Control Issues

The Sermon Study Guide is here.

Matthew 6:9-13; Psalm 23

August 17, 2014 • Portage First UMC

VIDEO: Home Improvement, “Too Many Cooks”

Sometimes not everything goes as planned in the kitchen. You can have all the right ingredients, the right recipe, but if you don’t prepare it right, everything can still go wrong. There are reality shows that make kitchen disasters a weekly occurrence, but all of us have probably had one or two in our own kitchens. Some little thing goes wrong and suddenly it's take-out night. And what is true in the physical kitchen can also be true here in our little Christian kitchen, where we’ve been working on a recipe for the last few weeks. We’ve called this series “Ingredients for a Christian,” and over the last couple of weeks we’ve explored half of the necessary ingredients. The first week we mixed in nonconformity and balance, and then last week we added Christlikeness and maturity. This morning we want to add two more ingredients to our mixture, ingredients that really are complementary. And the clip from Home Improvement demonstrates the first one very well, because while Al thought he could do it all by himself, he really needed Tim’s help and should have heeded Tim’s advice. Our fifth ingredient for a Christian is dependence.

That’s not a word that sits comfortably with most of us. We are a nation founded on a “Declaration of Independence,” and we like to think of ourselves as self-made, independent, strong people. When we think of dependence, we think of infants, who are completely dependent on their parents for everything, or we think of others who have been made dependent by life’s circumstances. We sometimes call those situations “tragic,” and we even hear some of our elderly relatives or friends say things like, “I don’t want to be a bother to anyone. I don’t want to be a burden to my family.” Or, I’ve had people tell me, “I don’t want to burden you with my problems.” I remember that feeling very well after I had my heart surgery several years ago. For the first couple of days, I didn’t feel much like moving, but then as I began to feel more like myself, I wanted to prove that I was doing great, that I wasn’t dependent on anyone else. So as soon as the nurse told me I needed to get up and walk, I did. I took off down that hallway like I always do, in a hurry, until the nurse caught up with me and told me that first, I shouldn’t be walking without someone else, and second, I needed to slow down. I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was, and I needed to depend on the help of others for a while yet. Dependence is not a comfortable feeling to most of us, maybe all of us. We don’t want to be dependent on anyone.

And yet, the Bible says we were made to be dependent. First of all, we were made to be dependent on each other. None of us is whole; none of us are able to do everything. As much as we want to appear competent in every area of life, we are not. “We are all designed to be a burden to others” (Stott, The Radical Disciple, pg. 110). We’re made to be in community, sharing one another’s burdens, being a “bother” to each other. Paul put it this way: “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). When we say we don’t want to be a “burden” to someone else, we are actually standing in the way of them being able to do what Jesus told them and us to do. Do you want to stand in Jesus’ way? We’re called to community, to being dependent on one another. But, more than that, we’re called to dependence on God, and that may be the more difficult one to swallow.

Much of our world believes today they can live without God. And even many of us in the church, while we may give lip service to following Jesus, live as if we don’t need God. We pray and read Scripture and show up in church just when it suits us or when we really, really need something. On the other days, we live independently of God and of our faith. That’s really the meaning of the word “sin.” It’s to seek to live independently of God (Stott 100), to try to go our own way because when we go our own way, we’ll miss the mark. Every time. The bottom line is this: we have control issues. We want to be in charge, we want to control things (even in the church), we want to show our fierce independence. And yet, that is not the way Jesus lived and it is not the way he showed us to live. He even tells us that in the prayer we repeat here every week, the one we call “The Lord’s Prayer” even though it’s really our prayer. It’s the prayer he gave us, his disciples, as a model, or a framework (Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part One, pg. 58). It’s not a magic prayer; we don’t get what we want just by reciting it or any other prayer over and over again. In fact, Jesus specifically warns against doing that. He says that long-winded prayers don’t get God’s attention any better than any other prayers because God already knows what you need (6:5-8). That ought to shorten our prayers because it’s not about wearing God down (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 63). Rather, prayer is mean to shape us, to make us more dependent on God. And so this model prayer is meant to show us the way to pray and more than that, it’s meant to show us the way of dependence on God.

The prayer can be broken down into two parts. The first part focuses on God’s glory, God’s greatness. God’s name is “hallowed” or holy, God’s kingdom is what we desire, God’s will is what we want to happen. That covers verses 9 and 10, and that’s important in setting up the second half of the prayer. If God is not great, then we’re right to ignore him and go our own way. If God is not any better than us, not any more powerful than the average human, then we shouldn’t make ourselves dependent on him. But if God is who we proclaim him to be in the first part of the prayer, then why do we ignore his greatness and try to go our own way? Why do we try to do it all on our own?

