This was given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on November 23, 2003.

The Scripture is from The Book of Revelations 1: 4b – 8…

I think that I have mentioned, at some point in time, how my close friend, Larry, had talked me into pledging one of the fraternities at SIUE when we both started going there in the fall of 1971. Now, you have to understand that I had absolutely no interest in any kind of social function or organization, but Larry had assured me that APO was a service fraternity. That meant that their main function was to help out with various projects on campus, in the community, and throughout the surrounding area. For that reason, I was interested in joining and pledged to become a member. Along with attending training sessions to study the history and by-laws of the organization, we were also asked and expected to help with various functions already scheduled.

          For one thing, I got to stand outside in the rainy-snow one morning on campus spreading the word about an upcoming blood-drive sponsored by the Red Cross. (Our slogan was ‘APO is out for blood!’) Then, during the drive I got to assist the nurses in marking and handling these plastics pouches full of something warm and squishy, as well as help donors up and to a seat where they could eat a cookie and drink some orange juice before heading back to class.

          Another time, I was asked to help patrol the fences around the soccer field during one of the games and watch for people trying to sneak in. Now you must remember that by this time I already had my first white cowboy hat, and the heavy denim-and-fleece chore coat I wore completed the ‘look’ that I was after. So, dressed like somebody off of the set of ‘McCloud’, I showed up and was assigned my position. And to let others know of my authority to challenge them, I was given an armband to wear … that said ‘Marshal’!

          Now, the only reason that I bring any of this up is because until I went through the course for becoming a member of APO, I never really knew any of the Greek alphabet. You see, APO stands for ‘Alpha – Phi – Omega’. Alpha is the very first letter in the Greek alphabet, and Omega is the very last. Until I learned all of this, I can’t say that some of what I read this morning ever made much sense, other than an assumption that it meant the beginning and the end of something.

          Now, it is not my intention to get into an in-depth study, this morning, of the Book of Revelation… though it has been suggested to do as a Bible study sometime, which we may well do. For now, though, let me just read this from the Life Application Commentary…

“Grace and peace were standard greetings in the ancient world. “Grace” was the Greek greeting and “peace” was the Hebrew greeting. The early church took these two greetings and used them together as a way of declaring that God had given these realities to his people.

All of time is encompassed in the Father — he is, was, and will be. God is eternally present and therefore able to help his people in any age, in any situation. Note that the present tense is first, stressing that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the future is still in control of the present. The pressures and stresses that the early Christians faced made the truth of God’s control over all history that much more meaningful.

The “sevenfold Spirit”, as some translations term it, has been identified by some to mean the seven angelic beings or messengers for the churches. Others have interpreted this to refer to those angels that accompany Christ at his return. But the reference to the Trinity here gives more weight to the interpretation that the sevenfold Spirit is the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is also portrayed as the commander of all the rulers of the world — an all-powerful King, victorious in battle, glorious in peace. Ps 89:27 says, “I will make him my firstborn son, the mightiest king on earth”. Jesus was not just a humble earthly teacher; he is the glorious God. When he returns, he will be recognized for who he really is. Then, “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”

          Now, this is a very edited version of what just one commentary says about just these four verses of Revelation… many of my other commentaries had more than one page devoted to these same four verses. As I said, the Book of Revelation is quite involved, and we will study it another time. For this morning, though, I want to zero in on the last verse I read this morning, verse 8.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Again quoting from the Life Application Commentary…

Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. The Lord God is the beginning and the end. God the Father is the eternal Lord and Ruler of the past, present, and future. God is sovereign over history and is in control of everything.

The one who is, and who was, and who is to come is also described in verse 4, the Lord God, who controls present, past, and future.

The phrase “the Almighty” comes out of the Old Testament and conveys military imagery, referring to God as a mighty warrior. The military imagery helped the people in the churches to whom this book was written understand that they had the ultimate Warrior fighting on their side. God rules over all.

This Thursday, we in this country celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday. This is not any kind of formal religious occasion… it doesn’t show up on any calendar of the Christian Year. But it is intended to be a time of celebrating all that we have been blessed with over the past year and thanking God for those blessings! After all, as I’ve said many, many times… all that we are and all that we have is due to God!

Consider this verse with me for a moment! The Lord says, “I am the Alpha… the very beginning of everything… and the Omega… the very end of everything…” “Who is…  who was… and who is to come… the Almighty.”

Everything that exists today began with God. Everything that has ever been began with God. Everything that ever will be will begin with God. And every one of those same things either have or will end with God, as well!

Are we so confident in our own abilities that we neglect to give God credit for those abilities? Are we so proud of our accomplishments that we neglect to thank God for His involvement in them? And if any of us answer ‘yes’ to either of those questions, then I have to pose a third… Are we so certain of our Christianity that we forget to include Christ in it?

I say again… everything that we are… everything that we have… every thing on this earth and in this universe… is from God! When you sit down around your tables this week with friends and family, please remember to take a moment to bow your heads in silence… use that time to reflect upon the ultimate source of all of the bounty surrounding you… and then give thanks to Him who is truly responsible for everything and everyone at that table!

Let us pray…

GOD, all things come from you. There is nothing that happens in our lives without your knowing. We have so much, God. We take it all for granted. The sun comes up in the morning. The ocean rolls in to the shore. The stars shine. The leaves change color. Thank you, God, for these gifts. Thank you for the people who love us in spite of ourselves. Thank you for your son who was nailed to the cross. Thank you for the independence and perseverance of our forefathers who saw beyond their own existences and created this nation.   Amen.

