This is Monday, February 27, 2017. In the Eastern Orthodox churches, both Catholic and Protestant, this is Clean Monday. Tomorrow, in the Western churches, both Catholic and Protestant, it is Fat Tuesday. And on Wednesday in Western churches, it is Ash Wednesday. Fat Tuesday is also known as Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Tuesday (in England) and Mardi Gras in France and New Orleans, which is just Fat Tuesday in the French language. Ash Wednesday commences Lent. During Lent, each Sunday is actually not Lent, which is important. In the last week of Lent, which is commonly called Holy Week, we have the Friday of Sorrows, Palm Sunday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and ends with Easter.

          During Lent, we are to give up something of value. This could be a food or treat or something such as an activity. This is where the idea of Fat Tuesday comes from. During Lent, if you are really seriously into all of this, you are to give up all animal products except for Fridays, at which time you can eat fish. In the days when meats and dairy products could not be stored, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the commence of Lent, was a feast day out of necessity. Everything was going to spoil, so you ate it. Hence, Fat Tuesday and Pancake Tuesday. In time, this became a huge celebration, even after the restriction of animal products was eased. Now, Fat Tuesday is a celebration of debauchery. We can see the wild celebrations of Mardi Gras on TV, viewing the parades, the drinking and the nearly naked (and sometimes completely naked) women dancing in the streets. At midnight, it must all be over because Lent is starting. Hard to believe, but the insanity of Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras is part of a Christian religious celebration.

          It is also hard to understand, but the Sundays during Lent are not a part of Lent. Therefore, all restrictions of Lent are not in force. A pastor I once knew, and his entire family, gave up TV for Lent. This was no small thing for these folks. All meals were taken in front of the television. There were TVs in every room with a VCR (this was a few years ago). Giving up TV seemed like a real sacrifice. However, because Sundays were exempt, they taped all their favorite show during the week and binged on Sundays.  

          Someone from another part of the world, say Cambodia, where their worship does not include Christ, would likely fail to see the point in all this celebration, especially over something so bitterly sad. And if they were in, say, New Orleans at the Fat Tuesday celebration and saw a woman in next to nothing drinking and whooping it up and then happened to be in a church the next day and saw that same woman in a somber dress kneeling before the priest and having the mark of the Cross placed on her forehead in ashes, what kind of insanity would they think they had stumbled into?

          We have made Christianity so confusing and so complicated that we turn people away. Then, in order to made it meaningful to us, we do everything except what we should be doing, which is to share the simple plan of salvation to the lost.

          I once asked a acquaintance of mine what the Biblical connection was with giving something up for Lent. His immediate reply was we give up something important for the 40 days of Lent (It is actually 45 days from Ash Wednesday to Easter, but Sundays don’t count, so it is 40 days.) to link ourselves with Jesus and His fast of 40 days. But, even when someone fasts for Lent they only fast during daylight hours and they can eat all day Sunday if they want. We had a bit of a scandal in my hometown about 40 years ago. At the Catholic church, there was a pre-Lenten meal going on in the church hall for one of the women’s group. The priest was invited and apparently the women were boasting about what they were giving up for Lent. Finally, the priest was asked what he was giving up. He said he was giving up sex for Lent, to which every woman in the place let her mouth drop open. “Well, why not?” The priest was reported to have said. “You ‘give up’ things in your lives that are unimportant to you. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to do the same?”

          We are coming to an amazing time of the year, the most amazing time, as far as I am concerned. We are remembering specifically the last few weeks of the life of Jesus. His ministry on earth is coming to an end. Soon we will be faced with the intrigue of those who hated Him, the betrayal of one so close to Him, the fear of those who had pledged themselves to Him, the mocking of those who, only a week earlier, were hailing Him as King, the pain of His beatings, the awful nobility of His crucifixion, the despair of His burial and then the glory of His Resurrection. Why do we feel the need to clutter all this up with the banality of tradition? Shouldn’t the shear majesty of His love and sacrifice be enough?

          The greatest story ever told and then we riddle it with empty actions and pointless tradition. ¹Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, you are ²very great! ³You are clothed with splendor and majesty.

           For a period of time in my ministry I worked with churches going through crisis situations. This would be churches on the verge of closing. Before that, while still pastoring, I sometimes worked with pastors going through crisis situations. These were people who were on the verge of leaving the ministry. Usually, the church in crisis blamed the previous three pastors for their demise. The pastor in crisis, on the other hand, blamed his last one or two churches for his problems. Every once in a while I would come across a church that would regret some of their past actions and admit to their own faults and every once in a while a pastor would say to me that he had really messed up/ Although the church or pastor that was willing to accept the blame was rare, they were also the ones who could be helped. The church or pastor that pointed the finger at someone else was the church or pastor that was headed for a bad ending.

          There are those churches that batter their pastors. I knew a pastor once who had a knife pulled on him in a deacons meeting. There are pastors who wreck churches without a care. The pastor who takes the church into an expensive building program and then leaves halfway through to take another church that is bigger and better and pays more and was impressed with him for being 'successful.' But I have always felt that if the church goes into their search fully open to the Lord and the pastor goes into the search fully open to the Lord and then they meet each other halfway, they have a pretty good chance of success. There are some very good churches and there are some very good pastors.

