We have a new puppy at our house. She’s about 11 weeks old. And is she ever curious! She is curious about everything. There is nothing that escapes her attention, and nothing that does not interest her. She has to sniff at the house plants; she pulls at the towels; she tugs at the bedspread corners; she hauls away my shoes. Thanks to this curious puppy, who just has to investigate and play with absolutely everything, the house is strewn with everything from magazines to pantyhose. We have a curious puppy.
Incidentally, our having a new puppy bothers me. It worries me. You see, when I asked my wife and daughter why they went out and bought a new dog, when we have a perfectly comfortable, slow, quiet, non-curious old dog, they said, the old dog is getting older and may not be with us much longer. And so we thought we’d go and get a replacement now, before the inevitable happens. You know, when it’s your wife that says that ... and you’ve had a few birthdays ... you sort of begin to wonder who else is going to be replaced!
But our puppy is curious. She explores everything. Now curiosity may be fine for puppies, but it loses its magic for old dogs. And it’s not enough for people either. Curiosity is not enough because it gives you only the illusion of an experience, but it’s not the real thing. Curiosity is not enough because if you have nothing more than curiosity about something, you never really understand it. You just think you do.
Imagine a little child, all dressed up in a pretty pink bathing suit, teetering on the edge of a swimming pool. She is curious about what it is like to swim. She is curious enough to go to the pool and to walk right up to the edge and stick her big toe in the water. She stands there and watches the other children paddling. She sees how some of them do backstrokes and some do breaststrokes and some no anything-to-keep-afloat strokes. She is curious enough to watch everybody else swimming. But she never gets beyond putting her toe in the water. Now does she really know what swimming is like? No. Curiosity is not enough. It is going to take something more.
You drop in at the automobile showroom. The new models are out, advertised, just as they were last year, as all new from the wheels up. You are curious to see what gadgetry and gimmickry they have loaded on this time around. And so you walk around, you sniff the new car smell, you kick the tires, you lift the hood and look underneath, although you have no idea what you are looking at. You even run your finger down the list on the sticker, pretending you are not suffering from sticker shock. The salesman comes over and smiles and says, "What can I do to get you in this car today? Would you like to test drive one just like it?” And then do you say, "Oh, no. I was just curious. I’ve got the feel of it. I’ve got the idea. I know how it handles." Do you know what it feels like to drive this car? Do you know how it handles? No. Curiosity is not enough. It is going to take something more.
In the Scripture there is a little vignette about a young man who was just curious. Curious about Christ. It’s really a funny story, when you stop to think about it. But it appears at a deadly serious time. This little footnote may have something to teach us about why curiosity is not enough.
Mark 14:43-52 Repeat 51-52
I
This amusing little word picture teaches us something. It teaches us that curiosity isn’t enough when you really want and need a relationship. Curiosity is no substitute for a real relationship. And curiosity about Christ isn’t enough for your spiritual needs. The only thing that will satisfy is a relationship with Him.
"A certain young man ... “ Who is he? Has he no name? His very anonymity suggests the distance he put between himself and Christ.
And more than that, the text says that in the midst of all this confusion, while Jesus was being arrested, and while great drama was being played out, this certain young man "was following [Christ]." That is, following at a distance. Keeping a safe space. Avoiding involvement, avoiding interaction.
A lot of us are like that. We are curious about Christ. We will follow Him at a distance. We will come to church and worship in the anonymity of the crowd, but we prefer not to get too close. We are curious about Christ, and we think that if we just stay on the edges of the Christian faith, if we stay on the periphery of the life of the church, that’ll be enough. We’ll find out enough to satisfy. But we don’t make a commitment to a relationship. However, curiosity is not enough.
Do you remember my story about the child at the swimming pool? Just because she got to the edge of the water and tested it a little, does that mean she really understood swimming? No. She lacked one thing. She needed to plunge in. She needed to make a commitment to the water before she would ever have the first notion what swimming is like.
And do you recall my story about the automobile showroom? You can stand and smell and look and feel and kick all you want, but the only way you will know how that car drives is to drive it. You have to turn it on and steer it. You have to experience it, try it out.
