Let It Go

September 9, 1990

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Scripture: Mark 4:26-29

It may just be that the hardest thing in the world to do is WAIT....To HAVE to do so, doesn’t set well with us, does it? We’re not made that way, we Americans. We’re not inclined that way... we’re activists, doers, producers, movers and shakers...This is how we’re constituted. We’re people who solve problems by rolling up our sleeves, by tackling issues, by getting in there and stirring things up....

Our history is replete with examples of the “take charge” guy, or woman, or group, for whom sitting down and waiting, for almost anything, would have been worse than death. American heroes, for the most part are NOT the patient, long-suffering, stoic types.... That little Spartan boy with the fox gnawing away at his vitals could never have been from Brooklyn, or even Cedar Rapids.

No, American heroes are vigilantes...the Minute Man, Bat Masterson, not taking no guff off NOBODY, Sergeant York, Elliot Ness, David and Maddie.... these are the people we identify with—the DOERS, who precisely don’t wait, but roll into action to change things.

With this programming, then, so consistently built into us, it’s not always easy to appreciate the strong emphasis Jesus placed on the importance and wisdom of waiting.

Oh, I don’t mean that he was a passive non-doer. He was NOT. You can never read the Gospels carefully and miss the fervor, the intensity of Jesus’ ministry. He said some of the most scathing things ever uttered by human lips. The righteous anger of Jesus could curl your hair.

And chasing the money changers out of the Temple was like something out of Walking Tall....It could have happened in Dodge City.

BUT HERE’S WHAT’S SO STRIKING. THERE’S a balance about it. Jesus always knew when to act and when to wait for God to act. He knew when to move ahead and when to hold back, when to lunge and when to linger, when to tackle and when to trust.... And one of the surest evidences, I think, of his sanity is that he kept these two polarities in proper tension.

Contrast two Gospel scenes in your imagination--- The one is Gethsemane... where Jesus is actively, sweatingly, blood-lettingly praying while the Disciples over in a corner of the Garden, have stretched out on the ground and gone to sleep. The other scene is in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, during a storm. Remember? This time while the Disciples are awake, and frantic with fear at the plight they’re in, there is Jesus, stretched out comfortably in the back

of the boat, napping.

WHAT A CONTRAST! Isn’t that intriguing? Jesus awake ---disciples asleep... Disciples awake---Jesus asleep.

It clearly suggests something about Him they hadn’t learned yet....

There is a time to be awake and a time to sleep, a time to be up and a time to lie down, a time to do and a time to trust, a time for activity and a time for acquiescence, a time to go and a time to let go..... There is a time to get in there with all the energy you possess, but there is also a time when you must simply set back and let God in his wisdom take charge and do his thing in his own good way.

Now this is what this little parable is all about, the simple, brief story I read a moment ago. This is the meaning, the lesson of the silently growing seed. THERE COMES A TIME WHEN YOU MUST JUST “let it go”, AND TURN IT ALL OVER TO GOD. Will you look at it with me?

Some quick background.... Mark is the only one of the Gospels to tell this particular story. You don’t find it in the other Synoptics. That’s a little surprising in one sense since Mark contains such a minimum of “teaching”. It’s Matthew and Luke who tell us most of the parables.

But Mark tells this one. It was important to him to include it. Knowing as we do that his Gospel was written during the persecution of the early Church by Nero, this little vignette must have spoken with comforting directness to Christians who couldn’t see much evidence right then that God’s work was going on.

What’s happening?, they were saying. Why is God allowing this? WHAT DOES IT MEAN? The whole enterprise is coming down around our heads.

WAIT... Mark says Jesus says... JUST WAIT. That’s our job now. This is not a time to do. This is not a time to charge around. NOW IS A TIME TO TRUST.

THE SEED IS NOT VISIBLE, You can’t see it growing. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. Planting has occurred, watering has taken place.... NOW LET IT GO. Just turn God loose and trust in his ability to work his good purpose. You can count on him. HE WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.”

The inevitability, the certainty, the positive assurance of the Kingdom’s triumph in spite of anything that might happen is the theme of the parable.

Now let’s look at it a little closer. May I bring it down into our own day? I’d like to take this fundamental principle, this theme, this faithful willingness to wait for God and try it on for size. There are some contemporary areas of life where I’m convinced it pertains.

1. First, what a marvelous parable this is, it seems to be, for PARENTS, maybe even for Grandparents and aunts and uncles.

Raising children is a tough assignment... I know I’m not divulging a surprising new insight in saying that. Nothing about it is a snap, but maybe the hardest part of all is learning how and when to release them... stage by stage. At what point do you stop fretting yourself unmercifully with planting and watering and commit them into the hands of a higher power?

