The Work of Release

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The Work of Release

Spirituality of Imperfection week 5
April 10, 2011
Jeremiah 17:5-9

Thus says the LORD:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals
and make mere flesh their strength,
whose hearts turn away from the LORD.
They shall be like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see when relief comes.
They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

Blessed are those who trust in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit.

The heart is devious above all else;
it is perverse—
who can understand it?

First, I want to thank Greg for filling in these past two weeks in this pulpit,
and I heard many, many good things from you about his sermons, especially
last week’s sermon. Because of my policy of never allowing good preachers
to preach here again, that will be the last time Greg will be preaching here. I
am already insecure enough, and the easiest way to deal with that insecurity
is to eliminate the source of that insecurity—please note that I did not say
that it was the best way to deal with insecurity, just the easiest. In all
seriousness, thank you, Greg, and since you are Member-In-Discernment, a
potential clergy-to-be, I suppose I’ll have to let you back into this saddle
again, this pulpit again.

For those of you who were blessed enough to be here the past few weeks,
you’ve heard Greg elaborate on some of the discoveries of Alcoholics
Anonymous, the basis of which are found in the book we’ve been using for
this particular sermon series on the Spirituality of Imperfection. So much of
what was shared with you is as ancient as it gets, and yet, in many ways, it
was the profound struggle of those trying to kick an addiction to alcohol that
brought much of this wisdom back into the public spotlight. Frankly, we in
the church have had these tools, these insights, this wisdom, for thousands
of years, and yet, we lost them somehow, perhaps when we became the
instrument of the Roman Empire, and then, seemingly, all the empires and
governments that came afterwards. For whatever good reasons, the Spirit
cannot be put into a box, locked into an institution, even the church, and so
the gift of these insights about imperfection and healing, came back to the
church through the good work of Alcoholic Anonymous. Still, there have
been hints, moments in the life of the church, over the many hundreds of
years where these insights have popped up again and again, because the
Spirit cannot be stopped, cannot be contained, thank goodness, and thank
God.

But in the coming weeks, I wanted us to explore a couple of results of
profound spirituality of imperfection that we’ve been exploring, namely, for
the next couple of weeks, the spiritual work of release, and the importance of
gratitude in this spirituality of imperfection. The first of these results is the
work of release, the work of letting go, something that is so important to
those struggling with addiction, whether to alcohol or anything else—the act
of being able to let go of the control that we think we have in this life, and
letting God do what God can do in our lives. The reality is too often we fight
with God for control of our lives, and, for those struggling with addiction
issues, this is especially true: the thing addicted to becomes the way of
dealing with inability to let go and let God, as the saying go, a saying that
comes directly out of the third step out of the twelve steps found in AA.
That third step says this: we made a decision to turn our will and our lives
over to the care of God as we understood him.

Now, of course, that is easier said than done, as exemplified in an ancient
story about Abbot Anastasius, who had a book of very fine parchment worth
twenty shekels. It contained both the Old and the New Testament in full,
and Anastasius read from it daily as it. Once a certain monk came to visit
him and, seeing the book, made off with it. The next day, when Anastasius
went to his Scripture reading and found that it was missing, he knew at
once that the monk had taken it. Yet he did not send after him, for fear
that he might add the sin of perjury to that of theft. Now the monk went
into the city to sell the book. He wanted 18 shekels for it. The buyer said,
“Give me the book so that I may find out if it is worth that much money.”
With that, he took the book to the holy Anastasius and said, “Father, take a
look at this and tell me if if you think it is worth as much as eighteen
shekels.” Anastasius said, “Yes, it is a fine book. And at eighteen shekels it
is a bargain.” So the buyer went back to the monk and said, “Here is your
money. I showed the book to Father Anastasius and he said it was worth
eighteen shekels.” The monk was stunned. “Was that all he said? Did he
say nothing else?” “No, he did not say a word more than that.” “Well, I
have changed my mind and don’t want to sell the book after all.” Then he
went back to Anastasius and begged him with many tears to take the book
back, but Anastasius said gently, “No, brother, keep it. It is my present to
you.” But the monk said, “if you do not take it back, I shall have no
peace.” After that the monk dwelt with Anastasius for the rest of his life.
(Kurtz & Ketcham 166)

