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DOES REV. MOON
DESERVE TO BE A MILLIONAIRE #5
QUEUING UP FOR SERVICE
For close to a CENTURY, one man's name was synonymous
with this description: THE CHINA DOCTOR. Dr. Harry Miller, who lived to
be almost 100, spent many long decades in mission service for the people
of mainland China. Beginning back at the turn of the century, this innovative
surgeon and servant of God sacrificed fame and fortune here in the United
States in order to be a blessing to his beloved China.
We've told bits of his story here before on the Voice of Prophecy, how
a renowned specialist like Harry Miller, who served two U.S. presidents,
chose instead the poverty of mission work. And how he ministered to peasants
and premiers alike in China; in fact, one of the most exciting stories
in the biography, China Doctor, is how Miller personally cured "The
Young Marshal," Chang Hsüeh-liang, ruler of Manchuria, of his
dreaded opium addiction. And how when the marshal handed Miller a personal
check for $50,000, telling him, "This is for YOU, Dr. Miller. Buy
yourself a house or an airplane," Miller promptly turned the funds
over to the Christian mission for the construction of a new hospital.
But our vignette for today is how Dr. Harry Miller and his partner in
mission work, Arthur Selmon, made a painful decision when first arriving
in China. The custom back in the turn of the century was for men to wear
long, flowing silk robes . . . AND to wear their hair in a long queue,
or ponytail. The whole head would be shaved except for this long queue
hanging down in the back, and worn with a mao tze or skullcap. "Loyalty
by pigtail" was a sign of submission to the Manchu government. Of
course, Miller and Selmon had just come off the boat with very American-style
haircuts. And these two white-skinned, fair-haired and SHORT-haired doctors
debated: should we do it? Should we assimilate ourselves with the Chinese
people, even dressing like them, in order to win them to Christ?
Perhaps a verse from here in First Corinthians chapter nine is what carried
the day for them. The apostle Paul, writing to the people in Corinth,
made this statement in describing to what LENGTHS HE would go to be a
witness for God.
"To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win
the Jews . . . To those not having the law I became like one not having
the law . . . so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became
weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by
all possible means I might save some."
Well, Harry and Arthur, applying those words to their
own experience in China, decided that if it was good enough for Paul,
it was good enough for them. Trading in their Western clothes, they purchased
the same long Chinese robes as the local men. Which, the first time they
walked down the street with their long, ungainly American strides, they
promptly ripped right up the middle!
But then came choice number TWO . . . how about the QUEUE? Would they
shave their heads and grow long ponytails? Yes, they decided. So they
went down to the barbershop, got the closest trims of their lives, and
even managed to buy a couple of fair-haired WIGS or pony-tail extensions
until their own hair should grow out to regulation Chinese length. You
can imagine the horror of their young brides, Maude and Bertha, when these
virtual STRANGERS, their own husbands, showed up for dinner that evening.
Well, it's kind of a cute, SAFE story for some of us remembering it nearly
a century later. But it's still a compelling AND fascinating biblical
principle — that Christians will carefully endeavor to identify with and
become like those they're trying to reach for Jesus Christ.
We quoted yesterday from John Stott's book, The Contemporary Christian.
And in his chapter, "The Christology of Mission," he includes
these verses from Paul, and then adds: "This is the principle of
the incarnation. It is identification with people WHERE THEY LIVE."
Stott then goes on to tell a couple of his own favorite "China Doctor"
stories.
"In 1732 Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian
leader, sent two of his missionaries to the West Indian sugar plantations.
They found that the only way to reach the African slaves was to join their
chain gangs and share their huts. In 1882 Major Frederick Tucker launched
the Salvation Army in India. [Founder] General Booth's last words to him
were: ‘Get into their skins, Tucker.' He did. Deeply concerned for the
outcastes, he decided that he and his soldiers must live their life. So
they donned saffron robes, adopted Indian names, walked barefoot, cleaned
their teeth with charcoal and ate their curry and water sitting cross-legged
on the floor."
That Salvation Army story comes from a Richard Collier
book entitled The General Next to God.
For those of us living in the comparative comfort of the West here in
the year 1999, Pastor Stott contends that we too have this same challenge.
It may not be a Chinese ponytail queue or the saffron robes of India,
but we're challenged by the apostle Paul to still identify with those
we want to reach for Christ.
"There is the need to enter into other people's
THOUGHT world," he writes.
And friend, on both the receiving and the sending
end, this is what I want to challenge you with today. Are you getting
into the thought patterns of your neighbors, your secular friends, your
unsaved relatives? Do you try to think like the teenagers next door, the
different ethnic groups in your neighborhood, the people whose struggling
marriage is so much more ravaged than your own? To paraphrase Paul, are
you willing to consider the mindset of a divorced person, a pregnant teenager,
a drug addict, an out-of-work single dad . . . for the purpose of reaching
those people?
Here at the Voice of Prophecy, we desperately want for God to keep our
focus on this very mission. We don't want to be an aloof team, isolated
from each other and from YOU. We want to mingle with you and love you
and relate to you, both here on the radio and as we leave these studios
and go out into the world — our own neighborhoods and to speaking appointments
around the world. It's so easy to get comfortable in an ivory tower and
just come down once a week to make some radio programs, but friend, WE
DON'T WANT THAT . . . because it violates the spirit of this Bible passage.
It violates the very spirit of Jesus Himself, who came down here not just
to be WITH us, but to BE LIKE us.
The last couple of years we've kind of gotten whacked for a decision we
had made to expound, just in one radio series, on some of the spiritual
lessons to be found from the realm of baseball. "What are you doing,
Lonnie and David?" was a familiar theme in several letters. But I
want to tell you that there are some radio listeners out there for whom
sports is a great passion. In the month of April, Opening Day of the baseball
season is a whole lot more important to them than Easter Sunday. And so,
along with Paul, we kind of said, "To the baseball fan, we'll try
to BE baseball fans. We'll try to THINK like those ESPN viewers, those
season ticket holders."
Let me encourage you, friend, to be patient and even supportive of your
pastor when he or she tries to obey the apostle Paul in this area of ministry.
Maybe his sermon some weekend doesn't hit you at all — but it might be
hitting someone else. Maybe some kid has his bass guitar there at church
or at Sunday School, and you're tempted to be upset. But is that bit of
music a connecting point for that musically minded young person? You might
bristle during some sermon illustration where your silver-haired pastor
mentions the recent headline from a young musician named Madonna. Or he
actually spent a couple of research hours the night before watching MTV,
so that he has some song lyrics from Hootie and the Blowfish. I can promise
you, friend, there WILL be people in your congregation who will know what
he's talking about and who will sit up in expectation when the gospel
is given MEANING and REALITY for them.
It's the most precarious and challenging balancing act in the world; believe
me, we KNOW here at the Voice of Prophecy. To be "in the world"
but not "OF the world." To give the gospel message relevant
HANDLES and connection points that tie to CNN and teenage trends and the
interests and concerns of the disenfranchised and down-and-out. But for
2,000 years now, that glorious and noble word MISSION has meant that missionaries
have grown pigtails and eaten the local food and learned to THINK like
the local people.
Just as Jesus made such a long journey to a faraway planet with strange,
struggling people, and became like them in both appearance and in thinking,
it's a perilous journey here in 1999. It's hard and it's a process that
invites criticism. It always has and it always will. But that China Doctor,
Harry Miller, at the end of his illustrious, headline-making career, could
count literally hundreds of people — the ragged and the royal — who will
join him in the Kingdom of God.
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