From the ‘Book of James’ starting with chapter. 3: 13 and going through to chapter 4: 3, then also verses 7 & 8, this was first given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on September 21, 2003, then rewritten to give at the Hartford (IL) East Maple Street Chapel on September 7, 2008… THIS version is a combination of those two ‘talks’…

“This is KEHS, radio 57, broadcasting to you live from the sewers of beautiful downtown Edwardsville!” During my sophomore year of high school, my friend Larry and I thought it would be really ‘groovy’ to play music into the cafeteria during lunch hour, and got the rest of our technician friends to go along with it. There was no actual radio involved, just a room off of the cafeteria that had all of the sound equipment in it hooked up to big PA speakers in where all of the tables were, but we made up call-letters and a number and became DJ’s for half-an-hour every school day. And even though we only did it that one year, it made enough of an impression on people that in the list of projections that was made for each of us during our senior year, I was to come back to our reunions as a famous radio personality and host the program.

And it is true that for some time I was working on a career in the musical side of the electronics field. So when Larry and I each started college at SIUE, I concentrated on music studies while he got involved with some of the campus broadcasting. And one of his first actual jobs was being the announcer to the crowd at all of the home baseball games.

Now, I need to point out, here, that I know almost nothing about baseball. I mean, I know that there are three strikes and four balls, and that there are three outs per side in an inning, and that there are nine innings, but anything more than that, I just never had the time nor interest in knowing! Never-the-less, whenever my friend Larry’s class schedule at SIUE, during our time there in the early ‘70’s, interfered with his student job there, he would ask me to cover for him as the announcer at the local SIUE baseball games. He would give me this book, each time, that had diagrams, pictures, and charts on each page. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it, and there were no instructions that I could see! But, I figured it really wasn’t important, anyway… I mean, after all, I was just the park announcer! Right?

In those early days at SIUE, the ball diamond was just a flat spot carved out of one corner of a huge field. There was one medium-sized grandstand and no PA system, so, along with a list of the player’s names and their batting order, Larry would give me a portable, battery-powered megaphone with an attached microphone. I would set it facing the crowd behind me on a folding table placed against the fence just to the left of home-plate. This table was also used by the guys from the campus radio station, who were broadcasting the live play-by-play, and the official scorekeeper.

During the first game or two that I did, the scorekeeper sat on the end of the table opposite me, and I really didn’t get a chance to see or learn very much from him. But, I would kinda’ watch the radio guys, who had a book very similar to mine, and learned to draw lines around the diamond shapes on each page as people went around the bases. When one diamond was complete that meant that somebody had made it home, and I would make another mark accordingly. I really had no idea what an error was, but if somebody did something that I thought was a mistake, or just plain stupid, I would make another note in the error column. And that was my job… to call off the name of each player as they went to bat and make little squiggly marks and notations in that book, which nobody ever looked at!

Now, the official scorekeeper was not a student, nor, I believe, did he even work for the college. He would arrive at each game dressed in a very impressive suit and tie carrying his briefcase, which I was sure was full of books that were full of little squiggly lines far more complicated than mine. I mean, he was the official scorekeeper… he HAD to know everything that there was to know about the game and how to keep track of it all. If I had really wanted to know what I was doing, I figured he would be the one to ask!

As fate would have it, as we were setting up for what would be my last game, the radio guys and I had each set up on opposite ends of the table. That meant that the scorekeeper would have to sit next to me during this game… which meant that I just might get a chance to see and learn the proper way to do what I’d been doing. Sure enough, just before the start of the game, he came walking up in his fancy suit and set his briefcase on the table next to me. As we exchanged greetings he removed his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair, opened up his briefcase… and proceeded to unload all of the bottles of booze he had stuffed into it and set them up on the table in front of him. By the end of the game, I don’t think he knew which two teams were playing, let alone what the score was. He leaned over to me and asked to copy all of the stats out of my book.

Out of MY book? Me, who barely knew which end of a bat to hang on to… let alone how to keep proper score? That’s right! For that game, all of the stats that I had guessed at or made up during the game went into the official records as the official score for that game! I really hoped it wasn’t a crucial one!