Now, at least for me, that is hard story to hear, especially with my love of
books, but the point of it is clear: so long as we cling to anything, to anyone,
we are bound by those very things, we are imprisoned by them. The reason
why that thieving monk wanted to stay with holy Anastasius is because he
knew that he had met the freest man he would ever meet in his life, so free
as to not even be unnerved by the loss of his only copy of the scriptures.
Now, of course, the story is about releasing our attachments to material
things, but those attachments are always indicative our struggle with the
meanings we attach to those things: we don’t attach ourselves to our bank
accounts, our homes, our wallets, our friends, our spouses simply because
of what they are in and of themselves—digits on a screen, on a monthly
statement, or brick and mortar or well-loved flesh and blood—no, we attach
ourselves to them because they represent something deeper to us: security,
or being needed or wanted, or success or something else in us, some need in
us we think can be satiated by having enough of whatever it is that fills that
hole in us—enough drink, enough food, enough money, enough control,
enough success.

It’s odd how the human heart can so easily deceive us, how it can tell us that
if we have enough of these things, then we will be enough, we will finally be
complete and happy, and fulfilled. But all the great religious traditions,
including our own, know that such a thing is a lie, as evidenced in today’s
scripture from the prophet Jeremiah, as he takes his people to task for
ultimately trusting what cannot be trusted, that being mere mortals.   Those
are hard words to hear, to hear Jeremiah saying that even our fellow beings
cannot be fully and ultimately trusted, even our loved ones, because they are
not what is ultimate: we cannot ultimately trust what is not ultimate, and
though Jeremiah is saying that Israel is making alliances with foreign powers
to save its own skin, that is trusting in those powers will ultimately fail the
people of Israel, we can extrapolate that there is a lesson here for us as
well. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t or can’t trust others, but it is matter
of putting our ultimate trust in what can live up to that trust, the God of the
ultimate, the holy one of Israel, so to speak. And Jeremiah says that those
of us—which is really all of us, at different parts of our lives—he says that
those of us that chose to trust what is not ultimate will be a mere shrubs,
living in an inhabited land, peppered with salt. For those struggling with
alcohol, there is irony here, for she or he seeks to satiate the thirst with
drink, but ends up being continually and eternally thirsty all the time. But it
is the same with all of our efforts to ultimately trust those things that cannot
be ultimately trusted—food, drink, money, power, control—that misplaced
trust, coming out of deceptive heart, the heart that will lie to us about those
things, will ultimately leave us in the desert, starving and thirsting for yet
more and more and more.

This past couple of weeks I finished up a book about the Bernie Madoff
scandal called To Good To Be True, the scam that took down thousands of
personal investors and dozens of charities, and whose eventual cost may run
up to some 65 billion dollars. What was striking about the stories of the
victims was how conservative many of them were with the money they
thought they were investing with Madoff.   You see, the evil genius of this
particular Ponzi scheme was that Madoff didn’t sell it his victims as a get rich
scheme—in fact, he often promised below market returns compared to the
stock market from year to year.   What he promised was steady returns, not
spectacular returns, and so his victims were not looking for returns of 25%
-50% returns you might have found in some of the hedge funds of the era.
Madoff’s victims were seeking safety in their investments with Madoff—in fact,
many of them considered their investments with Madoff to be the safest of
their portfolios. What was being sought was safety in the crazy world of the
stock market, and though one can accuse Madoff’s investors of being
incredibly naïve and willing to turn a blind eye to numbers that didn’t really
make much sense, you really can’t accuse them of being greedy. And what
you hear from them, when they tell their personal stories, is how betrayed
they feel, and how all sense of safety, personal and otherwise, has been
ripped out of their life. They trusted Bernie Madoff, like a brother, and they
were stunned by the betrayal. Certainly Bernie stole their money, but the
greatest theft he did was steal their sense of safety in this world. That is
what you hear in the heartbreaking stories of his victims, the deeply human
cost of what was stolen from them, which was far more than just digits on a
screen, the money that those digits represented. We seek safety, security,
so often in what cannot ultimately give us safety—money or a friendship, or
whatever, as so many of these Madoff investors did.