And the only way to know what a relationship is like is to experience it. You can guess all you want about romance. Some enchanted evening you can flirt all you want across a crowded room. You can be as curious as you wish. Some will even experiment with sexual intimacy as a way of getting to know their partner. But I tell you there is no way that curiosity and experiments are substitutes for commitment. There is no way that any form of tentative trial relationship is the same as a committed, covenanted relationship.
And so, in exactly the same way, I have to tell you that nothing substitutes for a committed and covenanted relationship with Christ. You may come here every Sunday and listen and sniff around our faith. You may hear scores of sermons and hum a hundred hymns. But it is all like the certain young man, anonymous, who followed Jesus, at a distance, while momentous things were happening. He was there, he saw it all, he heard it all; and he experienced not a bit of it.
Curiosity about Christ is not enough. You need a relationship with Him for anything to make sense.
II
More than that, curiosity about Christ is not enough when you need to be equipped and ready for life. Curiosity about Christ is not enough when the real world has to be faced and there are challenges for which you need to be equipped.
Didn’t you feel like smiling when I read the text, did you picture the scene? "A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked."
In the early morning, after I get up and stumble out to the coffeemaker in the kitchen ... and, by the way, get thoroughly checked out by our curious puppy ... my next move is to go out the front door and pick up the morning paper.
Now did you catch that sequence of activities? Go to the kitchen, pour a cup of coffee, go out to get the paper. Did you hear anything there about getting dressed? Did I even mention robe and slippers? Do you want to know the terrible truth? The truth is that I generally run out to the curb in my pajamas and run back in just as fast as my bare feet will carry me.
Now I have this recurring nightmare about forgetting and locking the door behind me ... or about running smack into one of the neighbors on a similar early morning mission. I really ought not to go out into the world unprepared. I really ought not to face the real world undressed. But curiosity about what is in that newspaper takes over and I thrown caution to the winds.
In fact, on some mornings caution is not all that gets thrown to the winds!
The young man in the Gospel story is much like that. Out at night, following Jesus, no name, no closeness, no relationship. And no preparation either. To nobody’s surprise, he got caught and had to flee the scene naked!
What a wonderful parable of what curiosity says! Mere curiosity says, "Christ is kind of interesting. But I do not need to learn about Him. I won’t get caught unprepared."
Curiosity says, "The Bible is a rather interesting book. I know a little bit about the Bible. But I do not have to study it or become familiar with its outlook. I will never really need it." Curiosity says, "This thing of Christian living .. it’s pretty simple. Just ’do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Isn’t that enough? I’ll never face anything more complicated than that".
Oh friends, I tell you, curiosity is not enough. A superficial knowledge of Christ and of His word is not enough. Mere window dressing is not enough. Because the day will come when you will face a tough challenge, and you’re going to need real protection and real equipment in order to meet it.
When that marriage begins to get conflicted. one or two superficial insights about marriage will not be enough to equip you. You will need more. You will need the whole counsel of God, or else conflict will catch you, and you will run off naked.
When that employer begins to give you trouble, one or two so-called common sense notions about standing up for your rights will not go very far. You will need to understand the Scriptures profoundly, or else misunderstanding will catch you, and you will run off naked.
When money is dangled in front of you, and you are dazzled by the prospect of quick dollars, whether honest or dishonest, mere self-interest will not be enough to guide you. You will need to grasp the reality, found only in the Scriptures, that ’"the love of money is at the root of all evil." Or else temptation will overtake you, and you will run off naked and unprotected.
Curiosity is not enough. We need to be informed. We need to be fully and properly equipped. Put on the whole armor of God, says Paul, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil... fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness." And you know the rest of that passage .. put on the shoes of the gospel of peace and the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit".
And, and, and. What does that say? It says we need it all. It says we have no business attempting to confront the world and its wiles undressed. We need to know the faith. We need to be equipped.
Curiosity, mere curiosity, about the things of Christ, just won’t get it. It’s not enough.
III
But having said all of that, let me also say a few kind words for the curious. Some of you belong among the ranks of the curious but uncommitted, and I do want to say something positive to you.
Some of you come here often for worship. You have a faith of some sort. But you have never made an open, public, definite commitment to Christ. You are on the edges, but like the certain young man, you have no name. You do not bear the name of Christian. You’re curious about Christ, but have little or no definite relationship to Him.
