Sermons

"Keep the Lid on"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church

of Anchorage by The Reverend Mark E. Long

on November 15, 2009

Lections:  Prov. 25.25-38

                  II Pet. 1.3-8

                  Mt. 23.25-28; 5.14-16

Control is something most of us want.  It is a human desire to want to control things and not give them up to the direction of others.  It comes from the same impulse to fight over the piece of bread we could more easily divide and satisfy everyone.  Self-preservation runs richly through our veins.

We believe that if we are in control then our chances of self-preservation are improved. 

It may be our nature to do otherwise but the human impulse rules those who sit at the knee of their elders to learn what to do and not do, what interest comes first, next, and last.  Rarely is self-interest far from the top.

How do we keep from savaging each other then over bread or control?  Well, we don't always but the social contract of humans helps.  It dictates a general balance of interests where freedom for all is a social value - majority rules.  Whether societies, as large as nations and as small as churches, choose wisely is not the issue; control lies with those with the most votes.

Of course this idealistic vision to set control is often not how the balancing of interests comes about - might or manipulation play a role the direction things go.  Consider, for instance, the pull of "peer pressure," or the need to "go along with the boss," or maybe someone plays on our emotions or doesn't give us all the facts to get us to go along with them.  O.K., let's call it what it is; we get used.  We have much less control than we think, even when we are in the majority.

This should not strike us as that odd really maybe you realize already how subject we are to "power plays" and manipulation.  My younger brother has a long list of "punking" me over the years.  For example, one year for my birthday he gave me a Columbia House "free record album" card.  I laid in to him about how thoughtless his gift, not for its value but the laziness of the gesture.  "At least buy me something," I whined.  Oh, I failed to mention he gave it to me in front of my girlfriend as we were leaving her house after my "birthday dinner."

As the three of us walked out to my car I continued my disappointed tirade, with Tim shrugging and Julie patting me on the back saying, "he is young; he means well."  As I got in the car, I don't know if with happiness or shame, I see my "birthday gift" dangle from the rearview mirror.  It was a tennis racket.  I look at them; they are cracking up.  I am so filled with shame I am buying them both things for months afterward so the story doesn't spread.

Clearly I did not have control of the situation.  I thought I knew the situation but due to manipulation I was a clueless pawn of an inside joke.  But there was more to it than just not controlling the situation; I also did not control myself - at least well enough to prevent my embarrassment at my childish self-interest.

We know this seat of control as self-control or not.  It is an important place of control says the Bible.  Paul has it as one of the angles of perception that the fruit of the Spirit is working in our lives.

It is a tough one, a real tough one for most of us and it is popping up all over our lives.  Self-control is about a whole lot more than how we act, it is about what we say, and even what or how much we eat or drink.

We all have heard the suggested limits on our various appetites.  I have talked about them before, everything (at least most things) in moderation.  It is the "middle way" between too little which leaves us in famine and too much which leaves us complacent and greedy.  The "middle way" is a great place to be, but a tricky route to get there.

Now I am not much of a cook only a bit better than I am around gardens, but I have picked up some things over the years.  Keep my body parts away from hot pans, don't test whether the stove burner is hot with my hand, and never, ever take a whiff of the pepper shaker again.  Stuff like that.

I have observed among my lessons in the kitchen that when the water in the pan starts to boil furiously (yes I know how to boil water) and the corn or whatever begins to cook this is no time to put the lid on the pan to hold the heat inside.  When I keep a lid on a pan full of water tightly bad things happen.

Now self-control may be something like the lid on "fiery" appetites.  We might think that the safe approach is to contain them.  But what it really produces is excessive attention, a passion, for what is shut up that boils over badly into our lives.  The more we try to banish something from life, the more power it gets over us because we spend so much energy trying to seal it up.

Going back to my moment of shame orchestrated by my brother, I am not proud of my "poor me" response but it could have been much more fiery if I held it inside, bottled up until much later in another moment my disappointment overflowed badly between us.

My point is effective 'self-control' is not keeping a lid - tightly anyway - on your inner thoughts and impulses.  Our appetites need to be released but not in a way that brings us shame, guilt, or no friends. 

This leads me to see this in another way. The temperature of what is on the stove can be raised or lowered in a way other than with a lid in hand.  Whether we eat can be controlled by raising or lowering the heat from the stove.  If the heat is too low, nothing satisfying is produced, but turn on the heat high enough and we will eat.

What if keeping the lid on is only one form of 'self-control' and not the best?  What if our best option is not about trying to control our appetites at all, but rather giving up control to the inner resource that stimulates them in the first place.

Listen to the writer of II Peter:  [God's] divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness. . . .  Through these things, the precious and very great promises . . . you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature."  Which will enable us to have "knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance" . . . among other things.  We don't put the lid on or keep it on because of our self-reliance, but because of our willingness to acknowledge the source of our strength.

The source of our strength is not self-sufficiency or trying to contain our pent-up emotions; it is the source that cleans us up from the inside so we can reflect our spiffed up interior on the outside.  Woe to those who try to do it the other way around - folks like scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites.  They polish up the cup from the outside; they put up the appearances of dignified, self-possessed bearers of those who know how to control their appetites.  But we are insiders of their stories.  We know better and we know that those who follow these are not much different from "muddied spring[s] or polluted fountain[s]" themselves. 

It makes a difference how we seek to bring our appetites under control.  We may be able to manage it to a degree on our own, but it is hard to go the "middle way" between famine and the "boiled over" messes of control in the wrong hands.

Our lives are all about habits - the habits we choose and the habits that choose us.  The extent to which they reflect but then contour and control the appetites that arise from within us will determine what sort of experiences we will have.  You can choose to try and fit the lid on your appetites just right to keep your life under control for as much of that time as possible or you can gain control of your life, paradoxically, by giving up control.

I believe that Paul in speaking of the "fruit of the Spirit" refers to 'self-control' as the wisdom of those who give up control of their lives to the source of them and let the Spirit be their earthly guide.  How much boils over that way?

This is how I see 'self-control', an angle of perception where the lack of control over our lives really is a good thing.  Amen.