Haddon Robinson

Just recently, two maids riding in our Dallas transit buses were discussing the lot that they had. One of them, frustrated by the people that she served, said, don't you wish sometimes you could just squeeze off their heads? And the other one said, no, I don't feel that way. All of the people for whom I work are Christians and they're very kind. That word spoken in a Dallas bus spoke something about the motivation of the Christian faith. Love.

We see it sometimes at the seminary. Here is a young man who decides that God wants him to serve in some distant place beyond the borders of the United States. He comes to his parents to tell them of the call of Christ, and the mother may respond, but you can serve Christ just as well here at home. There are places closer at hand rather than to go to some distant, dark place such as that. The boy responds, but that's where God has called me. And the mother says, but you'll be taking our grandchild with you, and you'll be away for four or five years, and we won't see that child grow up. And the boy says, but I must go. That's God's will for me. The mother will break down and weep and say, you must hate us. You must hate us to treat your father and me this way. But that's not hate at all. It's just that the commitment to Jesus Christ has taken prior claim even over the commitments of parents. But to a parent who does not understand the commitment, it can almost seem like hatred.

I was ministering in the state of Illinois a couple of years ago during the Halloween week, the day after Halloween, one of the ladies in the church came up to me to tell me that she had used the trick or treat the night before for evangelistic advantage. I was intrigued as to what she had done. And she said that for every child who came to her door the night before, she'd given them a tract with a pumpkin on the front of it. I don't know about you, but that didn't set me afire with enthusiasm. It may seem to me that a youngster who came to your door looking for a treat, being given a tract, would have thought he was tricked. And. And so I, I said, well, what in the world made you think they would ever read the tract? And then she said, with a twinkle in her eye, well, I wrapped each track around a 10 cent box of Cracker Jacks.

Those of you who are football buffs found that out last year. The Pittsburgh Steelers were playing the Oakland Raiders in the playoffs, and Oakland had won the game. They had been the better team. And with just a second or two left, the Pittsburgh quarterback faded back and flung a pass, and the Oakland defenders were all over it. One of the men just knocked it down. Soon as he did, the Oakland team began to hug each other. They'd won, except that the ball didn't fall to the ground, popped up in the air into the arms of Franco Harris, who happened to be running down the sideline and by his own admission was as surprised as the millions who were watching and trotted into the end zone and won the game. The next day there's a picture of the quarterback of the Pittsburgh team or of the Oakland team, and he's sitting in the stall in his dressing room, head in his hands, and underneath it says, how could it happen? You often ask that. You often discover that life is filled with things like that. There are times when the turtles come in first and the rabbits come in last. There are even times when the Dallas Cowboys look.

Let's suppose that this evening in the worship service that you contribute a $20 bill. Let's suppose that the treasurer of the church took that $20 bill and used it to pay me an honorarium. Then let's suppose that I took that $20 bill and used it to buy some groceries. Imagine the grocer takes the twenty dollar bill and he uses it to pay the rent. And the landlord takes that $20 bill and he uses it to buy a suit of clothes. And the clothier takes that twenty dollar bill and a lot of bills like it and he carries them to the bank. Mr. Teller is counting out the money. He comes to your $20bill and he discovers that it's counterfeit. Now that bill has gone all over Dallas doing good things. It has contributed to the offering. It has paid an honorarium. It has purchased groceries. It has paid the rent. It has bought the suit of clothes. But when that bill gets to the bank, when it gets to the place where real values count, it is discovered to be worthless.

You can understand this. Here are folks who had learned their geometry lesson well. They had learned that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. And once these folks knew where they wanted to go, they got there. It didn't bother them whom they had to crawl over in order to have their way.

Let's suppose that I wanted to play the piano. You must know that that is the height of supposition. Somehow, when God gave me these fingers, he filled them with lead, and try as I will, I just cannot make them move. I listen to this beautiful music and watch hands on the piano or a violin. And I know that's not for me, but let's suppose I wanted it to be. I want to play the piano. So I decide to go to a concert and listen to Van Clyburn play. And I'm impressed. As he plays, I can almost hear the birds singing in the springtime. I can hear the thunder. I can feel the emotion. And when he's all through, I think he's capable of teaching me. I walk up to him and say, Mr. Clyburn, I'd like to play the piano. Suppose he said to me, well, Robinson, I'd like to help you. Look, I'll sit down and play again. And you watch my fingers. And you follow my example. And when I'm through, you give it a try. So I watch as his fingers sweep across the keys. And when he's all through, he finishes with a flourish and says, now you do it. So I'm going to imitate Van Clyburn. I get my coat up straight, and then I. I start to play. And the fingers are lead. Nothing happens. Let's suppose that I were to find a way, or Van Cliburn was to find a way. Somehow he could pour his life through mine. That he could make his talent available through my life. Suppose he said to me now, Robinson, there's the music, and you read it. Did you play that music? Somehow my talent will flow through you. I'd sit down, and now it'd be different. I'd be reading the music, and I would be playing. And somehow from these leaden fingers. There would come forth music not totally like his. They would still be the old leaden fingers. But there would be his talent, his skill. And I would play. And suddenly there would come from this hand of mine, music. And after a time I would think, I've got the hang of it now. I don't need him. I can go back to doing it myself. The fingers become like lead.