          Then, of course, there are churches that think they walk with the Lord when they are only seeking their own way. One church was running over 200 in morning worship when their pastor left. The search committee sent around questionnaires asking the congregation what kind of pastor they wanted. There were questions concerning age, health, marital status, children at home, appearance, education, experience and some others. The people filled them out and turned them in and from that information the search committee came up with a composite for their candidate. Sounds pretty good. The problem with that, though, is that the church has laid out a template and then they want God to give them a pastor who fits that template. They assume God will honor their efforts when, in fact, God likely has other ideas. So it was at this church. The Lord sent them a candidate who exceeded most of their desires and met the others, except one. They wanted a pastor under 50 years of age. The candidate was 51. Therefore, too old. They continued the search finally finding their guy. He met their requirements and he was only 49. He lasted just a few years. the next pastor lasted only a year and a half. The church is struggling with around 50 on Sunday morning, their once fine Youth group is gone and they are approaching the church in crisis stage. The pastor who was to old by a year has been richly blessed by the Lord and is in a wonderful place of ministry. The same can be said about pastor. The pastor who went to the just mentioned church was looking for a stepping stone church that would take him higher. Now he is part time in the ministry. 

           Earlier this week I talked about Dr. Bill Wilkes. A fine man who richly blessed my ministry. I have known many good men in the pastorate. One character that sticks out in my mind was a fellow preacher I met while pastoring in a medium sized city in Ohio. Big and boisterous, he was a former motorcycle gang member who found the Lord and became one of the best preachers and pastors around. Still loved his motorcycle, though. One day his wife and he were on the bike going to look at a new sign that was being made for the front of their church when a drunk driver hit them. The wife came out of it okay, but the pastor was severely injured. In the end they had to take his left leg off just below the knee. That, along with some nasty internal injuries, laid him up for a long time. Finally, he was able to get back to his pulpit and his parish.                                                                                                                     

          He had always had a tremendous sense of humor, but his ordeal had understandably toned him down a bit. Another thing he had always been known for was his killer game of golf. That also seemed doomed now.

           But, in time the annual clergy tournament came around, which he had always won, and he announced he was going to try to play. Remember that here was a man with a wonderful sense of humor. (He had once been playing a round with a group of pastors and had hit a goose that was swimming in a pond. The bird got it in the head with his tee shot. The unlucky fowl died immediately. Everyone was shocked, but he just shook his head and said it was the first time he ever heard of someone scoring a birdie on a tee shot.) Anyway, several years before his son had given him a pack of three golf balls filled with talcum powder as a gag gift, and our hero had fallen for the gag once and thought it was very funny and had never used them again. Now, however, he hobbled out to the tee with one of those balls in hand. "I hope I still have something left in me," he said. All the pastors leaned in a little closer to see if their friend could indeed hit the ball. It was a solemn occasion. He selected his driver, teed up and drew back for a mighty swing. At the point of contact the ball exploded and talcum powder filled the air and coated everyone that was close by, including the hero of this story. As the powder settled he looked down the fairway as if he were following the flight of the ball and said with great satisfaction, "Yep, I still got it." 

           We are limited only by ourselves and that usually comes when we decide we know best. Many want to serve God, but in an advisory capacity. Let Him lead you and you will do great things.

College and seminary was all very fine, but there is no teacher like experience. The best and safest way to get experience in the pastoral ministry is to be another pastor’s assistant. I spent some time as an assistant to a few pastors and I learned from each, But one stays in my mind in a special way. The Reverend Doctor William Wilkes. The good Reverend Doctor pastored Sunset Heights Baptist Church in Hialeah, Florida, which is a suburb of Miami. Actually, from Miami to Fort Lauderdale it is all one big, sprawling city, and Hialeah made up a big chunk of that metro area.

          I learned a lot from this man, some good, some not so good, but I loved him dearly.

          Dr. Wilkes was a dignified man who had little use for humor in the pulpit, although sometimes he did give it a try. You could tell it took a lot out of him and that it made him uncomfortable. I have wondered sometimes if my whole purpose there was for comic relief. He recognized the need for humor; he just couldn’t bring it off himself. One bright and glorious Sunday morning the good Reverend Doctor was really getting into his sermon when a young lady, a visitor to the church, stood up and moved down the aisle, going from the back of the church to the front of the 450 seat sanctuary. As she walked past the pulpit she stopped and looked up at our stern looking pastor, who was clearly not amused. "I gotta go pee" she announced. The pastor's mouth dropped open and she continued on her way, leaving a speechless sanctuary behind. The really bad thing about this was that when you opened the door leading out of the sanctuary, the lady's restroom was right there. She left the sanctuary door open, went into the restroom and left that door open, too. She really did do as she had announced to the pastor.

          We had a racetrack ministry at that church. On Monday nights, my wife and I would take a few of our youth, load them into the church van and go to a horseracing track that was in our city. Most don’t know this, but there is a fairly large community of people who live at the track, at least in Florida where they race year-round. Grooms, handlers, stable hands. The unseen portion of horse racing. Of course, these people need Christ in their lives just like anyone else, but they were mostly forgotten. At this track, however, there was a chaplain. He and I became friends and we went out on Monday nights to help. My wife would play the guitar and sing, the kids would do puppets and I would bring a short message.

