Letting Go

The message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, November 1, 2020.  The Bible verses used are Luke 5:1-11, 27-32.

When you came here tonight, you probably had some idea of what this service would be like. You expected that we'd have a few songs. You expected that we'd read some scripture. You expected that I'd talk to you for a while. In other words, you came here knowing more or less what to expect.

And that's true of most of our lives. When we get up in the morning, we usually have some idea of what to expect out of our day. When we go to work, we know what we expect to be doing. When we go home, we know what we expect when we get there. Sure, sometimes things the unexpected happens, sometimes things come up that we don't anticipate, but even then it's usually not something totally out of the blue. It's rare that we're totally surprised by something, that something happens that we had absolutely no idea might happen and that we did not expect at all.

You’ve heard me and other pastors talk about how we need to give up control of our lives and give that control to God.  But sometimes, that’s a really hard thing for us to do. The thing that makes that so hard is that, when we give control of our lives to God, we don't really know what will happen next. God may have all kinds of surprises in store for us, and they may or may not line up with what we'd like to have happen. When we give God control of our lives, we really don't know what to expect. And that scares us.

Think about your life.  Have you ever gone into a situation where you had no idea what might happen? That's pretty scary, right? That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with when I was a lawyer. Whenever you go into court, you don't really know what's going to happen. You prepare as much as you can, you try to get ready for whatever might happen, but there's almost always something that happens that you did not expect. A witness does not say what you expect them to say. The judge makes a ruling you did not expect the judge to make. No matter how much you prepare, something always happens.

It's all very easy to say “expect the unexpected”, but the truth is that, by definition, you cannot expect the unexpected. And that's not a comfortable thing. It's hard. It's scary.

And it's what God asks us to do. Tonight, we heard the story of Jesus calling his first disciples. Do you think they had any clue what they were signing up for when they started following Jesus? I don't. I don't think they had the slightest idea what to expect.

It kind of makes me wonder why they did it. You know, sometimes we think of the disciples as sort of this rag-tag band of people who were just sort of wandering around because they really had nothing better to do with their lives, anyway. It's not true, or at least it does not appear to be true. Peter, James, and John had a fishing business, and it looks like they were fairly successful. They were successful enough that they went into partnership and had at least two boats. Levi, also known as Matthew, was a tax collector, and tax collectors made a pretty good living. Peter, at least, was married, and it's thought that at least some of the other disciples were, too.

These were not people who went and followed Jesus because they had nothing else to do. These were not people who were leaving nothing behind when they followed Jesus. They were leaving lots of things behind. They were leaving homes and families and business and money behind. They were leaving behind things that most of us would put a pretty high value on.

            And yet they did it.  Did they have some fear about it?  Maybe.  After all, this was a pretty big step they were taking.  I assume they must have had some fear, because Jesus told them “Don’t be afraid”.  But still, they did it.  They did it without hesitation. They did not ask Jesus to wait while they made arrangements for an orderly transition for their businesses. They did not ask Jesus to wait while they made arrangements for someone to watch over their families. They did not do things that we would consider to be responsible things to do.  No matter what fears they might have had, we're told that they simply walked away from their old lives and followed Jesus.

They did that having no idea what would happen when they did it. They did that having no idea what to expect. It's pretty amazing, when you stop to think about it. It's something most of us can probably not even conceive of doing, to just leave everything behind and follow God, having no idea what to expect when we do.

And yet, as I was thinking about this subject this week, something occurred to me. Why is this so hard? Is it because God makes it hard? Or is it because we, you and I, make it hard?  Is it because we let our fear of the unknown get in the way?

Think about it this way: how many of us have lives that have gone exactly the way we expected them to go? Think back thirty years, or twenty years, or ten years, or whatever period of time you consider to be a long time ago. Think about how you expected your life to go at that point. How much of it has gone the way you expected it to? In fact, has any of it really gone the way you expected it to?

It has not for me. Thirty years ago, in October of 1990, I was the Enforcement Director of the Securities Division of the South Dakota Department of Commerce. Wanda and I had been married for about a year.  I expected that I'd live in Pierre the rest of my life.

            Twenty years ago, in October of 2000, I was a lawyer in Wessington Springs. Wanda and I had been married for eleven years, and we'd lived in Springs for about nine years. My expectation was that I'd be a lawyer until I retired and that we'd live in Wessington Springs the rest of our lives.

Ten years ago, in October of 2010, I was the pastor of the ARK United Methodist church in North Sioux City.  I was hoping I’d stay there for many more years.  If not, I knew I’d be moved somewhere else, but I had no expectation that it would be Gettysburg.  I only had a vague notion of where Gettysburg even was.  I’d never been here.  I’d been to Onida once, I think, as part of a singing group that put on a show for the Venture Communications annual meeting.

The point is that nothing has worked out the way I thought it would. I did not stay in Pierre. I did not stay a lawyer until I retired. I did not stay in Wessington Springs, not even until I graduated from seminary. I did not stay in North Sioux City—instead I came to a completely different type of community.

Now, I don't say that because I think there's anything special about me. My guess is that everyone here could tell a similar story. The details would be different, but I doubt that any of us can say that our lives have gone exactly the way we expected them to go, that we are exactly where we thought we'd be, that we're with exactly the people we thought we'd be with, and that we're doing exactly what we thought we'd be doing. Life never goes the way we expect it to go.

But here's the thing about that. Life may not go the way we expect it to go. But if we let go of our expectations, and let go of our fears, God can lead us to some pretty wonderful places. I am really, really glad that Wanda have been married all these years. I'm really glad that I spent some time as a lawyer in Wessington Springs. I'm glad we got to go to North Sioux City, because I learned a lot there, both about being a pastor and about who I am. And I'm even more glad now that we're here and with all of you and doing the things we're doing.  Life has turned out really well for me. And it's all because life did not go the way I expected it to go.

We're not told what the disciples expected when they followed Jesus. Maybe they did not expect anything. Maybe that walking away from home, and family, and business, was symbolic of something else. Maybe it symbolized walking away from all of our expectations and fears and just following Jesus on an incredible adventure.

Because, when we let go of our expectations, and we let go of our fears, that's what life becomes: an adventure. By coincidence, this week I happened to read a quote from E. Stanley Jones, the great United Methodist missionary and theologian. Here's what he said:

Many live in dread of what is coming. Why should we? The unknown puts adventure into life...The unexpected around the corner gives a sense of anticipation and surprise. Thank God for the unknown future.

The disciples had no idea what was going to happen when they followed Jesus. They had no idea what to expect. But they do not seem to have been afraid of it. I mean, there were times when they got scared. There were times when they did not understand. There were times when they wondered what was going on. But there is no time in the gospels when any of them threatened to quit. None of them, as far as we know, ever said, “I'm leaving and going back to my old life.” None of them ever seems to have considered it. Through everything that happened, through the ups and downs, the good times and that bad times, they stayed with Jesus. No matter what happened, they decided following Jesus was worth it. They let go of their expectations, let go of their fears, and embraced the adventure.

So can we. The disciples were just ordinary people, you know. They were just folks, just people like you and me. If they could let go of their expectations and their fears and embrace the adventure of following Jesus, so can we.

I don't know what that means for you. I don't know what it means for me. That's the point. Letting go of expectations and fears means we don't know what will come next. It may be a pretty wild ride, the way it was for the disciples. But following Jesus will be worth it. So let's let go of our expectations and our fears and embrace the adventure of following Jesus Christ.