So the second half is all about our dependence. Verses 11-13 focus on three ways we should be dependent on God, but it’s not meant to be an exhaustive list, just a representative one. The first prayer is for “daily bread,” and I don’t know that there is anything more basic to human living than bread. Bread somehow represents so many things that are good about life, and it’s something that is universal to the human family. I’ve eaten all kinds of different bread around the world, and while every culture makes it differently, it’s still bread, and it’s still basic to human life. But do we genuinely see that bread, our food, our sustenance, as coming from God’s hand or from ours? When we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” do we really mean it? Do we depend on God that deeply? I know I often don’t. It’s more than just bowing our heads at mealtime and thanking God for our food. That’s important, but it ought to also lead us to an awareness that, while we have more than enough, there are so many people in the world who do not have basic needs like bread and clean water. While we overeat, there are many in the world who will go bed this night with empty bellies. And some of them are right in our own community, which is why I’m so proud that this church stepped up several years ago and led the way in trying to make sure every child in Portage is fed on the weekends. The Feed My Lambs backpack program is making a real difference in the lives of many children, but there are still more who need that act of kindness. It only costs $200 for the whole school year to feed a child. We can say whatever we want about parents who don’t provide that food for their children; that’s really irrelevant. Punishing the kids will not change the parents’ behavior. If it is within our means to do something about it, are we really going to let kids go hungry in our own community? Gratitude for our daily bread, realizing we are dependent upon God for the basics of life like bread, will move us to make a difference, because we are God’s hands and feet in this world.

Then the prayer moves to another level of dependence when Jesus prays about forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the unique contributions of the Judeo-Christian faith to the world, because in many of the world’s religions, actions have eternal and unbreakable consequences. In other words, in many world systems, there is no such thing as forgiveness. You are held in place by fear that a single actin might, in fact, ruin your chances for whatever afterlife is promised. But at the heart of our faith is the belief that, even though human actions matter deeply, forgiveness is not only possible but, because of Jesus, it can be a reality (Wright 59). And the fact that this request is included in Jesus’ model prayer tells us he knew we wouldn’t have to ask for forgiveness once or twice but regularly. Needing forgiveness is not a rarity! And here our control issues come into play again, because we don’t want to be perceived as “weak” by being the first one to ask for forgiveness. We wait for “the other person” to do so, and at the same time, they are waiting for us. And we certainly don’t want to admit to God that we have done wrong, that we have sinned. It never seems to occur to us that God already knows! Somehow we think he wasn’t looking when we messed up, when we went our own way. Yet, we know that ultimately only God can forgive us, and that we are dependent on him for the freedom that comes when we have been forgiven.

It hardly seems possible that it’s been eight years since the horrific shooting at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, and yet I don’t know of a better demonstration of both the cost and the importance of forgiveness than the way the Amish community there responded after five young girls were killed in the schoolhouse there. Ultimately, the shooter killed himself as well, and yet by that evening, the Amish community was extending grace and forgiveness to his widow. They set up a charitable fund for the shooter’s family and about thirty Amish attended his funeral. They also allowed the widow to attend a funeral of one of the victims, which is nearly unheard of in this closed community. The nation was shocked by the shooting and almost as shocked by the forgiveness offered by the Amish. Yet when pushed about it, the Amish leadership reminded those who asked that it was not their place to hate or to judge. No matter what someone has done, they said, it is only God’s place to judge. It is our place to forgive and move ahead with life. That’s hard for us to understand. That’s hard to me to understand. I’m fairly certain I would not be able to respond with that kind of love and grace if something like that happened to one of my kids, certainly not that quickly. And yet, that’s how Jesus calls us to respond, no matter what the offense. In fact, in this same chapter of Matthew we find these words from Jesus: “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (6:14-15). As the Amish remind us, only God ultimately can judge, so why do we hold onto grudges and unforgiveness so strongly? It’s because forgiveness demonstrates our dependence, our lack of control. We want to be forgiven, but we don’t want that other person to be forgiven. Yet if we’re going to be fully Christian, that is the path we must walk. As Pastor John Stott reminds us, “The path to humility often leads through humiliation” (Stott 105). It leads us places where we don’t want to go but where we must walk.

