Control and Relevance

Two concepts that seem to be odd companions but I think you’ll see my point in a minute.

Have you seen the Volkswagen commercial with the small boy dressed as Darth Vader? He spends the entire commercial trying to use the Force to control things, anything, without success.

Isn’t that a lot like us? We think we have some gift or skill and try and try to make it work for us but it doesn’t. Somehow we think that our life would be better if we could control everything (anything?) in our world. Jesus tells us that we can’t control our world but we can give ourselves willingly to the Father, and give up on our ambition to be in control. Life works better that way.

I thought the commercial was cute the first time I watched it (I didn’t watch the Super Bowl, I watched all the ads on YouTube 😋). I was talking to my parents and the commercial came up in conversation somehow and I was describing it. My mother said, “Oh! That was what that was all about!”. See, she had never seen Star Wars (yes, she leads a sheltered life) and the commercial’s message was mostly lost on her – it wasn’t relevant. I’m afraid too many times our Christian message is not relevant to those we try to share it with; we use words and images that our listeners aren’t familiar with and we lose them.

But isn’t this again a control problem? We use “Christianese” to seem holy and pious and to control our relationships with non-Christians and we might as well be speaking a foreign language to them. What really is relevant is not our words but our actions. If we truly believe that God is love, we must love. We can’t force them into understanding, but we can love, and pray that understanding comes from the Father’.

Abba, Father, help us to give up control. Make us see everyone as You see them and help us to love them as You love them. Then, Father, we may be truly relevant to a world so in need of love and understanding. Amen!

Be well (and may Grace be with you),

Steve