Given at the ‘Hartford (IL) East Maple Street Chapel’ on May 10, 2009. The Old Testament text is from the Book of Job, Chapter 1, verses 1-22…

Lyrics from a Barbra Streisand song…

Self-contained and self-content
No promises to keep
I’ve got things so together
That I just can’t fall asleep
Walked the night and drank the moon
Got home at half-past four,
And I knew that no-one marked my time
As I unlocked my door.
It’s really lovely to discover
That you like to be alone
Not to owe your man an answer
When he gets you on the phone
Not to share a pair of pork chops
When you crave champagne and cheese
And your aim becomes to please yourself
And not to aim to please
Oh they sold me when they told me
Two can live as cheap as one
But I’m learning twice your earning
Doesn’t mean it’s twice the fun
If you spend each dime and all your time
On someone else’s schemes
I’m not needy but I’m greedy
And I live my deepest dreams
Take an hour in the shower
Use the water while it’s hot
In the tub a hand to scrub my back
Is all I haven’t got.

Self-aware with self-esteem
Is selfishness a crime?
I take the day for quite a ride
And I take my own sweet time
Time to spare and time to share
And grateful I would be
If just one [darn] man would share the need
To be alone with me.

          The song is entitled ‘Lullaby To Myself’, and is the closing track on her ‘Streisand Superman’ album, which dates from the early ‘70’s. Even though groups like the Beatles and Three Dog Night ruled the charts during my high-school days, Barbra was still one of my favorites, and I had a number of her albums to prove it. Over the years, I have made eight-track and cassette tapes of most of them, and today, of course, I have the cds, and Many is the time I have been driving along, in cars, vans, and, yes, semis, belting them out just as loud as I could as I sang along with her! And it really is funny how I really never noticed how many of them were crying songs until the last few years.

Another thing I would listen to as I was driving the semi all over the country was this collection right here… This is the entire NIV version of the Bible read in a ‘dramatic’ format, which simply means that they used different people to read the different parts… there was one voice for narration, one that was always God’s, one for Abraham, one for Moses, etc., etc., and they would also add occasional music and sound effects… but What was said was word-for-word the NIV translation!

Now, since one of the main reasons I listen to music and such as I drive is to help me stay awake and alert, these were not ones I would put on as I was trying to make it all the way home from a 12-hr run at 1 o’clock in the morning… But for a time, I Did try to listen to one full cd at least 3-4 times a week. Occasionally there might be a gap of 2-3 weeks, and if I thought it was necessary I might listen to some over again to refresh where I had left off, and so I got to know Genesis thru Job pretty well… but it seemed like every time I got to Job I would just get aggravated and confused and would give-up on it for a time. Finally, I just gave up on trying to understand it, and just moved on to the other books… unfortunately, I quit driving long-distance before I made it all of the way through the Old Testament, but I amaze myself, sometimes, with how much of that I do recall and draw on from time-to-time!

But I have Never understood Job! I mean, it’s bad enough that God lets Satan destroy his property and his family, and then even to attack his physical body, just to prove a point… but what Really gets me is God’s answer to Job when he challenges Him for an explanation… essentially, God replies, “Who do you think You are to question Me?! I AM GOD!!” And that answer just bothered me! On occasion I would have an opportunity to discuss those feelings with various ‘learned’ men, but I really can’t say I ever had any definitive answer… one tried to explain it by saying that the book of Job was a metaphorical story… that is, it wasn’t a real story about a real person, but one intended to illustrate a point… I question that on a Number of levels, but even if it were true, I Still have to ask, What Is the Point?… and it just seemed like nobody ever had a real answer…

Some years ago I wrote a very different ‘sermon’ on pretty much these same verses… and my take on it then was that ‘God never gives us more than we can handle’… and even though that has become a cliché of sorts over the years, it Is a very true statement! At that time, I told about a number of things that had happened to me over the years that ‘just weren’t fair’, but in the end made the point that it was Each of those things, and a whole slew of others, that have molded and shaped me into the person I am today… and that it is from all of those experiences that I am able to draw many of my stories that let me reach out and connect with people in such a way as to be able to Then reach them with God’s story as well! God knows what He’s doing! Imagine that! But I was not as familiar with the rest of the book of Job at that time as I am today… and as true as all that might be, I Still don’t like God’s answer!

Have you ever argued with God… over Anything? Boy! I have! “God, why did You lead me to work with the youth group when the kids won’t listen to a single word I say to them?” “God, why did You have so-and-so ask me to apply for that position when You knew the others wouldn’t even consider my application, even after I spent two weeks preparing it?” “God, why did You let me do this?” “God, why did You let me do that?” “God, why did you…”… well, you get the idea… and, perhaps, perceive a pattern emerging… Yes, I often pondered why so many people might have died in a storm, or why a church building was split-apart by tornados, or why so many people have to suffer in so many different ways! And I would often talk to Him about these things, and seek to make some kind of sense out of them… But the things I Really got upset about… the things that made me raise my voice and cry out in anguish, “God, WHY?!?”… were almost always personal things… things that affected, or had to do, with me, personally! And often as not, the things that I got Most upset about were the things that came about from my own mistakes!!! And I wanted to know… no, I Demanded to know… why He had let things go the way they did… and the only answer I ever heard was the one He gave Job… “Because I Am God!”… and I Really didn’t like that answer!!

And so, I would argue the point… Oh, I could find all kinds of logical reasons and explanations to excuse my thoughts and actions… I could even come up with Biblical examples to defend the things I wanted to believe… and I would, again, cry-out, “God, if I’m wrong, then You need to hit me alongside the head with a baseball bat to get my attention and show me!” Later, I changed that to a 2×4, and then a 4×4… and once He decided to actually do it, it took a full 6×6 to get through this thick skull of mine that I was just flat wrong about some things! But I still wanted to know Why what I thought was wrong… and far too often, I still could only hear, “Because I Am God!” … But you know what? Eventually, that answer began to make sense!

In the lyrics of the song I read to you at the beginning of all of this, Barbra is describing a person who is newly alone and trying desperately to convince herself how much she enjoys it all… only to reveal her True desires in the last verse…

Time to spare and time to share
And grateful I would be
If just one [darn] man would share the need
To be alone with me.

