The sadness of it is that ultimately placing "me" at the center is a broken, lonely, and lost condition. What’s even more sad is that people who are enslaved by the religion of sin can’t even see it. They "don’t have a problem" from their point of view, even though bits and pieces have been breaking off and flying off every which way - things that matter.

There is that other force I mentioned earlier, centripetal force. I’m not all that adept at science, but I wonder if this wouldn’t be a good way of describing the power of God in our lives. In many ways, we can’t stop the record player of life from spinning. The world keeps turning. Life goes on. But there is a different force at work pulling together what is most important, drawing those whom God loves toward the Kingdom.

It’s interesting to see these centrifugal and centripetal forces interact in people’s lives, and I’m not talking in scientific terms. Maybe "interesting" is not the right word. I’ve walked with persons whose lives were being pulled apart by sin. In so many cases the opposite power seemed so obvious to me - how God was at work in their lives, reaching out to them like a shepherd after that one lost sheep, seeking to pull them toward the true center.

I can well remember one fellow in a previous church who had so many wake up calls that I envisioned God as like the "hound of heaven ... baying at his heels," to borrow an image from Francis Thompson’s famous poem. I’ve known others who just could not seem to see the obvious. In some cases they blamed God, and didn’t believe in him, because of all the rotten things which had happened to and around them. However, they weren’t looking at what God was doing for good then and there, in answer to the prayer of others, some being what we might call miracles.

The funny thing about this centrifugal force called sin. We tend to think of it as "freedom." But what really is freedom? Is it the ability to do whatsoever I want to do, whenever I want to do it, however I want to do it? Is that what makes a person free? Is it a matter of not having any limitations, not being confined by rules or boundaries? Is that what makes us free? If so, we might want to be careful what we long for. Such freedom comes at a high price. In the long run, that kind of freedom just leaves us broken, lost, and alone.

Let me return to the lyrics of that song by Jewel. "I won't be made useless," she sings. "I won't be idle with despair. I will gather myself around my faith, for light does the darkness most fear. My hands are small, I know. But they're not yours, they are my own. And I am never broken." Indeed, this song is full of "I" language, but I hear a difference - perhaps another power at work (as I said, I know little of this songwriter’s background or beliefs). Later on in the song, she sings, "In the end, only kindness matters. I will get down on my knees, and I will pray. My hands are small, I know. But they're not yours, they are my own. But they're not yours, they are my own. And I am never broken. We are God's eyes. God's hands. God's heart."

Whether or not those words were originally Christ-centered, we can make them so in our hearing. Our hands are God’s hands. That, however, is choice we are free to make. When, in our true God-given freedom, we choose to live in a right-relationship with God, made right by Jesus Christ, the centripetal power of God really kicks in. That doesn’t mean we don’t experience the heartache and struggle that come with living in a world that still operates by the centrifugal force of sin. The turntable still goes round. The difference is that we are being pulled closer to God, not pushed away. In the process, our priorities become (as in the motto of Alexander Mack) "the glory of God and our neighbor’s good." Our hands become God’s hands. In freedom, we serve a different master than the great trinity of "me, myself, and I." And we come to know what real life is.

Speaking of songs, the words to our final hymn were written by a fellow named John Naas. Perhaps some of you remember who he was, maybe from a children’s book in our library entitled The Tall Man. Indeed, John Naas was a tall man, standing more than six feet. In the early eighteenth century was an itinerant Brethren preacher, traveling across Germany, drawing people toward God in Christ. According to tradition, one day agents of the king of Prussia took him by force in order to draft him into the king’s personal guards. You see, when you are king, it’s wise to have persons taller than yourself standing around you as protection, just in case.

Of course, John Naas refused to enlist, which infuriated the king’s officials. So they tortured him and threw him in a dungeon. According to the story as it has been passed on, they hung John by his left thumb and right toe, and left him in his cell that way to think it over. Even that didn’t change his mind. Later on, he was brought before the king himself and asked to explain why he would not become a soldier. There he told the king, "I have already long ago enlisted... My captain is the great Prince Emmanuel, our Lord, Jesus Christ."

John Naas was released in order to serve his king. He became a prominent leader among the Brethren, and later emigrated to the colonies, helping to establish not only his home congregation in Amwell, New Jersey, but also several others in eastern Pennsylvania. He was also a poet, and our last hymn makes use of three stanzas of what was originally a seventeen-verse poem. The composer of the hymn, William Beery, was ninety two years old when he put John Naas’ words to music, serving the same king as John did.