Out Of Control!
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle B
Recently some 900 teenagers and adult advisors from all over New England gathered at Hammonasset State Park in Connecticut for a giant camp out weekend, the theme of which was "2001: A Faith Odyssey." We gathered for fun and fellowship, to camp and to swim, but mostly to spend time together in the Word of God, learning how to apply that living Word to the faith journeys of our lives. There was a nationally renowned speaker and a band the youth love. There was dancing and tie-dying, jam sessions, arts and crafts. There was lots of awesome worship, most of it led by the teenagers.
I had been asked to serve on the planning team for this event. As it turns out, I was the only clergy person on the planning team, so when it came time to open up the Bible, everyone automatically looked to me. "Can you think of a biblical character we could focus on for the weekend, perhaps a young person whose faith journey was really interesting, something the kids could relate to?" I immediately thought of David. David, who went from humble shepherd boy to King of Israel. David, poet and musician, who went on to compose most of what is now the Book of Psalms. David, who went from fighting off wild animals who threatened his flocks, to fighting the notorious Philistine giant Goliath, to being one of the greatest military commanders in Israel's history. David, ruddy and handsome, with some twenty wives and concubines, and a love life that makes the most popular soap operas pale in comparison. David, a beloved and honorable king, a man of courage and bravery and integrity, who followed God's way and always struggled to do the right thing. Except for one time. David, whose most famous sin was so wretched, it was hideous. Lust, greed, abuse of his kingly power and authority, adultery, deception, trickery, and murder. But David, who afterwards agonized over his sin, was grievously sorry for what he had done, repented, and begged God for forgiveness. David, a beloved and faithful friend to Jonathan. David, who above all loved God with his whole heart and soul and mind and strength, through the many incredible high points of his life, but also when he was in the depths of despair. David, whose life indeed was a Faith Odyssey.
As those 900 teenagers gathered for their weekend camp out, our opening devotions Friday night were today's passage from 1 Samuel. Try to enter into the mind and heart and life and spirit of a teenager. What is the world of a fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old all about? Sadly, so much of it is about "outward appearance." "Am I too fat? Too thin? Too short? Too tall? Wearing my hair in the right style? Wearing the right clothes? The right make up? Is my complexion good enough? Am I athletic enough? Popular enough? Do I have the right job? The right parents? Come from the right neighborhood? Listen to the right music? Hang with the right crowd?" Unfortunately so much of who I am depends on what others say about that, how they judge me.
Into the struggling, striving for approval, aching hearts of those 900 teenagers breaks the Word of God. "Do not look on his outward appearance or the height of his stature ... for the Lord sees not as human beings see; human beings look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). It doesn't matter what you're wearing or how you part your hair; God doesn't care about your skin or even your report card. God looks upon your heart.
When God sent the prophet Samuel to the town of Bethlehem to the house of Jesse to anoint one of Jesse's sons to be the next king of Israel, even the great prophet Samuel thought surely it would be one of Jesse's elder sons. For they were big, strong, manly men. They fit the image one would expect of a "king." But God kept whispering to Samuel's spirit. "No, this is not the one. This is not the one. This is not the one." Finally, Jesse had paraded all of his big, strong, manly sons before Samuel. "Are all your sons here?" he asked their father, Jesse. Jesse replied, "There remains the youngest, but behold he is keeping the sheep." In other words, he's only a boy. Just a kid. Wet behind the ears. A mere scraggly shepherd boy. Surely that's not what you have in mind for our next king?
The anointing of the scraggly, young shepherd boy, David, is dear to my heart. Because it brings me reeling back to that hot, lazy summer day, when I was a teenager, fifteen to be exact. I had just turned fifteen that June. It was my summer vacation, and I can remember that day vividly. I was bored, as teenagers often are on their summer vacations. I had been reading. I went into my parents' bedroom, and threw myself down on their bed. I can clearly recall the picture of Jesus hanging on their bedroom wall. I also still can see clearly the view out their bedroom window. It was one of those brilliantly sunny days, when the sun shone through the leaves of the maple and oak trees in the woods bordering our backyard, and the sunlight was so bright the leaves glistened, dazzled, looking like silver and gold. The sky was a vivid blue. From the time I was a little child I can remember experiencing God most profoundly through God's creation. So it was that summer day. As I gazed out my parents' bedroom window, I was filled with awe. When we are faced with the vastness of God, we cannot help but feel tiny, minute, like a speck of dust in that whole huge scheme of creation.