          One week, Dr. Wilkes got it in his head that he would like to go with us, which was great. We arranged that he would bring the message to the folks there. He showed up at the appointed time to get in the church van and go with us, but he was wearing his best three-piece white suit, (this was 1979 and white suits were snazzy) diamond tie pin and expensive shoes. The rest of us were in jeans, pullovers and sneakers.

          “Uh, Doctor Wilkes, sir,” I said. “You might be a little over dressed. We have to park next to the stables and the room we meet in is really more like a bar.”

          My dignified mentor looked over at me with his best senior pastor look.

          “Nonsense. When a man puts himself into the position of proclaiming the Word of God he must look the very best he can look. You must never dress down to lift up.” Which I believe to this day. But it was a race track.

          He was the boss, after all, so off we went.

          By the time we got home he had stepped in horse manure twice, been nuzzled by a couple of horses, stood next to a beer on tap dispenser to preach and had suffered the indignity of having many of the people walk out on him. He never went back.

          In time, Marsha and I and our son Adam (one year old) left that church and moved to the panhandle of Florida to a little country church as pastor. Sandy Creek Baptist Church was a long way from Hialeah, both in distance and in culture.

          It was really a country church. We were so far from any town that the paved road ended at our church's driveway. It was a thirteen-mile drive just to get to where I could buy a morning paper. But I was Sandy Creek’s pastor and I was loving it. However, I felt that our little church needed some spiritual fire, so I contacted Dr. Wilkes to see if he would come and preach a revival. He happily agreed and he and his wife came to do so. I had arranged for us all, he and his wife and my family, to eat at a different home each night of the revival.

          I felt good about the eating arrangements, except for one place. I was worried that Dr. Wilkes, who was kind of prissy, would be uncomfortable. The home was a group home for mentally and physically handicapped adults. A widowed woman ran the place and did an extremely good job. Without much money, she kept her four or five charges looking good and in good health. The house was old and somewhat run down, and like most homes in that part of the south, did have a problem with cockroaches, but she managed to even control that issue. She was a fine, country lady doing the best she could.

          I shouldn’t have worried about Dr. Wilkes, or his wife Bonnie. They had such a good time that I was a little ashamed of myself for having such fears. It was really fine, until..........

          We had gone into the living room and were visiting with the residents of the group home while our hostess was preparing dinner. Dr. Wilkes and his wife were fully involved in listening to and sharing stories with the residents. My wife, knowing of my fears, looked at me with a smug look as though to say, "See, I told you not to worry." I began to relax.

          Then, the most wonderful smell began to waft out of the kitchen. Dr. Wilkes and I both got up and headed for the source of that smell. We were, after all, preachers. Preachers love to eat, dignified or not. Entering the kitchen, we saw our hostess making little cornbread cakes on a large griddle. She would fry one side then flip it over and fry the other side. If you have never eaten real southern cornbread (not that mix stuff with sugar in it that they sell at Kroger’s) made on a griddle, you have yet to eat. Dr. Wilkes was overjoyed. He told our hostess that his mother had made cornbread cakes in exactly the same way and he hadn't eaten them in years. Since I had enjoyed her cornbread on several occasions I assured the good doctor that it was just about the best cornbread I had ever eaten, right next to my own mother's. Our hostess was beaming with the praise she was receiving while trying to be humble. But, you could tell she was pleased with our very true words.

          Just then, a cockroach scurried out from behind the griddle. Without missing a beat, she took the spatula in her hand that she had been flipping the cakes with and smashed the cockroach flat. Then she went back to flipping. The good doctor didn’t say a word. When supper was served he manfully took a couple of the cakes, looked over at me and told me to eat up and we sat there and ate cornbread. Good eatin’.

          Both Dr. Wilkes and Bonnie have been in Heaven for some time. I have so many stories! But for now, I will end by saying that I can’t think of them without smiling. Every young wannabe preacher should be so fortunate as to have a mentor who impacts him so greatly. Dr. and Mrs. Wilkes make Heaven look so much sweeter for me.

          “We have the right!” That is the rallying cry of protesters in this country. And, they are absolutely right. This is the United States of America. We have rights. Over the weekend I saw a video of American children whacking away at a piñata, seeking to break it open so that they could get to the candy inside. The piñata was made to look like the president of the United States. The parents of the children stood around shooting video and laughing and cheering on their little ones as they taught the lesson of disrespect. But, they have that right. A FedEx driver heroically shoulders his way into the middle of a protest to save an American flag from being burned. It is on video. The burning of the flag used to be illegal except in controlled circumstances where the purpose was to dispose of a tattered and worn flag, but that must have changed for it is done often now with no repercussions. But, regardless, the protest and disrespect to the flag was legal. They have that right. We have rights until they impinge on the rights of others. Of course, even that has gone by the wayside.

          “We have the right!” Even when the rights that we have were paid for by those who sacrificed their rights to military service and, in many cases, who sacrificed their very lives. Yes, we have rights. Rights guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States of America, even the right to disrespect that same Constitution. We have the right to act foolish. We have the right to disrespect. We have the right to protest the government even while we cower behind that government demanding safety and aid when trials come.

