This Sunday we are doing a remembrance worship service during worship. A time to remember and celebrate loved ones who have passed away this pasta year, but also a time to do some thinking and praying on how to release our loved ones in a way where they can be loved and cared for and e no longer have to to er erwe can experience them in full joy again. For me that means trying to do something I am not good at: “letting go”!
For this service our praise team has been working on a special song called “Jubilee”. It’s a song written by Mary Chapin Carpenter and the words are just so incredible. As we practiced it on Wednesday, I found the second verse just kind of pierce my soul:
I can tell by the way you’re talking, that the past isn’t letting you go
There’s only so long you can take it all on, and then the wrong’s gotta be on its own
and when you’re ready to leave it behind you, you’ll look back and all that you’ll see
is the wreckage and rust that you left in the dust on your way to jubilee.
For many of us, grieving is just losing loved ones, but also losing our innocence, our sense of justice…what is right or wrong. We’ve had something tear our childhoods away from us too soon and these events have thrown us out of the garden and into the wilderness. For many of us the trauma of those events often paralyzes us for years. And we feel so alone.
We feel like a friend of mine shared with me once. He was a pastor in a large church, and he had forgotten his key to the church building. He thought about going home to get his key, but it was a Wednesday night, church night, and he thought for certain someone would already be there. When he got there the front doors were locked, so he walked around to the side door. As he went to open the side door, he noticed a group of folks gathered in a fellowship room. They were laughing and having a great time. He couldn’t wait to join them. But when he got to the door it, too, was locked. He pounded on the door, but they were having such a good time, they couldn’t hear him. He left realizing what it felt like to be in the wilderness. He realized then what it must feel like to be locked in a wilderness of grief and not having the “key” to get into the garden and experience jubilee.
I think many of us feel that way in periods of our life. Death, loss, pain throw us out of the garden, and we feel lost and unable to find joy, happiness, and community (jubilee!).
But can I say this? I think I can because it’s something I’ve experienced in the wilderness for myself. Sometimes we hold on to that past…that poor experience…that trauma…that loss…too long. We take that injustice and wear it like a badge. And the only person it is hurting is ourselves. As this song says, “there’s only so long you can take it all on, and then the wrong’s gotta be on its own. And when you’re read to leave it behind you, you’ll look back and all that you’ll see is the wreckage and rust that you left in the dust on your way to jubilee!”
I don’t know about you, but it gets to be just too much for me to carry sometimes. All that righteous anger. All that, “this isn’t the way it should be!” All that, “they did me wrong!” And sometimes the answer to all that pain isn’t out there, but inside of you: the willingness to let it go…to give it over to something bigger.
The world has been captured these last 3 years by a wonderful show on Apple TV called “Ted Lasso”. In this last season, the entire message has been about just this…letting it go…forgiveness. Many “Christians” have been reluctant to watch this show because of its language and especially it’s use of a certain word starting with “f”. And let me tell you it’s used a lot! But it’s not world not watching because the true “f” word this show celebrates is one we Christian’s adore: forgiveness. Here’s one clip you just must watch…just ignore the “f” words and concentrate on the forgiveness. It is so cool when we all learn to let go and let God (in this case forgiveness) flow! Just to set this up. Coach Beard, the one doing the forgiving, has been mad at Nate for quite some time. Nate hurt his best friend, Ted Lasso. Ted’s been able to let it go, but Coach Beard hasn’t. In the end, Ted Lasso asks Coach Beard to do what Ted did for Coach Beard…forgive.
PS: I really wanted to play this for church this Sunday, but I couldn’t figure out how to remove the “f” bombs.
Hey…think about it. Which “f” word permeates your inner thoughts? Where is your soul residing as we speak? in the four-letter wilderness of regret and righteous anger, or in the seven-letter garden of jubilee. We have a choice, you know.
Your “f”-ing pastor…learning to live the seven-letter way, Brook