As I said earlier, for all of the years that I have sung this song, and her many others, it wasn’t until the last few years that I found myself tearing up at the messages in them… loneliness is a terrible thing! And again, I would cry out to God, “Why do we have to be so alone?!” And the point of All of this has been to lead me up to where I might try to answer that question!

God created us with a free spirit, and with the ability to think and reason for ourselves. He didn’t have to do that. He could’ve made each of us simple-minded little robots, tamely obeying Him in every matter, and demurely worshipping Him without end… we would all have been ‘happy’ because we would never have known any other condition to be. Wouldn’t that have been nice? Everybody happy little robots, just scurrying around the earth doing our little robot-like things, with no cares and no worries in the world! But God didn’t want that… not for us… and not for Him!

First… think for a moment… where do we get our strength from? …That is, how do we each develop the personalities and backbone that becomes this person we each call ‘Me’? By living through and dealing with each of the trials and tribulations that living life freely presents us with! And what would God gain if the only reason we Worshiped Him was because we were just programmed to do so? God wants us to Worship Him out of the love and reverence we have For Him… and that can only come about if we are free to live our lives the way we choose… free to make decisions… free to make mistakes… free to be Free!

But at the same time, we have to accept that Having that freedom is what makes each of us an individual… and it is that very individuality that makes each of us alone… an island, if you will, in the sea of humanity! So, in that sense, one of the ‘costs’ of our being free is that we each must also be alone. And some people have a Lot of trouble dealing with that loneliness…

I know loneliness… I think I’ve read to you, before, a portion of a letter I wrote to one of the kids in the youth group I worked with some years ago… “There have been a lot of times in my life when I was alone. I don’t mean physically, but mentally, spiritually, and psychologically alone. In other words, I could be at a high school dance or football game and surrounded by hundreds of people and feel totally alone. I could be at a church service or youth event with countless others and feel totally alone. I could be with family or friends, or even that ‘special someone’ and feel totally alone. But through it all, when I look back on my life from this end I can see that I have NEVER been totally alone! Even during the years of my life that I tried to deny even the existence of a ‘god figure’, I can see now that God never denied my existence, and has always been there.”

You know, we all really need to take these words of Job’s to heart, and strive to understand the full meaning of…

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

and naked I will depart.

The Lord  gave and the Lord  has taken away;

may the name of the Lord  be praised.”

Yes, I know, those words are probably best known for being spoken graveside for many generations… but Job was very much alive when he spoke them, meaning for them to apply as he lived… he wanted it to be Very clear that he accepted that all he had and/or was… was of God… and as such, the disposition of any-or-all of those things was totally of God as well!

So… what about us today? As far as I know, each of us are still born naked… we all come into the world with nothing… but I ask you… do we each leave with nothing? Many people do! But does everybody?

In Rom 4:18-25 we read…

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead — since he was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness — for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

          As a Christian, each of us has hope! What ever questions might seem unanswered… what ever problems might seem unsolvable… whatever darkness seems impenetrable… we have hope! Even as we draw our very last breath of life on this plain, we have hope! And it is all because that when God says, “I Am God!”… we know in our hearts that there is No other answer!

As I get older, I find that I need to pay more attention to those words… I need to be more aware of others who are struggling with that sense of emptiness that often comes from loneliness… I need to acknowledge far more vehemently than I have that God Does Know What He’s Doing… and I need to understand that when God says to me, ‘Because I AM GOD!’, I need to pay more attention to what He is Saying… as do we ALL!!!

This was first used at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on November 16, 2003, and again (with some Very minor changes as to dates…) at the Wanda (IL) UMC on November 15, 2020.

The Scripture is from Mark 13: 1-8…

       As a teenager, one of my very favorite things to do, whenever I visited my grandparent’s farm in the Ozarks, was to go on long hikes through all of the hills and hollers on and around their farm. Now, it is true that I did this, to some extent, almost every time I was there, regardless of the time of year. But the best time was after cold weather had settled in… there was far less danger of an encounter with ‘deadly’ reptiles and other fear inducing animal life. So it was that on one of my visits there over the Christmas vacation, I came across the remains of an old, abandoned farmstead a few hills over from their place.

       What had caught my attention, as I came into what had obviously been a clearing at one time, though it was now dotted with small trees, was a huge stone chimney and fireplace standing, at first glance, all by itself. As I drew closer to it, I could make out the remains of a stone foundation, and on closer examination, most of the stones, including those in the chimney, showed signs of ash and burn marks. Since there were also the burned out husks of an old stove, bed, and other metal objects within the stone circumference, it was easy to deduce that the home must have burned down and the place abandoned… and judging by the diameter of the trees growing up inside of the foundation, it had to have been thirty-or-forty years before! As I began to look around the clearing with a sharpened eye, I could make out the wooden remains of a number of outbuildings… I seem to recall seeing the roof and partial wall of an outhouse sitting askew in the weeds, and perhaps a few sticks of rotten lumber jutting up enough to suggest the outline of a small shed near to the house.

       After exploring the area for a bit, trying to pick up clues like I thought Sherlock Holmes might have done, I used them to further speculate as to what had happened and just how these people had lived, back then. After a time, I started making my way back home… and then I saw it! All of my deductions had led me to believe this place had been abandoned long before any modern mechanization had occurred, and yet, as I walked past what I first thought was just a pile of rocks, I saw a big brass ball on the end of some kind of stalk, pretty well buried by that pile of rock. My first thought was that it was a gear shift or operating lever of some kind, and I wondered if I had stumbled upon some ancient piece of machinery that had sunk into the soil and been buried by time. I reached down to grab a hold of it and pulled up something that I didn’t remember ever having seen before. It was a thin piece of metal formed in a loose ‘s-shape’ with various small metal brackets along its edge and a huge false-brass ball on one end! As I had pulled it out of the dirt, another one just like it came into view, so I pulled it up as well and headed back to the farm.

