A prosperous executive whose work required frequent travel decided to buy his own plane. He took flying lessons and was soon quite comfortable with his more convenient transportation. After a few years he decided to purchase a pontoon plane so he could fly back and forth from his beautiful summer home on the lake.
On his first flight in his new plane, he forgetfully started to head for the airport landing strip, just as he had always done. Luckily, his wife was with him and when she saw what he was doing, she chirped, "Pull up, George, pull up! You can't land on a runway. You have pontoons! You don't have wheels!"
Looking flushed and humbled, the businessman quickly hit the throttle and veered off toward the lake. Landing safely in the still blue water, he shook his head ruefully and said, "I don't know where my mind was. I just wasn't thinking. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever done."
Then he opened the door and stepped out into the lake.
My mind operates like that sometimes, does yours? Some people have it so altogether. They never commit a faux pas. They always know the right thing to do. Then there are the rest of us. Those of us who step absent-mindedly into the lake.
Actually if you are a bit absent-minded, pat yourself on the back. It simply means that you are preoccupied with great thoughtsat least I trust they are great.
Albert Einstein was so absentminded that he once used a $1,500 Rockefeller Foundation check as a bookmark and then lost the book. Just tell people you are another Einstein if they wonder why you have misplaced your glasses for the thousandth time.
Actually, being absentminded is not all that bad -- as long as you watch where you walk.
St. Paul wasn't addressing his remarks only to the absentminded, though, when he writes in our text for the day, "Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil...."
What does St. Paul mean when he says, "Be careful how you walk...?" Fortunately, he tells us.
FIRST OF ALL, HE SAYS TO USE OUR HEADS. He writes, "Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery...." In other words, use your head! Don't do anything stupid! Don't foul up your life! I sound like a nagging parent, don't I? I hope I sound like a loving parent.
You see, there are all kinds of foolishness. Some kinds can be avoided, some can't.
A colonel frowned impatiently as he watched a young lieutenant drill his platoon. Sweat was beginning to bead on the young lieutenant's forehead. His voice showed the strain of his superior's scrutiny. He attempted to direct his men through an intricate maneuver. Eventually, the poor lieutenant had his troops marching eight abreast toward the edge of a cliff. Completely unnerved, he froze -- unable to speak.
Finally the colonel barked, "Good heavens, man, at least tell them goodbye."
That is an example, perhaps, of unavoidable foolishness. Any of us might panic in such a situation. There is another kind of foolishness, though, a kind that is avoidable. It consists of those little, stupid things in our lives, little things that so often bring us down. Those things that we know need changing but somehow we never get around to. And all the time those "little" things are keeping us from being all God created us to be.
We ought to learn a lesson from the Goodyear blimp Columbia. The giant 192-foot-long helium blimp was recently punctured by a small radio-controlled model airplane. The damage was too slight to cause the blimp to crash, but the hole in the blimp was big enough to cause a constant loss of helium. Hence, the blimp couldn't function the way it was supposed to and could only limp along until the hole was repaired.
Some of us are limping along. We have holes in our lives that we try to ignore. We need to face our problems and get them fixed. (1)
It is interesting to watch the slowly changing attitude in our society toward alcohol. This new attitude isn't coming from the churches or the schools, but from society itself. Even Budweiser is telling us to "know when to say when." Society is starting to wake up.
Don Imus, once one of New York City's leading radio personalities, spoke at Queens College (NY) sometime back at the school's Drug Awareness Day. Imus was simple and pointed. "I'm an alcoholic and drug addict," he said.
Imus had lost his job in New York in 1977 "for drinking Scotch and doing coke." Imus related how his father drank away a fortune before dying in 1954 "with $13 in the bank." "I swore that I'd never be like my father," Imus said. But he was wrong. He became, by his own admission, a "violent, awful drunk...." He was spending $3,000$4,000 a week on cocaine. Imus said that while he was lying in a stupor in his office, a friend suggested that he might have a drinking problem and should attend Alcohol Anonymous. He did and was able to get his life back together. (2)
Not everybody who abuses alcohol or drugs is that fortunate. Some don't get smart until it's too late. "Do not be foolish...." Paul says. Be careful how you walk. Use your head.
THEN HE SAYS THAT WE ARE TO OPEN OUR HEARTS. We read, "...be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody to the Lord with all your heart...."
That sounds like a description of the early church at its best. Gathering in each other's homes, rejoicing in their faith, sharing all things in commonthe early church experienced God's Spirit in power and in fellowship. That is when God is most real in our liveswhen we open our hearts to His Spirit and to each other.
