San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: Let It Go Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook

Hear now a reading from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8, verses 31-38.

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Creator’s glory with the holy angels.”

This ends the reading from the Gospel of Mark. Thanks be to God.

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San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: Let It Go Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook

There is a large billboard on Doolittle Drive in Oakland for the Bay Alarm Company – that’s a residential and corporate security system company. I’ve seen a couple of these billboards around the East Bay. It’s a red and black background – it’s not busy or otherwise colorful – there is no photo of smiling children or a happy family or even a home with lights on. It’s actually pretty stark with just a block of red on top and a strip of black on the bottom. The words at the top of the sign read: “Headed to work? So are the burglars.” Then at the bottom, in the black, next to the Bay Alarm logo it says, “What have YOU got to lose?”

That makes you stop and think. It’s a twist on the phrase “what have you got to LOSE?” We say it when we want to make the point that either (a) things cannot get worse so no matter what you do it’s better than what is currently happening; or (b) you’ve evaluated the pros and cons and even if the worst comes true, it’s not so bad and you should take the risk. So go ahead, take the risk.

But this billboard, they are very clever to make you think about what you can actually lose – you could lose your belongings, your home, your car. And what would THAT look like?

But I’ll bet you don’t need a billboard to tell you that you have things in your life right now that you could lose. Heck, If you are like me, then you even have a list of things you would LIKE to lose, you would like to be done with, you would like to breakthrough and overcome. I’m not necessarily talking losing a few pounds, though God knows that one is always on my list. I’m talking about a different level of self-awareness.

The Christian rock band “Third Day” (get it? On the third day? . . . ) they wrote a song:

Sin and shame / Guilt and pain / Pride and your conceit Here and now / Lay them down / At the Savior's feet What have you got to lose / What have you got to lose And tell me why you're so afraid What have you got to lose / What have you got to lose Think of all you have to gain Hope and dreams / And all the things / That you have ever made It don't mean much / If in the end / You have lost your way Let go of all you know / Only then can life be found / Surrender all you hold Lay it down, lay it down, lay it down

That’s what I’m talking about. Let it go. Lay it down. Leave it at the cross and let the power of the Divine Creator transform your risk into joy.

I have not been having a very good couple of months. I’ve been sick – not just that cold and cough that ran me down like a freight train, but sheer exhaustion. No matter how much sleep I get it’s not enough, I’m not refreshed. My mind has felt fuzzy; it’s difficult to concentrate and I’ve been hooked on short bursts of multi-tasking in which it may look to others that I have accomplished something but I what I know to be true from the inside view is that it just wasn’t that much. I have more. I can be more. I can do more.

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San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: Let It Go Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook

I have an old, old tape recorder in the back of my mind playing on a loop telling me that everything I do is not good enough; that no matter which path I choose, I will fail; that no matter how hard I try, I will amount to nothing. I know, that’s a pretty big confession from me – how close my mind walks to the edge of no self-esteem and no self-worth.

I have built a business, in nine years I have built an accounting firm from nothing to something – we now have ten employees who are counting on Nonprofit Suite for their families and their livelihoods. There are now over 50 nonprofit organizations depending upon my firm to help them know and understand their numbers, their financials and how they can have an even bigger impact in our communities.

But I am a horrible entrepreneur. My success is dependent more on luck and Murphy’s Law than on anything I have done or could do. You see, my dark little secret is that even though it looks like I have created something wonderful and strong, in my head I have this tape that tells me it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. After all, it’s being held together by band aids and duct tape. If you lift the veil, there are holes all over the place, things left undone, great ideas that never got off the ground, people I should have called, and a long line of mistakes because, after all, all of us leave a long line of mistakes in our wake.

This year, 2015, was supposed to change all of that. Candace has been called as an Associate Pastor here so that our ministry can stretch and grow and my time can be redirected for more pastoral care and more outreach. Cheryl has joined Nonprofit Suite as Chief Operating Officer so her expertise and wizardry can prepare the firm and enable us to soar into our next chapter.

In the midst of these most excellent and positive changes, I have been grappling with a difficult couple of months. My soul has not been well. At first gradually and then with profound exposure, I have realized that my disquiet, my unsettledness, my angst for these past two months has been because I can no longer cover up my mistakes, the holes in my plan, the pitfalls in my procedures, the gaps in my methods, on and on the list goes.

Several years ago I had a wonderful therapist who teased me and said, “Well, you are going to have to face it, Annette. Any amount of self-disclosure is too much self-disclosure for you.” You see I don’t like showing my incomplete side, my messy side, my frailties and foibles side. I may joke with Cheryl about “how delicate I am,” but I don’t actually want anyone to see it.

I’m sure I am not alone in this. Can I get an Amen? We don’t want someone discovering our mistakes, our fears, our overlooked and left-undone parts of our life. That’s just a little too exposed. That’s just a little too much at risk for someone to judge us, ridicule us, humiliate us, send us away and unfriend us. So, like many of you, I am hardwired to think that if anyone is going to judge me, ridicule me, humiliate me, I can do a far, far better job than anyone else – why not just get all up in my guilt and shame and failures. I’ll get there first. But where does that get me? Well, it seems that simply makes me sick.

There is a miniature version of Chicken Little running around in my head yelling at every turn “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” or the robot from “Lost in Space” who keeps saying “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger, Will Robinson!” No wonder I have been so unsettled. All of our planning and all of

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San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: Let It Go Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook

my efforts to enter a new chapter this year has left my incomplete, mistake-ridden, and duct-taped past fully exposed.

So my challenge – and yours as well – is to embrace those frailties, forgive those mistakes, and let go of that which holds me back, keeps me from growing, ties me down to yesterday’s version of myself. Confronted once again that we are human, that we miss the mark, we fail on a regular basis, well, we are just going to have to accept our own brokenness. But if you hang onto the brokenness, then there is no growth, no joy, no possibility for transformation.

Jesus says, “Let it go, leave it behind, leave it at the foot of the cross and then be transformed and follow me.”

What are you carrying around in that luggage of yours that you want to, maybe even need to, but certainly know it’s time to let it go? Let that moment be transformed.

That’s what this season of Lent is about. A time of reflection; a time of mindfulness; a time of prayer. A time of honesty with yourself. A time to recognize that transformation happens because you laid down your burden in order to pick up your joy. You simply cannot hold both in your hands at the same time.

Look at Elsa. Who she was and the gift she had been given had inadvertently injured her sister, Princess Anna. Elsa and her parents were afraid so they locked the door, erased little Anna’s memories, and hunkered down in isolation. But then, from Elsa’s reflection, from her brokenness, she finds that there is no such thing as perfection, and you cannot live as if perfection were attainable. Let it go, let it, and I’ll rise like the break of dawn. Let it go, let it go, that perfect girl is gone. Here I stand, in the light of day, Let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered me anyway!

So let it go. Amen.

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