       Once there, I was told that they were horse hames, those pieces of metal that attach to the side of a collar to attach the reins and harness to. And I had picked up two for the same side! If I had the other two, I would have two matched sets… as it was I didn’t have anything! So, since I still had about an hour of daylight left, I headed back to the sight. Once there, I could just make out, in gathering twilight, the shape of a foundation… the stones where I had found the first two must have been a corner post. I searched as best I could, but there was absolutely nothing else above ground… everything, it seems, had been buried over time. All I could see was a few old bits and pieces of leather sticking up. Wait a minute… leather! Leather? …Harness? I grabbed a piece and started pulling… and it was a long piece! Around and around I walked, following it as it snaked up out of the ground until… pop… up came what I was looking for. That was one! But, pulling all of that up had disrupted the soil in the area, and I saw another piece of harness. I repeated the process until… pop… up came another one! The only thing was, these two were a matched set of their own… and I never did find the mates for the first two that I had found!

       As best as I recall, it was later that spring when I had a chance to revisit that site. After making a brief re-examination of the area to confirm my earlier deductions, I decided to explore still further, and headed down that hill away from grandpa’s and into the valley that followed the stream below. Since streams are always a good path to follow (you can always find your way back along them!) I headed downstream alongside of it. After a bit, I came to what appeared to be a road that headed into a thicket of trees, though it seemed obvious to me that no wheel had traversed it in some time. Electing to follow it into that stand of timber, I came upon an entire town! It had been abandoned for some years, as well, but you could still see the signs for the general store, the blacksmith shop, and several others! Since it was the spring of the year, there was no way I was going to get off of that road and explore those buildings… I felt vulnerable enough standing where I was! But… from where I was I tried to absorb all that I could… I tried to envision the people that had been there at one time… I tried to picture in my mind the lives that they must have lived… the trials and hardships… and the joy and the love! Why had it been built there? Why had it been abandoned? Those that I asked when I returned knew nothing of it! It was as if it had never existed. And, as my life was making some important changes during that time as well, I never had an opportunity to return and research further. The world will never know!

       In today’s verses, The Life Application Commentary tells us, “Jesus and the disciples were leaving the temple when one of the disciples remarked on the incredible beauty of it. Although no one knows exactly what this temple looked like, it must have been magnificent, for in its time it was considered one of the architectural wonders of the world. This was not Solomon’s temple — it had been destroyed by the Babylonians in the seventh century B.C.  This temple had been built by Ezra after the return from exile in the sixth century B.C., desecrated by the Seleucids in the second century B.C., reconsecrated by the Maccabees soon afterward, and enormously expanded about fifteen years before Jesus was born by Herod the Great

The temple was impressive, covering about one-sixth of the land area of the ancient city of Jerusalem. It was not one building, but a majestic mixture of porches, colonnades, separate small edifices, and courts surrounding the temple proper.  Next to the inner temple, where the sacred objects were kept and the sacrifices offered, there was a large area called the Court of the Gentiles (this was where the money changers and merchants had their booths). Outside these courts were long porches. Solomon’s porch was 1,562 feet long; the royal porch was decorated with 160 columns stretching along its 921-foot length. The disciples gazed in wonder at marble pillars forty feet high, carved from a single solid stone. The temple’s foundation was so solid that it is believed that some of the original footings remain to this day. The Jews were convinced of the permanence of this magnificent structure, not only because of the stability of construction, but also because it represented God’s presence among them”

       Can you imagine how inconceivable the destruction that Jesus was describing must have seemed to the disciples? By some accounts, some of these stones were 50 feet long, 24 feet broad, and 16 feet in thickness! And yet Jesus is telling them that not ONE will be left on top of another!

       To my mind, there are two things that we need to learn from this. The first is that there is no thing on this earth that is permanent! Everything that man has done and believes is so magnificently great will disappear in the blink of an eye on the scale of time. Even the earth itself, and the universe that it hangs in, will not last forever! Only God’s love… and the reward of heaven… and His justice… the turmoil of eternal damnation… are permanent! We MUST keep our attention fixed on that which lasts forever!

       My second point is this… We mere humans do not know… CAN not know… what tomorrow may bring. We can’t even ever be sure that there will BE a tomorrow!

       The people who built that small town I discovered in the hollers of Missouri built it for the future… the future of prosperity that they envisioned would come to them and their descendents. And they built well in anticipation of that future… that fact is attested to by the fact that the buildings were still intact when I found them, how many years later! But, no one can predict what tomorrow might hold. And the prospects and profits that these forgotten people had hoped for and built on never materialized. The people disappeared… and the only remnants of those hopes and plans were these empty buildings! And since this was all fifty-some years ago, I would imagine that even they are gone, now!

       The Life Application Commentary points out that in the last part of our verses this morning, “Several disciples chose that moment to ask two curious questions: When will these things that Jesus has told them about happen? What will be the sign? With his answers, Jesus prepared his disciples for the difficult years ahead. He warned them about false messiahs, natural disasters, and persecutions. But he also assured them that he would be with them to protect them and make his kingdom known through them. Jesus promised that, in the end, he would return in power and glory to save them.

Jesus’ warnings and promises to his disciples also apply to us as we look forward to his return:

• “We must be ready.” We never know when He might return. Also, we never know when we might run out of time!

• “We must continue to proclaim the gospel.” This is what He told us to do… we can never rest from this task until time as we know it does indeed stop!

• “We must endure great trials.” As long as we live and breathe on this earth, Satan will be working to discourage us. It is because of Satan’s work… sin… that we are forced to endure theses things!

• “We must wait patiently.” It should not matter to us if Christ returns this afternoon, next week, next year, or in the next century. We must live everyday in His name, and celebrate the life that we live for Him!

One of my commentaries wraps it up this way… “Jesus warned his followers about the future so that they could learn how to live in the present. Jesus did not make these predictions so that we would guess when they might be fulfilled, but to help us remain spiritually alert and prepared at all times as we wait for his return. We must live each day close to Christ, always mindful that he is in charge of the timetable.”

