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HIRED GUNS FOR JESUS #8
THE DISINTERESTED DOCTOR
For those of you interested in a little bit of free
Wednesday career guidance here on the radio, I offer for your consideration
an old Peanuts cartoon by the late Charles Schulz. Apparently, Linus had
a dream of being Dr. Van Pelt, M.D., and was foolish enough to share his
visions with cynical sister Lucy. Big mistake. She’s jumping rope on the
sidewalk as she hears about his career goals, and immediately scoffs:
“You a doctor! Ha! That’s a big laugh!” She sets down the rope so she
can really give him a five-cent psychiatric diagnosis. “You could never
be a doctor! You know why?” Linus is smart enough to say nothing, but
that doesn’t stop Dr. Lucy from answering her own question. “Because you
don’t love mankind, that’s why!” Finally Linus has something to say in
response. “I love mankind . . . it’s PEOPLE I can’t stand!!”
You may be thinking right now, “Come to think of it, I think my HMO sent
me to that doctor for a while!” But is it possible to be a good doctor,
or a good teacher, or – we may as well cut to our radio topic – a good
Christian witness . . . if we really don’t like people?
Before we leave the Peanuts pediatric ward, we’ll duck in one more memory,
where Linus is again dreaming of a string of prestigious degrees after
his name from Harvard Medical School. And he tells Charlie Brown that
he’d like to be a humble country doctor without really having to live
in the humble country. “Well, how would you manage it?” Charlie Brown
wants to know. And Linus patiently explains to him that he’ll commute
out there to his humble clinic in a brand new red sports car. By the way,
theologian Robert Short, who wrote the classic book, The Gospel According
to “Peanuts,” takes his readers immediately to I Corinthians 13, where
Paul writes:
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels” –
which could be witnessing or evangelism or overseas projects – “but have
not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
And I think what these Linus-and-Lucy lessons are trying
to teach us is this: we are simply not going to be able to do what Jesus
says and take the gospel to the world unless we love people. Simple as
that. No love, no lasting results. It is possible to have programs; the
Church is great at designing systems and flow charts – as well it should.
But if the people in the trenches don’t actually care about the people
they’re witnessing to, the results will be artificial or non-existent.
We’ve gratefully cited some very nice nuggets of truth from John Stott’s
recent book, The Contemporary Christian, and after quoting First Corinthians
for us, he observes:
“The great apostle of faith is clear that love is greater
than faith.”
A few pages later, this same writer makes a strong
statement; see what you think:
“Love is always seeking the true welfare of others,
at whatever personal cost.”
So many of the great missionary stories through the
centuries reveal the character of men and women whose hearts just overflowed
with love for those they went to serve. I mentioned Harry Miller, the
incredible “China Doctor.” All through the pages of Raymond Moore’s biography,
it’s clear that this humble M.D. just loved the people of China. He loved
those who were converted to Christianity, and he also loved those who
didn’t. He loved those in high stations, and also the penniless peasants.
Decade after decade, as he outlived two wives, he just kept getting on
ships and going back to be with these people he loved so much.
By the way, this love helps to set up the powerful dynamic or “double
identity” that Dr. Stott suggests leads to effective witnessing.
“The Church,” he writes, “is a people who have been
both called out of the world to worship God and sent back into the world
to witness and serve.”
One recent Bible study curriculum in my own denomination
suggested that church has three purposes: an upward purpose, to glorify
God, an inward purpose, to grow spiritually and strengthen fellowship,
and an outward purpose, to preach the gospel. And unless the upward and
inward flows of spiritual strength help us to love others outside our
circle, we simply won’t have the motivation to expend our resources or
our SELVES on behalf of others.