          “We have the right!” Because we have the right, all this was inevitable. When you don’t have to pay for something yourself, you will misuse it. But, it is more than just that, too. Where we are now has its roots in the past. Where we are now goes back to a time when parades in small towns on Memorial Day were exciting and the people lining the streets brought their hands up to cover their hearts as the flag went by. A time when old soldiers would wear whatever portion of their uniform that still fit and would come to attention to salute the flag they had proudly served. A time when ‘protest’ was done in a voting booth. The ugliness of today goes back to a simpler, calmer time that we find ourselves longing for. A time when abortion was illegal and a time when there was prayer in school and a time when children were required to say the Pledge every morning, yet it didn’t seem like it was required. A time, it seems, that we can never return to now.

          “We have the right!” All of this goes back to a time when we began to exercise a basic right. A right that predates the country, a right that goes back to the very beginning of mankind. Somewhere along the way we began to exercise the right to not pray. God has never stood over us and demanded we pray to Him. When mankind has abandoned prayer, society has begun to decay. Despite what is taught in our schools now, this country was founded by people coming here, at least in part, to be able to worship in Spirit and in truth. People prayed for safety and protection, people prayed for one another, people prayed forvision, people prayed for grace. Many will talk about the displacement of the native people as a way to condemn those early settlers, but they didn’t come here to displace or exploit. They came here to live freely and exercise their faith. They shared their faith with those already here, and they were mostly turned down. They still sought to live in peace. The people on this land have always prayed. Our people have always reached out to God. We have been a good people, rising to help those who couldn’t help themselves, standing in the gap to protect others. And all the while, taking the Good News to the world through the finest mission work ever.

          “We have the right!” Yes, we do have the right. We have the right to abandon the very One who established us. We have the right to ignore the very Book that would create in us a sense of decency and moral courage. We have the right to neglect the simplest of obligations, that being prayer. These rights were given to us by the Father Himself. We have always had free will, we could always choose. Like any choice, we either make the right choice or the wrong choice. And we, as a people, have chosen to make God and His Word and our communication with Him a ceremonial event for Sundays and special occasions. We have chosen wrong.

          2 Chronicles 7:12-15---Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Why have we turned our backs on being humble before the Lord? Why have we turned our backs on praying to Him and seeking Him out? Why have we turned our backs on righteous living and instead chosen evil? If we turn back He will heal our land! WHY HAVE WE TURNED AWAY? We have the right.

          I went to a couple of different Bible Colleges before seminary. The first college was in Tennessee. I went there in January of 1975 after graduating from high school in June of 1974. I was unmarried and I had the pleasure of living in a men’s dorm. Actually, ‘pleasure’ doesn’t quite express the feeling. ‘Death sentence’ is closer to the fact. It was a very strict school and the dorms were more like lock down facilities. The women’s dorms were much more so than the men’s, but neither was very pleasant. It struck me, though, that the kids from super strict homes thought they had freedom at last, particularly PKs and MKs. (Preacher’s kids and missionary’s kids.) Those from the super strict environments who thought they had freedom at last tended to get into trouble pretty quickly because they were so naive. Other students would talk them into doing stupid stuff. I hadn’t come from a strict home and was hardly naïve and I had no desire to get other students in trouble for my own entertainment, so some of those kids who were overwhelmed by school gravitated to me.

          One girl from a strict home was named Elaine. She was from Georgia and had a sassy attitude. She was cute and funny and so naïve it almost hurt to talk to her. She had a job working at a local restaurant as a waitress. On one occasion my roommates and I came into a little money and we went to the restaurant to eat, since one of my roommates kind of liked Elaine. We all came away angry. Elaine was a favorite there because she had no clue. Some of the young local men would harass her, saying rude and lewd things or swatting her on the behind as she walked by. She had no idea what they were talking about and she thought the swats were to get her attention to get more water or whatever. I know it seems impossible that someone in this day and age could be so naïve, but that was not this day and age. That was over 40 years ago and she was that naïve. Dusty, the roommate who liked her, jumped to his feet the first time someone said something. Steve, another roomie, grabbed him and reminded him that if a fight started, all four of us guys and Elaine would be kicked out of school. So we spoke to the manager instead. To him it was all fine. The young locals only came in the evenings Elaine worked and Elaine was oblivious to their action, so what was the problem? Again, a different time.

Elaine’s guy, though, wasn’t Dusty. She was in love with Pastor Ken, the youth director at her home church. Almost every day she would sit down across from me in the school library and tell me all about Pastor Ken. It was a larger church and had around 150 youth in the youth group. Elaine was in love with Pastor Ken, but to him she was just a young lady who had moved on after her Youth days. But Elaine had it bad for Pastor Ken

We had a week off from school at Easter. And when we all got back to school Elaine caught up with me in the library. You could almost feel the excitement radiating off of her. She dropped into the seat across from me and practically shouted, “Larry, I have figured it out! I know how to make Pastor Ken marry me!” Now, as it happened, I already had some demerits (my secret and you don’t need to know) and I couldn’t risk getting tossed out of the library, especially for something I really didn’t care to much about.