Are you living each day close to Christ? If He were to walk in those doors at the close of today’s service, would you be ready for Him? Because, the truth of the matter is… He just might!

This was used at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on November 7, 2004 and again at the Hartford (IL) East Maple Street Chapel on November 9, 2008.

The Scripture is from the 20th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, verses 27-38…

          When my son was about five years old I took him for what would be our first of many visits to the Illinois State Museum up in Springfield, and we spent some hours looking at all of the exhibits on all three floors (counting the basement). Now, at that time, many of them were the same as when I had gone there as part of my fourth-grade field trip… such as the mastodon skeleton, the mineral collection, the big wall-of-snakes, the mushrooms, and the stuffed-animal dioramas… so it was really neat for me to see everything as well, and I’m sure he picked-up on my enthusiasm, which added to his own.

And so it was with some excitement that he related to his mother and grandmother, that next week, about some of the things we had seen. Apparently, he was really impressed with one part in particular, but his five-year-old vocabulary had some trouble describing it… he told them that, “We saw animals that weren’t alive… they used to be alive, but they’re not anymore!” I got a call from his grandmother later that week asking me just what kind of place I had taken him to!

          In these verses, we find the religious leaders determined, yet again, to eliminate Jesus, so, as the Life Application Commentary tells us, “Some Sadducees stepped forward. The Sadducees were a group of conservative Jewish religious leaders who honored only the Pentateuch (pen’-ta-tuk) — Genesis through Deuteronomy — as Scripture. They did not believe in a resurrection of the dead because they could find no mention of it in those books.

 “Come on… life after death? Give me break! The only thing that matters is the here and now… and the only thing you can count on is death and taxes!” Haven’t you ever heard that kind of talk about the Christian doctrine of resurrection? The Sadducees were first-century skeptics… Undoubtedly they considered themselves hard-nosed realists, compared to Jesus and his followers, who believed strongly in the resurrection. However, the Christian belief in an afterlife is hardly a nice, escapist notion. The thought that after death people are called to give an account of their lives before a righteous, holy God is not a comforting fantasy — it’s a call to live holy lives before such a God. People will die… and then face judgment.”

Now, “Jesus had already evaded two traps laid by the Jewish religious leaders — one involving his authority and then one on Roman taxation. They were determined to embarrass Jesus. This challenge by the Sadducees… indicates that the religious leaders were getting desperate. This time, the Sadducees used a standard theological question they had often used to discredit the idea of a resurrection, which was a belief of the Pharisees. If Jesus was not able to answer this question, his image as a great religious teacher would be tarnished.”

 “In the Law, Moses had written that if a man died without a son, his unmarried brother (or nearest male relative) should marry the widow and produce children. The first son of this marriage would be considered the heir of the dead man. The main purpose of the instruction was to produce an heir and guarantee that the family would not lose their land. The book of Ruth gives an example of this in operation. This law, called “levirate” marriage, protected the widow (in that culture, widows usually had no means to support themselves) and allowed the family line to continue.”

The Sadducees, then, described their hypothetical situation in which a woman married each of seven brothers in succession and died without heirs, and asked, “Whose wife is she?”

And Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.

I want to take just a moment here to address what I’m sure many of you might find distressing about this particular idea… and that is, ‘how can Jesus think that I will not know and love the person that I have dedicated my life to all of these years?’ That is not what He’s saying! The love that any two people have for one another in this lifetime is a very special and beautiful thing! And those that are lucky enough to share those feelings throughout their mortal lives are especially blessed! But what Jesus is telling us is that we cannot fathom the depth of love and joy and happiness that awaits us in Heaven… and that all of that love will be shared and enjoyed equally among all those that are there!

The point that I really want to get to this morning, though, is in the next words that Jesus says… “But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’   He is not the God of the dead, but of the living… for to him all are alive.” 

You know, sometimes I have to question that statement! Not that I don’t believe in the resurrection, or that God doesn’t consider each person who has ever lived as being alive, for indeed, they most certainly are on a plane that we cannot conceive! But there are times that I see people… who may be breathing… whose hearts may be pumping blood… who may well be getting up every morning and going about their daily routine… yet wonder just how alive they are… because their lives are empty!

These people can barely see anything past themselves! They live in their own little world, surrounded by their own little problems, caring only for themselves because, with their limited vision, no one else exists! For all intents and purposes, they are dead! They are dead to the world… they are dead to all that goes on around them… and they are dead to God’s calling, and His purpose for their lives! God might wish them to be alive… indeed, Jesus came with the hope of giving each of us eternal life… but if they refuse to acknowledge the Living Waters… if they refuse to acknowledge any thing in life other than themselves… if they refuse to see God’s hand reaching out to them… how can they reach back and grasp the everlasting life being offered? They… are… dead!

Which brings me back to what my son said all those years ago… “We saw animals that weren’t alive… they used to be alive, but they’re not anymore!” You know… I’ve seen Christians that weren’t alive… they used to be alive… but they’re not anymore!

What about you? Are you alive in Christ? Are you taking hold of God’s outstretched hand? Or are you blind to all but that which affects you directly? Are you alive and living and working in God’s name today and everyday? Or are Moses and Isaac and all of the heavenly host looking down and saying… ‘How sad… they used to be alive… but they’re not anymore!’

My article from the July 2004 issue of ‘The Circuit Rider’ a monthly newsletter I did for some years for the Wesley Chapel UMC, outside of Jacksonville, IL…

Some years ago, when I first drove a ‘big truck’ over the road, I would occasionally load soybean oil at a plant in Mexico, Mo. This was a very old plant, and the oil loading facility was very primitive in many ways. Basically, it consisted of a steel walkway built at truck height and covered with steel panels. After weighing in on the scale one block over, the procedure was to pull under the roof and line up the opening in the tank to the six-inch pipe used to load. Then you would climb up on top of your tank, open the dome and man-handle that multi-swiveled monstrosity into the tank and chain it down. About a half-hour later, after filling, you would let the last of the oil drain out before lifting the pipe out of the tank and hanging it back out of the way. You would then close your lid and drive around the block to see how close you were to having the right amount on.