John R. Westerhoff tells a story about the three little pigs. Years had passed since the crisis with the wolf. The family of the three little pigs had settled down comfortably in their brick house in the suburbs. Gradually boredom set in. Something was missing in their lives. The three pigs decided that what they were missing had to do with love. They determined to go out and seek love's meaning.
The first little pig went to the university library and read all she could on the subject of love. When she had finished she had learned a great deal about love, but her life was still empty.
The second little pig read in the newspaper that a famous pig was coming to town to deliver a series of sermons on the subject of love. The second little pig attended all the sermons and was filled with enthusiasm and emotions. His emotional high lasted four days, and then his life became pretty much as empty as it had been before.
The third little pig invited two other pig families over to their house one evening and all the little pigs began to share their life stories, continuing until late in the night. They found this so interesting that they decided to meet together regularly to share experiences and life together. In time they came to care about each other very deeply. One evening, after the other families had left, the third little pig said to her siblings "Now I know what love is, for I have experienced it." (3)
That's the kind of love that happened in the New Testament church. That is the kind of love St. Paul yearns for each of us to experience. When the church really is the church, we are visiting in one another's homes. We are breaking bread together. We are worshiping and studying and singing with one accord. Life cannot beat us down when we are joined like that. Sin cannot mar our lives. Despair cannot take up residence in the open heart. Be careful how you walk. Use your head. Have an open heart - open to God and open to one another.
FINALLY, ST. PAUL SAYS WE ARE TO LIFT OUR HANDS IN THANKSGIVING, "...always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father." That's a great secret of life -- to develop the gratitude attitude.
John Killinger tells about one of his parishionersa man by the name of Ralph Kelly. Killinger describes him as a tall, handsome, whiteheaded mana Purdue graduate, an engineer, a businessman, a counselor, a friend bubbling with energy all the time. Killinger's description of Ralph is a winning one. Do you know the first thing Ralph does when he drops a lead pencil? Pick it up? No. The first thing he does is look up and say, "Thank you. Sir!"
Then he tries to figure out what he's thankful for. In the case of the lead pencil, he says, "The first thing I think of is that I'm thankful for gravity. If it hadn't been for gravity, my pencil wouldn't have fallen down there where I could get it. It would have gone off up there somewhere, and I would never see it again." Then he says, "Thank you for graphite. If it weren't for graphite, we wouldn't have lead pencils." Then he's thankful for trees from which we get the wood that makes pencils. And he's thankful for the engineering that makes pencils. And he's thankful for chemical engineering that made possible the eraser that crowns the lead pencils and takes care of the mistakes he makes.
Ralph does that for everything. If he has a flat tire he pulls off to the side of the road and after he says, "Thank you, Sir," he thinks of the things he's thankful for. Maybe it's because he found a wide place in the road where he had his flat tire and he could pull off without any threat on the highway. Maybe he's thankful that he got only one flat tire and not two or three. Maybe he's thankful that when he gets out of the car he gives his back a rest and can get a little exercise.
Whatever it is, he looks up and he says, "Thank you, Sir!" And then he thinks about all the things he's thankful for. He says, "If you can think of one or two, you're going to feel better. If you can think of four or five, you're doing well." (4)
Now, some of you are going to dismiss Ralph Kelly as an unrealistic Pollyanna. But what is the alternative when things foul up as they sometimes do? Raise your blood pressure a few degrees as you curse your luck? Shout and scream and give everyone around you ulcers? Bottle it all up until you have a cardiac arrest? Wouldn't it be better to do as Ralph Kelly does and, as St. Paul suggests in I Thessalonians 5:18: "...give thanks in all things"? You and I would live longer if we did. And we would enjoy life more.
Be careful how you walk. Good advice. Use your head. Open your heart. Lift up your hands in thanksgiving and praise. In other words, walk like Christ. Follow his example. Watch how he walks. Walk the same way.
1. "Blimp Deflated by Toy, Might Miss A.L. Series," The Knoxville NewsSentinel (Oct. 2, 1990) Section C, p. 3.
2. NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, 10/25/84, p. 3.
3. A PILGRIM PEOPLE, Harper & Row, 1984. Cited in TARBELL'S TEACHER'S GUIDE91, William P. Barker, editor, (Elgin, Ill: David C. Cook Co., 1990).
4. PREACHING TODAY.