My friend Marilyn called the other day. Her adult son is scheduled to be interviewed for a church staff position and she had been prepping him. “It takes place at a lunch,” she said, “and that may not be the best venue for showing off Robert’s talents.”

She explained that Robert could stand some improvement in his eating habits. “I told him to eat slowly, to cut his meat into small portions, and not to talk with food in his mouth. Basic stuff like that.” Then she said, “It’s important that he not go there hungry and overeat, so I urged him to eat a little snack in advance. After all, this is one dining experience that is not about eating.”

I said, “That’s in the Bible. The part about not overeating at an important meal.”

“You’re kidding.” I assured her I wasn’t, although I could not recall the exact proverb that made the case.

Later that day, she texted me that she had located the verse. Proverbs 23:1-2 reads, “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee. And put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to appetite.”

I can’t find anything in God’s Word cautioning us against parking our chewing gum underneath the dinner plate, but I’ve known at least one candidate for a church staff position who could have used the advice.

Anyone who spends regular time in God’s Word is constantly being surprised at what he finds there, how current is its counsel, and how practical its advice.

Take Luke chapter 17. I sat in church last Sunday prior to the sermon–someone else was to preach, so my mind was unencumbered–and was struck by how the various incidents in this chapter connect with each other, giving us a number of excellent insights on Christian living.

(Note: what follows works only if you first look up Luke 17, then read through verse 21.)

On the surface, that passage seems to be made up of unrelated bits of teaching: Jesus advises the disciples on how to treat a stumbling brother, He informs them that even mustard-seed faith can do wonders, He delivers a parable on how they should look upon themselves at the end of the day, and so forth.

A quick reading fails to see their inter-connectedness.

Then it occurred to me that this passage, all of it, is about expectations.

I. “What you may expect.” Luke 17:1-6

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Early Monday morning, when I wish I could have slept, I went through the newspapers that had accumulated in my absence. Most of the news was old by then, but here are a few items readers might find of interest.

Steve Scalise, Republican, won election to Congress Saturday. He replaces Bobby Jindal, our new governor. Scalise won 3/4ths of the vote, easily defeating the Democrat, college professor Dr. Gilda Reed.

On the other hand, a Democrat has won the 6th District for Congress, for the first time since 1974. Now the problem for Congress will be learning how to pronounce Don Cazayoux’s name. (Cazzah-you, I suppose)

New Orleans mayor C. Ray Nagin has become a superdelegate to the Democratic convention scheduled for later this summer. Okay, mayor, Hillary and Barack are calling.

The resident curmudgeon of the Times-Picayune, James Gill, has been writing for this paper for the past couple of centuries it seems. Locals are still talking–and the paper is still going on–about how FBI Special Agent in Charge James Bernazzani was sacked by the big man in Washington, D.C., for even talking out loud about running for mayor of this city. James Gill writes that Bernazzani is one ignorant fellow for losing his job over a position he cannot qualify for. Turns out that to run for mayor, one must have lived her for five years, something the G-man misses by a few months.

Someone wrote to the paper rather unhappy with Gill and the way he put down Bernazzani, calling him clueless. “We need ten more just like Bernazzani,” he said, “while the one James Gill we have is one too many.”

Ryan Perrilloux has been kicked off the LSU football team. He’s a local boy and three years ago ranked as one of the nation’s premier high school talents. When he signed at LSU, he beamed, “I’m going to win the Heisman all four years.” Now, look at him. Coach Les Miles isn’t talking, but those who do say he’s immature, does not follow through on commitments he makes to the coach, and tested positive for drugs recently. Sad. He seems to be his own worst enemy, a not uncommon problem.

