Charlie showed up for work that day out of uniform, if you could call it that. He and a half-dozen men were a well-drilling team, a difficult job that is always dirty and eventually turns muddy. Charlie had plans after he got off work, and since he would not have time to return home, he had come dressed for his date. So, while the other men were grappling with pipes and drills and generators and muck, Charlie stood back and did what he could while protecting his white shirt, pressed trousers, and silk tie. The men were aware of what he was doing, but no one said anything for a while. Then, up in the morning, one of the men decided to solve what he saw as “Charlie’s problem.” He walked over to a 5 gallon bucket of mud and slush, picked it up, and dumped the contents all over Charlie. “Charlie, my friend,” he said, “as my pastor likes to say, ‘A man can work better after he’s been baptized!'”

I thought of Charlie today when something came up about people who think of themselves as genuine Christians and still have problems with minor matters such as giving and tithing and stewardship and generosity. It’s a matter of first being “baptized,” that is, going under in total submersion of our live and possessions to the Lord Jesus.

People who have never given their all to the Lord will always be having turf wars with the Holy Spirit. “This is mine, that is yours, I’ll give you this, but I want to keep that.” It’s a miserable way to live the Christian life and certainly not what the Lord had in mind.

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Okay, here’s my story.

A year ago, during my regular semi-annual checkup, my dentist said, “What is this whitish stuff under your tongue?” I had no idea what he was talking about. I mean, who checks under his tongue. Even looking in the mirror, all I could see was a glistening, somewhat like saliva, and aren’t we supposed to have saliva there. “You’re seeing things, Doc,” I said. “We’ll keep an eye on it,” he said.

Six months later. “It’s a little more pronounced,” he said. He had to remind me what he was talking about.

A few weeks ago, even I could see it. Again, it was just a silvery film, surely nothing to be concerned about. The dentist prescribed an antifungal mouthwash, thinking it could be a yeast infection. When it did not respond, he sent me to an oral surgeon.

The doctor put me to sleep and sliced off a sliver of the offending flesh. For a week, I carried around a swollen tongue and drank only juices before it began to return to normal. Then, Margaret and I went in for the pathology report.

Carcinoma in-situ. Squamous cells. In other words, cancer. The kind that usually smokers and drinkers get.

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In going through some bookcases the other night, tossing out and giving away things someone else might have a use for and clearing up space for the treasured books now in stacks across the carpet, I ran across a little wireless notebook from years ago containing several treasures I had jotted down. The local cajun culture would call this a “potpourri,” meaning a collection of odds and ends. See if you can use anything here.

The word “wallop” comes from a British general by that name who served Queen Elizabeth I in a reprisal raid on France. He and his men destroyed 29 French villages. On his return to England, he was hailed for “walloping” the French, and people have been walloping one another ever since.

Here’s a poem for the flu season–

“I sneezed a sneeze into the air;

It fell to earth I know not where.

But hard and froze were the looks of those

Into whose vicinity I snoze.”

(Quoted from but not written by Bennett Cerf)

The word “balderdash” actually refers to a silly mixture of liquids such as ale and milk.

Throughout the gospels, when we are told that Jesus was “moved with compassion,” the Greek word is the fascinating “splanknizomai.” It’s a verb derived from the noun “splangchna” meaning intestines, bowels, entrails. To the people of that culture, the strongest emotions came from–where else?–the gut.

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If a fellow doesn’t know the difference between a symbol and the reality it represents, he could find himself in a lot of trouble.

He might, for example, consume a photograph of a steak and expect to work a full shift on its nourishment.

He could pay fifty thousand dollars for the emblem of a Mercedes and still have no way to get to work the next morning.

He could pay a lot of money to a degree mill and announce to the world that he has advanced degrees and still be functionally illiterate.

He could spend all his money on an expensive wedding ring, forcing him to take extra work to pay it off, and end up neglecting his wife and losing his marriage.

She might go to heroic lengths to improve the appearance of her face and body, but without the slightest thought to the content of her character or the quality of her life.

A school could pour all its money into its sports teams and abandon the purpose for which it exists in the first place.

A church could spend a small fortune on its appearance and public image under the mistaken impression that what the community thinks of them has much to do with anything.

A community could let the homeless fill their parks and the poor rot in their projects while pouring needed millions into new stadiums to keep team owners from relocating to cities even more foolish than they.

Preachers could rally their members to boycot businesses where the employees wish customers “Happy holidays,” instead of the more spiritually correct, “Merry Christmas.”