You see, the gauge they had back then measured the gallons that flowed through the pipe into the tank, but it was not very accurate. Further more, the temperature of the oil would make a very big difference in your final weight… one gallon of hot oil weighs much less than one gallon of cold oil… and depending on which supply tank they were pulling out of there could be a five thousand-pound difference in the same number of gallons!

I chanced to go to that same plant recently to load the same product. Very little had changed except that the old gauge had been replaced with a new electronic one that somehow reads and counts the weight of the oil as it passes through it… and thus far, it has always been within three-or-four hundred pounds of reading the same as the scale itself!

Ahhh, the wonders of technology!

            Another thing I’ve noted while on the road is how rest-areas have changed over the years. I can recall going on family vacations and trips as a child when a rest-area sign meant a picnic table located at a spot to pull off the road and stop. Ten years ago, while making my first trip across Iowa, I had made note of their rest-areas. These dated from the fifties or sixties and were simple affairs with no vending machine facilities, though they did have heating and air-conditioning. I went that same way recently and found that most of those old buildings had been torn down and replaced with huge two-story affairs! These were very light and colorful, and each contained a mini-museum of information pertaining to that area!

            Many times over the last few years I have spoken to the idea that throughout the ages, mankind himself has not changed! Consider with me a moment… are the men and women of today any more intelligent than the men and women of Jesus’ time in Israel? No! We’re merely better educated! Can we run any faster or lift any heavier? No! We’re merely better trained! If left alone, would our bodies be any healthier, or would we live any longer? No! Without the aid of modern medical knowledge and science, we would be virtually no different from any other human who has ever lived on this earth! In other words, the only thing that HAS changed over all of these centuries is… technology!!

Example… people’s reasons for needing to stop at a rest area during a long trip have never changed… but what some people find acceptable while making that stop has! Technology has led us to expect to be entertained, educated and taken care of at all times and on every level! Furthermore, so many of us have been so taken with technology that we have come to believe that anything ‘natural’ must be evil, and  are no longer satisfied with the world as God created it… we want it sanitized, deodorized and modernized into OUR idea of what is acceptable! Unfortunately, many have tried to do the same thing with the Word of God!

During the first century, knowledge was passed on primarily by word of mouth… few people knew how to read and write, so what had been written was read to the masses by those who could. Centuries later, monks would sit for long hours with pen, ink and paper and hand-copy the books and words of the Bible, and the few copies thus produced were expensive and went only to those who could afford such ‘luxuries’. Still centuries later, the printing press brought the availability of the Bible to many more, and today its messages and meanings can be brought up at the speed of light in various electronic mediums! However… the message contained in those words has never… nor will it ever… change!

Don’t be fooled into believing that a modern world needs a modern message… the Word of God stands as true today as it ever was… and only a fool would think to change it!

My ‘message’ given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on December 26, 2004.

The Scripture is from the 2nd chapter of Hebrews, verses 10-18…

What is the difference between sympathy and empathy?

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary describes sympathy as having common feelings or emotions, such as an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other… the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another. And it describes empathy as a passionate feeling or emotion… the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present.

          After I read those two definitions, I was more confused than when I started! I think I prefer the very simplistic version I remember being taught by a Sunday School teacher many, many years ago… Sympathy is that ability to care about another’s pain even though you may never have personally experienced that particular pain. In other words, I can sympathize with someone who may have lost a parent, even though both of mine still live. To empathize with someone, however, is to be able to share their pain and suffering because you have also been through it yourself. Hence, I can empathize with someone going through an unfriendly divorce because I have done that myself.

          Both emotions have their uses… and their limitations. Just as a simple example… even though I have never been an orphan, I could probably work at an orphanage. My feelings of sympathy and love for those less fortunate than I would, I believe, stand me in good stead. However, I would be worse than useless working with alcoholics and drug addicts. True, there are those who have never suffered either of those conditions who do excellent work in that field, but by far and away, the most effective are those who have either recovered from them themselves, or had to deal with a loved one who suffered from them. I know from having hired and worked with some of them that those in the recovery process feel as if they have nothing at all in common with someone like me who has never had a drink of alcohol in their life!

As most of you know by now, I am a big fan of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Scotty, Dr. McCoy, and all things ‘Star Trek’! And there is a line from the fourth movie, ‘The Voyage Home’, that I would like to talk about this morning. But for it to make any sense, I first need to give you a brief synopsis of the story line as in developed in movies 2 and 3.

          In the second movie, ‘The Wrath of Khan’, Spock receives a massive dose of radiation while rescuing the ship, and dies. However, in the third movie, ‘The Search for Spock’, Mr. Spock’s cells are unintentionally regenerated by a science-project-gone-wild and quickly grow to become himself again. So it is, then, that in the fourth movie, Dr. McCoy is trying to talk to Spock about what it was like to die…

          “Come on, Spock… you really have been where no man has gone before! Can’t you tell me what it felt like?

          Spock replies, “It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of reference!”

          McCoy exclaims, “You mean I have to die to discuss your insights on death?!”

          In our Scriptures from Hebrews, this morning, the writer starts out by declaring that, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” The ‘many sons’ refers to all mortals… and unless some of you are much older than you look, that includes each of us!

          The Life Application Commentary says that, “(God’s making Jesus) perfect through sufferings does not refer to Jesus’ sinless state. Jesus was already perfect before he faced suffering. Instead, it refers to Jesus’ perfect position before God. In God’s eyes, Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for God’s people, pioneering their salvation through his suffering and death.”