Everyone waits to see what will happen at the Hornets-Spurs basketball playoff game tonight. Saturday night, at the break between the first and second quarters, the Hornets’ mascot, SuperHugo, tried a stunt that backfired. He ran, jumped onto a small trampoline and vaulted through a burning hoop to dunk the ball. That worked fine. Then the people helping him could not extinguish the fire. The plan called for them to smother the flames, but when the fire did not cooperate, arena officials grabbed fire extinguishers and began spraying furiously. That put the fire out, but coated the arena floor with something like fine sand. A delay of some twenty minutes followed as workers labored to clean the mess and make the floor safe for the players. During halftime, workers came back out onto the court and tried to finish their job.

Such foolishness. I guarantee that stunt will never be performed here again, and it will be interesting to see if SuperHugo still has a job. Just play ball, I say.

Watching Saturday night’s game from Nauvoo, you couldn’t help but notice all the fans wearing gold t-shirts. Turns out the Hornets laid 18,000 of them across every seat in the New Orleans Arena. Neat.

One more sports thing. In Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, one of our true “characters,” Ronnie Lamarque–car dealer, singer, showman–had his horse, Recapturetheglory, come in fifth. Lamarque is the subject of a front-page article in Thursday’s Times-Picayune. Underneath his photo, get this: “Vivacious car dealer has found God, quit drinking.”

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Wednesday, I drove to Alpharetta, Georgia, the headquarters of our denomination’s North American Mission Board. My first time to see this wonderful new building in the midst of a pristine environment. One block from Andy Stanley’s Northpoint Community Church. Living in an old city, New Orleans, and one that tends to be rustic and rather dirty and these days, in great need, I find myself wondering how one gets up in the morning in his neatly manicured world and goes to work in a shiny new building where everything shines and everything works that is supposed to.

Thursday noon through Friday noon, six of us from New Orleans joined with Dr. David Hankins (Executive Director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention) and his right-hand man Mike Canady, as we conferred with Dr. Geoffrey Hammond (Executive Director of NAMB) and all of his senior staffers on the subject of a longterm partnership directed toward the rebuilding of the city, the church, and the ministries of New Orleans. My choice here is to write almost nothing about this meeting or take two hours to tell everything. I’ve just returned home, it’s late Sunday night, and I’m tired beyond belief, so I’ll tell the story later.

Friday, I drove to my folks’ home at Nauvoo, Alabama, taking the cross-country route from Alpharetta through Marietta, Cedartown, over to Piedmont, Alabama, then to Gadsden, Cullman, Double Springs, and home.

Saturday was the alumni meeting for Winston County High School at Double Springs, where my siblings and I attended from 7th through 12th grades. (Ron graduated in ’54, Glenn in ’55, Patricia in ’56, I in ’58, Carolyn in ’60, and Charlie in ’62) Over the 50 years since my graduation, I think I’ve attended three or four of these school-wide alumni gatherings, but have been to quite a few of my class’s reunions. The class of ’58 will tell anyone who pauses to listen that ours is the best class ever.

The class of ’58 had maybe 55 or so graduates. Over these years 18 have died. We had 24 there Saturday afternoon, including Quinton Daniels who drove in from Kalamazoo, Michigan, the day before, and–how about this one–Harold Brownlow who flew in from Indonesia.

Couple of reflections here….

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Jazzfest last weekend was not rained out, but anything else would have been. In the downpour, people stood in puddles to their ankles to soak up Billy Joel and other musical offerings. Joel looked heavenward and said to the Lord, “Is that all you’ve got? Bring it on!”

Seems like we heard our president say something similar just before Iraq became its own kind of quagmire.

The people who run our convention center–the official name for which is the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center–have decided that does not communicate and they want to tweak it to become the New Orleans Morial Convention Center. Not any shorter, but clearer, they say. That sounded great to almost everyone except the Morial family. Ernest “Dutch” Morial was our city’s first African-American mayor and the father of our most recent mayor, Marc Morial, who wrote the letter for the family protesting the change.

Officials insist they’re not formally changing the name, but will refer to the convention center in this “new” way for marketing purposes. That’s not good enough for the family and their supporters. Some are threatening that they will encourage Essence and other festivals/conventions of African-Americans to go elsewhere if this is not reversed.