But just then, the sun's rays shifted, and fell through the leaves in such a way that it fell like a spotlight upon the place where I was lying on my parents' bed. In that instant, I knew. I knew that in that vast scheme of things, little, insignificant, fifteen-year-old Linda was to play a significant part. I knew that the Creator was calling me to be a pastor.
After a time the sun shifted, the experience ended, but I stand here today because of that experience which happened "when I was only a youth" -- a scraggly young girl.
Weeks after that experience my parents invited our vicar (intern pastor) over for dinner. After dinner my mother said, "Linda, why don't you tell the vicar your good news?" I did. He sat there, and then his red, rotund face broke into hysterical laughter. He pounded the wooden arms of the chair with his fists, as he commanded, "You can never be a minister! You're a girl!"
Human beings look on our outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart.
Not only was I "only a youth," I was also "only a girl youth."
Yet I knew without a doubt in my fifteen-year-old soul, that God had called me, so God would make a way. The one who made the earth and sky and sun -- the Creator of the universe -- could make a way. For others look at our outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart. The vicar could not see beyond the outward appearance of a fifteen-year-old girl. The sad thing is, that when we look at others' outward appearance, and make our judgments, and put them in a box, we are really putting God in a box. When we limit others, we really are limiting God. We are in effect saying, "I don't believe you are big enough, God, to work in this person's life." We need to explode the boxes we have put others in.
The Greek word for God-like love, Christ-like love, is agape. The more we grow in God, in Christ, the more we are able to see others as through God's eyes -- with agape. To see beyond their outward appearance, to look upon the heart. We need to explode the box we have put God in.
Many, many years ago I preached a sermon called "God in a Box." I remember thinking it was not the greatest sermon. One woman, however, still mentions that sermon to me. It helped her to explode the box she had put God in, and realize that God is so much bigger than that little box to which she had confined God. She went through a radical transformation in her life. One night at Bible study she talked about how suddenly she looked at life through different eyes, and could see God in all things. She told our Bible study group about a box-exploding experience she had had early one morning when she was coming around an entrance ramp onto Route 95, and suddenly, this mist -- this incredible mist -- filled her vision, and she knew that God was in the mist. She knew that she had been keeping God in a little box, but that God, the Holy Spirit, was really more like that mist -- uncontainable, limitless, out of our control!
"Out-of-control" can be a very scary thing. If you have a person in your life who is out of control, that is a scary thing. That vicar found it a scary, threatening thing that a young girl felt called to be a minister! That was outside his parameters and rubrics; he must have felt out of control!
Parenting is an example of being out of control. For many of us, parenting can be a very scary thing, but I think no experience in this life has expanded me more than the experience of parenting.
One of my favorite parts of worship is "Just for Kids," the children's sermon time. But parents have confessed to me that they become very nervous because they never know what their child is going to say or do! That's what I love about it! They expand us because they are forever exploding our boxes!
I know a man who was very conscientious about raising his children in the church. When his daughter graduated from college, she -- his beautiful, young pride and joy -- felt called to be a missionary in a part of our world that has been torn by war and violence. Her father confessed that when he had brought his children to church all those years, it had never occurred to him that truly following Jesus is not always a safe thing! That if we truly raise our children to be Christian, that if they truly become Christians -- followers of Jesus Christ -- then they most definitely will be "out of our control." Then we have to take, as that father had to take, that frightening, threatening, out of control step of trusting -- of entrusting them to God's care.
Jesus was clearly out of the box, out of control, out of bounds. A perfect example is when, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus enters the synagogue, and reads the Torah. The people love Jesus' words, his teaching. "How nice," they say. But when Jesus challenges them to respond to it, to live it out, to change the way they are living, they respond with, "Who does he think he is? Isn't this Jesus? The carpenter's son?" I remember a poignant bulletin cover which said with regard to this text, "They had wanted Jesus to grow up, but not beyond their expectations or control."
We are in the story. We are those people gathered in the temple, who hear the words of Jesus and say, "Isn't that nice!" But we have selective hearing! This week someone spoke to me about tithing. That's a part of the Word of God a lot of us don't want to hear! Or how about radically changing our lifestyle -- changing all those things which we know are inconsistent with being a follower of Jesus: letting go of our addictions, our judgment of others, reading the Word of God daily, forgiving? How dare he ask us to do these things! Who does he think he is? Calling us to change! Calling us to follow him! Calling us to let our lives be out of our control and in his control? That is scary! Who does he think he is?
The God of the universe! The One who does not see as we see. The One who does not look upon outer appearance, but who looks upon the heart.
