Expertise

In Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, we hear the story of Hank Morgan  a 19th-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut who, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England at the time of the legendary King Arthur.

Hank is ridiculed at King Arthur's court for his strange appearance and dress, but quickly turns the situation around by banking on his knowledge of history. You see, he’d learned all about King Arthur’s courts and times during his school years.

Throughout the story, Hank is always muttering under his breath about the poor, ignorant people of King Arthur’s time. Don’t they know how superior life would be with modern conveniences? If only, Hank thought, they would do things my way. Wouldn’t their life be grand?

These poor simpletons don’t know what they’re missing. Hank believed he had all the answers, knew exactly the right path. And he was more than willing to take over. Hank believed his ideas were better, smarter, and the absolute correct truth.

Hank’s sin is a lot like our sin. Modern American’s identify with Hank because Americans are Hank. We may not be from Connecticut, or Yankees for that matter, but all of those, deep inside are like Hank.

You see, Americans live their lives like we’re in a giant Holiday Inn Express commercial. You know the one where the person is suddenly able to perform Brain Surgery. When everyone questions their knew found expertise -  “Don’t worry” they say, “I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

In our culture, everyone’s an expert. On everything. We’re all smarter than the University’s football coach “I never would have called that play.” We’re smarter than the judges on American idol. We’re know more about Dancing than Carrie Ann Inaba (whether we’ve ever danced or not). We know better how to run the world. President Obama (or Bush, take your pick) is an idiot. Why doesn’t he do… ..

Americans are all experts. Wouldn’t it just be better if everyone agreed with me? Wouldn’t everything be better if everyone would just do why I want? I know what’s best, I know what’s absolutely right. Americans all experts.

Hidden in the midst of all that expertness is the idea that our own, individual perspective on the world is supreme. Our world of the world is THE world view to have. Surely, we think, everyone must agree with me!

But God didn’t create us to be the same. God didn’t create us all to be alike, to be copies of each other. God wants us to celebrate our diversity!

We need diverse voices in the church, and in all our communities. Stories about the Holy Spirit are usually stories about how much God loves diversity, and how God gives more and more people the ability to speak.  In this gathering, the church, we need many voices. We need all of your voices.

Presbyterians have always believed in more than one idea. More than one perspective. Presbyterians usually go for the more understandable kind of diversity. The New Testament kind, I guess. We ask for the Holy Spirit to gather us together and to make this diverse group of people into a community.

It’s certainly tempting to try to be the masters of our own little universes. Sometimes we try to arrange our lives so that we will be like that single, solitary, self-sufficient monarch on a throne issuing orders that must be followed. Or we try to arrange our lives so that we just won’t need any kind of help from anybody. Or we get scared of the profound differences between us and our neighbors, and we try to control our neighborhoods or our workplaces or our churches so that we won’t have to be frustrated by the differences between us. It’s harder to work with differences. It’s harder to teach across a language barrier; to get along with new neighbors of a different culture; to understand the attitudes of someone from another economic class. It’s harder to understand our own children who are from another generation and raised in a totally different situation than we were. 

So this Ash Wednesday – let’s do something radical. Let’s repent of our sameness, of our expertness. Let’s accept more than one idea. Let’s acknowledge the Godliness of one another. Let’s repent of our “having to be right.” Let’s admit that sometimes We are wrong.

And then, let’s let God, be God.

Don't Worry, Be Happy.

Every Generation has a super annoyingly bad, but oh so good song which typifies their ethos, the mood of that generation.

For the 60s -    Wipeout.  In the 70s, it was Freebird. 
For the 90s, it was the Macarana

But for the 80s, it was a super bad, yet super good all - acapella song sensation. It went a little something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

After one particularly bad week as a camp counselor, one person revived Bobby McFarins. You see this week at camp my Co Counselor and I had been responsible for 15, 4 and 5^th graders. Of those 15 children, 8 were on ADD medications and an additional 2 children needed them, but their parents must have decided camp would be a good week to take off from there meds. Those 4 children delighted in fun games like, “Let’s throw Liz’s backpack in the campfire,” and “Ring around the top bunks of the cabin.” And then, that week, there was Amy. Amy was allergic to everything. Literally. Her allergies included wheat, grass, bees, peanut butter, chlorinated water, and milk. So, wouldn’t you know it, Amy gets stung by a bee. At camp. In front of everyone. And then screaming and running out of the dining hall, directly into BE, my co-counselors arms, who preceeded to hoist her over his head and run to the camp truck, jump and the back. And yell, “GO! Go! Go! GO!”

