William G. McAtee
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: August 12, 2007

"Standing in the Driveway . . .
Leaving for Somewhere"

Introduction

　Sometimes I feel like my life is nothing but a series of "Standing in the Driveway . . . Leaving for Somewhere." In my earlier years I was always the one leaving for somewhere. Now days more than not, I am the one left standing in the driveway. I have experienced this recently in a very special as we have seen our summer guests take their leave. Holding on is the most original and natural thing humans do. Letting go is another matter. Simply touch the tiny palm of a newborn baby and feel its fingers close tightly around your finger. We are forever confronted with deciding whether to hang on or let go. It is not a categorical matter of either/or but it requires great wisdom to know which choice to make in a given situation. Kenny Rogers once sang about this: "You got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em." It is much easier to hang on than to let go. The letting go part is what I want to focus on today.

I have a scene burned into the cells of my memory of backing out of the driveway of the manse in Brookhaven, Mississippi, my Dad’s last church, in our 1956 Chevy. It was August 1957 (now 50 years ago this month). I can still see my Dad standing in the driveway quietly watching us leave to come back to seminary in Louisville to start my middler year. It was the last time I ever saw him.

There was little animation in that image, but Oh the turbulence of emotion. Leaving was always hard for me and still is. It is always hard to know when to hold on and when to let go. It was only years later that I learned something of the turbulent emotion of standing in the driveway, the other side of leaving for somewhere.

I got my clue one July morning in 1963. I was standing at the end of a hallway of the hospital in Amory, Mississippi, looking out the window watching a steam engine switch some boxcars over in the Mississippian Railway yard.

Our son Neal was being born. Later I remember standing by myself looking through the window of the nursery as they arranged him in the crib. He was easy to spot. He was the only boy among all the baby girls and he looked twice as big as any of them. I remember thinking, "I have already begun to let him go even before I have had a chance to hold him!"

How true, letting go became, and so quickly. Now he is doing that with his two daughters and one son.

* * * * *
 

"Standing in the Driveway . . . Leaving for Somewhere" and all the attendant array of emotions is a common human experience. Poets and song lyricists and writers of holy writ have made it a stock and trade item.

A number of years ago Neil Diamond recorded a song called "’Til Its Time to Go" on this theme.

"You’re not a dream, you’re not an angel, You’re a woman;
    I’m not a king, I’m a man, take my hand;
We’ll make a space in the life that we planned,
    And we will stay until its time for you to go.

"Yes, we’re different worlds apart, we’re not the same;
    We laughed and played at the start like in a game;
You could have stayed outside my heart but in you came;
    And here you’ll stay until it time for you to go."

* * * * * * *

Staying and going and coming back and leaving and coming again are the needles on which the world’s greatest love stories are knit. We have only to turn to the Scripture to see this time and time again:

--the whole range of emotions and feelings, the pathos;
--the bitterness, the passion, the anger, the insults, the hateful feelings of all sorts;
--the dynamics, the tragedies, the triumphs;
--the splendor and glory, the abiding memories;
--the human drama, the Divine Encounters;
--the sustaining grace, the unconditional love, the enduring hope;
--all in the context of staying and going and coming again.

There are numerous illustrations:

1. There was God standing in the driveway watching as Adam and Eve left for East of Eden, filled with the mixed emotions of a parent whose children were overwhelmed with the foolish temptation to be like God.

Ironically the kids lost what they did not know they already had--their freedom that was their birthright. They took off to find their way in the world as if divine wisdom was more than they could bear.

2. There was God standing in the driveway at Haran watching Abram and Sarai leaving for Shecham in Canaan. They were perplexed yet hopeful, trying to figure out this strange promise God made to an aging childless couple about their descendants.

It had been crazy enough when they left Ur with father Terah headed to Canaan, and he had died along the way. They felt like they were wandering aimlessly around the desert with no prospect of an ending place or much less knowing why they were there.

3. There was Jacob standing in the driveway in Canaan watching heartbroken as his sons set out a second time to Egypt to buy food, taking this time his youngest son Benjamin.

"Why did you cause me so much trouble by telling the man in Egypt you had another brother back home?"

He had mysteriously lost Joseph, now to run the risk of letting his baby go was too much, for he was "Afraid something might happened to him."

4. There was Ruth standing in the driveway in Moab watching her mother-in-law, Naomi leaving for Judah.

Naomi said, "We have outlived our husbands so I am going home. It’s time for you to go also back to your mother’s home in another part of Moab. It was a tearful goodbye scene, lots of hugging and kissing.

All of sudden Ruth said if we’re to leave and start over I want to go with you. "Entreat me not to leave you. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you will live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God my God."

5. There was King David standing in the driveway in Jerusalem, having finally reconciled with his son Absalom’s setting fire to Joab’s field, sent Absalom on his way in peace to Hebron, never suspecting that he would one day lead an insurrection against his father the King.

