If I could rub one of those I Dream of Jeanie magic bottles and travel back in time to my high school graduation in May, 1972 and I was allowed to take only one piece of knowledge with me that I have gained in all the years since and start over with that knowledge, what I would want to take back with me is nestled here in this passage of scripture from 1 John.  Summed up, there are only two things in life we can ultimately control, what we believe and how we behave.  The rest of our life’s journey will be forged out of how well we’ve accepted what we can control and relinquished to God what we cannot. 

All over this nation the next few days, one commencement speaker after another will tell millions of high school and college graduates they can conquer the world if they just want to badly enough.  Maybe not in those exact words but that will be the essence.  Is that what your commencement speaker told you ten, twenty or thirty years ago?  Just curious, how’s the conquering going these days?  Are those of us who have yet to achieve world conquest defective or was it because, when we graduated, Tony Robbins had yet to break out of his one bedroom apartment with his Personal-Power-Transform-Your-Life-In-Seven-Days-You-Control-Your-Destiny videos? 

Having hardly finished his conquest of the known world, the apostle Paul once wrote from a Roman prison cell, “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation . . . (Philippians 4:12).”  “I’ve learned,” he said.  It’s been said that contentment is the only spiritual gift we have to learn (Thanks to James Flamming).  But, it’s not a word you’ll find anywhere in the conquering the world fast track dictionary.  Partly because there are no terminal or graduate degrees offered in the school of contentment; it’s not a school from which we’ll graduate in this lifetime.  So, if immediate spiritual gratification is of non-negotiable importance to you, you’ll likely end up a contentment school dropout.  And, partly because you’ll only tend to hear people talk about contentment, oddly enough, on the backside of horrific loss or catastrophic failure or on the downside of terminal illness.  In other words, only when they find themselves chain-welded to some reality over which they have no power whatsoever do they tend to show you their progress report in the school of contentment, or even admit they’ve finally enrolled.

That’s when the first lesson in the school of contentment has been driven home, like most good lessons worth learning, with some form of unforgettable pain.  The lesson that we cannot control our wives or husbands, boyfriends or girlfriends, our churches, our children or our circumstances, much less our world.  Like our health, we have some influence with all of those, but, total control of any of those is an illusion of either the most naively blind or sinfully arrogant. 

About that time, they also begin to learn that, to the extent they focus on controlling the uncontrollable they are filled with anxiety, anger, frustration, resentment and jealousy and tend to express themselves in manipulative and controlling ways.  Or, at a minimum, they come up for air in mid-life only to ask, “How come I can’t get no satisfaction?” or having to confess that they still haven’t found what they’re looking for, even though, if pressed, they have a hard time defining exactly what they’re looking for.  However, to the extent they focus on being responsible for what they alone can control, they find their lives filled more with peace and hope and joy and focused more on gift giving than controlling.  Again, there are only two things we ultimately control, what we believe and how we behave. 

Oddly enough, even those come to us, not as rewards for graduating to some level of maturity but simply and only as gifts at the beginning of the journey.  “Whatever is born of God,” John writes.  Just like he also recorded what Jesus once said.  “‘No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above (John 3:3).’”  So, we can’t rub the magic bottle and go back and start over.  We can’t redo, like I wish I could, Mr. Gilmore’s Algebra II class or even one day of our lives since our grades were forever recorded in our academic transcripts.  But, any given day, even today, we can have a new beginning with God.  That’s what it means to be “‘born from above’” or, “‘born again (NIV).’”  It means to have a new beginning with God.  And, in the context of Jesus’ words and John’s, too, it means a life we can only have if God gives it to us and we are willing to accept it. 

That’s the tough thing about trusting God.  It means we only have control to the extent we relinquish control to God.  Remember Jesus’ words?  “‘Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it (Mark 8:35).’”  And, “by this we know,” John writes.  The evidence that we’ve had a new beginning with God rooted in our belief “that Jesus is the Christ (and) has been born of God,” is that we’ve relinquished control in favor of loving “the children of God.”  The hard evidence that we have accepted responsibility for the only two things we can ultimately control is not that we have finally conquered all the negative influences in our lives and are finally skinny enough or buff enough or rich enough or so talented that 30,000,000 people would vote us their American Idol.  By this we know – that we love God’s children.  We no longer just react to what the world does to us with bitterness or resentment but, instead, we respond to the world with the only power that ever conquered anything for what is eternally good – we love. 