H.G. wells was a critic of the church, and in his own way, I think, was one of our good friends. In one of the stories that he wrote for New Yorker magazine several years ago, he imagined that an Episcopalian bishop in a church in New York, he picked on the Episcopalians, but he could have picked on Presbyterians or Methodists or people in Believers chapel. But he imagined this Episcopalian bishop. He was a man who had folks come to him for counsel, and he had some platitudes he used that he thought were especially effective. If you said them in just the right way, they could sound very pious and religious. And one that he liked especially was to say to somebody who had come to him with a problem, have you prayed about it? He found that if he said it in just the right tone, it seemed like spiritual counsel. The trouble was that the bishop never prayed very much himself. Life was in a nice neat package for him, all wrapped up in his back pocket, and he didn't have much need of prayer. And then one day, Wells imagined that life tumbled in on this good bishop, and he decided that maybe it would be good to try his own advice. And one Saturday afternoon when the cathedral was empty, he walked down to the front and knelt on the crimson carpet and looked up and folded his hands and thought how childlike and simple he was. Then he said, oh, God. And there was a voice, crisp and businesslike, and the voice said, well, what is it? The next day when the worshippers came to church, they found the bishop sprawled face down in the front of the cathedral. When they turned them over, they saw that there were lines of terror etched upon his face. What H.G. wells was saying was simply this, that there are a great many folks talking about God, and perhaps in some way praying to him would Be scared to death if they discovered that they were really in his presence.

Well, in the words of the great poet, as Tommy Snooks and Bessie Brooks were leaving church one Sunday, said Tommy Snooks to Bessie Brooks, tomorrow will be Monday.

Frankly, I think that one of the reasons that a great many marriages falter and fail is because young couples come to the marriage altar and have never thought through the cost of that committal that they make to each other. The minister says that marriage ought not be entered into lightly or unadvisedly, but reverently and thoughtfully and in the fear of the Lord. But it is often there that couples make their mistake in the glow of marriage. They get caught up in a committal that they have not thought about. While they cannot weigh all of the costs of that relationship, they certainly can weigh some of them. And the failure to do so often causes a shattered marriage. And that hurts both the couple and their children. There can be disgrace and embarrassment and even a kind of disaster.

Early this summer, I came in my own life to an illustration of this verse. I was invited to a dinner at $50 a plate. I assure you I don't go to dinners at $50 a plate when I'm paying for the plate. As I look at our meat bill at home, however, I think I'm getting dangerously close to that. But in this case, I was invited to go as someone else's guest. Someone else was paying the tab. In fact, when I was in the office of the man who was sponsoring the dinner, one of the ladies in Dallas who had obviously contributed generously to the cause, was saying to him something like, I wish you would do me a favor. I know you're going to have roast beef and potatoes with sour cream and a rich dessert, but I can't eat it, so could you see that I would have a bowl of bread with some milk on it. That's what I'm able to digest. That's what he says. When you're young and lean and hungry, you eat hamburger and hamburger Helper. And when you're old and successful and have a bank account and you can afford steak, your digestion just won't stand it. There's a mystery there you don't quite understand why God has put the world together that way, why the hungry people don't have the big banquets. But you can't figure it out. That's the way life is.

William Carey was a brilliant missionary. He was a cobbler, a repairer of shoes. But he learned 34 different languages. And India has the Bible today because of the work of William Carey. When William Carey went to India, he was not accepted by the British citizens that were serving there. Many of them came from nobility. One evening, we are told, William Carey went to a dinner party and one of the men sitting next to him, in a rather loud voice, decided to put him down. He said, Mr. Carey, I understand that you spent a large part of your life as a shoemaker. William Carey said, no, sir, that's not accurate. I did not have enough ability to make shoes. I simply repaired them. That response of that gracious man indicated something about his own view of himself. He was not interested in impressing British nobility. William Carey lived before God and had an enchanting humility.