That leads us to the third area of dependence. Jesus says we should pray to not be led into temptation and to be delivered from the evil one (6:13). It doesn’t take much looking around to realize that evil is all around us, in ways both subtle and obvious. If we’re going to escape the grasp of that temptation, we need to rely on God for grace, for strength, for eyes to see what is really going on. Only God can ultimately deliver us from evil, whether that is a sinful situation or even an evil disease that threatens our life. I’ve stood by many hospital beds and even deathbeds and prayed for God’s grace to come and to be evident. We always ask for healing, but more than that, we acknowledge that we are dependent on God and God alone in the face of evil. That’s one of the things I learned during my heart surgery recovery. Doctors could only do so much. I was utterly and completely dependent on God for my healing. And while I don’t wish to go back to that time, there are times I wish I could return to that sense of dependence, because it’s so easy to slip back into the mode where we think we are in control. God’s grace is the only thing that will ultimately deliver us from evil, so we pray for grace to surround us in life and even in death.

So we are dependent people—upon others and ultimately on God—but to be fully so we need the next ingredient in our recipe, and that is trust. Trust is hard for us to give to another person, even if we know we’re dependent. Especially for folks who have been hurt in the past, or even in the present, trust is a hard thing to grant, and if we have trouble trusting someone we can see, how hard is it to trust someone—God—whom we can’t see? Four years ago, just about this time, Christopher and I had just returned from a trip to the Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany, and as a part of that trip, we also got to go to Italy. We spent three days in Rome and visited somewhere I had always wanted to go, the Coliseum. So I was like a kid in a candy factory, looking at everything, from every angle, as Christopher dutifully followed along behind. And then I realized our time had probably elapsed, so I told him we should go back to the meeting place. So we did, only our group was gone. They had given up waiting on us! I was then in a bit of panic and I remembered we had radios that our guide would talk to us through. So I turned it on, put the earpiece in—and heard only static. Not knowing what else to do, we began trying to make our way to the exit, and all the movies about people lost and trapped in foreign lands started going through my head. Then, we picked up a hint of a voice; it was Daniella’s voice, our guide. I couldn't see her anywhere, but she was looking for us! We kept walking, a bit faster, and we heard a bit more. Finally, we could hear her clearly and she told us which way to go. I was never more relieved to see anyone in my life! But had I not turned on the radio, had I not been listening, I would never have known which way to go. We trusted Daniella to get us out safely and we listened to her voice guiding us to the right path.

To the prophet Isaiah, God promises, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21). The question is whether we will “tune in” to the voice and trust what we hear. David, the shepherd boy, had to learn that. One of the most beloved of his songs is Psalm 23, and it is a psalm, a song, of trust. While we usually have this picture of shepherds sitting peacefully along a green hillside with the sheep gazing quietly beside them, that’s far from what it was like. The sheep were often threatened by wild animals, and it was the shepherd’s job to protect them. So the threat extended to the shepherd as well. It was a dangerous job in a dangerous place.

John Goldingay tells about going to a wooded retreat center, where, as they began their first session, the director warned them of the dangers that surrounded them. They were told that, if they met a bear on the grounds, they should not run because the bears could outrun them. And he said if they stayed on the path they would probably not get bitten by a rattlesnake. But, thankfully, the director shared, there had not been an cougar sightings recently. Goldingay said he decided the same thing most of us would decide: it’s better to stay inside the retreat center (Goldingay, Psalms for Everyone, Part 1, pgs. 74-75)! Those kinds of dangers were normal for the shepherds in David’s day. Wild animals looking for a sheep dinner. Valleys that often would flood quickly. Limited resources. Hot, barren landscape. And yet, David says, he “lacks nothing.” Or, as in the language many of us know by heart, he “shall not want.” From David’s vantage point, God has provided everything he needs. How many of us would say that, honestly? We tend to turn “wants” into “needs” and are rarely satisfied with what we have. But David trusts that what he has is all that he needs. I lack nothing.