          Why should that matter? Well, when you study all of the laws and instructions of the Old Testament, God was very specific in what sacrifices must be made to atone for which sins. For example, in the fourth chapter of Leviticus we read… “If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, he must bring to the LORD a young bull without defect as a sin offering for the sin he has committed.” The reason for this was very clear… in order for a sacrifice to have any meaning, it must be a true sacrifice. What does it cost someone to give out of their excess or cast-offs? If an injured or inferior animal was to be destroyed anyway, what cost, or sacrifice, has one made in offering it? None!

          In 2 Samuel we read the story of King David traveling to a certain place in order to offer sacrifices to God for relief of a plague that is sweeping the nation. When he arrives, the owner of the property, Araunah, says, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”

“To buy your threshing floor,” David answered, “so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the plague on the people may be stopped.”

Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take whatever pleases him and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing sledges and ox yokes for the wood. O king, Araunah gives all this to the king.” Araunah also said to him, “May the LORD your God accept you.”

But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them. David built an altar to the LORD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the LORD answered prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.”

David knew the value of a sacrifice… he knew that it was not the act of sacrificing that mattered… it was the sacrifice that one made in doing so… for it is in this way that the Lord reads and knows our true love and devotion for Him! And so it is for this reason that a perfect sacrifice must be made as atonement for our sins… and the only perfection that exists is in God, Himself, and His Son… our Lord, Jesus Christ! And He existed in that perfection before He came to be one of us.

          But… even though God created us, I’m sure He must look at our lives, sometimes, and just shake his head in disbelief. In the days of the Law of Moses, God had set down law upon law of very strict rules, and what to do to atone for each if it was broken. He spoke to the people through His prophets and priests, and worked very obvious and visible miracles for them. And still, these people would wander away from Him and sin at almost every turn! He had to wonder why! Yes, He was a God of love and understanding! And He could sympathize with their hurt and their anguish after their sins had driven them away from His protection! But He had to wonder why they kept doing it again and again and again!

          And so He sent His Son to become one of us that He might know, first hand, what it is to be human… that He might empathize more closely to us and what it means to live each day one-at-a-time… and, yes, what it might mean to face death… and to suffer and die! Our verses state very clearly that, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity… For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.

For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”

          Again quoting from the Life Application Commentary, “Because humans experience suffering and death, Christ became fully human and experienced these aspects of being human as well. That Christ both lived and died gives us confidence that we have a High Priest who is able to sympathize with our weakness. We have confidence that because Christ conquered death, he also can save us from death.”

          Jesus… the Son of the Living God… was born to the Virgin Mary in a stable in Bethlehem and laid in a manger! Since the child was in danger of losing His life to Herod’s jealousy, the family was warned to move to Egypt, and wound up, later, moving and living in Nazareth. And all of these things were foretold by the prophets hundreds of years earlier!

But Isaiah also told us this, as we heard in this morning’s Old Testament reading… “I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD, the deeds for which he is to be praised, according to all the LORD has done for us — yes, the many good things he has done for the house of Israel, according to his compassion and many kindnesses. He said, “Surely they are my people, sons who will not be false to me”; and so he became their Savior. In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.”

          ‘In His love and mercy He redeemed them!’ … ‘In His love and mercy He redeemed US! He redeemed you… and me!

          But you know what the very next verse of that chapter says? “Yet they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit. So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them.”

          Are we among the redeemed? Or are we among the rebels? And do we even know the difference? We’d better!

Based on Luke 13: 10-17, this was given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on August 22, 2004 and again, after a Very Minor re-write, at the Wanda (IL) UMC on September 20, 2020!

          As far as I know, the only cows that grandpa ever raised were Herefords, with an occasional Black Angus bull thrown in so that we had a few black-and-whites as well as the standard red-and-whites, and dad continued that ‘tradition’ after grandpa retired and we bought our own farm outside of Edwardsville.

          Dad was always the do-it-yourself-er… a trait that you pretty much had to be back then… and taking care of the health needs of all of the livestock was no exception. I recall a spray-bomb of pink-eye medicine that always sat on one of the wooden beams above the feed stalls where we could grab it and shoot any infected eyes we might see while they were feeding. We took care of turning all of the boy-calves into ‘its’, and I remember, well, the time Dad actually ‘reaching-in’ with his arm to help one cow during delivery who’s calf had its head turned the wrong way.

          In fact, in all of the years that I have any memory of helping with the animals, I recall losing only one calf, and as best I recall, it was still-born. What I mainly remember about that incident was that, in order to save the cow, we went to a neighbor’s farm and bought a replacement calf for her. You see, the problem is that a pregnant cow starts producing milk in advance of the birth so that she can feed the new-born as soon as it is on its feet, and without a calf to feed, our Hereford cow had no where to go with this milk, and it would cause problems for her. Now, one might ask why it was alright to take a calf away from one mother in order to save another, but the answer is really very simple… the calf we bought was a Brown Swiss… a milk breed! And as it was also a bull calf that the farmer had no desire to keep for the herd, the sooner it was away from its mother, the sooner her milk production went back into his pocket… a win – win for everyone!

          Those of us who have ever worked around animals know that it becomes very easy to tell one animal from another even if they are all the same color, or colors. In the case of our Herefords, even though they were all either red-and-white or black-and-white, it was easy for us to tell one from another because of different sizes and patterns of those colors, as well as such things as the shape of their horns, if they had any, their age, their size… sometimes, even by their attitude! But even the city-people coming to visit could tell that there was something different about that one!

Besides being a totally different color, he grew taller than the other steers, but like all milk breeds, never ‘filled out’ like a beef animal… all of his bones showed through as his skin just seemed to hang on his frame. Indeed, if it hadn’t been for his being needed for the sake of the cow, the whole thing would have been a money-loser… for, even though he ate as much as all of the rest, he never came close to weighing the same as them when they were hauled off.