Now and then, people ask me about the challenge of pastoring this church and if I get discouraged.  I’d be less than honest if I didn’t tell you that it gets tough sometimes.  Some of that toughness just comes with the territory of being the pastor any church, like the toughness of your job as a teacher, a banker, a lawyer or doctor or CPA or whatever.  Sometimes, work is just hard work.  But, this church, like every church, has its unique challenges.  For one, as beautiful as this Temple is, it maximizes our weaknesses and minimizes our strengths, something it’s virtually impossible to explain to first-time visitors.  Any given Sunday, it’s easier to see the church that isn’t here than it is to see the one that is, made up of some of the finest people I’ve ever known.  People who still choose to invest themselves in the single most unique challenge I’ve ever encountered in any church anywhere.  And, because of our culture’s obsession with bigness and spit-shiny newness, it’s easy to lose sight of the really good things that happen here every day that just aren’t as physically visible, of the church that is here now doing God’s work in this place.

For another, there is less and less a place for a church like ours in the Baptist world of our heritage.  Our belief that all God’s children, women as well as men, as you even see demonstrated in the way we worship, are called and gifted for ministry and our belief in the person and teachings of Jesus as the primary criteria by which all of scripture should be interpreted and our belief in the autonomy of the local church and our belief in the priesthood of every believer and our belief that the simple testimony of a person’s faith in Jesus is good enough, that we need no creed to define us, and even, more and more, our belief in the separation of church and state will continue to distance us from our the roots of our denominational origin.  Sometimes, understanding that is tough, not to mention trying to communicate it to others. 

Sometimes it tough because people just leave.  And, unlike fast-growing churches in burgeoning suburbs where people also leave, those who leave here are always more visible, disproportionately over-shadowing those who still come.  Especially when they leave with no explanation.  No opportunity for dialogue.  They’re just gone, leaving you to wonder.  Part of my difficulty with that grows out of my upbringing.  Mom didn’t set the table with white linen and crystal every night at dinner (I didn’t know until I was in graduate school that the fork goes on the left and the knife on the right) and I’m still not good about keeping my elbows in my lap when I eat, but I was always taught that it is polite to excuse yourself from the table.  When people just walk away it can be discouraging. 

So, when people ask me if its tough pastoring this church, my honest response is that it has everything to do with where I choose to invest myself.  If I choose to invest myself in worrying about those things I cannot control, I find my life filled with anxiety, anger, frustration, resentment and jealousy and I tend to express myself in manipulative and controlling ways.  To the extent I focus on those two things that I alone can control, what I believe and how I behave, then I find my life filled more with peace and hope and joy and focused more on gift giving than controlling.  God has given me faith.  I believe that “that Jesus is the Christ (and) has been born of God.”  And, because of what God has done for me through Jesus, no matter what may happen to me or around me, I can choose to “love the children of God.” 

All of them.  Red and yellow, black and white.  Fundamentalist and liberal.  Conservative and progressive.  Male and female.  Gay and straight.  Democrat and Republican.  Young and old.  Rich and poor.  Healthy and sick.  Faithful to the end and finicky reactionaries.  Smart and mentally challenged.  The warm-fuzzy people and the control freaks.  The traditionalists and the next generation cutting edge weirdoes.  Those who come and those who go.  There will be no man-made boundaries on my love for others because, if I’ve had a beginning with God I’ve been on the life-changing, receiving end of a love that has no boundaries that cut me out and a love that had nothing whatsoever to do with me being whipped into God’s shape first. 

Conquering this world doesn’t mean bringing it into conformity with my personal whims and wishes.  Conquering this world, at least in part, means responding to it with love no matter what because I believe that the only conquering that will ever count for anything eternal is the conquering that love does.  Sometimes it’s a love that feels good.  Sometimes, like it was for those who died serving our country, it’s a face in the mud horrible kind of love because, “no one has greater love than to lay down his life (John 15:13).”

It’s all a matter of where we choose to invest our lives.  If we choose to invest them in what we cannot control our stories will have futile, sad endings.  If we choose to lose ourselves in loving, even if we look like losers for a while, there is no way there can be anything but a hopeful end, no matter what.  Love is eventually resurrected as hope, somewhere, someday. 

The other day, Nancy told me she wanted to show me something beautiful.  She took me out to one of her flowerbeds and pointed to an Easter lily that is just now blossoming.  Then, she told me the lily’s story that is its own sermon.  She brought that lily home two years ago after our Easter Sunday services and lovingly planted it alongside some other beautiful flowers.  For two years after she planted it, it lay dormant, there was nothing.  Then, all of a sudden, this spring, in the third spring, it came back to life.  The third spring.  It came back to life!

By this we know that we have been born of God.  With steadfast, undying, unwavering hope, we believe that everywhere love is planted there will someday be a resurrection and we just keep planting love everywhere God gives opportunity. 

I believe in Jesus. 

And, I love you. 

I believe in love’s resurrection. 

How about you?