Of all Charles Shultz's Peanuts characters, I identify most with Lucy. There are several reasons for that including the fact that I am an older sister with some of the same personality traits that she has. Though I think I understand some of the things she says and does, I also have a soft spot in my heart for Linus, her little brother. He is so sweet and uncomplicated, yet he is an intellectual with deep insight into his neighborhood friends and the life situations around him. He comes up with the most philosophical statements in just four comic strip boxes. Though he often has an adult-like prospective on life, we know him best by the drawings of him sitting clutching his blanket and sucking his thumb. In a strip that is now almost fifty years old but still contemporary, Lucy says, "You and that stupid blanket! You'll be carrying it around for the rest of your life!" Linus yells in response, "That's not true! I have tremendous will power! Why I could give up this blanket right today if I had to!" "All right!" challenges the big sister as she yanks it away from him. "Let's see you give it up today!" With a look of confusion, fear and panic on his face, Linus says in the last box, "Good grief. What have I done?!"

So, here we are just past the mid-point of the Lenten season. Traditionally, we Christians give up something during Lent to help us remember and experience the suffering of Christ. Linus suffered when Lucy grabbed his blanket away. The look on his face communicated that he felt exposed and unsure of himself. What have you let go in your life? Have you given up something this season, willingly or unwillingly, in an effort to open yourself up to God's love and relationship? That blanket is part of the identity of Linus. To let it go, he would have to begin thinking of himself in a new way. He would not be the same Linus without his security blanket. We all have known a child (or been one) who couldn't be separated from a blanket or a pacifier or a favorite stuffed toy. We have heard a concerned parent or grandparent say hopefully, "At least I know he won't go off to college with it." So, usually before he reaches age eighteen, the child transitions away from that item, gives it up in a difficult struggle or merely matures away from it. It's a natural process. Is there something in your life that is as important to your adult identify as the blanket is for Linus?

In our Gospel reading from John, we heard Jesus speaking to his disciples as well as others in the crowd, "The hour has come…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." It is a normal process, just as the sun rising and setting, the tide going out and coming in. As said in the ancient passage from Ecclesiastes, "There is a time for birth and a time for death, a time for planting and a time for pulling up…" Jesus announced that soon he would die and encouraged his hearers to let go of their lives as well. "Those who love their life will lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me and God will honor them." He asked his disciples to give up those things that define them in an earthly way, those things that they cling to, that they hold on to for security and instead to step out with faith in God into a new, authentic life.

It is frightening — was then and is now. Jesus was afraid and said so in the next sentence. "Now my soul is troubled." He knew throughout his adult ministry that to be who he was, to be himself, to live what he believed would be to glorify God but doing so brought incredible risk. For him it would mean physical death but God promised to glorify him in new life.

In the same way God calls us through Jesus to be in relationship with God and to be the person we are called to be, here and now whatever the risk. In Lent, especially, we try to empty ourselves, to let go of some of the things we cling to and respond to the Holy Spirit calling us forward into life, forward on our own faith journey as individuals and as a community. We are not invited but commanded to let go, to follow Jesus and be his disciple, but it is not easy. As an adult, what do you cling to? What is your security blanket today?

For many of us, "power" is today's golden calf, the idol we worship. We are so anxious to be in control of our own lives, of our families, of our business, of our health and that of our aging relatives, even of our own death that when things happen that we haven't planned, we consider it a personal failure. Our palm pilots with our "to do" lists and our daily calendars are sometimes as critical to us as Linus' blanket to him. They hold our identity. Those little gadgets tell us that the world needs us; that we are important and that we have a future that we can count on, or at least we think we can. Yet, many of us experience exhaustion and other physical symptoms we attribute to stress as we work to keep up with that calendar and the expectations we have created. I wonder if some of that stress doesn't come from our saying "no" to God. God knocks and we don't really want to make any changes to our palm pilot. What do you think would happen if we practiced more letting go, more yielding, more releasing — if we left empty places in our calendar and opened our hands and our lives rather than closing them to surprises, to changes, to interruptions? If we did, just maybe we would feel more alive, more authentic, more relaxed, and even happier. Can you remember a time in your life when you did just that, let go — how it made you feel? God has promised to be with us regardless of what happens so we can take the risk to step into the unknown and know that we will not be alone. Do we have the courage to really believe it?

Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." When that kernel releases itself and falls from the plant, it doesn't know where it will land, where the wind will take it or what bird will carry it to a new location. Yet, it has matured. It has all that it needs inside to grow into a new plant, to bear fruit sometime in the future, wherever it may land. It goes into a dormancy stage, which Jesus referred to as death. It doesn't come alive again until the conditions are right, until warm temperatures, moisture and oxygen nurture it. Water causes chemical changes that help the kernel to expand and break open so that new roots can grow and it can begins to bear much fruit when all the conditions are right. Similarly, there are times in our own lives when God opens doors for us to move to a new place, physically or emotionally, in our careers, in our personal lives or in our spiritual lives but change is frightening. We cling to our blankets, our palm pilots, our possessions and life-styles that define us until we get so uncomfortable trying to hold on to the past or to an old vision of ourselves that we finally let go and fall to the ground and we say to ourselves as Jesus said, "Now my soul is troubled." And there we wait, in a world that is opposite of the outside fast food, fast cars, fast career world. There we wait feeling alone and afraid and lost, until we hear that voice in whatever form it comes, "I have glorified and I will glorify again." At first we may mistake it for a loud clap of thunder or soft like angel's voices but as we listen and wait God finally gets through to us. God's promised presence is with us and we begin to be nurtured in the ways that feed us, in ways that water our thirsts and that offer us air to breathe and slowly the case around us breaks open. We lose our old life but we become alive in new ways, ways we never imagined that we would. The old signs of security are no longer important to us and we wonder why it took us so long to trust God. We are not a slightly different version of the same old person but we truly feel transformed into a new person without the anxiety of clinging but living in faith and in God. "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it…Whoever serves me must follow me…"

Last Sunday, our bulletin cover quote was of a young Guatemalan girl who lost her own life in the struggle to bring the freedom and hope of which Jesus speaks to the people of her Mayan community. She let go of protecting herself and worked, a little at a time offering what she could to bring her own "grain of sand to the building site," the site of a better world for the people of Guatemala. Her inspiration was the version of the quote as recorded in Mark's gospel, "What good is life unless you give it away?" This past week, we also learned of Jose Antonio Gutierrez, orphaned in Guatemala before the age of eight, who, inspired by an aid worker from the U.S., spent his childhood struggling to come to the United States, hoping for a new life for himself and his sister. Finally at age fourteen he made it to the U.S. and spent his teen years in several different foster families. Regardless of how we might feel about the war in Iraq, we are touched by the faith and commitment of Gutierrez. He would urge his foster siblings in his adopted home in Southern California to go to church. He was extremely grateful to this country and said, "From what I've seen, Saddam has to be confronted. It's my job. It's also my duty." He was one of the first two marines killed in the war two weeks ago in the attempt to open Umm Qasr as a port important for humanitarian aid. Our prayers are with his family as well as the families of others who have died and with the troops who continue to be present and serve. These are extreme stories of commitment to new life. We don't expect to die a physical death as we follow Jesus but we are asked to be willing. Other changes in our lives can be nearly as challenging for us.

God calls us each in different ways to bear fruit, to let go of our security blankets, our lives as individuals and as a community so that God can work through us breaking open our future for new life. It is natural to be afraid of the unknown but God promises to be with us at each step along the way. We are invited today to the table. We are offered bread of different grains, bread to strengthen and nourish us along with juice to quench our thirst. It is risky but we are invited to come to the table of Jesus with open hearts and open lives as we let go and commit ourselves again to follow him wherever he may lead.