“Lanie, pipe down! You’ll get us tossed!” She acted like she didn’t hear me, but she did quiet down.

“Larry, listen to me. I have figured how to get Pastor Ken to marry me. Isn’t that great?!!?” I just looked at her and made a face that said, ‘go on.’

“I want you to show me how to get pregnant.”

          I could have sat there and guessed for eight weeks and never have come up with that one. I wasn’t shocked or stunned or anything like that. I was blown away. Virtually speechless, as you will see.

          “WHAT?” Real smooth.

          “WHAT?” Like I said, real smooth.

          She gave me that exasperated look women reserve for men who are not quite up to speed. “Shush! Not so loud. Somebody will hear and you’ll get in trouble. Let me explain.”

          “Okay,” I said. If nothing else, the explanation would be interesting.

          “Okay, I was thinking about this last night. Back home in Georgia there was this girl who really liked this guy. He liked her, too, sort’a, but not near as much as she liked him. He would never have married her as it was, so she went and got herself pregnant somehow and he had to marry her. So, I figure that if I get pregnant, Pastor Ken will have to marry me.”

          No kidding. That is what she told me. For a moment or two I didn’t even breathe. I was waiting for the punch line. But Elaine just sat there and looked at me, waiting for the light to come on in my thick male mind. It finally dawned on me that she was serious. To her the reasoning of the argument was sound. 

          I leaned across the table and so did she. Our noses were inches apart.  

          “Lanie,” just a whisper now. “I know how you feel about Pastor Ken and I know you want to marry him more than anything else in the whole world, but this isn’t the way to go about it.” I was using the reasoning, confident tone I imagined a pastor would use.

          “Larry, you must really be dumb. Give me one good reason why my plan won’t work. Just one.” Honestly, she was serious.

          Actually, I could have given her a dozen. The most obvious, however, is what I went with. “Lanie, in order for Pastor Ken to have to marry you, he would have to be the one to ‘show’ you how to get pregnant.”

          She blinked her eyes a couple of times and said, “But he would never do that! That’s why I need you to show me!”

          Now when you stop and think about that reply, you see something else about her thinking. Pastor Ken was so good and pure that he would never show her. Evidently, she thought I wasn’t so good and pure. She didn’t know the procedure, but Pastor Ken would not step off of his pedestal to show her. I was her choice. I was convenient. This was confirmed in the rest of the conversation.

          “Lanie, it doesn’t work that way. If I show you how to get pregnant, you would have to marry me.”

          Her eyes got wide. “Ewwww! That’s gross! I don’t want to marry you!” Yes sir, she had a way with men.

          She left school at the end of the semester and I never saw her again. I do hope she got straightened out.

            This story starts back in 1973. I would ask you to read this through to the end. Before you do, I want to thank you for taking the time.

            I was going to be playing Santa Claus at the elementary schools in our little town. (Back then I needed to wear padding. If I did it now, probably not. But now I wouldn’t be playing Santa, either.) There was a girl in my class who had the same eye glass prescription as I had, but her glasses were gold wireframes, which were not a common choice back then. The glasses would be perfect for Santa though, and she said I could wear them. On the day I needed them, though, she had forgotten them at home. (Her name was Marsha and I later married her. Now, 41 years later, she still forgets her glasses. Or sticks them in her hair and forgets them there.) She called her mother from the pay phone and arranged for me to pick them up on my way to the elementary school. Her little brother, Joey, was home sick and this way he would get to see Santa, too.

            So, I stopped at the Medlen home. I met Mrs. M, who wasn’t really happy to be turning her daughter’s glasses over to a guy who had driven up in a beat up old farm truck. (Trucks were not cool back then.) And I got to meet Joey, who was stunned to have Santa walk into his home. He didn’t care about the truck rather than the sleigh, it only mattered that Santa was there. I don’t know if he knows to this day that it wasn’t really Santa.

            Marsha and I started dating that Spring and I got to knowing the family better. Dorothy, her mother, had very little use for me back then. Loring, her father, just assumed I was another in the line of boyfriends. All three brothers were young than Marsha, the oldest being Buddy and then Mike and, last, Joey. Buddy and Mike cared little for sports but Joey was a sports nut and I gravitated towards him. He got to where when I came over he thought I was there to play ball with him. Sometimes he would get a little bothered that Marsha would butt in.

            We got married and moved to Tennessee for college and then eventually returned to Ohio for a couple of years. For Joey, this was the time he was becoming a standout Little Leaguer. At his insistence, I wound up helping with his Little League team. He would make a good play or get a hit and he would look at me from the field. “Good job, Joey, way to go!” Only when I said that, or something like it would he smile. We took him sledding, I played football and baseball with him and then one evening we took him to his first major league baseball game. The Cleveland Indians were really bad back in the late 1970s. Really, really bad. Unbelievably bad. Joey was their biggest fan. They could do no wrong. So, one night we loaded him into my 1973 Vega and we headed to Cleveland to the old, decrepit Municipal Stadium to watch them play ball.