Others of you have a more definite faith. At least at one point or another you made a faith commitment. You offered a profession of faith. But now you are following at a distance. Your relationship to the church of Jesus Christ is remote. You come to worship but you do not get involved. You attend services, but you do not go deeper. You follow, but at a distance. You’re curious about Christ’s church, but have only a distant relationship to what Christ is doing here.
Still others have come a little closer. You’ve professed faith in Christ, you have joined His church. But you haven’t moved much closer. You haven’t accepted serious study of the Bible or a serious involvement in training. You’re curious about the Christian faith, but you’ve not taken the time to examine it carefully.
But all right. You are among the curious. And I’ve insisted that curiosity isn’t enough.
But this much on the positive side: you are a whole lot closer to the Kingdom than some others mentioned in this story.
You are a whole lot closer to the Kingdom than Judas. Judas, in the very inner circle, a disciple, who has betrayed Christ with a kiss. You are a great deal closer than some of us who know Christ, who are leaders in His church, who understand the faith, but who still choose to wear the facade of Christian but live in betrayal.
I thank the curious for at least being honest about their distance from Christ. It is a whole lot better than being Judas and betraying Him with a kiss.
And you the curious are also a great deal closer to the Kingdom than the sad spectacle presented by this brief sentence in the text: "All of them deserted him and fled." "All of them deserted him and fled."
You know, sometimes we church folk get too familiar with the things of Christ. We know it all and it becomes commonplace and ho-hum. And then when things get tough, we find out that we’ve actually forgotten most of what we’ve learned. We church folk sometimes wake up and find out that we’ve just been going through the motions. We’ve forgotten how to learn. We’ve forgotten how to be on the growing edge of life.
And so I affirm the curious. I have hopes for you. I have hopes for the curious. Even though curiosity is not enough, I have hopes for those who are on the edges of the Christian faith and who are on the edges of the church.
Do you know why? There’s a very interesting reason why. You see, we may know a little more than it first appears about this anonymous young man with the missing linen cloth.
Over in the Book of Acts there is a story about a young man who started out on a mission. He was going out with the great missionary named Paul. But this particular young man got to a difficult spot in that journey, and he deserted. He just up and quit. When the going got tough, he just got out. He put that distance between himself and Christ and His church. Paul wanted nothing to do with him any more, after that.
But there was another missionary named Barnabas. Barnabas insisted that in that certain young man there was the right stuff. Barnabas then parted company with Paul and asked this certain young man to come along with him, and experience Christian mission for himself. Not just curiosity, but involvement, relationship, commitment. Not just curiosity, but experience, first-hand knowledge.
That certain young man, encouraged by Barnabas, was named Mark. Yes, the Mark who wrote this gospel we’ve been reading today. Now think with me: some suspect that when Mark wrote this gospel he included this footnote as his own story: "A certain young man ... Mark ... was following [Christ], wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him ... Mark, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked." Mark.
If that be true, then it means that curiosity is not enough. But the honestly curious, who want a relationship with Christ, if they will commit to him, can become great in His Kingdom. Mark did.
If this be Mark’s story; then it means that although curiosity is not enough, the honestly, openly curious, who truly want to know, if they will become a part of His church, can grow into authentic leadership. Mark did.
I want to be Barnabas for somebody today. I want to encourage some curious person today. I want to reach out to someone who has just been curious about Christ and remind you that the only way you will ever know Him is to commit to Him. The only way you will ever truly understand Him is to be in relationship with Him. You’ve been at worship, you’ve been thinking about Him. Now, today, take the plunge. Steer the car. Say yes to Christ.
I want to be Barnabas for somebody today. I want to encourage some curious person today. I want to reach out to someone who has just been curious about church. And I want to remind you that the only way you will ever know is to commit. The only way in which you wiII ever understand what we teach is to examine it from within. You’ve been here, you’ve tested us, you’ve put your toe in, you’ve even smelled us and kicked at us. But now it’s time to get serious. Not just curious, but serious.
You don’t have to do any more thinking from outside. You don’t need to do any more waiting from afar. Above all, you don’t need to wait until things change or you become different. You can come just as you are. You can respond with your curiosity. Just as we are, with many a conflict, many a doubt; fightings within and fears without, but come, just as you are.
Just curious. But curiosity is not enough.