So what does the Christian actually DO in order to learn to love? We’ve
already hinted at one thing: make sure those upward moments – worshiping
God – and inward moments – growing spiritually with our friends – are
happening regularly. I’ve heard more times than I can count from fellow
believers who wearily decided that church was hard to get to, and that
9:30 a.m. was just not a possibility on a Sabbath or Sunday morning. “I
can worship God in my own way at the beach,” they say. And maybe so, but
I honestly cannot remember when a person like that had a vibrant passion
for witnessing and sharing. By the way, even though “programs” and flow
charts are not the end-all and be-all of witnessing, there are some outreach
projects that it’s pretty hard to do all by yourself.
Then you simply need to determine, by God’s grace, to live in a lifestyle
where you get to meet and know people. Where the people across the street
and the other folks in your local parent-teacher association or condo
association don’t remain strangers. Bill Hybels, author of a number of
witnessing books, tells how he goes sailing with eight or nine non-believers.
Now, I think Bill honestly does like to sail, so he’s not having to force
himself. But he CHOOSES to be with those eight guys. He could just go
out on Lake Michigan with some friends from his prayer circle, but he
doesn’t do that. He gets out there in the sun and the surf with eight
non-praying, non-church-going, and non-NON-alcoholic drinking – please
notice the double negative there – guys. The water is salty and the language
even saltier, but I think Bill Hybels honestly loves those people. He
tries to see them as Jesus sees them: potential trophies for heaven’s
kingdom.
That reminds me to mention – and I say this to myself – that while we
do want to sign people up for heavenly mansions, if we truly and unselfishly
love them, then we’re also going to care what kind of house they live
in right now, and what kind of food they might have in their kitchen.
True, our greatest concern is for the next 100 million years, which we
want them to enjoy in God’s forever land of abundance. But it’s pretty
hard to interest people in heaven’s invisible abundance, when the food
in today’s pantry is invisible too. If we really care about these people,
then that care has to begin with where they are right now. In his book,
Loving God, Chuck Colson points out that Jesus . . .
“ . . . was concerned not only with saving man from
hell in the next world, but with delivering him from the hellishness of
this one.”
And a Raymond Bakke, writing in a magazine entitled
Urban Mission, once suggested:
“We Christians are the only people on this earth who
have the integrated world view of matter and spirit that enables us to
tackle sewer system development and the salvation of souls with equal
gusto.”
What should you do if you simply aren’t the type to have many mushy-helpy
feelings in your heart for someone who needs saving? There’s a lady living
in the poorest part of town. Her husband is an alcoholic, and she doesn’t
have any health care benefits. Her two daughters are growing up ragged
and rebellious. That flaky lady and her two stale-smelling kids are never
going to get to Sunday School – not a chance – unless you stop by and
pick them up. And I mean, every week. Do you really want three malodorous
down-and-outers in the back seat of your new SUV? Maybe not. Your natural
impulse is to just glide to church yourself surrounded by a cloud of your
own Sabbath deodorant, and let this lady pull herself up by her own bootstraps,
except that she can’t afford bootstraps.
But two things. First of all – FACT. Jesus loves that woman. He loves
her HUGELY. He loves her extravagantly. What does it say about Christianity
if we don’t care enough to give her a ride to Sunday School and church?
Point #2: so you don’t FEEL like you care. You don’t FEEL any love. Since
when were feelings a reliable indication of anything? It’s been suggested
that, most of the time, the thing we ought to do, the thing we know in
our heart is noble, is the thing we don’t want to do. It’s going to be
Plan B every time. So what do we do? Friend, we just go ahead and DO IT
. . . while we wait for the feelings to kick in. C. S. Lewis once advised
his reluctant readers – paraphrasing: “Just ask yourself what you would
do if you did feel loving. Once you’ve figured out what that thing is,
go and do it. The loving feelings will come soon enough.” Let’s remember
that Jesus didn’t feel like dying on the cross that Friday afternoon.
At that pivotal moment, His love for the human race had to be pure theory,
pure trust-in-God fact, and not one shred of emotion. But He did what
He factually knew to be the loving and redemptive thing . . . and here
we are. “Go and do thou likewise.”
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