“You’re Off To Great Places!”

May 13, 2012

1 John 5: 1-6, John 15: 9-17

In an old Peanuts comic, Charlie Brown sits down at Lucy’s psychiatric stand.

He says to Lucy, "I need help. Tell me a great truth. Tell me something about living that will help me."

Lucy answers with a question, "Do you ever wake up at night and want a drink of water?

"Sure," Charlie responds, "all the time.'

So Lucy leans over and says, "When you're getting a drink of water in the dark, always rinse the glass because there might be a bug in it. Five cents, please!”

Charlie Brown walks away—with a strange look on his face—saying, “Great truths are even more simple that I thought they were."

Charlie Brown was looking for a great truth to help sort things out… and to make sense of his confusing world… but the ‘great truth’ he found at Lucy’s stand wasn’t so great at all. What he went away with instead was a ‘simple’ truth. There’s a difference between great and simple truths, aren’t there?

Great truths are not always where we might expect to find them. The books we read are great places to find such truth, although not always are they school textbooks. Over the years, reading to my children and grandchildren, I’ve found children’s books to be good sources for great truths. Dr. Seuss has provided some wonderful advice, especially for our graduates today, as is shared on the first couple pages of his book Oh the Places You’ll Go:

 “Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

Any direction you choose.

You’re on your own.

And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy

Who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets.

Look ‘em over with care.

About some you will say,

“I don’t choose to go there.”

With your head full of brains

And your shoes full of feet,

You’re too smart to go down

Any not-so-good street.”

You know on a day like today it’s natural for us to think we’re prepared for whatever lies ahead. I imagine a lot of people here today can remember thinking how we were ready to go out and conquer the world. We were smart. We knew everything we needed to know. We held Dr. Seuss’ two truths – that knowledge and determination equal success – firmly in our hands and we were ready to take on the world.

But John in his letter to the early church tells us that success depends on something more than a “head full of brains” and “shoes full of feet.” He writes, “The person who wins out over the world's ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.” (The Message) In other words, John says that real success belongs to those who take Jesus’ teaching to heart and who keep God’s commandments to love God completely and to love one another. For John, the great truth was the love of Jesus Christ… (because without love, we’ve lost and the world wins.)

Charlie Brown was looking for a great truth to make sense of a confusing world. What he discovered was that the answers we get are not necessarily great truths. There are some not so great truths out there. Dr. Seuss tells us things are going to ‘happen’ – not only good things, but also “Bang-ups” and “Hang-ups” as well… leading at times to a place where “the streets are not marked.” In other words, things may get confusing and great truths will be hard to tell from the not-so-great truths out there. He writes:

“Simple it’s not,

I’m afraid you will find,

for a mind-maker-upper

to make up his mind.”

“You’ll get mixed up, of course,

As you already know.

You’ll get mixed up

with many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step,

Step with care and great tact

And remember that life’s

A great balancing act.

Just never forget

to be dexterous and deft

And never mix up

your right foot with your left.

We live in what’s been called the information age. These graduates are a product of that age. Yesterday, I looked up some interesting facts: When today’s graduating seniors started high school, 1.5 billion people used the Internet, 210 billion emails were sent, there were 133 million blogs, 186 million websites and 1trillion text messages sent. Two years later, those numbers had increased to 2 billion Internet users, 107 trillion emails sent (about 294 billion per day), 152 million blogs, 255 million websites, 25 billion tweets sent on twitter, 600 million people on facebook, and 2.3 trillion text messages sent (estimated to be an average of 3,300 text messages a month for teenagers). So, imagine what the numbers must be today. And that doesn’t include other sources of electronic information. The amount of information to sort through everyday can be overwhelming. Even after it is screened and filtered, all that data can require a lot of our time and energy. There is a lot of information to take in… even more to overlook. Any great truths we may find are few and far between.

William James, American philosopher & psychologist (1842 - 1910), wrote over a hundred years ago: “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” How true that is. A lot of ‘truths’ of this world can be worthless. However, it would be wise to believe Jesus’ truth when he says in today’s gospel, “If you (do what I say), you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

You’re off to great places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting,

So… get on your way.”

And as you go, may the love of Jesus Christ be with you always! Amen.