Someone gave me an explosive little paperback book called Mister God, This Is Anna. It is a true story about an English man in his early twenties, named Fynn, who is living in London in the early 1900s. One day Fynn finds a little girl, orphaned, living on the streets. He brings her home to live with him and his mother in their home, which seems to collect homeless people. The book is a collection of conversations and experiences which this young man has with this little girl, four, then five years old, named Anna, who has exploded my box that I have put God in, as children always do.
Anna told Fynn how everyone looks at life as through what she calls "colored bits o' glass," judgments or prejudices that "color" the way we look at things.
One day, Fynn asked Anna, "Have you gotten rid of your pieces of glass?"and she said, innocently, matter of factly, "I have." Fynn thought of all those things he should say to her like "pride cometh before a fall," but then he realized that those judgments were his "bits of glass." So he said to her, trying to bait her a bit, "You reckon you know more than Rev. Castle?" "Nope," she said. "Has he got bits of glass?" Fynn asked her. "Yes," she answered. "How come you haven't got bits of glass?" "Oh, 'cos I ain't frightened."
Fynn says, "Now that's probably the most missable sentence that can be uttered. Missable because that's what it's all about. Missable because it is too damned expensive. Missable because the price of not being frightened is trust. And we know what a word that is!"
Fynn is a mathematician. To him mathematics is beautiful, poetic, perfect in every way. He had a mathematical toy, a kind of geometric puzzle he carried around and played with. It was, quite simply, two copper rings, linked together like links of chain. One day, as he sat pondering this life, he held the two circles at right angles to each other. Anna came upon him where he sat, pointed to one of the circles and said, "I know what that is -- that's me. And that's Mister God," she said, as she pointed to the other circle. "Mister God goes right through my middle and I go right through Mister God's middle."
Now of course, we can discredit all this because, after all, Anna is only a child. David was only a shepherd boy. I was only a girl. Jesus was only Joseph the carpenter's Son.
Or we can say, "Yes," to the Creator of the universe. "Yes, I will trust you. Yes, I will let my life be out of control -- out of my control, that is, and in your control, O God. Yes, I will throw away my bits of glass. Yes, I will begin to look not upon the outer appearance, but to look upon the heart. Yes, I will let you explode the boxes I have put you in. Yes, I will let myself accept the fact that you, O God, are much bigger than the box I've put you in. Others are much bigger than the boxes I've put them in ... and O, so scary is the thought ... I am much bigger than the box I have put myself in. For you, O God, go right through my middle, and I go right through your middle. You are agape, love, and we all know how out of control that is."
Let us pray: Creator God, God of the universe, you who look upon our hearts, help us to say, "Yes." Amen.
I had been asked to serve on the planning team for this event. As it turns out, I was the only clergy person on the planning team, so when it came time to open up the Bible, everyone automatically looked to me. "Can you think of a biblical character we could focus on for the weekend, perhaps a young person whose faith journey was really interesting, something the kids could relate to?" I immediately thought of David. David, who went from humble shepherd boy to King of Israel. David, poet and musician, who went on to compose most of what is now the Book of Psalms. David, who went from fighting off wild animals who threatened his flocks, to fighting the notorious Philistine giant Goliath, to being one of the greatest military commanders in Israel's history. David, ruddy and handsome, with some twenty wives and concubines, and a love life that makes the most popular soap operas pale in comparison. David, a beloved and honorable king, a man of courage and bravery and integrity, who followed God's way and always struggled to do the right thing. Except for one time. David, whose most famous sin was so wretched, it was hideous. Lust, greed, abuse of his kingly power and authority, adultery, deception, trickery, and murder. But David, who afterwards agonized over his sin, was grievously sorry for what he had done, repented, and begged God for forgiveness. David, a beloved and faithful friend to Jonathan. David, who above all loved God with his whole heart and soul and mind and strength, through the many incredible high points of his life, but also when he was in the depths of despair. David, whose life indeed was a Faith Odyssey.
As those 900 teenagers gathered for their weekend camp out, our opening devotions Friday night were today's passage from 1 Samuel. Try to enter into the mind and heart and life and spirit of a teenager. What is the world of a fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year old all about? Sadly, so much of it is about "outward appearance." "Am I too fat? Too thin? Too short? Too tall? Wearing my hair in the right style? Wearing the right clothes? The right make up? Is my complexion good enough? Am I athletic enough? Popular enough? Do I have the right job? The right parents? Come from the right neighborhood? Listen to the right music? Hang with the right crowd?" Unfortunately so much of who I am depends on what others say about that, how they judge me.