A name is just a symbol? Symbols can be mighty important to some folks and to all of us at one time or another, we should never forget.

These are good days for the New Orleans Hornets, our NBA franchise. For the first time ever, the New Orleans teams advances to the second round in the playoffs, after beating the Dallas Mavericks 4 games to 1 in a best-of-seven series. Next, we will face the San Antonio Spurs, as I get it. Fans are ecstatic, packing out the New Orleans Arena. Last night–Tuesday–coach Byron Scott was named the NBA Coach of the Year.

Some fan said it’s just like Mardi Gras all over again, all the enthusiasm.

We’re having a “New Orleans Summit” at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Georgia, this Thursday and Friday, May 1 and 2. Last Monday night in our annual Spring meeting, our association voted to adopt a lengthy list of adjustments and changes being recommended by a strategy team which has been working for a year. Now, some of us will be sitting down with leadership of the Louisiana Baptist Convention and NAMB to work out a possible partnership for the next 10 years or more. Representing BAGNO will be pastors Fred Luter, David Crosby, John Faull, and Dennis Watson. Mike Flores and I will go along to carry their bags. David Hankins and Mike Canady from LBC will be at the table.

In asking for continuing help from LBC and NAMB, New Orleans is not unaware of our massive debt to Southern Baptists through these (and other) agencies. We have been the grateful recipient of many millions of dollars of the Lord’s money and untold thousands of man-hours from Baptists who have flowed our way to help rebuild the city and restore our churches. In the process, thousands of our residents have heard the message of God–after seeing it in action–and have prayed with their visitors and benefactors to receive Christ as Savior.

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The question I ask about the preacher in the news–he shall remain nameless here; this is not about politics–but after watching him at the National Press Club and other forums this week, my question is: Where is the man’s humility? Where is the Christlikeness? The world saw plenty of the flesh, loads of meanspiritedness, an abundance of conviction and even eloquence and cleverness, together with a surplus of pandering to his audience. But where was the meekness and humility?

“Thy gentleness has made me great.” (Psalm 18:35)

The Lord God is The Awesome Force in this universe. In order to deal with puny humans like us, His power had to be gentled, otherwise we could not have withstood it.

The sun which lights our solar system radiates its mighty power with temperatures in the thousands of degrees. And yet, by the time its rays reach your back yard, they gently ripen grapes and warm picnickers and melt butter. For the sun’s light to bless this world, its strength has to be softened and slowed. The gentling elements include the 93 million miles of distance, our earth’s atmospherere, and the rotation of the globe.

Thousands of volts of electricity surge through the power lines up and down your street. Were those lines run straight into your house, the energy would burn up every appliance and probably set your house afire. Transformers are installed on light poles up and down the street to gentle the power. Consequently, only 110 volts enters your home, enough to run the appliances, light your home, and operate the computer.

So, how was our great God so gentled that we might be able to know Him? “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” God came to earth in human form, as a baby born in Bethlehem, laid in a manger. “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1) Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14)

Jesus Christ is God the Father gentled.

Jesus said, “I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:29) Not bombastic, not belligerent, not meanspirited, but gentle. Not cruel, not harsh and unloving, not power-mad or unkind. Gracious. Loving. Humble.

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness….” (Galatians 5:22) Whom the Holy Spirit controls, He tames, and He produces in that one such character as can only be described as like Jesus Christ of Nazareth Himself.

Christians get off course at times and want to argue that the manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s presence is this or that spiritual gift. Not so. The infallible manifestation of the Spirit and proof of His indwelling rule is the Christlikeness He produces in that individual.

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The best time to get run over in interstate traffic, I have decided, is the morning rush hour. Five mornings a week, I’m crossing town between 7:45 and 8:45 am and risking my life in the process. This morning, I was headed out of town for a meeting in Alexandria and noticed the same phenomenon in traffic headed the opposite direction. People are dying to get where they are going. I’ve come to a conclusion as to the root cause.

It’s anxiety.