            The Stadium had been built in the 1930s and it was old. The restrooms usually didn’t work. If you saw a cop standing around for security reasons he was usually leaning against a wall eating a bratwurst. Usually, during baseball season, half the lights in the concourse were burned out. The place would fill up during football season, but baseball was really pathetic. Not only was the team bad, but it was sometimes dangerous to be in or around that old barn. Games played at night were poorly attended. We pulled up to the 74,000 seat stadium in a parking lot designed for a lot of cars to see less than a hundred cars, all parked up close to the building. Marsha even wondered if the game had been canceled. But Joey was bouncing around in the backseat. (being a Vega didn’t leave much room to bounce, but still….) When the door was opened he was gone like a shot. He got 20 yards away and turned and said, “COME ON YOU GUYS!!! WE WON’T GET A GOOD SEAT!!!” 74,000 seats, a hundred cars, evidently math wasn’t his strength at the time.

            We got inside, got our tickets and bought the hot dogs, then stepped out to where we could get to our seats. Joey’s mouth dropped open. To him, it was beautiful. Awesome, even. I don’t remember who won that night, but I remember that Marsha and I had the most fun watching Joey be amazed. Every fly ball brought him to his feet, every catch in the outfield brought him to his feet, every sharp grounder brought him to his feet. Actually, I don’t think he sat down at all during the game. When we got back to the car I dropped the back seat so he could lay in the back and look up at the stars through the hatchback. He did that all the way home, probably thinking of the day he would win the World Series for the Indians with a bottom of the ninth homerun in Game Seven.

            That Fall Marsha and I moved to Florida to pursue the ministry. Joey stayed in sports, but not so much the ball sports. He developed a real love for running. By the time he was in high school he would run the five miles to the center of the next town and turn at the stoplight and run home. Just to get loose. He loved to run. He wrestled, too, but the running was the focus. He became an all-state runner and is still remembered as the best of our old high school’s runners. He got a scholarship to college and was being groomed for the 1988 Olympics. Seriously, he was that good. Dedicated. He still loved all the Cleveland sports, but by then his dream was to be standing on that center podium with the Star Spangled Banner playing and a gold medal being placed around his neck.

            Then, in a race in college, he took a fall and got hurt. Try as he might, he couldn’t seem to recover. Finally, they did a series of tests on him. Turned out that the fall was just a fall, but his real problem was something called ankylosing spondylitis. An auto immune disease, at the time it was considered very rare. It was an ‘orphan disease,’ a disease so rare there was no medical treatment for it, no money spent fixing it and would always lead to death. Before death it would damage the spine and hips. Just a couple of years and he would be wheelchair bound. Imagine the blow, the destruction of the dream, the death sentence.

            The next few years were very hard for Joey. It was around this time that he became “Joe.” He got worse all the time. Watching this young man painfully walk after watching him gracefully speed along was hard for everyone. During this time their father passed away, and Joe felt that maybe harder than the other kids. But, as he struggled on, that old stubbornness that used to get him to run ten miles a day began to resurface. He began to date a young lady from the town named Stephanie, and she encouraged him. She was a student at Ohio State University and she got him to see a doctor there at the University hospital. This doctor was focusing on auto immune diseases and he began to devise a treatment regimen for Joe. He was a test subject, but much of what they learned with him has helped others, including his sister Marsha, over the years. Slowly, he got back to where he could function. He worked, he moved forward. People he was around would have no idea of the athlete he had been, but they knew him as a guy would shoulder any burden.

            He and Stephanie married in 1995. It always amazed me that she would marry someone with the kind of physical issues he had, but she loved him. They lived in Columbus, Ohio. Joe eventually was hired at Sears in security. He excelled and wound up working for Sears corporate over a large area, working to improve security in the chain. They had two children, Joey and Savannah, and Joe and Steph decided to move back to the hometown so the kids could be brought up in a safer and cleaner environment. And, truth be told, to be closer to Cleveland sports. The dream was gone, but the love of sport was still strong.

Joe left Sears and had a job or two and then, sort of out of the blue, he was hired as the head of security for Gateway Corporation. This is the Corporation that operates Progressive Field (the newer park where the Indians play) and Quicken Loans Arena (where the Cavaliers play). Joe’s office overlooked the baseball field. Wow. For a Cleveland sports fan there could be nothing better, short of playing and winning a championship. Of course, it wasn’t as it seemed. When he was there for a game he was security conscious. Watching the crowd rather than the game. In our terrorist prone society, security is a real issue. You go to any venue today and you won’t see a cop leaning on a wall eating a bratwurst. They are ready to deal with most any situation. Every event has its tense moments. Joe has to link city police with private security and create assignments to cover any eventuality. Nothing easy in the job. Meanwhile, he is the coach for the varsity girls’ softball team at his old high school. Not bad for a guy who was supposed to be in a wheelchair and then die years ago.

But, I have worried about him and the immensity of the job. This past year, especially. The Cavs hit the playoffs and made their run, eventually winning the NBA Championship. During the playoff run there were ten home games. 20,000+ people crammed into an arena, national media coverage, what a target for a terrorist attack. To make matters worse, the Indians were playing in adjacent Progressive Field for four of those nights, so security was a nightmare. When the Indians hit the playoffs, and made their run, they played nine home games. 40,000+ each game; another terrorist target. And maybe the worse stretch of days; the Republican National Convention at Quicken Loans Arena for four days in July. All the promise of violence, coordinating between federal and local security, the ever present danger of terrorist attacks. 2016 had to be a nightmare. But Joe got through it all.