Of course, it’s not a once-for-all-time thing, and there’s a sense in which you never stop being a parent...you always worry about them and fret over them, but how do you acquire the gift of releasing?

It’s not an easy art to master, and the parent who does is a credit both to self and to offspring. If there’s anything worse than a parent who abandons his child to the weeds of neglect, maybe it’s the parent who so stifles his child that he can never breathe the air of independence.

Apron strings, I guess, are to growing youngsters sort of what fertilizer is to growing plants---too little and there is no rootage... too much and the individuality is burned out.... There comes a time, as with the farmer in the parable... there comes a time the wise and loving parent has to say, all right, I have done what I could... I have planted and watered as best I knew how.

I have tried by both precept and example to say to my child, THESE THINGS ARE IMPORTANT, these things are precious, and valuable, and good.... I want you to believe in them, too, My prayer for you is that in time you will come to accept them for yourself and live by them, but I  cannot arbitrarily impose my standards and values on your life.

So now I go to sleep, turning you over to God, and trusting that in his gracious, dependable providence, He will take what has been sown and bring it to glorious fruition.

That’s what the wise parent eventually has to do. It’s a pre-requisite for the child to obtain maturity. It can never be used as a shortcut. It can never be a substitute for early nurture. It can never take the place of fair, consistent, disciplined training at the formative stage, the planting and watering stage.... BUT YOU CAN’T KEEP A CHILD THERE FOREVER. THE POINT OF THE GROWING PROCESS IS NOT, IN THE END, TO HAVE A CHILD WHO IS STILL DEPENDENT ON HIS PARENTS.... THAT’S TRAGIC.

We’ve seen it happen, We’ve all known families where the children never grew up, but remained even to the Senior Citizen stage, emotionally tied, until life passed them by before they could live. That IS a tragedy.

The wise parent knows or learns he can’t control every aspect of his child’s learning. He wouldn’t even if he could because of what it would DO to the child. Others help us raise our children and that’s part of the soil God provides. Others, especially at critical times, may have more salutary influence on them than we.

THANK GOD FOR CHRISTIAN TEACHERS, and Sunday School teachers, and counselors, and coaches, and scoutmasters.... never underestimate the importance of those ministries. Thank God for those who perform those services in this Church. They’re part of the soil in which growth takes place and which can not work if we hover too protectively.

A part of shepherding is relinquishing.... A part of guiding is letting go.... The pain of turning loose, a dreadful pain, is compensated for by the satisfaction of seeing a blossoming.

There comes a time when we must trust, when we must yield, when we must relax, when we must wait, and allow God’s inspired influences to dotheir work. A parent will be driven up the wall if he can’t do that.

The farmer planted, then watered, then let it go. Jesus commended him for it. He did what he could, then he went trustingly to sleep. God did the rest, even through the night, while the man was not conscious of it.

2. Now, let’s go on. Another area of application. This is a marvelous parable for the life of the CHURCH.

I am appalled sometimes in our church programming at the extent to which we almost

assume that success is dependent on our effort.

In Church work that’s perilously close to ARROGANCE. Of course exertion pays dividends for the Lord. Of course you have to have campaigns, and drives, and committees, and bureaucracy in the Church...I don’t know any way to escape that.  But Christian growth, Christian change, Christian success is not in the final analysis a matter of our doing at all. It’s God’s doing. He’s the soil in which it takes place. All the perspiration in the world can’t produce a Christian, or bring the Kingdom one millimeter closer. What a burden is lifted when one realized that and how it sets you free for what’s really important.

There are times—I think this parable is saying to us---There are times when one simply has to say...for example...a Sunday School teacher, all right God, my Sunday School class is not growing like I think it should.... I’ve tried... I’ve made contacts, I’ve invited, I’ve sent cards, I’ve schedule parties, I’ve prepared as good a lesson as I know how, I’ve planted and watered....

Now I’ve just got to turn it over to you and let you work. Your increase, should it come, may exploit my planting and watering, but I will know it is YOU, not I, who is responsible. AND EVEN IF THERE IS NO INCREASE, numerically, I can rest assured that You are busy in the soil of individual lives.

I can continue, I can trust, I can be faithful and not have to berate myself for what I don’t control.

I wish we could have a service occasionally....and maybe this is what the Quakers really do---the Quakers are wonderful people---I wish we could have sometimes a service in which there was absolutely no agenda..... I wouldn’t want to do it every Sunday... it has frightening vocational implications.... But every once in a while wouldn’t it be moving to have an absolutely unprogrammed worship experience.... no bulletin, no order of worship, no structure.... and we’d just sit, or lie down, in utter silence, and open our pores to the presence of God.