On Sunday morning, during worship, Sausage – that nickname is a story in and of itself - Sausage decided to lift everyone’s spirits by playing Don’t Worry, be Happy. And the song worked. We had been dropping into worship, tired, exhausted, stressed. Then Sausage played the song. You almost can’t help it. You hear the song, and it just makes you want to dance. Don’t Worry – Be happy! We screamed. We laughed. Don’t Worry, Be Happy became our theme song for the summer.

We Worry about good things, like our family and friends. We pray for our family’s health and hope our children do well and are successful. We anxiously wonder about the latest chemo treatment and it’s effectiveness. We agonize over the latest utility bill and worry how our friends who lost their jobs deal with the rise in gas prices. Worry can be good when it spurs us to action or to change a situation. Worrying about a test can cause us to study. When anxiety can cause us to prepare for an upcoming event by positing different scenarios, that can be good.

But worry can also be very bad. You know those people, who we call worryworts? The ones who can never seem to really enjoy anything because they are always think about what might happen?  Worry can be bad when it leads to constant anxiety or fear, when it consists of continually repeating the same cycle of thought over and over again – when nothing or no one can help ease your mind. Worry become problematic when it begins to consume or thoughts and or minds, when worrying is what we do best.

We worry most often about the things over which we have no control.  Am I going to get into heaven or not? When will the oil prices be lower? Will our flight leave on time and what am I going to do if it doesn’t? Worry at its core is about control.

In the Sermon on the Mount,  Jesus spok on the dangers of serving two masters – You can not serve both God and something else. It’s that simple, Jesus has been saying. You can not serve God and money. You can not serve God and Caesar. You can not serve God and worry.

Worry, Jesus says, is about control. About trust. Look, Jesus says, at the birds of the air? They don’t farm, they don’t stockpile. The birds don’t run to Food City at the first sign of bad weather. But the birds are fed.

The sermon goes on. Look at the flowers, the way they grow here and there. The weeds, the way they grow into the crack of your sidewalk – even when you don’t want them too. The beauty of the fields of wildflowers – If God takes care of them, Jesus says, won’t God take care of you also?

And then, the most condemning statements. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

And the last, the dagger that always catches us - Can anyone of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? Can anyone of us, by worrying change the outcome of God’s plan? Worry accomplishes very little. Worrying is at its worst when we have no control over the situations of our lives.

But I can’t help how I feel,  You might be thinking. Anxiety just happens – talk about not having control! I can’t stop worrying any more than I can stop breathing!

No, we can’t all of the sudden stop stressing about the oil prices rising, or the inevitability of hard times in our lives. We can’t just stop making the negativity spiral through our thoughts. Sometimes the stress will overwhelm us. It’s just going to happen.

We do have choice, though, about where we focus out attention. We can make a choice not to increase our anxiety through focusing on the worst possible outcomes. We can make a choice to remember that God loves us, and cares for us. God will provide. We have choice, to Let Go our control, and Let God provide. Let Go, and Let God.

Yes, it is possible that tomorrow will see yet more escalation in the Middle East. It’s probably inevitable. And yes, that means rising gas prices and food prices. But we will not starve. We will not be shut it to our homes with no means of transportation. The turmoil will continue – but when you turn on the news, and the anxiety starts to rise? That’s a good time to Let Go – and Let God.

We could go on with scenarios until the end of time.   Disease and Famine and Heartbreaks are a part of this life. But nothing, not one thing, can separate us from the Love of God who cares about each one of us, who knows the number of hairs on our head. Nothing in this world, not life nor death, nor any human creation can prevent God from providing for us. It may not look the way we want. But God knows what we need more than we do.

So, we have a choice. We can choose to hold on to the worry and the anxiety, to focus on the worst possible outcome. Or we can choose to trust that God will provide. Brothers and Sisters, God will provide. It’s time we Let Go of our white knuckled control, and Let God take the reigns. It’s time to Let Go, and Let God. Amen