Monday night Marsha brought me her phone and said, “Tell me what this is.” She had a series of downloaded pictures Joe had sent her. In the pictures was a ring. A massive ring that dwarfed the hand wearing it. I scrolled through the pictures. The first was a shot from the top of the ring and the caption, “Show this to Larry, please.” Diamonds and rubies were all over the ring. The next picture showed the side of the ring with the word CAVS on it. It occurred to me that it was a Cavs championship ring. Championship rings and always big and gaudy and clunky and the most sought after item in any sport. The next picture was the other side of the ring. The word on it was MEDLEN, It took me a minute, a long minute, and then I realized that Joe, because of his hard work keeping everyone safe and the venues secure, had been awarded a championship ring by the team. I stared at it for quite a while and all I could think of was the little boy laying in the back seat of my car looking to the heavens and dreaming of a championship.

Here is the point of this story. Everyone has a dream. Few ever achieve their dreams. But only the very special can see their dream shattered through no fault of their own, then pick themselves up and make the dream happen in another way. Joe won’t wear that ring much. Where would you wear something like that? But he has it.

And Joe, if you are reading this; Good job, Joey, way to go!

            My mother and father were both from the same tiny little place Kentucky. It was ‘down home’ all the time I was growing up. My mother’s brother and his wife lived just down the road from us and when everyone was together they talked about ‘down home.’ It always seemed odd to me. The small town I had been raised in was ‘home’ to me. If we were away somewhere and it was time to go home, my mother or father, or aunt or uncle, would say, let’s go home. But when they were talking about where they had grown up, it was ‘down home.’ They had gotten away from ‘down home’ as fast as they could, but it was still spoken of with reverence.

            Folks from ‘down home’ had their ways. I always assumed it was just my family. Two of my mother’s sisters lived in Indianapolis and one lived in Louisville. They all got together at least once a year. When I was an adult my grandmother had left her home ‘down home’ and had gone to live with one of my aunts in Indianapolis. My mother drove a school bus in Ohio and it got to be that about a week after school let out I would take two days off from the church I pastored and take my mother to Indy. A couple of weeks before school started up again I would take two days off and go get her. During the huge evening meal the night I would be there the four sisters would all be together and I would sit and listen to some lively conversation. That conversation tended to revolve around two things. The happenings ‘down home’ and different individuals they knew who were dying of some ailment. I asked them once if they knew any happy stories, a story about someone actually recovering and living. I found out that this was an offensive question to ask. They all got a little huffy, my cousin Steve looked at me like I was an idiot to go there and I concentrated on my aunt’s turnip greens, which were really good.

            Again, I just figured it was a family thing.

            Then, this past Friday I was at Duke Memorial in Peru IN waiting to have a stress test. An older lady was sitting close by. I had gone into the back so they could inject me with the radioactive isotope and when I came back up the lady said to me, “Well, you didn’t get one of these?” She was pointing to the IV lead in her arm. I held up my hand and showed her that I had mine in my hand. That set her off. The last time she had this done they had put it in her hand. Her hand had swollen up to three times its size and had turned black. Then she started telling me about her open-heart surgery and how I had better pray I didn’t have what she had. She told me how they had split her chest wide open and later how the swelling had refused to go down and the pain was horrible and she went on and one. Her husband had a bad heart and it killed him, just like it did her sister. Marsha was sitting there horrified but to me, it was just like growing up and even in the adult years, listening to my mother and my aunts talk about death and destruction. Even the accent was the same. Finally, when she stopped for air, I asked her where she was from. Turned out, she was from ‘down home,’ Columbia KY. 13 miles from where my mother grew up. I had an uncle who had a farm just outside of Columbia. When she found out my family was from ‘down home,’ she started talking about the people who had died there. Evidently it wasn’t a family thing, but a regional thing. They finally came and took her for her test.

            To me, it had been kind of nice. Like listening to my mother and aunts in conversation. But to Marsha it was appalling. What good could come from talking nothing but death. I had a lot of time to think after that, waiting for one aspect of the test or another, and my mind drifted to all the wrong things I have heard said at the wrong times. People always seem to think that they need to say something. A woman’s husband leaves her a young widow and at the funeral someone comes through the line and says, “Honey, you’re young yet. You can get married again.” Or a young mother loses a child and a well-meaning person says, “Thank goodness you have two more kids!” You might be thinking those things but to say them to a grieving person is cruel. Another young woman going through a divorce and someone coming up and saying, “What’s it like to have your marriage fall apart?” Or, telling someone who is facing a possible life or death situation about people they know who did die. And then there is the very worst one, in my opinion. Someone has died and someone says to a grieving survivor, “I guess God needed them more than you did.” One exchange I heard was a woman in our church was told by doctors that her illness would likely take her life. In church, after the sermon, she told the church what was going on. Of course, people came up to her and her husband to express their feelings. One woman asked the lady who was ill what it was like to know you were going to die. Then she turned to the husband and told him not to worry, when the wife died he would not have any problems finding another wife.

            Years ago, I started asking people who said such thoughtless things why they said them. They didn’t see it as harsh or cruel. As one person said to me, “Well, you have to say something!”

