"Second-hand Sam" was horrified to see a recent customer drive back into his used car lot. Just an hour before, that customer had bought one of Sam’s "second-hand specials." Sam stood in the doorway of his trailer and called across the lot, "Nothing wrong, is there?" The man who had bought the car shouted back, "No, I just wanted to return some things. Remember that you said this second-hand car was only driven to the bank once a week by a little old lady? Well, that little old lady left some cigars in the glove compartment and a bottle of Scotch under the front seat!"

Sam called his cars "second-hand" because another hand had first driven them. That word "second-hand" means not new, used or worn already by someone else. The word often has shady associations. For instance, in 1921, Grant Clarke wrote a song titled "Second-Hand Rose":

Chorus

I’m wearing second-hand hats, second-hand clothes,
That’s why they call me Second-Hand Rose.
Ev’ryone knows that I’m just Second-Hand Rose
From Second Avenue.

Like a used car and the possessions of Second-Hand Rose, one’s religious faith can be second-hand, too. In one sense, all of us began our religious life with a second-hand faith. As Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote in A Faith for Tough Times:

We hear about Christian faith and life before we experience it; in family and church we accept its expressions before we vitally see for ourselves its meaning. As we hear, and in a way believe, that Beethoven is a great musician before we are inwardly, intimately captivated by him, so in every important realm second-hand acceptance precedes first-hand experience.

The very word "tradition" means literally something handed down. In his Letter to the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth, Saint Paul wrote: "First and foremost, I handed on to you the facts which had been imparted to me" (1 Corinthians 15:3, NEB). Paul used a traditional Jewish expression to stress the fact that he was passing on a tradition which existed before his own ministry. However, it is crucial to a vital faith that our traditional acceptance become a lively apprehension. It is by such a development that we grow from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience. "What you have inherited from your fathers," said Goethe, "you must earn for yourself before you can call it yours."

What is it that makes that transformation possible? I suggest three verbs to summarize the factors which change religious faith from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience. Those words are: wrestle, welcome, and wonder.

I

First, consider the word "Wrestle." Our religious faith is changed from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience when we wrestle with religious questions. That is what one Bible character named Job did. His religion had been inherited. It was of the second-hand variety. In times of prosperity, the traditional theology of his day was satisfactory. But, when Job suffered the strokes of destitution, pain, rejection by society, and his own sense of separation from God, the old neat religious formulas were not enough. Job had to wrestle with two issues: first, there was his conviction that God was just in his dealings with human beings; secondly, there was his conviction that the personal sufferings he was undergoing represented an injustice.

The Book of Job was written by an author who was challenging the orthodox religious teaching of that day. Like Rabbi Harold S. Kushner of our own day, that ancient author also felt troubled "when bad things happen to good people." The accepted teaching in those days was based on a simple equation: if you had misfortune in your life, if you suffered an accident or had bad health, it was directly due to personal sin on your part. The author of the Book of Job believed that this neat formula oversimplified the facts of life. Sometimes, of course, it is true that personal sin does cause personal suffering. For instance, when a person abuses the laws of health, he usually suffers from that abuse. However, argued this author, to trace all personal suffering to personal sin is an oversimplification. In this dramatic story from the Old Testament, Job wrestled with the loss of his children, his property, and his health. Job steadfastly refused to admit that he had done anything to justify such dreadful suffering as he endured. After several rounds of sparring with his three "comforters," Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, the Book reached its climax when God overwhelmed Job with the mysteries of creation:

Has the rain a father?
Who sired the drops of dew?
Whose womb gave birth to the ice,
and who was the mother of the frost from heaven...?
Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades or loose Orion’s belt?
Can you bring out the signs of the zodiac in their season...? (Job 38:28-32a, NEB)

Until that dazzling encounter with the Divine, Job’s knowledge of God had been a theoretical one he had received by the reports of others. But, after his vivid personal experience of God’s overwhelming presence, he recognized the limitations of his understanding. Furthermore, he admitted that God’s governing of the universe went beyond systems of justice known to men. "In the past I knew only what others had told me," Job said to God, "but now I have seen you with my own eyes. So I am ashamed of all that I have said, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5-6, TEV).

Your religious faith will be transformed from a secondhand inheritance to a first-hand experience as you wrestle with the religious questions imbedded in the hurts and problems you now face.

