by Dr. Edward Chinn
Pastor, All Saints’ Church
Sunday, 20 February 2000
A turtle sits on top of a fence post. This is a real picture. It hung in the office of someone I think you know. This man was born in 1921. When he was eighteen years old (1939), he joined the Coast Guard. He spent twenty years in this service. He left the Coast Guard in 1959. All through the 1960s and early 1970s, he wrote short stories for magazines. While he was doing this writing, he also researched his family’s history. He looked into the roots of his family tree. This was the name of the book he wrote and was published in 1976. Alex Haley wrote the book Roots. He traced his family back to Gambia in Africa. There, Haley’s ancestor, Kunta Kinte, was kidnapped in 1767 and taken to America as a slave. The book Roots followed the struggles of Haley’s family in America as slaves and later as a free people. In 1977, Roots appeared on television as an eight-part dramatization. The final episode attracted one of the largest audiences in television history.
Alex Haley went from a man in the Coast Guard to a nationally acclaimed author. He kept in his office this picture of a turtle on a fence post. People asked about the picture. Haley would explain, “This turtle did not get up there on the fence post on its own. Someone gave it a lift. Likewise, I did not reach this position as an author without help. Friends gave me a lift.” This is our theme today: “Friends Give You a Lift.”
A Boy Gave a Friend a Lift with a Mirror
When you were little, did you ever take a mirror and let sunlight reflect from the mirror and direct it to a spot you chose? A little boy stood on the parking lot of a hospital. He had a mirror in his hand. He had a friend named Joe who was a patient in the hospital. Because of his young age, this little boy could not get into the hospital to see his friend who was in a third-floor room. A hospital guard approached the boy and asked, “What are you doing here with that mirror?” The boy explained, “My friend Joe is up there in that room. I’m not allowed to go up to see him. So, I’m directing sunshine into his room. When he sees this spot of sunlight on his ceiling, he’ll know I’m down here thinking about him.” Here was a little friend giving his friend a lift.
A Friend Gave Jim Bakker a Lift
Consider the time when a person is in the wrong. Listen to Mark Twain, “The proper work of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.” I cannot think of many persons who have been more publicly disgraced and held to be in the wrong than Jim Bakker. Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye, were television evangelists. In October 1989, Bakker was convicted of 24 counts of mail fraud. He was accused of defrauding followers of his PTL television ministry. These followers had sent $158 million for partnerships in a vacation park (Heritage USA) in South Carolina. While he was in prison, his wife, Tammy, divorced Bakker.
A few years ago Jim Bakker was released from prison. He was in the wrong. However, friends give you a lift, even when you are in the wrong! Jim Bakker is a friend of Bob Gass. Gass came from Ireland when he was 18 years old and has become the author of a daily devotional booklet, The Word for Today. He wrote this: “Jim Bakker told me that when he got out of prison one of the first people to befriend him was Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham. Franklin provided him with a home and a car and a guarantee that he’d be there for him. That Sunday, Franklin’s mother, Ruth, took Jim to church, sat him in the family pew beside her, and introduced him to all their friends. Afterwards she took him home to join the family for dinner. It moved Jim deeply because many who sought his favor and friendship in the days of his fame ran for cover when trouble hit him” (Bob Gass, The Word for Today, March 15). Friends give you a lift.
Friends Gave a Paralyzed Man a Lift
Here is a paralyzed man lying in front of Jesus. How did he get there? Four friends gave this man a lift on a stretcher and carried him to the spot in front of Jesus of Nazareth. “Seeing how much faith [these four men] had, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, ‘My son, your sins are forgiven'” (Mark 2:5). As a friend, Jesus gave this man the further lift of assuring him of God’s forgiveness and releasing him from his paralysis. Friends carry us when we are down. The difference between a true friend and a false friend is this. When you are down,a true friend gives you cheers; a false friend gives you sneers and puts you down even further.
A Friend Gave a Man Named Joe a Lift.
There was a man named Joe, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1819. In 1842, when he was 23 years old, he graduated from the University of Dublin. He was to be married to a lovely young girl. The evening before the wedding ceremony, there was a knock at his apartment door. He opened the door and saw a policeman standing there. The policeman told him that the woman he was to marry the next day had been drowned. Joe plunged into deep grief. He could hardly think clearly. He could not work as a teacher. After several months of such grief, Joe decided that he had to leave Dublin, even though his mother lived there.
Joe went to Canada and arrived at Port Hope on the northern shore of Lake Ontario. Joe became a private tutor to the children of a family named Pengelley whose estate was ten miles north of Port Hope. Late one night in 1855, Joe wrote a tribute to a friend. This friend had given Joe a lift when he was weighed down with loneliness and overcome with sadness. You know this tribute that Joseph Scriven wrote to his best friend.
What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer.
You have a Friend who wants to give you a lift. This Friend is Jesus of Nazareth, whom we hail as the Christ, the representative of God here on planet Earth. Christianity is the friendship of Jesus, and in this friendship is the offer of God’s friendship. As St. Paul wrote, “God was in Christ making all human beings his friends” (2 Corinthians 5:19).
Cheers,
(The Rev.) Edward Chinn, D.Min.
Rector, All Saints’ Church
Discussion
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