The First One!

Well, this one was the first I ever preached. It could have done with expressing the main point a bit more explicitly, and there are plot-holes galore, but well, see what you think.

Sermon on 23rd February 2003
The third in a sermon series on “Faith, Hope and Love” based on 1 Cor xiii and St John xiii:31-35

Alex is a gifted linguist;
he works as a translator
for the diplomats.

He speaks many languages fluently
English,
Russian,
Arabic,
Kurdish,
Serbian,
Burkinabe... and so on.


He loves the way that Italian
rolls off the tongue,
the way that German builds bigger words
by adding smaller words,
and that he can still pronounce them.

He loves the idiosyncrasies of French,
that the French for "lost property"
literally means "found property".

He loves the way that
he can express his feelings to anyone,
simply anyone whom he meets.


While he is translating
for an Israeli General
at a briefing
for an American Diplomat
a bomb goes off.

As the ceiling comes down,
a block of masonry
strikes Alex on the head.


In the hospital, Alex wakes up.
He asks for a glass of water.

He tries to ask for a glass of water.

But there are no words,
just the sound of the explosion ringing in his ears.


It’s not that he has lost his mouth,
his tongue is okay,
his jaw has survived the blast.

But he cannot speak,
it’s something to do with
the pain in his head.

He struggles just to say something.

Anything.

As it is, he just gurgles.


He wants to tell the doctors
of the pain he’s in.

He wants to tell them
how glad he is to be alive.

He wants to say something of the fact that
just when the masonry hit him,
his whole life flashed before him.

His whole life flashed before him,
and he didn’t like it.

He didn’t like it because he saw
The Hole.


A deep pit, a chasm, a ravine in his life.

Missed opportunities.

People he could have helped.

Ways in which he really could have used
The gifts that he had been given.


He remembers the time
he saw that truck of refugees,
Of Iraqi Kurds struggling to
gain entry into the country.

How they pleaded with
the authorities, the establishment
for a home.

How the authorities told him to tell them
that they could not stay.

He did so,
he knew how to speak Kurdish.

The authorities did not need to
know that one of them needed
emergency treatment for
diabetes.

He missed the chance to tell them.

But Alex can’t tell them now,
he can’t speak,
and the Hole in his life is obvious to him.


He remembers the time when he was showing
the Prime Minister around Burkina Faso.

A little boy was asking for food.

"What does he want?" asks the PM
"He’s begging," says Alex.

The Prime Minister hands the boy a coin,
enough to buy a little bread.

Alex doesn’t tell him about the
rest of the boy’s family who are starving.

He missed the chance.

There’s no point now.

No voice.

No voice and the Hole.


What is Alex without his gift of speech?

He can think and reason
but can’t express himself.

When his arms and legs have healed,
he should be able to walk,
though perhaps not run.

But was Alex only the gift?

Is there no substance to his life,
other than being able to say
"Would you sign such and such a treaty?"
or "will your gross national product
be great enough to join this economic
policy" in Arabic?

He knows his life has been inadequate.


We all know that our lives are inadequate
with missed opportunities
to do something useful
something that God might appreciate.
We know that. Don’t we?

But does "doing" really matter
if it isn’t motivated by Love?

We all know that we’ve taken for granted
our abilities
to speak languages,
to do hard sums,
to knit, or draw
to walk or run,
or see.

We all know that
we’ve used them to please ourselves
that perhaps,
perhaps we have loved our gifts
rather than the One
who gave them to us.
We know that. Don’t we?

We all know that if we have no love,
the love that Our Lord showed us
on the cross, then we too have a hole.
We know that. Don’t we?

We all know that our gifts
can be taken away, but love cannot be taken away.
We know that. Don’t we?


His gift of speech may be gone,
but Alex still knows that God is there,
and always will be.

He may not be able to say "I’m sorry",
but he knows that Jesus died to save him from his sin.

The tears on Alex’s cheeks tell Jesus that he repents.


Where there’s life...?

Alex doesn’t know
whether the prayer he offered
for the health of the Kurdish diabetic,
was answered.

Alex doesn’t know
whether God found food
for the Burkinabe boy’s family.

God will tell him about these when
"the partial vanishes when the wholeness comes."

Alex still hopes that his prayers were answered.


There is a movement by
the door to the hospital ward.

It’s his wife, Tsien-Lin,
tears in her eyes for the battered
mess of a man that is her husband.

She won’t forget the fact that it was
his influence that persuaded the Chinese guard
to look the other way
while she slipped out,
over the border to freedom
with the other 20 refugees.

It wasn’t for his gift to speak Mandarin
that she married him,
it was for the fact that he does care so much
for her.

He may not be able to speak, (in fact, he will never say another word)
but she loves him,
and by the way he squeezes her hand she knows that he loves her.

As for the Hole?

A different love fills that.

Not the love of language,
nor the love of helping people.

This is the love of the man who died and was raised to life
"for the partial vanishes when the wholeness comes."

And Christ is that wholeness.