Into the struggling, striving for approval, aching hearts of those 900 teenagers breaks the Word of God. "Do not look on his outward appearance or the height of his stature ... for the Lord sees not as human beings see; human beings look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks upon the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). It doesn't matter what you're wearing or how you part your hair; God doesn't care about your skin or even your report card. God looks upon your heart.
When God sent the prophet Samuel to the town of Bethlehem to the house of Jesse to anoint one of Jesse's sons to be the next king of Israel, even the great prophet Samuel thought surely it would be one of Jesse's elder sons. For they were big, strong, manly men. They fit the image one would expect of a "king." But God kept whispering to Samuel's spirit. "No, this is not the one. This is not the one. This is not the one." Finally, Jesse had paraded all of his big, strong, manly sons before Samuel. "Are all your sons here?" he asked their father, Jesse. Jesse replied, "There remains the youngest, but behold he is keeping the sheep." In other words, he's only a boy. Just a kid. Wet behind the ears. A mere scraggly shepherd boy. Surely that's not what you have in mind for our next king?
The anointing of the scraggly, young shepherd boy, David, is dear to my heart. Because it brings me reeling back to that hot, lazy summer day, when I was a teenager, fifteen to be exact. I had just turned fifteen that June. It was my summer vacation, and I can remember that day vividly. I was bored, as teenagers often are on their summer vacations. I had been reading. I went into my parents' bedroom, and threw myself down on their bed. I can clearly recall the picture of Jesus hanging on their bedroom wall. I also still can see clearly the view out their bedroom window. It was one of those brilliantly sunny days, when the sun shone through the leaves of the maple and oak trees in the woods bordering our backyard, and the sunlight was so bright the leaves glistened, dazzled, looking like silver and gold. The sky was a vivid blue. From the time I was a little child I can remember experiencing God most profoundly through God's creation. So it was that summer day. As I gazed out my parents' bedroom window, I was filled with awe. When we are faced with the vastness of God, we cannot help but feel tiny, minute, like a speck of dust in that whole huge scheme of creation.
But just then, the sun's rays shifted, and fell through the leaves in such a way that it fell like a spotlight upon the place where I was lying on my parents' bed. In that instant, I knew. I knew that in that vast scheme of things, little, insignificant, fifteen-year-old Linda was to play a significant part. I knew that the Creator was calling me to be a pastor.
After a time the sun shifted, the experience ended, but I stand here today because of that experience which happened "when I was only a youth" -- a scraggly young girl.
Weeks after that experience my parents invited our vicar (intern pastor) over for dinner. After dinner my mother said, "Linda, why don't you tell the vicar your good news?" I did. He sat there, and then his red, rotund face broke into hysterical laughter. He pounded the wooden arms of the chair with his fists, as he commanded, "You can never be a minister! You're a girl!"
Human beings look on our outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart.
Not only was I "only a youth," I was also "only a girl youth."
Yet I knew without a doubt in my fifteen-year-old soul, that God had called me, so God would make a way. The one who made the earth and sky and sun -- the Creator of the universe -- could make a way. For others look at our outward appearance, but God looks upon the heart. The vicar could not see beyond the outward appearance of a fifteen-year-old girl. The sad thing is, that when we look at others' outward appearance, and make our judgments, and put them in a box, we are really putting God in a box. When we limit others, we really are limiting God. We are in effect saying, "I don't believe you are big enough, God, to work in this person's life." We need to explode the boxes we have put others in.
The Greek word for God-like love, Christ-like love, is agape. The more we grow in God, in Christ, the more we are able to see others as through God's eyes -- with agape. To see beyond their outward appearance, to look upon the heart. We need to explode the box we have put God in.
Many, many years ago I preached a sermon called "God in a Box." I remember thinking it was not the greatest sermon. One woman, however, still mentions that sermon to me. It helped her to explode the box she had put God in, and realize that God is so much bigger than that little box to which she had confined God. She went through a radical transformation in her life. One night at Bible study she talked about how suddenly she looked at life through different eyes, and could see God in all things. She told our Bible study group about a box-exploding experience she had had early one morning when she was coming around an entrance ramp onto Route 95, and suddenly, this mist -- this incredible mist -- filled her vision, and she knew that God was in the mist. She knew that she had been keeping God in a little box, but that God, the Holy Spirit, was really more like that mist -- uncontainable, limitless, out of our control!
"Out-of-control" can be a very scary thing. If you have a person in your life who is out of control, that is a scary thing. That vicar found it a scary, threatening thing that a young girl felt called to be a minister! That was outside his parameters and rubrics; he must have felt out of control!
Parenting is an example of being out of control. For many of us, parenting can be a very scary thing, but I think no experience in this life has expanded me more than the experience of parenting.
