Sunday, July 6, 2008

If you were asked the question, “Are you in control?” how would most of you answer? Most of us, being honest with ourselves would want to put a good front on it and say, “Well, yes, I am in control.” Whether it’s driving down the road, at our job or at home, whatever, we would want to say that we as the adult, as the parent as the one in charge, are and should be, in control of what’s going on in the household, etc. And that’s fairly typical for us.

In the advertising that we see these days, you know it’s not that long after April 15 ^th, and people are wanting to say that our economy is not that great, and we see ads that tell us if we’re in debt or have a large credit card debt, or problems with the IRS, just come to us, and we’ll get you back in control of your finances. We will get them off your back so that you can answer the phone again, so you can go to the door and not have people harassing you and you will be back in control. If you’re at work, if you’re the boss or supervisor, don’t you assume that you are in control, that it’s not the employees and the people under you who are setting the agenda? So most everywhere we go in life we assume that we’re in control.

But Biblically, the more correct answer for most us most of the time, would be No, we are not in control. Paul was very honest about that. Paul, who was a very dedicated, very intelligent, well thought of individual, one of the great people in the early Church, probably put the Church together in the way that we know it here, was able to plan things out, was very honest about the fact that when he looked inside himself. When we look inside ourselves, as we saw in the children’s sermon today, we see two very different things going on. We know what is right. That’s not hard, if we have been educated, if we come to Sunday School, if we come to Church, if we’ve read the Bible, if we’ve looked around us, we have a fairly good sense of what we should be doing. But when we really look at ourselves and say, “Now what am I doing,” we don’t see ourselves always doing the things that are right. We see ourselves kind of at war with ourselves, those two natures in there of sin and also God’s Word and will within us. And we don’t like that; that’s not the way we portray ourselves. We want to say like the Bible says that we should be single-minded, being of one purpose, that we would want to be like that. But in our daily lives, we see a lot of times that we are not really in control. It’s another part of ourselves that’s in control.

In our first reading today from Genesis, kind of chopped apart a little bit, but it tells us about how Abraham had sent his servant back to the Old Country. Now none of us ever did that, to send someone back to the Old Country, to find a wife for his only son, Isaac, from his own relatives, but this was very typical in that day and time. Now can you imagine that servant—he was sent with all of these fine gifts and all of these instructions, and was told, “You are the one who is in control of finding my son a wife. Everything depends on you.” An awesome task! When that servant got close to where Abraham had come from, close to where Abraham’s family and extended family was still living, he said, “You know, I can’t do this. I am going to turn it back over to God”. And he said in his own mind the idea that if these certain things happen, then I will know who the right woman is that I am to talk to and, hopefully bring back to Isaac to be his wife.

And he does it, and it all happens. He sees the one who comes and draws water for him and also draws water for all of his camels, who goes beyond the normal hospitality. He then goes and tells his story to her kinfolk, and finds out that yes, she is a distant relative, that she meets all of the qualifications. But he knew that he couldn’t do it himself; he had to turn it over to God, and say, “God, guide me.” So often, we really need to do that, to say, No, the one who is in control should be God. Yes, there are times when we can be guided by God, where we can be in control ourselves, but when it comes to major decisions we need to stop and allow God to have input into that process and what is going on, to allow God to be the one in control.

During the Reformation our forefathers and the thinkers of that day and time thought about this a lot. This is where we come up with Free Will and for Presbyterians, Pre-destination. How do those fit together and how does it work that indeed God frees us through Jesus Christ and the work of God and the Holy Spirit from all of those things that are supposed to holding us back—from sin, death the power of the Devil, from all of those things that are out there? Aren’t we free? Aren’t we able to take charge and take control of our lives? The reformers would say, “Yes, but you can’t do it by yourself.” There comes a point in our lives, a point when God comes in and again frees us from all of those burdens and says, “You are free”. But the scriptures are very clear that we can’t stand alone.

When we become free, then we have that choice to make; do we choose God to be in control of our lives or do we choose the Devil? Or do we, which might be more typical of today, say, “Well we’re not going to make that choice right now; we’re going to hold off on that”. The reformers were very clear. They said, “If you do not make that choice, you do not have the will to resist the temptations of the devil. If you choose to not go with God, your choice is already made to go the other way. Whether you think you’re sitting on the fence or not, you’ve gone the other way.”