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” That’s what James tells us in the first of these verses. For all of his fancy title and trimmings, the scorekeeper that I assumed was so wise and knowledgeable definitely was not! Given his actions and behavior, and considering the society of that day, I am sure that he probably “harbored bitter envy” of somebody or something,and that he had, “selfish ambition in his heart…” And what does James say? “Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” And there were certainly ‘evil practices’ being carried on there that day!

Let’s look at another story, now, from the 3^rd chapter of 1 Kings…

“… two prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. One of them said, “My lord, this woman and I live in the same house. I had a baby while she was there with me. The third day after my child was born, this woman also had a baby. We were alone; there was no one in the house but the two of us.

“During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. The next morning, I got up to nurse my son-and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.”

The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”

But the first one insisted, “No! The dead one is yours; the living one is mine.” And so they argued before the king.

The king said, “This one says, ‘My son is alive and your son is dead,’ while that one says, ‘No! Your son is dead and mine is alive.'”

Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

The woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son and said to the king, “Please, my lord, give her the living baby! Don’t kill him!”

But the other said, “Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!”

Then the king gave his ruling: “Give the living baby to the first woman. Do not kill him; she is his mother.”

When all Israel heard the verdict the king had given, they held the king in awe, because they saw that he had wisdom from God to administer justice.”

This, of course, is part of the story of Solomon, whose wisdom was famous around the known world. And I’m sure that you all remember how he had asked God for that wisdom and how God granted it… and so much more… to him. And James tells us that, “… the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” This would certainly describe Solomon’s wisdom… and it is what all of us today should strive for!

James goes on, in chapter 4, by pointing out that it is envy and selfishness that causes all fights and quarrels… you want something but don’t get it! And then he points out that, “You do not have, because you do not ask God. Or, if you do ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives… you want to spend what you get on your pleasures.”  Covetness has been a part of human nature from the beginning… in the story of Adam and Eve, even though God has given them everything they could possibly need, Eve covets that which has been forbidden to them… and probably, only because it had been forbidden! Do you suppose that’s why one of the original Ten Commandments reads, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor?“

Everything that James is telling us here is stuff that we know… in hindsight, it’s just common sense. But we don’t always see it in hindsight… we’re usually staring at it from dead on in front… and it definitely looks different from up there! How, then, do we learn to recognize and avoid the evil that surrounds us everyday? How do we obtain the pure wisdom that comes from above and avoid that which is “earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil?” By being still, and listening!!

Many years ago I had a friend work Really hard to pound that thought into me!! As I recall, she sat for one entire afternoon and evening and listened to me describe, in Very great detail, all of the ‘life issues’ I had had to struggle with over the years, to that point, and the last four of those in particular, and then listen to my trying to defend, excuse, and/or justify my mistakes. She would then ask me if I knew that doing such-and-such was wrong, to which I would say, ‘Yes, but…

…and she would Stop me right there!! Finally, I reached the point where I knew not to say the word ‘but’… and came to realize that if I couldn’t start a sentence without saying ‘But…’, I didn’t have much to say!! ‘Be still, and listen’, she would say. ‘But… but… but…but’. ‘Be still and listen’.

James describes the wisdom that comes from heaven as first of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. But for us to receive this wisdom, we must open our hearts and our minds to God! And the Only way to truly do that is to be still… to shut-off our own minds, our own thoughts, our own wants and desires… and to listen and be filled with the wisdom of God… to understand what it is He wants of us and for us!

       In the last of these verses, James says to ‘Submit yourself to God.’ He says that if we ‘resist the devil, he will flee. And if we come near to God, He will come near to us.’ Pretty simple, isn’t it? Submit yourself to God! Pray hard and long for the RIGHT reasons! Be still and listen! And God will fill you with His wisdom so that YOU, then, will be pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

Say! Doesn’t that also describe Jesus? And if I want to tie all of this back to my ‘story’, couldn’t we say that Jesus is also the greatest scorekeeper of all time? And when the scales seem to us, at times, to be so heavy on the negative side… when our sins seem so overwhelming we wonder how we might ever win Heaven… all we have to do is go to Him… talk to Him… trust in Him… and He will wipe all of those sins off of our ‘scorecard’ and forget that they were ever there… because He paid for them… in our name… on a cross at Golgotha!