How long do you suppose we could take it? It would be a way of saying, a way of admitting, Christianity isn’t something you do... not really, not at the heart..... CHRISTIANITY IS SOMETHING THAT’S DONE IN YOU. That’s what it’s all about.

It’s just letting God BE...in your life...without asking him for something, without petitioning, or prescribing, or pleading.... just WAITING... WAITING... FOR HIM TO MOVE.

I’m told that in the ancient Biblical town of Schechem, now called Nablus, north of Jerusalem in Israel, there are underground streams that run beneath the streets. During the day you can’t hear them. When the bazaars are open, and the merchants are shouting, and the goats and camels are wandering through the alley ways, you’d never know they were there... too much noise.

But after sundown, when the city has settled down for the night, and all is quiet for a while, you can begin to make them out if you listen carefully, gently flowing underground, the comforting sound of life-giving water, to nourish a parched, dry land.

Call it a parable, if you like---OUR OWN NOISE AND CONFUSION, OUR OWN RATTLING, CLANGING SELF-RELIANCE, sometimes keeps us from experiencing the nourishment that is right around us. We must work, we must plan, we must labor, we must organize, but then we must let go, and allow God to move through our organization.

It is He who gives the growth, It is He who produces the change, It is He who sustains when we stop our hectic frenzy and simply let Him be.

3. Now one final application of the secretly growing seed. This parable, I’m certain, has something very precious and very important to say to us about HOW WE HANDLE MISFORTUNE AND TRAGEDY.

There is no way we can live anything approaching a full life without experiencing a certain amount of human heartache.... I don’t see how it is possible.

To be sure there are people who try. There are those who almost seem to major in avoiding difficulty. They live so defensively, so carefully, so parsimoniously that they almost don’t live at all.

But even these can’t avoid trouble entirely... sickness, failure, disappointment, the death of a loved one, loneliness... these don’t respect anybody. We live in a world of trouble... Did you see the recent New Yorker cartoon? A receptionist in an office, answering the phone: “I’m sorry, Mr. Gallagher won’t be in today...... He’s beset by woes.” Mr. Gallagher could be named Everyman.

Who’s not in some sense “beset by woes”? No family I know of is immune.

AND MERE HUMAN PROVISION IS NOT ADEQUATE TO GIVE THE KIND OF SECURITY THE SOUL CRAVES. You can’t buy enough insurance to compensate for the rupture of a wounded psyche, ripped open and laid bare by the death of one more precious than life itself.

You can’t solve that kind of hurt with positive thinking.... Anybody who prescribes that and nothing more is a FRAUD.... some of you know.

There has to be more, something beyond yourself for you to lean on or in all likelihood you’d lose your sanity. WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO? Where do you turn when there’s no where to turn?

WAIT, Mark says Jesus says... WAIT. That’s the time to WAIT. Make your provisions, buy your insurance, prepare your will, plant and water... but then WAIT, in the sure knowledge that God works on.

He’s saying there’s an inevitability about this Kingdom business. DON’T EVER COUNT IT OUT.

There’s a sureness about God’s redemptive purpose. There’s a faithfulness and a consistency in the eternal character itself that we can bank on and will never let us down.

Even in the night, even in the blackest moment of incomprehensible gloom, the seed is growing.... “first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear....” IN GOD’S GOOD TIME, THERE WILL BE HARVEST.

I think if I could say one thing to those of you who even now have burdens to bear beyond the normal heaviness, it would be this — Commit those burdens into his gracious care. He wants you to. Give them to Him and lie down and go to sleep.

That’s not irresponsibility, It’s not evading your rightful share. It’s recognizing a profound, spiritual truth---THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH FOR PRODUCTIVE LIVING RESTS IN GOD HIMSELF.

And the Gospel is that more than anything else in the world, He wants you to rely on him in childlike faith.

When you do that, something happens to the burdens. They may not be removed, but they take on a new perspective..... You see them differently. THEY NO LONGER BIND YOU... It’s like no longer being tied to the music on the page, but being able to play by ear.

Paul Scherer writes of being present at the final concert Toscanini ever conducted. He was over 80 and they had built a slender railing around the podium to support him. He touched it lightly with the fingers of one hand. Then he raised the baton. Says Scherer, Something physical seemed to happen to the orchestra. The performers moved into the music of the great symphony AS ONE PERSON.

And as they progressed, each player, one after another, violin, viola, cello, bass.... lifted his eyes from the notes and fastened them on the maestro there, with the wistful little smile on his face.

They knew him, they loved him, they trusted him.... and all the music that was in them swept up toward that face.

Plant, water, then sleep in trust. The Maestro has not yet retired.