The Challenge of Letting Go

Devotional Reflection, Tuesday, May 14, 2024

The week of the seventh Sunday after Easter

The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.

Key phrases for reflection from today’s Gospel reading:

18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19A scribe then approached and said, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ 20And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’

You will find the full text of today’s Gospel reading at the end of this reflection.

Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 965)

AM Psalm 97, 99, [100]; PM Psalm 94, [95]

1 Sam. 16:1-13a; Eph. 3:14-21; Matt. 8:18-27

David’s Reflections

Dag Hammarskjöld made this entry in his journal.

"Thus it was"

I am being driven forward

Into an unknown land.

The pass grows steeper,

The air colder and sharper.

A wind from my unknown goal

Stirs the strings

Of expectation.

Still the question:

Shall I ever get there?

There where life resounds,

A clear pure note

In the silence. *

In today’s Gospel, two people felt the holy desire to be driven forward into an unknown land.  They felt a wind from their unknown goal in Jesus’ sudden appearing in their lives.  A desire to follow him, to be with him awoke in them.  They first verbalized that sense of being driven forward with the words  “I will follow you wherever you go.”  The second asked only to be allowed to complete his duties as son, to bring closure to his relationship with his father by attending to his burial.  (The reader does not learn whether death was imminent.)

Have such desires recurringly taken you?  Have you felt a holy urging, a drivenness to launch out, to risk radical obedience, to adopt the role of spiritual pilgrim, to go wherever Jesus’ voice and example might take you, to attempt the unfinished spiritual business that has haunted you? I certainly have. And, my initial responses have not always been such that you would want to emulate them.

Be aware!  Perhaps my own initial reluctance pushes against the radical detachment called for, a sitting loose to every relationship, every possession, every ambition to which I have clung because I believed them essential to my happiness and well being.  In today’s Gospel, Jesus cautions the first person that the world had no room for one like himself, that even a fox had more of a home in her den than Jesus experienced among his people.  To let go and allow oneself to be carried forward by that wind of anticipation, to hoist that sail and cut the lines tying you to the dock, will mean to share Jesus’ rejection and his homelessness, to risk being ultimately misunderstood.

The second person hears Jesus say that others could attend equally well to the family tasks he had assumed.  His holy desire, his sense of being driven forward was a call from God to other priorities.  Holy desire comes with holy timing.  To live into the desire demands accepting the sense of timing, a sense of “now or never.”

Jesus’ responses to their volunteering feel counterintuitive and bear little resemblance to our responses to those who volunteer. We’re often just glad to have bodies to fill the slots. Jesus, however, knew the rigors they faced and the resilient endurance necessary to journey with him.

The awakenings and stirrings we experience come with a sense of holy timing.  Now is the time.  Today is the day.  Can we sit with that sense of being driven forward?  Walk around that holy desire?  Look at it from all angles?  Within that deep looking and praying, we will find a holy energy, the wind that will make remaining tied to the dock untenable and unbearable.  We will find within the desire the ability to let loose of all that keeps us from living forward.  Like the poet, we may wonder if we will get there.  We may be haunted with fears, questions of “what If?” and “can I really go there?”.  Let’s not ignore those.  Let’s offer them up to God with a prayer that the ax will be sharp enough to sever the lines and that we will get the sails hoisted so God’s wind can carry us forward.

* Dag Hammarskjöld, Markings, trans. Leif Sjöberg and W. H. Auden, foreword, W. H. Auden (New York:  Knopf, 1964), p. 5

Collect of the Day, Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after Ascension Day

O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:  Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.   (BCP, 226)

A Collect for Peace

Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen. (BCP, 123)

All the Good I Can

Dear God, guide me to

Do all the good I can

By all means I can

In all ways I can

In all places I can

To all people I can

As long as I can.

Bill Pittman and  Lisa D., The 12 Step Prayer Book Volume 2:  More Twelve Step Prayers and Inspirational Readings Prayers  (Center City, MN:  Hazelden, 2007.)

A Prayer for Light

Grant us, Lord, the lamp of charity which never fails, that it may burn in us and shed its light on those around us, and that by its brightness we may have a vision of that holy City, where dwells the true and never-failing Light, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 110)

A Collect for Mission

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified:  Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.  (BCP, 100)

Daily Office Gospel, Matthew 8:18-27

18 Now when Jesus saw great crowds around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19A scribe then approached and said, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ 20And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ 21Another of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ 22But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’

23 And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24A gale arose on the lake, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25And they went and woke him up, saying, ‘Lord, save us! We are perishing!’ 26And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, you of little faith?’ Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a dead calm. 27They were amazed, saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?’

Daily Offices in the Book of Common Prayer

Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer

Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer

Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer

Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer

Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer

Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer