Give Me a Clue

We live in a world, where we are put in a strange double bind by words. On the one hand, we are literally being talked to death. Where can we escape from words? The average house has no soundproof room, where you can escape the bombardment of words. Whether it be the constant, incessant chatter of the radio or television, or the personal intrusion of others in this highly concentrated, urbanized, city life of ours, words are everywhere. To protect ourselves, we have learned to turn off words, as though we have listened on earphones. Sometimes our filters do not work, and we turn off important words along with the trivial.

Sometimes, I wish you could look at the faces of a congregation, as I preach on any given Sunday morning. There is a disease called narcolepsy—which is a disorder that causes one to escape from the irritants of life through sleep. There are generally several people in every congregation who have narcolepsy. Then, there are those whose far-away-smile shows that they are way off on a lake landing a fish or reliving some humorous experience in their lives, while the minister is trying to preach to them. In fact, I often feel we use the same technique with the minister as we do with our television set: “If it’s not a good show we turn it off”. Unless the preacher puts on a good show, turn him off.

Now, there is another side to this dilemma of words that is our double bind. Words are a necessary part of living. For example, there is the husband who feels his wife is constantly nagging him, but when she was gone, he misses her tremendously. Recently, there was a story of a man who crossed the Atlantic alone in a small boat. However, after some time at sea, the solitude got to him, and he began hallucinating. Erich Fromm, in his book: “Escape from Freedom,” suggests the one thing a human cannot stand is too much freedom or too much solitude. From the moment a child is born, the child begins to put down social roots. The child cries when the mother leaves, and the child cries when put in the crib and is left alone. Much of our lives is spent escaping from freedom—the kind of freedom that isolates us from our fellow humans.

We dare not underestimate the power of words. A good example is Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. The address is just 272 words and was given in under 5 minutes. You will remember Lincoln said: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here”. The strange thing is the opposite is true. Very few in the world remember the real significance of the battle of Gettysburg. However, who is there in this room or in America who does not know most of the words of from the “Gettysburg Address”?

If we go back further in American history, we can trace the power of the words of Tom Payne, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and the rest founding fathers. Many of the words that framed the American Constitution were more decisive, than the War of the Revolution. When the history of the Civil War was written, there were many writers who felt that the pulpit of Henry Ward Beecher, the pen of his sister Harriett Beecher Stowe, the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier and the speeches of Abe Lincoln were more decisive than the war fought. When the history of the twentieth century is written, who knows if perchance the great dreams for world peace and unity spoken by Woodrow Wilson may not be looked on as more decisive than our world wars in shaping the history of the world.

When installing a minister in a congregation, we place upon the new minister many responsibilities, and a prime responsibilities is making and speaking of many words. This responsibility is an underestimated facet of what a minister does. The apostle Paul put it this way: “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those that believe”.

In our text of the day from Acts 8:26-40, the Apostle Philip was walking down a road that you cannot walk today. It was the little road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza. Today, the road has a blockade across it, and no one has permission to travel that road. While on that road, he met a high official of the Ethiopian government riding along in his chariot. To his amazement, he found the Ethiopian was reading a copy of the scriptures. Philip felt impelled by God to go up to him and say, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian answered: “How can I understand, unless someone will give me the clue?”

The story is to me the parable for our times. Many years ago, there lived a strange and wonderful man called Jesus. Those who knew him, believed he was the incarnation of God. Those who followed him were dynamically changed by him. After he left this world, they wrote down many of his words and their experiences with him. The world has never been able to forget those words or that man. We still have the words of his followers with us—we call it the Bible. People are wistfully trying to read the book as the Ethiopian was trying to do that day. People find his words hard to comprehend. So, they come to the church and ask their minister: “Will you give me a clue, so that I can understand it?”Strange to say, in the church, some people find the clue to the book through the preaching of the word, and their lives are dynamically changed.

I would like to share an answer to two important questions I was asked recently. A young man asked, “I lived abroad in a very wonderful home in Thailand with a family. The family deeply loved each other and had a deep religious belief that meant much to them. Why should we send missionaries to them?”

I met a young student from India who was a Hindi graduate student at the University of California. He asked, “I am thinking of embracing Christianity. Why do I have to give up all my Hinduism to become a Christian?”

I again hear the words of the Ethiopian resounding in my ears “How can I understand, unless someone gives me a clue”? 

My answer is that in Jesus Christ I find the answers to the needs of my life. I am reminded of the words of John 1:14: “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the faith full of grace and truth.”

My answer to this young Hindu is as I remembered Paul on Mars Hill (Acts 17:22-31). All in Hinduism is not wrong. However, when I came to Jesus, I saw the kind of person I ought to be. Particularly I see how I ought to relate to all people including the woman on the temple steps, the man Zacchaeus, Peter after his denial, and the forgiveness from the cross. 

He is indeed Lord of all life. In Philippians 2, the passage says that he is Lord because he walked in our shoes so perfectly in obediently: “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”

He is exalted because he is the second Adam and the true man. In the face of Jesus, I saw God as in no other place. As a child, I made my pilgrimage to the manger, and I believed I saw God there. How easy it is to turn the picture off. My experience in a church as boy in Canada, where someone said to me, “Art you have turned off Jesus”. How easy it is to do this. In our church membership class, we ask what picture comes to mind when I say: “God is love”. All I really know of God I see in the face of Jesus Christ. 

I remember seeing the glory of skies coming down from Mount Hood bringing a group of young skiers down from Mount Hood. The beauty of the scarlet mountain. Who could deny God in the light of the such beauty? But if I had not known Jesus would I have said this? Then, there is the power of his love for us to say, “I love you so much that I gave my life for you on the cross that you might see and believe”. 

He was called “teacher”, and there was no one ever taught like him. Men who sat under the teacher began to think like him pray like him act like him and ultimately were willing to die like him. He called forth humanity as no one ever had before. Jesus was the teacher of Nicodemus, as we know he was the teacher come from God. 

He was the master of the parable. The message he left was the message of love. He loved people and left a dream in their hearts of a Kingdom they were willing to give their lives to build. It was a Kingdom where one could live in obedience to God and have forgiveness for others. He called forth the humanity in his followers. 

Finally, they call him Lord not because he was God, and indeed he was truly God, but because he was also truly man. When the early disciples wanted to know how forgiving they must be, they remembered his forgiveness on the day of the cross. When they wanted to know how dedicated they should be, they looked to the one obedient until death. He was God’s true humanity. He showed what men could be like, man in fellowship with God, man a son of God. 

I find he stands supremely alone in my life. I could not go on, if I did not know his forgiveness, “thy sins be forgiven”. When I am in closest touch with him, I find the most power in my life. His giving me a dream big enough to live for. His giving me an intimacy with my heavenly father to which I can give my life. 

He stands as a rebuke to weakness, but he never leaves me in weakness. As I reach out my hand to him, I find myself accepted by him. My hand is made strong. Christ is supreme! 

The Christian theologian, Leslie Weatherhead, believed in the divinity of Christ, in that Jesus had a special relationship to God, indeed an incarnation of God. Preaching in India to a congregation, who had never heard about Christ, a Hindu man said to him, “Sir I have known him all my life, but now you have given me a name”. Helen Keller when she finally learned to receive messages, she was told about Jesus. She replied, “I knew there must be someone like that”. A member of our church recently said, “What would I do without Christ?” 

Christ stands supremely alone. There is no Salvation in anyone else at all, for there is no other name under heaven granted to us by which we may receive Salvation. 

Have you really received him? Have you let him in? 

He wakes desires in you will never forget! He shows you stars you have never seen before. He makes you share with him for evermore, the burden of the world’s divine regret. 

How wise were you were to open not, and yet how poor you are if you should answer not and turn him from the door?