- unencumbered by that extra tunic! -- people may not be able to hear or see that.

This is painful, but STARTING from a place of openness can minimize feelings of resentment or blame, and remind us to continually ritualize the letting go process.

In our passage today, Jesus calls this continued practice of letting go, "shaking the dust off your sandals"

It is a ritual, a type of letting go. And it doesn't have to be as flippant as it sounds. This instruction to "shake the dust off" when we're in places where people just don't get us shows letting go is continual. There's the unarmored simplicity that the disciples are instructed to start their journey with, as they go into the world. AND there's the shaking off process that can happen subsequently. Both are types of letting go, necessary in their own circumstances, and certainly necessary to repeat throughout our lives.

What, then, about when the dust JUST WONT SHAKE OFF??!

When we want to let go, and we scream about letting go, and we ritualize and visualize letting go, but we just can't seem to shake whatever it is that's weighing us down??  "Letting go" doesn't follow prescribed pattern, it can't be forced or orchestrated.  It's often not easy -- and we're in good company on that. Do you think those disciples, when it turned out they weren't welcome somewhere, just left the town, shook their feet a little, and felt totally fine?! I've read some stories about the disciples, and I’m gonna say no. They were very human. I imagine them kicking their feet and muttering under their breath - or even yelling and shaking their first and NOT being happy at all.

The ritual (in this case, "shaking off the dust") doesn't necessitate or create the actual letting go. It sets the intention that you want to head in that direction, and it may provide a release in the moment, but it's not a guarantee that this is the last you're going to see of whatever it is that's weighing you down.

BECAUSE it's not a guarantee, and BECAUSE there is no prescribed path to follow to the point where we actually feel the letting go happen...  we come back to the ritual. Intention-setting and ritual are all the more important. I think Jesus knows this. I think that's why he invites us to, as much as we can, set out into the events of our life from a place of freedom. From a place of being open and unarmored. Pain and rejection will get layered on, and we will need to stop from time to time, and practice a ritual, set an intention. To pause and again shake off our sandals.

And then one day we find - that bit of dust that just would not let go, the thing that we were holding onto, the thing that upset us or hurt us... it's not gone, but it doesn't have the power over us that it once did.

This is not a quick fix!

In scripture we get stories that have been told and retold and edited and condensed, and they don't reveal much of what happens between the lines. But I can imagine maybe it took YEARS for the disciples to move on from the pain of not being welcome in a town!

When, though, we DO get to that place of letting go, we've arrived in a place of freedom. This place of letting go to freedom isn't dependent on anyone else. Jesus is clear -- it's not dependent on those closest to us, who may in fact be the first ones to reject us. It's not dependent on the people we meet along the way who may not hear or see us in the way we need. This place of freedom - this potential of freedom - is one we carry with us on our journey. It is always available to us. We may not always quite be able to reach it, but we contain this capacity for letting go, for freedom, regardless of what town we stop in, and how the people respond to us.

I think this can be helpful to those of us in the US today, as we consider July 4th, so-called "Independence Day." It's a complicated day, a day fraught with questions that are relevant everywhere: who is free, and what does it mean to be free. who decides what freedom is? 

The author and therapist Edith Eger writes of freedom during her time in Auschwitz with a unique perspective: that no one can take away our internal freedom, our own power to let go of hatred and resentment and choose to respond from an open heart. She talks of her passion for fighting for liberation collectively - not letting injustice off the hook - and the importance of collective freedom. AND she emphasizes that internal freedom doesn't depend on external circumstances.

Our story today adds nuance to this -- that openness and letting go are things we revisit over and over on our journeys.  We set ourselves up with habits and rituals and intentions to help keep ourselves light and unarmored -- holding to that space of freedom within us, even when we don't feel it.  Even when we are met with resistance - internally and externally.

In closing, I invite you to ponder this thought from Edith Eger, and carry it with you:

“...the biggest prison is in your own mind, and in your pocket you already hold the key: the willingness to risk; the willingness to release yourself from judgment and reclaim your innocence, accepting and loving yourself for who you really are--human, imperfect, and whole.”

Amen

(c) 2021 Alexis Lillie
All rights reserved.