Some drivers are late to work or to class, some of afraid of being late, and the others are early and trying to stay that way. So they rush. They tailgate the motorist in front of them, they cut in front of the fellow to one side or the other who dares to leave a gap between him and the next car, and they dart in and out incessantly. A couple of miles up the road you notice they’re stuck in traffic in the lane to your right or left, all their frantic lane-jumping having done them absolutely no good.

The problem is not their car’s motor; it’s their own inner motor. Something inside them is racing, dying to get to their destination, and they either do not know how to control it or turn it off or, what’s just as probable, do not know that it’s even there. They rush out of habit.

Yesterday morning the car that was bullying everyone on the freeway pulled onto a side street in the direction I happened to be going, and one block later turned off into a driveway. They were just going home. I felt like stopping and asking, “What was all the rush about?”

I think I know the answer. Their answer to my question would be, “Huh? What rush?” They are not even aware what they’re doing. It’s a pattern, a really bad habit, they’ve fallen into. They get in their car and the anxiety kicks in and they have to beat everyone else on the highway.

It’s destructive, self-defeating, harmful to one’s health, even suicidal. It’s murder on their car, terrible on their tires, and a burden on their billfold. It endangers their families and the people in the other cars.

Let the city or parish install cameras at intersections to catch redlight-runners and they holler to high heaven, as though a sacred right of theirs has been taken away. They foolishly blame the rear end collisions on the officials who installed the cameras. Blame-placing, denial, anger—highway sports in America today.

Anxiety is a a problem we all deal with and a killer in a hundred ways. The highway is just one of locales.

Everyone deals with anxiety in its various manifestations. You start a new job and can’t sleep the night before. You have to leave town early tomorrow and afraid of oversleeping, you toss and turn tonight. You have an important painful confrontation tomorrow, so tonight’s rest is a total loss. Some would call it worry. It’s likewise a form of fear. One thing it is not is faith.

Anxiety is worry and fear on steroids. And whatsoever is not of faith is sin. (Romans 14:23)

Meeting with a group of pastors, I threw this out to them: “Give me your best counsel. What do you do to fight anxiety?” Here are some of their answers.

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This weekend and next are Jazzfest, the annual blowout at the Fairgrounds Racetrack that brings hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city every year at this time. Almost any one of the headliners would fill the New Orleans Arena at big prices, but for 50 bucks you can see every one of them. It’s the bargain of the year—if you don’t mind wading through a hundred thousand of your closest friends. (Last year’s festival drew 350,000 paying customers over the two weekends.)

Today, Friday, for example, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss entertain from 3:30 until 4:50. At the same time, acts are taking place on ten other stages throughout the Fairgrounds area. Sheryl Crow will follow Plant and Krauss. Stevie Wonder will be in town. Billy Joel, Tim McGraw, Jimmy Buffett, Frankie Beverly, Al Green, Randy Newman, Widespread Panic, you name it. (I have no idea who that last group is, but you’ve gotta love their name.) Hundreds and hundreds of bands and acts and choirs and programs. Like drinking from a fire hydrant.

Go to www.nojazzfest.com for complete information. Next weekend, the program begins on Thursday and goes through Sunday. If you are coming, pay close attention to details on how to ride public transportation to the fairgrounds. You won’t find a parking place anywhere near there and police patrol it full-time writing tickets.

Church choirs get into the act, too. Franklin Avenue Baptist Church’s choir does that incredible thing they do from the AIG Gospel Tent today at 5:55 pm.

“We want to bring a whole year’s worth of music here in a week,” said organizer and promoter Quint Davis. “We have a great national lineup.” He says this festival is different from all the others, including Austin City Limits. “We’re a festival for grownups.”

Whatever that means.

Interestingly, most of the groups on the programs are from in-state.

The front page of Friday’s paper tells the story of Rosalie ‘Lady Tambourine’ Washington. “She’s one of those only-in-New Orleans institutions. To some, she’s a star; to others, a nuisance. Either way, she has been a constant presence for more than a decade to those crowded under the Gospel Tent at The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell.”

