Let's start with a little poem I whipped up for the occasion of this post.
I have little motto that I love to say,
It keeps me sane it keeps me safe and on the narrow way.
I say my little motto whenever I am piqued
By any sort of churchy thing that shows up on the street.
It's not a brilliant quote - or something you can't miss.
Instead it's rather silly and it simply goes like this:
I was wrong, I am wrong, I will be wrong again.
I was wrong, I am wrong, I will be wrong again.
When I'm tempted to be stubborn about temporary things.
I was wrong, I am wrong, I will be wrong again.
A few things you may not know about me. By the age of 18 I had memorized 14 books of the New Testament. By the age of 28 I had emerged as a brilliant (though insufferable) speaker.... erudite... charismatic...witty...razor sharp. I could hold a crowd with skill beyond my years. I loved to decry the evils and hypocrisy I saw around me. I reveled in a defense of my faith. I was a skilled apologist. I could quote from authors like Barth, Buber, Schafer, Tozer, Meyers, Moody and Lewis with equal zeal. I was a passionate preacher, a fervent intercessor and a fiery prophet who believed and practiced the gifts of the Spirit. I was a published author and popular speaker. My star was ascendant. If you had asked anyone who knew me 15 years ago (Pastor Tracy can testify to it) they would probably tell you that this is exactly how I saw myself. Note, this is not how others saw me - just how I saw myself. Of course if you know me now this might sound like a different person to you - at least I really hope it does. If it doesn't please have a long talk with me sometime. Among the many things that were off-kilter in my inner and outer life, one of them was certainty.
While absent mindedly listening to the radio the other day I heard an ad for a beauty product or procedure. I don't remember if it was botox or liposuction or some kind of fancy pants skin cream, but it promised to make you look years younger. I remember thinking, "If you really want me to look years younger add copious acne and a vacant stare". In the commercial, a man speaking of his wife said something like, "I hardly recognized her. She looked like the day I married her." That got me to thinking about my own wife, Ann. Would I want her to turn back the clock and "look like the day I married her"?
I recently had the honor of seeing Fiddler On the Roof at my daughter's high school. I love the character of Tevye. He is the main character - a simple milkman in the small Russian village of Anatevka on the eve of the Russian revolution. Tevye feels blessed because he knows his place. The secret to this special knowledge (says Tevye) is found in the traditions of this little Jewish village where he and his fellow Jews reside in a close knit community. In the opening scene he gives us this particular insight.
A fiddler on the roof... Sounds crazy, no? But here, in our little village of Anatevka, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof. Trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn't easy. You may ask, why do we stay up there if it's so dangerous? Well, we stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word! Tradition!
He goes on to say, "...because of our traditions everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do". In his traditions, Tevye thinks he has the answer to the two questions of life, "who am I and why am I here?"
Tevye's sense of identity is rooted in the customs of his faith. Even though He talks to God almost casually throughout the play, when Tevye says that because of tradition everyone knows what God expects him to do, he is not referring to a sense of destiny that flows from a personal relationship with God. Instead, he feels a sense of security in knowing how everything ought to be. Like his father before him he expects to live by a strict code handed down through centuries of eastern European Judaism. The play starts with this poor man struggling with ordinary life, but content with the knowledge that life holds no surprises for him - as long as he does what he ought to do. He is in for a rude awakening at the hands of his three eldest daughters.
In the 90's there was a little cartoon show called "Pinky and the Brain". This Steven Spielberg Produced show featured a tiny lab mouse genetically altered to be super-intelligent. If you want to know more check out this wikipedia article that treats the show with an amazing amount of gravitas. Each episode features Brain and his insanely wacky sidekick "Pinky" hatching some scheme to try to take over the world. Of course they are really powerless, insignificant mice - so each plan is doomed to failure. Part of what makes the show humorous is the premise of small fragile mice bent on world domination. Each show ends up with Pinky asking Brain the same question, "What are we going to do tomorrow night Brain?" To which Brain always answers in his best Orson Welles intonation, "The same thing we do every night Pinky. Try to take over the World!" [listen here]
Of course Brain has the best of intentions. He believes that he's best suited to run the world (being super intelligent and all). He's not trying to hurt anyone. He just feels that he needs to be in control, for everyone's sake. When he's pushed, however, he acknowledges a more selfish reason. It's "something he wants to do". Brain is continually frustrated because he cannot control things that are laughably so far beyond his stature. Do you think that God sometimes sees us in that fashion? I don't mean he looks at us as if we are lab rats. I mean that perhaps he sees us as loveable little megalomaniacs, striving to take over and control things that are exponentially beyond us? The truth is that we can pay a terrible personal price for gloaming onto power and control.