Except for that one instance, I have never worked around milk cows… and since he wasn’t a cow, I guess I can’t even count that! But I remember dad and grandpa, both, avowing how they would never want to have a herd of milkers… ‘You can never take a day off because you have to be there to milk and take care of them everyday and everyday and everyday’. And that is very true! Even our beef cows needed to be fed and watered everyday, but if the family was going someplace over the weekend, we could either give them extra before we left, or if it was going to be for a longer period of time, see about getting one of the neighbors kids to come over and take care of them each day… after all, how hard is it to throw out a couple of bales of hay and pump the water troughs full?

But not so a herd of dairy cows! They have to be milked everyday, on the same schedule each day… and doing that takes lots of training and experience. Why, even someone like me, who is used to being around cows, would probably be kicked onto the floor by a Bessie who didn’t like where or how I was standing!

And as Jesus points out in today’s verses, the same, I’m sure, held true in those days! Yes, their law said there was to be absolutely no work done on the Sabbath… the women were to prepare their meals ahead of time, and they were not supposed to travel more than so far from where they stopped the day before, whether at home or traveling. But animals need attention! Anyone who had goats or maybe a milk cow had to see to their milking each day, and they must all be fed and watered! And surely the shepherd whose flocks roamed free on the hillsides would never abandon his charges and leave them helpless and open to attacks from robbers and wild animals… if he had no other way to shelter them, he had to stay with them! Now, these are all acts of compassion… true, compassion to an animal, and perhaps with ulterior motives… a dead animal is of no use to anyone!… but compassion none-the-less!

The Life Application Commentary tells us that, “Instead of finding love, justice, humility, and mercy among God’s people, Jesus found an arrogance that didn’t even allow healing a woman on the Sabbath, the day set aside for the God of mercy. The Jewish leaders had perverted God’s law so much that they were using it as an excuse to squelch compassion and godliness, instead of as a tool to promote a love of God and others. Religious do-good-ism had so infected Israel’s leadership that, by some twist of religious logic, they had come to see the Lord’s Sabbath as a day when compassion was illegal. Jesus would have no part of it. Their hypocrisy was evident, and Jesus plainly said so.”

It goes on to point out, then, that, “Jesus exposes the same type of hypocrisy today. Christians should always be careful to never use religion as an excuse to judge others. Instead, Christians need to show love and mercy to other people, no matter who they are. Today, well-meaning Christians have allowed purely human rules to intrude on the church’s welcome to “outsiders.” Dress codes, hair codes, behavior codes, and language codes give many churches a pharisaic feel. We must let Jesus remove all such barriers to people finding God’s love… We must let compassion be our guide; and we must let the rules that hinder it be forgotten.”

So, the gist of this story is this… Jesus is teaching in a synagogue, as was His custom, when He has compassion for a woman there and heals her! In what is most likely fear, the ruler of the synagogue declares the action illegal because it was done on the Sabbath… a day of rest… and Jesus calls him hypocrite for condemning Him for showing the same compassion to this ‘daughter of Abraham’… that the ruler would have shown to his cattle! And, of course, we’re told that, “the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.”

And all of this, I think, is pretty simple and straight-forward, with several good points to be learned from it. One such point, to me, is that there is never a bad time to do something good! I would also like to make note, here, that at no time does Jesus approve of doing work on the Sabbath… He declares that His act of good is the sort of ‘work’ that is acceptable for a Sabbath… but He never releases them… nor us… from that responsibility of NOT working on that day! How many of us still abide by it?

However, the point that I really want to make this morning is found in verse 13… “Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.” There was no delay… there was no recuperation period… “He put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up”… immediately! But wait… there is something else that happened ‘immediately’… “immediately she straightened up and praised God.”

There was absolutely no hesitation on her part… she was healed… and immediately, she started praising God!! Oh, but what that could apply to us!!

When was the last time God did something for you? If you really think about it, it was probably this morning, wasn’t it? I mean, you woke up, got out of bed, had breakfast and came here. Every one of those actions are, in some way, indebted to God! And when was the last time you thanked Him for any of it? Did you sit up in bed and immediately thank Him for another day? Did you eat your breakfast and immediately thank Him for your abundance? Did you drive or ride to service this morning and immediately thank Him for the luxury of an automobile, and the freedom to assemble in His name? I’d be willing to bet, if I were a betting man, that the answer for most of us is an astonishing ‘NO’! Why ‘astonishing’? Because without God we would not exist! This world would not exist! Without God, there would be nothing and nobody! There would be no you, no me, no today, no tomorrow, and no yesterday! Everything we have… everything we are… everything we ever will be… is through the blessings of the Lord! Everything! Don’t you think we owe Him a thank you? Don’t you think we need to praise Him with all of our might, heart and soul every minute of everyday? I certainly do!

Let us pray…

God… we come to you now in an attitude of such awe! We realize, once again, God, that without You there would be nothing… without You, we would not even exist. We thank you, Lord, and lift our praise up to You for all that we are and all that we have. And we ask, God, that You help us to always remember not only the debt that we owe You… that of our very existence… but also the gift of Your Son, Jesus, who died on the Cross of Calvary for our sins. We ask, God, that you truly, ‘Take our lives and let us be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee. Take our moments and our days; Let them flow with ceaseless praise!’

And all of God’s children say…

James 3:13 – 4:3, 4:7,8a

          “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 any interest in knowing! Never-the-less, whenever Larry’s class schedule interfered with a game schedule, he would ask me to cover for him as the announcer at the game. He gave me this book 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 had given 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 that I shared with the guys from the 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 the same kind of book that I had, 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. In fact, I don’t believe that he even worked 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 verse of today’s reading. 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 doing what James says in the last of today’s verses! ‘Submit yourself to God.’ He says that if we ‘resist the devil, he will flee. But 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! Take time to be Holy! 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? Come to think of it, isn’t Jesus 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!

And He is the only one who can do it… because He paid for them… in our name… on the cross of Calgary!