His statement of trust goes on as he pictures God the shepherd bringing him, the sheep, to a place of quiet waters, a place of safety and sustenance. And God leads him along right paths for God’s name’s sake. That’s a curious statement, isn’t it, until we remember how important names are in the Bible. Names aren’t just for identification; they tell you something about the person. Knowing a person’s name puts you in relationship with them. And knowing God’s name means we are close to him and we know something about him. We know he is the provider, the one we can trust, and so he leads us places where we can demonstrate that trust, where we can again experience his faithfulness. That’s not just on paths of ease. David says he sometimes walks through the darkest valley, or the “valley of the shadow of death.” That’s a real place in the desert of Judea. Along the old road between Jerusalem and Jericho is a valley that is situated in such a way that the sun never shines down to the bottom. It’s always dark there. And while I’m certain David knew of that valley, I think he’s also referring to those difficult times, those times of loss and sickness and death and hopelessness and depression. We’ve heard a lot about that this week, with the death of Robin Williams, an apparent suicide that came out of deep depression. And we’re surprised that a man who made us all laugh could walk in such dark places, but it should remind us that no one is immune. What we see on the outside is very often a mask, covering pain that no one has seen. David knew loss and grief and pain. He knew the darkest valley that he spoke of, and yet he sings of trusting God even in those moments. “I will fear no evil,” he says, “for you are with me.” Even when the enemies threaten, you are right beside me, giving me a blessing that overflows, reminding me that the worst thing is never the last thing. David reminds us we can trust God. When everything else falls apart, we can trust God.

I will never forget the first time Christopher fell and cut his head open so badly that he needed a few stitches. He was less than a year old, and there is no way you can explain to him what’s about to happen. We scooped him up and took him to the urgent care, where they asked me to hold him down while they worked on him. They wrapped him in a blanket and proceeded to stitch up the wound as he cried and screamed. I’ll never forget his eyes looking at me as if to say, “Why are you doing this to me,” but I just held onto him and continued to comfort him, saying quiet words. I couldn’t stop the tears, and I couldn’t stop the pain, but I could be there with him, holding onto him, helping him to trust me even when it seemed like the end of the world to him. God promises the same thing. For reasons we don’t understand, he doesn’t always calm the storms in our lives. He doesn’t just take away the pain. To do so would be to deny our human freedom and turn us into robots. But he holds us. He wraps us up and says, “You can trust me to get you through this. Even in the darkest valley, the most difficult time, you can trust me. I am with you.” And supremely, he came in Jesus to remind us that he is Emmanuel, God with us, God present with us, God living among us and walking with us. Jesus reminded us again that we can trust the Father.

And then there’s this last image at the end of the psalm that I just love. As a shepherd, David undoubtedly experienced times where he sensed something following him or the flock of sheep he was caring for. Certainly on the battlefield, when he was older, he knew that feeling as well, as an enemy might be following him to attack. But when we place our trust in God, we find we are followed by something else. “Surely,” David says, “your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life” (23:6). Everything God gives us is good; that’s what David is celebrating. That’s why we can trust him. But if we want to embrace his goodness and love, we’re going to have to open our hands. Our control issues usually cause us to clinch our fists toward anything we either don’t understand or can’t control, and that includes spiritual things because we can’t do either when it comes to God and his kingdom. We can’t fully understand who God is, and we certainly can’t control God, try as we might. The only way for us to be able to allow him to work in our lives is to acknowledge our dependence and open our hands in trust, believing he will pour out his goodness and love through our lives. And I’m not saying that’s easy. I’m a first-born type A personality. I have control issues and it’s not easy for me to trust. So one of the first things I do every morning is to pray a prayer of trust before I even get out of bed. I entrust my family and my day to God, and ask him to work through me. That’s one way I can begin to open my hands to receive what God has for me, to welcome his goodness and love into my life.

So in what ways do you need to open your hands and release your grip over people or situations that you feel you need to control? Maybe it’s something at work, or with your family, or in your relationships, or even here at church. As long as we attempt to control it, we’re basically saying we aren’t dependent on God and we don’t trust him to do what is right. Can we open our hands, release our grip, and trust God in life and in death and in life beyond death? Can we trust him now and every day after this?

This week, I happened across a story about an organization called ABSF, the American Blind Skiing Foundation. Snow skiing. That’s something I’m not really comfortable trying and I can see, but this is for people who cannot see the slopes and do not know where they are going. ABSF pairs them up with a sighted person, who teaches them the basic fundamentals of skiing, everything from putting on the skis to navigating the chairlift to actually going down the hill. And when they get to the point where they are ready to try the downhill, the sighted skier goes right beside the blind skier, giving audible commands as to which direction to go. That’s an image of dependence and trust! The blind skier is utterly dependent on and must have utter trust in his or her guide to be able to make it safely to the bottom of the hill. They have to do what the guide says, without question. And that’s an image of the spiritual life. Remember those words from Isaiah? “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it’” (Isaiah 30:21). Can you open your hands and trust his voice to lead you through whatever this life may bring? Let’s pray.