How do we release? How do let go of that need to seek the ultimate in that
which is not ultimate? Well, I’m not sure there is ever a singular moment in
our lives when it just happens once, just like I don’t think our own journey of
conversion to the Christ is a one time event. I often say that I became a
Christian when I was in my early teens, but I have been a life-long journey of
becoming a Christian, day by day, decision by decision, imperfection by
imperfection. The third step of AA that I mentioned earlier, the one where
alcoholic is told to turn their lives and their will over to their Higher Power, to
the God of their own understanding, the third step is really an invitation to
do what the Catholic theologian Richard Rohr invites us to do, which is to let
go of three needs: “the need to be in control, the need to be effective, and
the need to be right.” (Kurtz and Ketcham 173). Folks, that is lot of need
to let go, but I must admit, that I am held captive to each and every one of
those things, to lesser and greater degree, and I know I need to let go of
each of these things, because they do indeed hold me prisoner.

But the paradox of freedom, of spiritual freedom, of emotional freedom, is
the ability to put things in their proper place, to trust others to a certain
degree—certainly, life cannot be lived with others without some trust in
others—to trust that hard work will get you somewhere, though also
knowing that it may also lead to nothing, as Madoff victims can attest; to
know the guidance you give your children, your control of them for a certain
part of their lives, is a good thing, but it may not be enough for their future,
and that is OK. So much is learning how to release control, how to let go of
our need to be needed, or even letting go of being right, and being good or
great at everything. For the alcoholic it is that first moment when she or he
decides to release their foolish belief that he has control over his addiction,
that she can manage her own mess of life, and then turn to her will, her life
over to that one thing, that one being, that one “Other” that they cannot
control, which is God.   Blessed is the one who makes that decision, day by
day, to trust in the Lord, the God of their understanding, to help them get
through the next moment, to get through the moments when they want to
turn to alcohol to give them that security they so want, when they want to
turn to the drink to give them the ability to deal with the insecurity they
cannot handle.

But it is not only those in recovery who need to do this—it is all of us, at
different moments of our lives. So many people think that the saying “God
helps those who help themselves” is found in the Bible, but it is not: in fact,
it is from the 17th century a book called Discourses Concerning Government
by Algernon Sydney. The irony is that God seems to help those who decide
they can’t do it any longer, who finally find themselves helpless before the
mess of their own lives, so often of their own making. You know, I think
there comes a moment in each of our lives when we realize that we cannot
manage our way out of a problem, that we cannot control that which was
never in our control in the first place, when we realize that we cannot work
hard enough to solve this or that problem, or pray hard enough to get God
to solve the problem the way we want it solved. There is a moment in our
lives where we, like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, where we have to
turn it over to God, when we release the future, with all of our fear about it,
into the hands of God, who can carry the burden we were never meant to
carry in the first place. We are not God, only God is God, which is another
great spiritual insight rediscovered by AA, and that means we don’t have to
be in control of everything, we don’t have to be responsible for the outcome
of everything, and we don’t have to be needed by someone or something or
some people to be a person of infinite worth. In those moments, moments
when we chose to trust what can ultimately be trusted, we are like that tree
that Jeremiah speaks of here, the one by the river, whose roots live off the
goodness and grace of the divine river that is God, and when the dry times
come, and they surely will and they often do, we remain strong because of
the roots we’ve placed within the waters that never runs dry, that is, the
ultimate that is worth trusting, the living God of Israel. Amen.