Letting go

 “…and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” (Mark 4:27)

 

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13

Psalm 20

2 Corinthians 5:6-17

Mark 4:26-34

 New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

(Year B: Second Sunday after Trinity, 13^th June 2021)

A key part of Jesus’ ministry was telling stories. Because it is very often hard for us to ‘get it’ we need to hear and to tell stories – stories about real people and their lives. A really good story is remembered because it touches three things: the heart, the mind and the will.  In fact, the very word Gospel means good news or good stories.

Jesus took natural examples from the natural world of living, working, relating and caring to illustrate what the ‘kingdom of God’ is like. The phrase ‘It (the Kingdom of God) is like’ ….’or it is as if…’ crops up all over the gospels.

We do well to pause and reflect on the gospel stories we hear week after week and year after year. The same story is never quite the same each time we hear it.  The secret is to link it to our own personal life experience as well as that of others. This requires patience, diligence and openness.  And all of this takes time.

The story or parable of the sower lands us, figuratively speaking, in a world of fields and crops.  We can rest in these images contemplating the mystery not only of nature but our own complex lives intertwined with those of others. Gone are the textbook manuals of scientific determination. In with the organic, intuitive, living, growing, flourishing, decaying, ageing and harvesting images that best reflect the way the world actually works.

We like certainty and seek to avoid too much risk. However, life does always not work that way.   Sometimes, we need to ‘scatter the seed’ on the ground and then leave it there for a time. The opposite of this is called ‘micro-management’ where – for reasons of insecurity – we have a need to plan down to the last detail and direct the details of a project or a relationship.  Letting go also means embracing a condition of ‘not knowing’.  As it says in this Gospel passage the sower ‘would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.’

We just do not know How or When or Who. We only know a What- that what is sown is sown and God is active somehow but the results are not to be seen now. It is a case of doing the following:

• -        We hear the Word of God as seeds of possibility in our depths;
• -        We make it our own by planting deep in the garden of our soul;
• -        We let it germinate and let it grow;
• -        We do not know how it happens;
• -        We believe that God is in charge; and
• -        The results will be plain later on.

In the case of parenting, for example, it may involve a very gradual letting go as children move into adulthood. However, staying close and being available and stepping in are essential.

Monday take-aways

1                    Letting go is required – of our fears, our insecurities, our attachments, our detailed plans, our risk analysis, our mental frameworks and our self-image.

2                    What we sow may seem of little consequence in terms of size and standing. Later, however, the seeds give rise to ‘the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade’ (verse 32).

3                    God’s love is bigger than our plans and expectations. All we need to do is what we can do now – to sow the seed and keep it close to our hearts and then let God lead us forward step by step. 

(words above = 600)

The poet, mystic and monk, Thomas Merton (1915-1968), put it this way:

‘My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone’. (from Thoughts in Solitude).