Creating Together, Growing Independently

Pastor Anthony preaching on “Creating Together, Growing Independently.” Scripture focus is John 16:4b - 15. Preached on September 26, 2021.

This is the third sermon of a five-part series on: “Growing Healthy Christian Friendships & Relationships.”

Copyright 2021 by Rev. Anthony J. Tang and Desert Mission United Methodist Church.

Do any of you remember being told as a child that if we love something, to let it go and to see if it comes back on its own?

That may often be repeated by parents trying to get their children to let go of the critters they find on vacation in the forest or on the beach. Still, we recognize the truth within that statement, don’t we?

The truth at the foundation of this common phrase is that love is built on freedom. We want someone to want to choose to be with us, right? Because when someone chooses to be with us, it affirms the value of the relationship. It means that there is mutuality, meaning that we benefit from the relationship and they benefit from the relationship too. Besides, there’s probably no better feeling than to see someone who wants to be with us, right? To see their eyes recognize us, to see an uncontrollable smile, to have them call us by name, and best of all is when they save a seat and wave at you to come over and sit with them. Those are feelings of belonging, inclusion, acceptance, affirmation, and safety all wrapped up into one package of love.

Frankly, this is why every week, for those of us who are here in the sanctuary, I ask us to say our names out loud and to say the names of those around us out loud. The average person has to hear a name seven times before they learn it. If we hear a name once or twice and never again, we will probably never know someone’s name. But, if you sit in the same area, near the same folks, and you say someone else’s name and your own name seven times over seven weeks, well, that’s how we build friendship, relationships, and community. Otherwise, we would just be a big room full of anonymous strangers and we could go to a movie theater if we wanted that.

Again, one of the best feelings is to be with someone who wants to and chooses to be with us. And if that is true for us, then that must be true for many others as well, right? If we are affirmed when others are free to love us, then others are surely affirmed when we are free to love them.

As we release others in to freedom, are we willing to release ourselves into freedom, into the freedom to love?

From my own personal experience I would say that this sounds easier than it is. It’s easy for me to say, “Of course I’m free. I’m not a slave. I’m not imprisoned. I’m not being coerced.” While at the same time, I have spent much of my life focused on various needs that I want to get from others: needs from my parents, needs from my siblings, needs from my spouse, needs from my son, needs from my friends, needs from my colleagues, even needs from people I’ve been in conflict with, like needing them to say they’re sorry or needing them to make amends.

Every time I say to myself that I need something from someone else, I have voluntarily given up my freedom and made myself dependent on someone else.

Especially, if there is one special person with whom I have loaded up all of my needs, I will have emotionally chained myself up and attached myself to them. Even if I say to them, “I love you” what they will hear is, “I need you.”

Doesn’t matter if it’s physical affection, finances, praise and attention, help, or their company. If we feel that we need them or even if we need to be needed, it’s very hard to love them and it’s very hard to be in a healthy, growing relationship.

Now, what I’m about to say probably qualifies as one of the most radical religious statements I’ve ever made, but I’m am going to say it and I am going to back it up with our scripture today.

Jesus does not need us to need him. Why? Because Jesus wants to free us so that we may love him. He wants to let us go and see if we’ll come back.

Listen to what Jesus says in our scripture: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away.” If Jesus wanted us to need him, he would have never left. So why did Jesus leave? Because he trusts us. Because he knows that we are okay. Because he loves us. “… for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Everything that God has is given to Jesus and Jesus, through the Advocate, is giving it to us. So we have what we need to be faithful.

Let me now bring this home to make it practical.

First, it is not possible, nor is it wise, to pretend that we need nothing.

Let me give you a personal example. I try a variety of different forms of prayer to see how they work out and especially before I preach about them. A few weeks ago, I thought I had this great idea of praying out loud, “I let go of all self-doubt.” You see, I was thinking to myself that self-doubt leads to no good and that if I let it all go, I could be more faithful to who God created me to be. So I just announced that I’m letting it all go.

Let me tell you… I didn’t sleep for three nights. I had three nights filled with panic attacks. My spiritual director laughed at me. He said, “Anthony, what makes you think you have the power of letting go of all self-doubt and at all at one time?” Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Each of us in our own way believes we have needs to be satisfied by someone else. The goal is not to have them, but one at a time, to work to let them go.

The psychiatrist and researcher, Dr. Murray Bowen, who created the Bowen Family Systems Theory was known to have said that this was a lifetime journey with no one ever getting more than 70% there.

So we all have needs that we try to get met from other people. The key is that when they come up, to examine them and challenge them. Starting with, “I need them to change their behavior! Really? Do I really need them to change their behavior? What if they never do? Can I survive life if they don’t? Yes I can. Will I still be able to eat? Yes I can. Will I still be able to breathe? Yes I can. Can I drag myself out of bed in the morning? I may not want to, but yes I can. If they never change their behavior, can I choose to love them anyway for who they are? And the answer is: yes, I can.

And if I let go of my need for them to do something, then one link at a time, I loosen the chains around me and I live into the freedom God created me for, a freedom to love God and to love others as I love myself.

As I do this, I discover that the purpose of being together in relationships with others and with God is to create. What is it that we’re creating? Well, that depends on the people who are in that relationship. Maybe it’s creating an invention. Or creating an idea? Creating laughter and joy? Creating children? Creating kindness and peace? Creating harmony or creating growth? The reason we get together with others is because the miracle of relationships is that together we can be greater than the sum of our two individual parts. We can create something together that is beautiful and good.

There’s also an appropriate role for being independent. Independent from each other, we trust each other, we express our individuality, we affirm our own identity. Independently, we grow, we explore, we clarify who we are and who God created us to be.

It’s a gentle balance between being together and being separate, between creating and growing, that helps us to move through the rhythms of life and the rhythms of love.