One of my favorite parts of worship is "Just for Kids," the children's sermon time. But parents have confessed to me that they become very nervous because they never know what their child is going to say or do! That's what I love about it! They expand us because they are forever exploding our boxes!
I know a man who was very conscientious about raising his children in the church. When his daughter graduated from college, she -- his beautiful, young pride and joy -- felt called to be a missionary in a part of our world that has been torn by war and violence. Her father confessed that when he had brought his children to church all those years, it had never occurred to him that truly following Jesus is not always a safe thing! That if we truly raise our children to be Christian, that if they truly become Christians -- followers of Jesus Christ -- then they most definitely will be "out of our control." Then we have to take, as that father had to take, that frightening, threatening, out of control step of trusting -- of entrusting them to God's care.
Jesus was clearly out of the box, out of control, out of bounds. A perfect example is when, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus enters the synagogue, and reads the Torah. The people love Jesus' words, his teaching. "How nice," they say. But when Jesus challenges them to respond to it, to live it out, to change the way they are living, they respond with, "Who does he think he is? Isn't this Jesus? The carpenter's son?" I remember a poignant bulletin cover which said with regard to this text, "They had wanted Jesus to grow up, but not beyond their expectations or control."
We are in the story. We are those people gathered in the temple, who hear the words of Jesus and say, "Isn't that nice!" But we have selective hearing! This week someone spoke to me about tithing. That's a part of the Word of God a lot of us don't want to hear! Or how about radically changing our lifestyle -- changing all those things which we know are inconsistent with being a follower of Jesus: letting go of our addictions, our judgment of others, reading the Word of God daily, forgiving? How dare he ask us to do these things! Who does he think he is? Calling us to change! Calling us to follow him! Calling us to let our lives be out of our control and in his control? That is scary! Who does he think he is?
The God of the universe! The One who does not see as we see. The One who does not look upon outer appearance, but who looks upon the heart.
Someone gave me an explosive little paperback book called Mister God, This Is Anna. It is a true story about an English man in his early twenties, named Fynn, who is living in London in the early 1900s. One day Fynn finds a little girl, orphaned, living on the streets. He brings her home to live with him and his mother in their home, which seems to collect homeless people. The book is a collection of conversations and experiences which this young man has with this little girl, four, then five years old, named Anna, who has exploded my box that I have put God in, as children always do.
Anna told Fynn how everyone looks at life as through what she calls "colored bits o' glass," judgments or prejudices that "color" the way we look at things.
One day, Fynn asked Anna, "Have you gotten rid of your pieces of glass?"and she said, innocently, matter of factly, "I have." Fynn thought of all those things he should say to her like "pride cometh before a fall," but then he realized that those judgments were his "bits of glass." So he said to her, trying to bait her a bit, "You reckon you know more than Rev. Castle?" "Nope," she said. "Has he got bits of glass?" Fynn asked her. "Yes," she answered. "How come you haven't got bits of glass?" "Oh, 'cos I ain't frightened."
Fynn says, "Now that's probably the most missable sentence that can be uttered. Missable because that's what it's all about. Missable because it is too damned expensive. Missable because the price of not being frightened is trust. And we know what a word that is!"
Fynn is a mathematician. To him mathematics is beautiful, poetic, perfect in every way. He had a mathematical toy, a kind of geometric puzzle he carried around and played with. It was, quite simply, two copper rings, linked together like links of chain. One day, as he sat pondering this life, he held the two circles at right angles to each other. Anna came upon him where he sat, pointed to one of the circles and said, "I know what that is -- that's me. And that's Mister God," she said, as she pointed to the other circle. "Mister God goes right through my middle and I go right through Mister God's middle."
Now of course, we can discredit all this because, after all, Anna is only a child. David was only a shepherd boy. I was only a girl. Jesus was only Joseph the carpenter's Son.
Or we can say, "Yes," to the Creator of the universe. "Yes, I will trust you. Yes, I will let my life be out of control -- out of my control, that is, and in your control, O God. Yes, I will throw away my bits of glass. Yes, I will begin to look not upon the outer appearance, but to look upon the heart. Yes, I will let you explode the boxes I have put you in. Yes, I will let myself accept the fact that you, O God, are much bigger than the box I've put you in. Others are much bigger than the boxes I've put them in ... and O, so scary is the thought ... I am much bigger than the box I have put myself in. For you, O God, go right through my middle, and I go right through your middle. You are agape, love, and we all know how out of control that is."
Let us pray: Creator God, God of the universe, you who look upon our hearts, help us to say, "Yes." Amen.