Years later, after he had warned his own troops as they fought the insurgents under the command of Absalom not to harm his son in battle, one day was again standing in the driveway as he saw two messengers running toward him with news from the front. There was good news and there was bad news. The good news was that the King’s forces had won; the bad news was that Absalom, fighting with the enemy was killed in the fray. David, overcome with weeping and mourning for his son, was sorely criticized by his own people for loving his enemies who hated him.

6. Then there was Jarius and his wife standing astonished and full of joy in the driveway in front of their house. Jesus, with power drained from him, was leaving for another part of Galilee.

Jesus had come back from a day at the lake, when met with the news that Jarius’s daughter was dead. The household was wracked with sorrow and mourning and crying. Jesus went into the house with her parents and Peter, James, and John. "Do not be afraid, she is only asleep. Get up child and eat." Your life is ahead of you.

7. Then there was that loving father standing in the driveway many times looking at its emptiness, filled with apprehension, a heavy heart, wondering if he would ever have a chance to welcome his younger son back home. With high spirits the boy had left for a far country to find himself.

The father did not hear a word from him for a long time. The older son sulked around the edges of the home place with disparaging words about his brother, words tinged with jealousy and envy.

One day standing in the driveway, the father saw the lone figure striding toward him, hesitant yet with a transformed air. And he rushed out and met him, flung his loving arms around him--welcome home, for once you were dead, but now you are alive!!!

8. There was Peter, James and John standing in the "driveway" of those three imaginary tabernacles--high on Mt. Nebo, that mountain of magical moments with Moses and Elijah--immersed in the illusion of safety and comfort.

They wanted to stay forever with their heads in the clouds of dreamland, hanging on to the power and glory of the moment. Jesus was leaving for Jerusalem to face the inevitable conflict, the divine struggle for the hearts and souls of all creation.

9. Again there was Peter, James and John lounging droopy eyed in the driveway leading out of Gethsemane. Jesus had had his struggle in the garden, that place of agony, of distress, of anguish, of sweated tears. He had explored the option with God of letting this suffering pass, but that was not to be.

So he turned to his Mt. Nebo cohorts once more and said simply, "Get up, its time to go.

10. Finally, there were the women who came to the tomb with spices and perfumes to anoint the body, only to find the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. One can image how they turned and looked down the empty driveway wondering where their Lord had gone.

* * * * * * *

I could go on and on all the way from Eden in Genesis to the isle of Patmos in Revelation. And it is all one long story of "Standing in the Driveway . . . Leaving for Somewhere."

It’s God’s story of salvation and redemption. It’s your story and it’s my story. It’s the story of Second Presbyterian Church, Lexington.

It’s the story of staying and going and coming back and leaving and coming once again and finally leaving and letting go. It’s the world’s greatest love story ever knit. It’s the story of the new heaven and the new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth have passed away.

It’s is the story of God standing in the driveway, always welcoming us home, immersing us with sustaining grace, unconditional love, and enduring hope all the while we are racing off . . . leaving for somewhere.

* * * * * *

The rest of the Neil Diamond song goes:

"Don’t ask why? Don’t ask how? Don’t ask forever--Love me now!
    This love of mine had no beginning, it has no end;
I was an oak, now I’m a willow, now I can bend;
    And though I’ll never in my live see you again;
Still I’ll stay until its time for you to go."

We spend a lifetime searching for the whys, feebly crafting the hows. We long to stay standing in the driveway asking forever and never daring to leave for somewhere. The old we grasp tightly in the palm of our hand, til we almost crush to death that which we love so dearly.

In the clutch of events in this old earthly existence:

• --we struggle, and fight back tears, and are torn with the foolish temptation of being like God;
• --we wander aimlessly not knowing at times why we are here;
• --we sometimes are overwhelmed with broken hearted fear of loosing a loved one; a little one, an aging parent or a young one setting out to discover wisdom for oneself;
• --we prefer the illusion of safety and comfort and avoid the divine struggle with God for the hearts and soul of creation;
• --we long to hang on to the power and glory of the moment;
• --we struggle with the emptiness of unfulfilled dreams.
• --we struggle with and resist the next "Get up, its time to go."

　In God’s Divine providence a life for us was fashioned, in which we are continuously standing in the driveway . . . leaving for somewhere.

We are consumed with the whole range of emotion from heartbreak and the pain of not wanting to let go or leave. But we are not left alone and powerless.

For occasionally we receive God’s precious gift of knowing what it means to "Love me now" and something transforming takes place.

God is standing in the driveway seeing us on our way or welcoming us to our new home, immersing us with sustaining grace, unconditional love and enduring hope.

It is precisely at that point where we struggle that God breaks through to us. The new heaven and the new earth break into our lives, the old passes away and behold all things are made new.

No more death, grief, or crying. The pain of staying and leaving disappears, even though the memories linger on. And the memories sustain us.

In our newness, we are given the strength to open our fingers wide, to sometimes have to let go that which we cherish so deeply and fly away.

God’s call to us this day is:

"Love me now; Get up, it’s time for you to go. The old has passed away, the new is upon us."

Preached at Second Presbyterian Church, Lexington, Kentucky, August 12, 2007
McAtee © 2007     Reprinted with permission     All Rights Reserved