"When Love Means Letting Go"--September 5, 2019
"For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." [1 Corinthians 13:9-13]
To me, the greatest challenge in these well-worn words (other than bracket out every wedding you've ever heard these read at, since this passage is not really about marriage or romance) is the question of knowing what it is time for. Honestly, figuring out what it is the right time for, in this moment of this day, might be one of the biggest struggles of the life of faith.
The life of following Jesus is always one of discerning what to hold onto, and what it is time to be done with. If I am honest with myself, even that wording makes me a little squirmy, because I don't want to admit that it is ever time for letting go of anything. I have been raised in America, after all, and have been bombarded with messages for nearly four decades on TV, radio, and now the internet telling me that I can "have it all"--and more than that, that I can have it all at once.
But the voices from the Bible all beg to differ. Even from the ancient and sober voice of Ecclesiastes, who insists that "there is a time for everything," and that "everything has a season," there comes the reminder that if it time for one thing, it is time to let go of something else. Knowing what we are meant to hold onto, and what it has come time to let go of is the difficult daily work of being a grown-up.
That seems to be Paul's point, too, if we can hear his voice without the chords of Pachelbel's Canon in D and the Wedding March overpowering his words. Paul says that as he looks at his life, he realizes there have come times when it was the proper season to set old things--old habits, old ways, and old attitudes--aside, because he has come to see them as childish. Perhaps it is excusable (or at least understandable) that my primary-grade aged children only want to go to an event at church "if there will be cake," but it is certainly childish. Even if I let that slide when they are young, it is hardly fitting for me to think as a grown-up. There comes a point when the attitude of "I only want to do things that are fun for me" or "Me and my group first" just need to be left behind, because--well, because we finally see that we have outgrown them.
And like I say, the hard thing is how Paul pushes us to come face to face with the question: what is it time to let go of?
For Paul, I should note, that is really another way of asking, "What does it look like at this stage of my life to love more fully... more truly... more rightly?" The reason Paul himself has gone through his personal inventory, this housecleaning for his soul as it were, is that he has come to realize how much of his old attitudes, practices, and mindset were childish because they were not genuinely of love. And again, let me reiterate, this isn't about romance, but about the kind of self-giving that is expressed in every kind of relationship, from the closest of friendships to the bitterest enemy to the utter stranger. Paul doesn't say, "I needed to let go of childish things so I could pursue a romantic relationship," or "I needed to put away childish things so I could attain the picture perfect life with the 2.5 kids and a dog." It is always wider, deeper, bigger than just his own immediate gratification. Paul has begun a ferocious quest to root out any of the old childish self-centeredness that is still cropping up in his heart, because he knows it is simply time... time to be done with them, and time to put them away.
Look, I know: there are lots of old ways of thinking that we have carried along with us for a lot of our lives. We can't go back in time to undo the immaturity of the past. We can't go back and change the childish things we did or thought or said. And we can't advise our past selves not to be so painful self-centered. But while, as C. S. Lewis famously says, we can't go back and change the beginning of the story we are living, we can change its ending. The childishness of the past, the self-absorbed mindset that thought "Me and My Group First" was solid thinking, and the immature need to be constantly entertained or gratified, those are all part of journey that brought us right here. Absolutely that is true. But once you see that you have outgrown those attitudes because Christ calls us to maturity, then you realize it is time to leave those things behind, like training wheels, diapers, and bibs. Letting the childish ways go is a way of growing in love.
That isn't easy--growing up never is. It is humbling, and maybe more than a little sobering, to consider what things in my own life it is just time for me to be done with. Not that the things I need to let go of were wicked or sinful necessarily, but simply that love calls me to be done with them. So, for example, I should probably admit I am never going to be in a headlining band, and that I cannot cheat encroaching age by getting a tattoo to make myself look like the "young" or "trendy" pastor. Not gonna work for me. (In the words of Dr. Evil, "There's nothing more pathetic than an aging hipster.") And I should admit that the window of time for me to own a motorcycle or a sportscar has closed--loving my children who need to have seats in a vehicle means making choices about what I will not make room for in my garage. I am not going to spend my free time staying up til the middle of the night binge-watching TV shows, and I can't justify late-night partying at the bar. I won't spend my kids' future college money on an authentic certified lightsaber from Star Wars, a full-size set of Batman costume gear, or my own personal replica of the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones--not because any of those pieces of kitschy memorabilia are immoral per se (and they would be cool, I have to grand), but because love means knowing what things need to be let go of for the sake of being able to give myself away more fully to others.
There was nothing necessarily wrong with staying up til 2am in college watching movies in the dorm--but it is a childish thing now that I have obligations to the people who count on me to function in the daylight. There was nothing necessarily bad about my comic book collection in eighth-grade, either, but now I need to realize they were not the investment opportunity I once imagined them to be. There was nothing wicked about the summer of infatuation my high school sweetheart and I spent going to the movies or dinner or a park just about every other day back when I was eighteen (even if it was somewhat rude and obnoxious to the other people in our lives who were left wondering if I was ever going to do anything useful again other than see every movie that ever came out in the summer of 1998). None of those things were sinful--but the time for them has passed. Love needs to look like something more now, and it would be childish for me to revert to the old giddy days of wasting every bit of disposable income on another summer's worth of infatuation like that. The high school sweetheart is the same face, but love needs to look different in this season. Now the way to love her is not running out to the movies every other night with her, but to spend the time to provide for the children we are raising together, or to do the dishes or laundry so she doesn't have to think about it, or to be the one to put the kids to bed when she's already exhausted. Part of learning how to love rightly, I believe, is learning what it is time to let go of so that the form of love can be what it needs to be at this stage of life, for this season and its needs. Maybe part of us grieves a bit at the passing of a season, at the end of old eras, and at the thought that some things in my life are just done, not to be reopened again. But in that empty space there is now the freedom to love more fully, more selflessly, more honestly, and more maturely.
All of that is hard. It is hard both to discern--to ask the question, "What is it time for me to let go of at this point of my life?"--as well as to actually let go of the childish things whose time has come to be set aside. That is a struggle. But it is a hopeful one, rather than a despairing one, because anything that makes our love more authentic brings us closer to Christ. All genuine love is connected, however hidden to our eyes at first, to God. The shallow infatuations of childhood and adolescence, maybe not so much--but genuine love, yeah, that's always connected with God. So whatever I do that draws me more fully into self-giving, honest, vulnerable love, even if it is difficult or requires letting go of something lesser, is worth it, because it pulls me more fully into the sway of the God who is love.
Today, we are given a two-fold task (and honestly, it will take more than just one day to do it... this is a lifetime thing). First, we are dared by the Scriptures to ask, "What is it time for--and what is it time to set aside?" And then, as love leads us to set aside the old childish and self-centered patterns, we are dared to actually open up our hands and let go of the things we are done with.
Don't worry--the more our hands are empty, the more readily we can feel the grip of Christ's hand in ours.
Lord Jesus, give us the wisdom to recognize childish things we are still clutching and the courage to let them go.
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