It’s what we see in Paul. Paul says, “Without God’s help I see myself doing all of these things which I know are wrong; they are not what I want to do, but I am not in control. It’s not me. It’s that other part of my nature that says I’m gonna rebel. We see that in our lives, we talked about this before; we see a two year old. They’re not in control of themselves but they want to control the family. They will set their will as described in one of those books from long ago, The Strong-Willed Child. And you know you have seen some of those children, and maybe experienced them. We run into that ourselves when we become teenagers and later in life when we say, “I’m going to take control of my life, I’m going to get away from all of those people who have those wrong ideas, because I know what it is that I need for my life”. And God allows that. We do have that free will and God continues to come and free us from those burdens and set us at that point where we can make that choice again to choose to follow God. We can’t make it on our own. We want to, we would love to. It’s one of those things when you send your children off to college or out to work, or away from home, and you say, “You can always come home. We’re always going to be here for you. You always have your parents, you always have a home to come home to. Because you know that no matter how intelligent, talented and resourceful they are, there are going to be times when they need to come home. God knows that for us as well. God will send us out with tasks to do, but we still need God with us or we end up doing, as Paul says, exactly those things we don’t want to do.

We’ve seen in our day and times a proliferation of 12 step programs because we recognize that we can’t handle it ourselves; we need other people. And a part of those 12 step programs at some point is the acknowledgement that there is some force out there that is greater than us…which we call God. They don’t want to go there in their materials, but they would see that. It started out with Alcoholics Anonymous, then drug addiction, food addiction and addicts of all kinds, because those things control our lives.

I had an uncle who had both of his hips replaced and his doctor told him, “You need to lose weight. Because you’ve got new hips, you need to lose weight and allow your body to live longer with those hips. Some years later when he died, he hadn’t lost any weight. His wife went around the house, and just like with an alcoholic, she found food, cookies and other things stashed in all kinds of places in the house. My uncle knew that he wasn’t supposed to eat all that food; but he kept saying, “I want it, I’m gonna get it, I’m gonna hide it and have it around for me”. It controlled his life just as other things control our lives.

We all need at some time to be part of a 12-step program. It’s right here where God calls us into community and says, “I am here for you; you don’t have to be in control of all of the aspects of your life when I have freed you from all of those things, from the power of sin and death and the Devil. What I ask is that you follow me and allow me to be in control. When we come to those important decisions, we can turn to God, not as someone who is far off, that we haven’t known for a long while, but as someone who has been walking right beside us, and we can say, “God, can you help me, point me in the right direction, show me (as we saw in our first scripture reading) that one person that my master has sent me to find. That’s what God offers. When we hear that question, “Am I in control” the better answer is to say “No”.

I was on vacation this past week with my wife and another couple in San Francisco. Their style of living was a little different from mine; I’m a morning person, they were night persons. They didn’t want to make any plans; I like to make plans. It was like herding cats, which is kind of like what it is with raising children. And I knew that I was not in control, even though I was supposed to be the driver and the one to get them to places on time. You know, it can be very frustrating when you want to be in control and there’s no way you’re going to be in control.

And so God says, “You don’t have to do that. Allow me as your God to be the one walking with you, guiding your life, and you can relax and be the person you were intended to be, without all that worry, all that stress, without all of the sense of guilt that Paul had”. The Church is so good at instilling this at times because we see all the things we are doing that are wrong. God says, not that that is okay, but that “I forgive that. Now let me take charge of your life and show you how to live and how to walk, how to get through those things because you don’t have to be the one in control. I will guide you. I will be the one in control. I am the creator; I am the one who is intended to be in control”.

But we keep wanting to be God, to be in control, to set our own agenda, direct our own footsteps, our own way of life. God comes to free us from that delusion, from the power of sin, death and the Devil, and say, “Here you are, you are free to do whatever you want to do, but I sure indeed hope you choose to follow me, that you allow me to be your God. You were created to one of my people and to allow me to be in control and to guide you and your life”.

The challenge is to get away from all of that education and advertising and everything else that’s out there telling us that we have to be in control. Some places, yes, but a lot of the time it is simply, as the 12 step program would tell us, is to “Let go and let God”. I don’t have to make all of those decisions, but I do have to be looking to God, to be listening and to be guided by and to allow God to have a say in the direction of my life. Paul at the end of our Gospel lesson says, “Thanks be to God” because it is God who frees us, God who guides us, God who is in control if we allow God to do that. That’s where our choices and our free will comes in, when God frees us to choose for God because otherwise, we have chosen to go another direction. It doesn’t mean we’re lost. We come back every Sunday to say, “God, I still didn’t get it right” and God says, “We’ll start again. We will wipe the slate clean and start again. Let’s see if you can get it right this time, or perhaps a little better.” If we mess up a little it, that’s okay; but we know that we’re following God and that God wants to be the one in control of our life and its direction.

So when we hear that question in our own hearts and minds, “Am I in control”, we can say, “No, God is, and I follow where God leads.” That’s our challenge and God’s promise and hope for us as well. Amen.

God gives us so many resources for being able to make that choice and being able to follow where He leads. God brings us together in community. He guides us through the scriptures and through all of the other resources we have through our faith; and God especially invites us to share our faith with one another and to speak about it.

And now I invite you to confess our faith together, using the words of the Apostle’s Creed.

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,

and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.

He descended into Hell. The third day He rose again from the dead

He ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty,

from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen