Holding On and Letting Go...

I recently watched a television episode on one of the many cable channels that is known for showing "reality" television that depicted the life of a "hoarder". In it, as in previous episodes, a person is confronted by his loved ones who cannot bear the thought of their beloved living in a house that is so filled with clutter that literally there are rooms one cannot enter. Pathways less than a foot-wide meander between the mounds of debris, clothing, newspapers, magazines, used fast food wrappings, and a host of other belongings that have so cluttered the household passage becomes nigh on to impossible.

The concerned family members share in the midst of tears that their beloved has been living like this for years, and that they cannot remember when the house did not look like this. This hoarding behavior, first formally identified as a compulsive disorder in the 5th edition of the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual in 2013, is when a person compulsively collects and retains large quantities of objects of questionable or no value. He or she may even know that this is not a healthy compulsion, but the emotional attachment to the hoarded objects far exceeds the motive to discard the items.

The irony is that many people do not know that their hoarding is a problem. And many more people are victims of this hoarding mentality than may realize it. 

Oftentimes the hoarding instinct is about material possessions. People amass "stuff" because it brings a sense of security to them. Picture the rich young ruler who approaches Jesus, seeking to know if there is anything else he needed to do - any special law he might have overlooked - to achieve the kingdom. Jesus told him that it was the love of his stuff that was getting in the way - not any obedience to the law. His hoarding instinct became the thing he could not overcome.

Hoarding takes place in many forms. Some amass food - canned goods, non-perishables, and the like - perhaps because of a subconscious fear that famine or disaster may someday return.
Others, unaware that they are hoarding, have been clinging to emotional baggage for fear that identity may be surrendered if the feelings are ever taken away. 

Still others have surrounded themselves with spiritual bubble-wrap so as to insulate themselves from any necessity to change. 2 Timothy 4:2-4 states: 

"...proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths."

Paul saw early on in the life of the Church that there would be those who would search out an easier discipleship. He knew that the human temptation to find ease in life was a difficult struggle for anyone wanting to pursue this path of faith. Thus he warns Timothy of the urgency of conveying the Gospel message - whether it is a good time or a bad time. There will be people who have grown so accustomed to the comfort of the familiar that they will seek out ways and people who will bless them in their ease. They seem to hoard these teachings to provide a sort of buffer, a bubble so that life’s experiences will not cause them any harm. As a result, the likelihood of any significant spiritual growth or transformative change is stifled.

In essence, they will have grown accustomed to their hoarding, and cannot see that the call to discipleship requires transformation. Marva J. Dawn, in her book, "The Sense of the Call: A Sabbath Way Of Life For Those Who Serve God, The Church, and the World," explains it this way:  

"Preachers faithful to the Kingdom’s rigorous discipleship are marginalized in favor of speakers who will ‘tickle the ears’ and faor the listeners with the myths of a cozy God. That is not Good News, for a cushy God has no power to change us, to draw us away from our selfish selves into a larger purpose." (p. 15.)

The heart of the issue is that we've grown accustomed in our culture to seek out that which is comfortable rather than avail ourselves of the deeper, transformative work of discipleship into which the Holy Spirit invites us. As a result, we continue "...to accumulate for {our}selves teachers to suit {our} own desires,.." and soon we find ourselves drowning in the hoarded messes of myths wondering what happened.

Christ does not seek to make our lives more comfortable, but rather to truly transform us for the purposes of building up and ushering in the Kingdom of Heaven right here, right now.

The problem with our society is that we often see the issues and problems in others, not in ourselves. In recent years, we've even begun to make it entertaining - not in a fanciful way, but more like the way one slows down while driving to peer at an accident while passing by. The misfortune of others transfixes us. We are awed and astonished at the devastation or destruction of another, whether it be accidental or self-inflicted. (Hence the immense popularity of the many so-called “reality” shows.) However, we do not seem to realize that we all suffer from this same ailment - a disease that is a dysfunction of our souls. 

And it is called sin. 

When we are confronted with the true message of the Gospel, not the watered-down-make-yourself-comfortable kind, but the absolute Good News of the Gospel message - 

•      that you are in a mess of your own making, 

•      and you cannot get out of it on your own, 

•      but there is a way out through the grace of God 

•      And it is in the salvation act of Jesus' atoning sacrifice on your behalf

That's when we realize that salvation is available for us. We are not very much different from the "reality" that we see all around us. We try to surround ourselves with all the comforts of home, not realizing that our Home is not of this world. Our home is in the Kingdom that Jesus came to finally establish for all.

Sometimes we need to remember what to hold on to, and what to let go of.

Hold on to the Cross. As Paul wrote to the Church in Corinth, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (I Corinthians 1:18, NRSV) 

Let go of the mess of sin. Unclutter your soul. And come to the freedom that is ours in Christ.