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Our church has done it three times now.

The first time, about five years ago, a representative of Franklin Graham’s Boone, North Carolina ministry called, looking for a church in metro New Orleans to host a family from Bosnia coming to a local hospital to have the baby operated on. He said, “I’ve called all over and, frankly, I’ve been surprised that no one is interested. They all say they’ll have to get back with me and no one has.” I said, “Stop calling. You’ve called the right church.”

It took a dozen or more families for us to host the mother, her baby, and the woman interpreter for a solid 6 weeks or more. In addition to providing two bedrooms in a home, there were meals to prepare, and daily transportation to and from the hospital, some dozen miles away. Church members gave money, some drove their car, and many brought meals. Two families opened their homes, a month in one and several weeks in the other. The baby had his heart surgery and they all went back home, carrying happy memories of American hospitality and Christian love.

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A few mornings ago, I was about to check out of a motel in Alexandria and drive across town for an early breakfast meeting. Carrying my bag to the car in the parking lot, I was struck by one of the most glorious sunrises I’ve seen in years. Against a backdrop of indigo, the purples streaked across the morning sky, leaving bumps of orange and peach in their wake.

I turned around and went inside the lobby and called out to a dozen sleepy guests hovering over morning coffee with faces buried in the USA Todays, “Hey, everyone–come outside and see the most wonderful sunrise!” To their credit, most did. Two minutes later, it was forever gone.

I think it was Tony Campolo who says he tried for a long time to get his teenage daughter to get up and come out and watch the sunrise with him. She said, “Dad, if God had intended us to watch the sunrise, he’d have scheduled it at a decent hour.”

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Everyone needs a verse of Scripture to call his own. Here is mine.

Old Job was having a time of it. After the death of his children and the loss of his wealth, disease racked his body, leaving him covered with sores. Then, three friends showed up to comfort him–with accusations and blame. He needed a defense attorney and got instead three prosecutors!

The first speaker begins to set Job up for a fall. He’s going to accuse him of having sin in his life which has brought the judgment of God. But first, he reminds him of the way God has used him in the past.

“Your words have stood men on their feet; you have helped the tottering to stand.” (Job 4:4)

Tell me if that is not one of the finest attributes one man could ever pay another. It has become something of a goal for my preaching, that my sermons would be so filled with life and faith that the falling and the fallen would hear and stand up again and get back into life.

What power words have…

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It was Monday and I was headed for Alexandria, three hours away, for our annual Louisiana Baptist Convention due to get underway at 5:30 that evening. I’ve made the drive from our New Orleans home so many times–Interstate 10 through Baton Rouge to LaFayette, north on Interstate 49 to Alexandria–that I needed a change of scenery. That’s why I took highway 190 out of Baton Rouge, through the sugar cane country toward Opelousas, then north on 71 to Alexandria.

In the little town of Bunkie, I came upon a gasoline war of sorts, with service stations selling their stuff for $1.75 a gallon. I stopped to fill up and noticing the time, asked the attendant, “Where’s a good place to eat around here? A plate lunch.” He said, “The Bailey Hotel. One block past the light, then left one block.”

The sign in front says the Bailey was built in 1907, although the building has that fresh, springlike appearance like someone has just sunk some money into this place. Inside, I was the only diner in the restaurant, unless you counted the happy chattering of the Lions’ Club on the other side of the partition. As I sat there eating the special of the day, a little white-haired lady entered the room and began rearranging flowers. She greeted me and said something, and in a minute she was standing at my table telling me about the Bailey Hotel.

“I told my son not to buy this place three years ago. But he bought it anyway. And we’re glad. We love it. Although we need to get the word out on the rooms. These 30 rooms could use some customers.”

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As a child of the Depression, Jim Lancaster was poorer than most of us can imagine. When a church in his neighborhood announced they were having a vacation Bible school for two weeks, and at the end, each child would receive a free popsicle, Jim determined to attend. He had never actually tasted a popsicle, but he had seen them, and in 1930s Florida, anything cold and refreshing was a welcome treat.

Little Jim did not miss a day. Then, on the last day, the worker gave the children God’s plan of salvation. “You can be saved,” she said, “by praying and asking Jesus to forgive you of your sins and come into your heart.” She added, “If you want to do this, get up right now and come with me now. However, you will not get a popsicle.”

Out of over 200 children, two boys came forward, Jim being one of them. Years later, both of those boys became preachers of the Gospel.

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