The Introduction and Summary Statement
There is a story more likely told for its humor than its exactitude, about Noah Webster, the man who produced the dictionary that bears his name. Legend has it that during a party Noah was caught, by none other than Mrs. Webster herself, kissing the maid in the kitchen pantry. When she opened the door and saw her husband in that compromising situation, she said, "Why, Noah, I am surprised!" Noah Webster, ever the stickler for correct word usage, replied, "No my dear, you are amazed, I am surprised." Life is filled with surprises!
As that great philosopher, Forrest Gump, said: "Life is like a box of chocolates ñ you never know what you are going to get. Either we learn to incorporate the element of surprise into our life expectations or we will miss out on lots of good, sweet things.
Have you ever thought about how much time and effort is spent trying to keep surprises down to a bare minimum? For all of our good natured humor about surprises, and for all our ability to cope with surprise, most people really do not like surprises. We much prefer predictability. I have seen and participated in many surprise parties for people, and there is always (even if but a split second) a flash of horror on the face of the honoree before they realize that they are surrounded by friends, and that every thing will be all right. We are not very comfortable in any situation in which we are not in control of what is happening to us. We do not like surprises.
Recently, there was a well-known motel chain that took advantage of the universal fear of surprise in a nationwide advertizing campaign. It characterized their motels as being a place of "no surprises." Things would be exactly as you expected they should be. When you are away from home, tired and preoccupied with business, surprises are not welcome. Good ad! It struck at the root of a basic fear.
In spite of all our efforts to arrange a predictable world, there are so many unpredictable elements in life that very few things end up as we hoped, planned or thought they might. One of the greatest sources of stress and anxiety is the necessity of adjusting to the unexpected. Many people are unable to survive the surprises of life, which often happen to us while we are in the process of trying to make life more predictable. Life is seldom what we plan, but what happens to us on the way to what we planned.
There is a legend about a man who wanted very much to know where the stock market would be in 30 days. (wouldnít we all?!) If he could predict the level of the market at the end of 30 days, he could invest his assets in such a way that he would make enough money to be secure for the rest of his life. He could make his life predictable and eliminate all those life changing surprises. One morning he got up and found on his door step a copy of the New York Times dated 30 days in advance. It was a miracle! He grabbed it and ran to the kitchen table and spread it out, looking, of course, for the financial section. It was the opportunity of a lifetime! As he searched, his eyes fell upon the obituary column, and he could not resist the impulse to look. As he read, he froze as he saw his own name - just 30 days away. Now nothing else mattered. Surprise!
This story brings us to the Gospel lesson for today. Jesus was asked to become the arbitrator in a family dispute over the division of an inheritance. He refused, but he did have a word of counsel, which he gave in the form of a parable. (Read Luke 12:13-30)
T h e S e r m o n
There is nothing that can more readily twist life out of shape, poison our relationships and kill kindness and consideration than the unchecked quest for absolute control. At the bottom of greed and our lack of concern and respect for other people is the desire to gain complete control and have everything "our way." The desire to dominate people and situations almost always leads to a specie of disrespect and pettiness that wounds everybody in sight. It crushes the more gentle souls, and angers and disgusts everyone else. The over-weaning need to dominate essentially kills the spirit of civil consideration.
There are some who, in the absence of the power to dominate with a strong personality, will try to dominate with their wealth. And, while it is true that wealth is power, it is not all powerful. It gives a kind of control, but is not total or complete, and certainly not permanent.
There tends to be an intoxicating illusion in excessive wealth that numbs ones higher sensitivities and blinds one to reality. Someone is alleged to have asked Andrew Carnegie, a man of immense wealth, "How much is enough!", to which he replied, "Just a little more." The person who tries to control his world with wealth is like the man who drinks alcohol until he feels good. He reasons that if the amount he has imbibed makes him feel good, twice as much will make him feel twice as good. We are all touched by the illusion. How many of you really feel that if you could win the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes that it would smooth the wrinkles out of your blanket and get your life in manageable units? Many people I know feel that the root of evil is the lack of money, not the love of money.
The man in the parable Jesus told appreciates the fact that his wealth has brought him security. It has given some predictability to his world. It has eliminated the element of surprise. So, he proceeds to try to solidify and extend this benefit in a manner which in God’s economy has predictable results. He not only discovers he has limited control, he finds there are some things over which he has no control. The man is then hit with the ultimate surprise (which eventually comes to all); he is told that his name will be listed in the obituary column in the next day’s edition of the Jerusalem News. He is told that all that he has accumulated will be of no value whatsoever to him; and, in fact, will pass into the hands of others. It will be argued over and finally divided between the lawyers, the IRS, and kinfolks. "So it is," said Jesus, "with anyone who heaps up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."
I have spent 50 years as a minister of the Gospel trying to teach people to be generous ñ not because the church needs their resources in order to survive, but because generosity will add an element of richness to life which is far more gratifying than money.