            Actually, you don’t have to say anything. Nothing at all. When Marsha’s Dad passed away we were serving a church about sixty miles from where her Mom and Dad lived. At the calling hours, we were surprised at the number of people from our church who made the trip to lend her support. One such couple was Larry and Helen Stahl. The same age as our parents. They came in and went straight to Marsha. My wife was wearing a dress that had a bow on it. Helen walked up to her and, without a word, straightened the bow, put her hands on Marsha’s shoulders, looked her right in the eyes and then wrapped her arms around her in a compassionate and loving embrace. Helen never said a word, but it was what Marsha needed to strengthen her so she could be strong for her family.

            Words aren’t always needed. Just letting people know you are there, that you care is enough. Taking someone’s hand, a little physical contact, even a light kiss on the cheek. For me, words come easily. I have been in hundreds of situations with people. But, even so, I prefer to let them talk. Words can crush the spirit if used poorly. But rarely is a hug or a quiet touch out of place.

            The best rule of thumb that I can suggest is; think before you speak, then don’t speak. It is not about you, after all.

            The two Psalms in this post are, by themselves, quite powerful. We can read Psalm 13 and see ourselves at a moment of despair as we try to reach out for God. In Psalm 30 we see the Psalmist joyfully claiming an emotional and Spiritual victory. But it is what we don’t readily see that really brings the power of these two Psalms into focus.

            The Psalms are the hymns the Jewish people sang. In the original language, Hebrew, these hymns have rhyme and meter, though we lose that in the English translation. At the beginning of both Psalms we have some quick information about the Psalm. Psalm 13 just tells us that it is for the chief musician of the Temple and that it was written by King David. In some older Bibles or versions in the reference notes it was thought to be written during David’s ongoing conflict with King Saul, but there is no proof of that. In fact, later discovery indicates a different reason for the writing. The beginning of Psalm 30 indicates that this was to be sung at the dedication of the house of David. There are places in the Bible that refer to the ‘House of David.’ First, it sometimes meant the kingly line that followed David, or his family or clan. Second, it sometimes meant the whole city of Jerusalem because David was the one who gained control of the city for the Jews. Third, it sometimes meant the Temple in Jerusalem. The Lord never allowed David to build the Temple, but his son Solomon did build it as both a tribute to God and to his father, who had desired to build it. In this case, it is probably referring to the Temple as the House of David. The Psalm was written much earlier by David, but was sung at the dedication.

            The interesting thing here is that these two Psalms are companion Psalms. David had sinned with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, and she had become pregnant. David then compounded the sin. He ordered that her husband be put in the front of a great battle so that he would be killed. He was killed and David then married Bathsheba to cover his sin and explain her pregnancy. The prophet Nathan then went to David and exposed the sin to David. It seems that David had become convinced that he, being God’s chosen, would not be held accountable for a sin like a normal person. When he realized the gravity of his actions, he was immediately filled with sorrow. He sought forgiveness and it was given. There would be, however, a price to pay for the sin. Nathan told him that the child born of the sinful union would die, even though the child had no fault. When the child was born he was sickly. David loved the sick child immensely and went to the Lord over and over for him, but the child grew worse. The whole story is in 2 Samuel 11 and 12 and is worth reading. This is the subject of this first Psalm.

Psalm 13

1 To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? David here is feeling as though God does not hear. Haven’t we all had those moments?

2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? ‘Counsel in his soul’ means it was like he was talking to himself. The enemy here is the enemy of death.

3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death;

4 Lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed against him"; Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved. David is in agony. He refers to death as ‘sleep,’ as though his own death would be welcomed. His physical enemies, those who ‘troubled’ him, would rejoice.

5 But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.

6 I will sing to the Lord, Because He has dealt bountifully with me. In the end, though, he would continue to trust in the Lord because the Lord had shown him in the past that He was good.

            The baby died.

            Psalm 30 was written six months or so later and traces David’s recovery. The Psalm answers David’s anguish in Psalm 13.

Psalm 30

1 A Psalm. A Song at the dedication of the house of David. I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my foes rejoice over me. Those who had troubled him, his human enemies, had not won a victory in his despair.

2 O Lord my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me. Though the pain was great, the Lord had brought him through.

3 O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. David hadn’t died and had, in fact, come out the stronger.

4 Sing praise to the Lord, You saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning. David’s message to the saints. He acknowledges that the Lord was angry, but then he writes the great words of hope; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.

6 Now in my prosperity I said, "I shall never be moved." He is saying that for a while he thought he was above sin.

7 Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong; You hid Your face, and I was troubled.

8 I cried out to You, O Lord; And to the Lord I made supplication:

9 "What profit is there in my blood, When I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth?

10 Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord, be my helper!" David remembers his anguish and his pleading.

11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, David now danced before the Lord rather than mourned. This doesn’t mean that he was glad for the death, nor the he no longer grieved. Just that the Lord had lifted him up.

12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever. God’s goodness was now even more clear to David and he would never forget.

            I have shared this many, many times with those in grief. They understand the helpless calling to God. They feel the mourning in the night. And they look forward to the joy in the morning and mourning turned to dancing.

            Have joy in Him.