II

Secondly, consider the word "Welcome." Our religious faith is changed from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience when we welcome new religious insights. Midway in the Holy Land of Christ’s day, between Galilee in the north and Judea in the south, lay the nation of Samaria. There was an age-old quarrel between the Samaritans and the Jews. As John reminded his readers, "Jews will have nothing to do with Samaritans" (John 4:9, TEV). At one point in Christ’s life he wanted to enter a Samaritan village. However, that village refused him entrance (Luke 9:53). Two of Christ’s friends, James and John, became so angry with the Samaritans’ inhospitality that they wanted to call fire down from heaven to destroy that place. Maybe that is why Christ nicknamed those two men "the Sons of Thunder" (Mark 3:17). This Samaritan village did not welcome Christ. Because of that refusal, their knowledge of Christ remained a second-hand thing.

There were other Samaritans, however, who did welcome Christ. They had heard about him from an infamous woman of their village. That woman had gone to the well in Sychar at noon to draw water. For her to go to the well in the heat of the day was unusual for an Eastern woman. Christ made such an impression on this woman that she hurried back to the village and said to the people, "Come and see a man who has told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" (John 4:29). Those people of the village Sychar welcomed new religious insights. Because of their hospitality of mind, they passed from a second-hand grasp of Christ to a first-hand experience. Hear the pride in their voices as they say to the woman of the well: "We believe now, not because of what you said, but because we ourselves have heard him, and we know that he really is the Savior of the world" (John 4:42, TEV).

Welcoming new religious insights transforms religious faith from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience. That shouldn’t surprise us, should it? Our lives are decisively shaped by our hospitality - or lack of it - to new ideas! In 1868 this item appeared in a New York newspaper:

A man has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device which he says will convey the human voice any distance over metallic wires, so that it can be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls this instrument a telephone. Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires.

About that time, Mark Twain made a vow that he would never again invest in the new, strange inventions that kept coming his way. Shortly after he made that decision, Mark Twain was approached by a young man who asked him to buy stock in his new invention. When Twain refused, the young man left, disappointed. His name was Alexander Graham Bell and he had just invented the telephone!

III

Thirdly, consider the word "Wonder." Our religious faith is changed from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience when we wonder at the religious dimensions of human life. In Christ’s day, there were those who saw in him a dimension of divinely royal kingship. Those persons who were privileged to have that insight wondered at this religious dimension in the otherwise thoroughly human life of the Man from Nazareth. Over the centuries, there have been those who have had that same experience. Whenever persons have wondered in this way, their faith has gone from being a second-hand inheritance to being a first-hand experience.

Recall that Friday morning in the spring of the year A.D. 30 when Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, confronted Christ. After listening to the charges made against Christ by his enemies, Pilate went into his headquarters again. He summoned Christ and asked, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Some of Christ’s contemporaries interpreted that religious dimension of Christ in political terms. Such an interpretation worried Pilate. Listen to Christ’s answer: "Are you saying this because you have discovered it yourself, or because other people told you that I am?" (John 18:34, Barclay). Pilate, is this a second-hand opinion which you have inherited or is it a first-hand faith you have discovered as you yourself have wondered at the religious dimension of my life? That is what Christ’s question implies. Over a year before that day when Christ faced Pilate, he put the same question to his disciples. First, Christ asked them about the second-hand opinions of the public: "Who are people saying that I am?" (Mark 8:27, Barclay). After listening to their answers, Christ put the question to them directly: " ‘And you,’ he asked them, ‘who do you say I am?’ " (Mark 8:29, Barclay). By that question, we are challenged to wonder, to think about, to explore the religious dimension in the human life of Jesus Christ. That act of wondering transforms our faith from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience. Like Job, we end our exploration of Christ by saying, "In the past I knew only what others told me, but now I have seen you with my own eyes" (Job 42:5, TEV).

Paul Hovey recounted a discussion about the Bible. A woman in the group said, "I let the preacher read the Bible for me. He understands it so much better than I do." Another person in the group commented, "That’s like buying second-hand clothes or being content with leftover food at a restaurant. Anyone who relies on the preacher to do his Bible reading for him will never have anything but a second-hand religion." Your religious faith will be transformed from a second-hand inheritance to a first-hand experience as you wrestle with religious questions, welcome religious insights, and wonder at the religious dimension of daily life.