We are all going to be generous some day. Some day we will give it all away. Most of us will not be around to enjoy the giving it away, but we will finally give it all away.
If I have learned anything from over 70 years of living, it is that life is going to surprise me. Things did not turn out the way I thought they might; and rarely is the future in the form that I expected it to be. In spite of all that we do to make our lives predictable, there are so many unexpected elements in life that we seldom end up where we thought we were going to end up, and our children seldom end up where we thought they would when we looked down at them in their cradles and dreamed the dreams that we had for them.
I remember a very famous actor who said that when his son was born he had a fantasy about what would take place in the next 25 or 30 years. He said that he saw himself and his wife seated in a grand auditorium. They were grey-haired and dignified. Then he said he saw his 25 year old son mounting the great stage with a banner strung across it announcing the occasion of the annual Nobel prize presentations. He said that in his fantasy he could see this good-looking 25 year old son step up to the microphone after he received a Nobel Prize and say, "I want to thank my wonderful parents, whose wisdom and encouragement have guided me to this day."
How many of us have looked at a son or daughter or a grandchild and held in our hearts a fantasy and dream about what they would accomplish? Most of us have already lived long enough to realize that no matter how wealthy or influential we may be, no matter how hard we try to direct and control the lives of our children, they seldom, if ever, end up where we thought.
How many of you thought 10 years ago that you would end up where you are today? The kaleidoscopic changes of life are such that we cannot possibly predict what will happen and how we will be changed by it all. Our own life experiences are such that we should be able to see that there is a vast area of life over which we do not have, and perhaps can never have, meaningful control. It is for this reason that Jesus has taught us that we should not seek control in this manner. We should seek first the Kingdom of God and what is right, and the things that we need for security in an uncertain world will be given us in due time.
Our quest for control is often seen in the specificity with which we ask God to do things for us. Sometimes this specificity borders on telling God not only what we need, but how to do it for us. Any time our expectations get too specific we are in danger of frustration and disappointment.
In his "Confessions, St. Augustine pictures his mother, Monica, praying all night in a sea-side chapel that her son will not set sail for Italy. She wanted Augustine to be a Christian, and she could not bear losing him from her influence. She thought that if, so far, she had not led him to Christ, how much farther he would be from the Lord in Italy. But even as she prayed, Augustine sailed for Italy where he met a man by the name of Ambrose, who persuaded him to be a Christian. Augustine became a Christian in the very place from which his motherís prayers would have kept him. Thus, God had to deny the specific form of her request in order to grant the substance of her desire.
God works in mysterious ways in our lives and in the life of the world. He works His will through strange people and circumstances. He is not bound by our limited vision of possibilities. Therefore, we should let God be God. Let Him do it His way - even if it surprises us.
Charles Hadden Spurgeon was a famous 19th century English minister. As a young person he had a lot of spiritual problems. His mind was filled with doubts which seemed to stand between him and a meaningful relationship with God. He went from church to church and minister to minister trying to find someone or something that could help him find spiritual satisfaction.
He went one Sunday to a particular Methodist church where he had heard that there was a minister who was particularly good at helping people such as himself. The weather was very bad that day and there were only a handful of people in the church. The time for the service to begin came and passed, and nobody showed up. Finally, about 15 minutes later, a lay person got up and said to the congregation, "It appears that our pastor has been snowed in, or otherwise hindered, but, so that we will not have come in vain today, I will read some Scripture and offer prayer." Young Spurgeon was crushed with disappointment. He had wanted to hear this specific preacher and now he was being denied this privilege. The old layman, with a squeaky voice and no gift for oratory, read from the prophesy of Isaiah. Among other things, he read the words, "Look unto me ye ends of the earth, look unto me and be saved." When Spurgeon heard these words, it dawned on him that he was sitting there, willing to do almost anything in order to generate a religious experience, and here he was being told that all he had to do was open himself to the mystery of God, and that the experience that he had been trying so hard to contrive would come. Spurgeon had a very profound religious experience based on this insight on that cold winter morning in a half empty church where an inexperienced layman simply read the Scripture and prayed.
The experience did not come the way he expected. It did not come through the person through whom he had expected it would come. It came in a surprising form. It has been suggested that God’s other name is "surprise." Give God room. Do not shut him away in the small confines of your own imagination. Surely he is greater than that.
There is a sense in which our spiritual maturity can be measured in direct proportion to our capacity to live with unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries. For all that we know, we really do not know very much. When we reel off the half-dozen important issues of life, such as, birth, and life, and death, and the universe, and the human mind; we soon see that we have a lot more mystery than knowledge. The taste for mystery, which I think is an acquired and cultivated taste, is an essential tool for grappling for reality. Whatever we know about God, we have learned from mystery. We might even say that God is in the mystery. There is an old song, too old to be in our modern hymn book, that speaks of this higher truth.
T h e C o n c l u s i o n
"God Moves in a Mysterious Way"
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