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Anecdotes are short, catchy stories, the kind pastors and public speakers insert in just-the-right-spot to pep up a message. The word comes from the Greek and literally means “things not given out.”  In other words, “unpublished.”

Winston Churchill called them “the gleaming toys of history.” They are hard to define, but we all know a good one when we find one. Here are a few of my favorite stories…..

During the 1957 World Series between the Milwaukee Braves and the New York Yankees, slugger Hank Aaron came up to bat. Yogi Berra, the Yankee catcher, noticed he was holding the bat wrong. “Turn it around,” he told Aaron. “So you can read the trademark.” (That’s the usual wisdom on how to hold a bat.) Hank never looked back, but said, “Didn’t come up here to read. Came up here to hit.”

And brother, did he hit.

A patient afflicted with chronic depression called on the famous British physician John Abernethy. After examining him, Dr. Abernethy said, “You need amusement. Go down to the playhouse and hear the comedian Grimaldi. He will make you laugh and that will be better for you than any drugs.” The patient said, “I am Grimaldi.”

Great comedy is said to emanate from great suffering.

Franklin Adams belonged to a poker club that counted among its members an actor named Herbert Ransom. It was said that whenever Ransom was dealt a good hand, you could tell it in his face. In light of that, Adams proposed a new club rule: “Anyone who looks at Ransom’s face is cheating.”

What does your face reveal about you?

For the first half of the 20th century, George Ade was a popular humorist and playwright. Once, after delivering an after-dinner speech that went over well, a famous lawyer followed him on the program. He thrust his hands deep in the pockets and said, “Doesn’t it strike you as a little unusual that a professional humorist should actually be funny?” When the laughter subsided, George Ade said, “Doesn’t it strike you as a little unusual that a lawyer should actually have his hands in his own pockets?”

And what are your hands doing these days?

I’ve told this one to whatever doctor was examining me at the moment. Konrad Adenauer, chancellor of West Germany when he was in his 90s, was being examined by his doctor. “I’m not a magician,” the medical man said. “I cannot make you younger.” “I haven’t asked you to,” said the chancellor. “All I want is to go on getting older.”

I know the feeling. I’m now in my late 70s.

The Greek general and politician Alcibiades was telling Pericles, who was 40 years older than he, how to govern Athens effectively. Pericles was not amused. “Alcibiades,” he said, “when I was your age, I talked just as you do now.” The younger man said, “How I should like to have known you when you were at your best.”

When are you at your best?

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First, a gentleman from Raceland.

You know how you drive through sections of Orleans, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines Parishes and see house after house that appear to have been abandoned? There will be lovely homes newly rebuilt, some houses in the process of rebuilding, and then here and there a residence with high weeds and shuttered windows and you wonder about them, who owns them and what their plans are. But one thing you know–that’s someone’s house.

Jesse Bryant did not know that.

This resident of Raceland, a small town forty miles west of New Orleans on U.S.90, picked out two such seemingly abandoned properties on the east side of our city and drove home-made signs into the yard announcing: “I, Jesse Bryant, do take possession of this abandon (sic) property.” As though that were all it took.

Then, he broke into the houses and had the locks changed. A deputy sheriff noticed the sign in one yard and stopped to check on it. He was informed by Mr. Bryant that he had assumed ownership of the houses since they had been abandoned. The deputy called the owner who came out and was not real pleased.

They arrested Mr. Bryant for burglary and criminal trespassing. He admitted he had been planning to take possession of other abandoned properties in the area.

One of the houses is owned by the Road Home Corporation, and the other is being renovated by its present owner, a local resident.

Mr. Bryant has been reading too many western novels in which people stake out claims on available land, or possibly watching too many infomercials offering great riches by claiming repossessed houses and reselling them.

My guess is the judge will not throw the book at him, but give him probation. After all, he was not malicious. Just dumb. Really really dumb.

(Update a few days later. The Times-Picayune reports that the Lafourche Parish officials, after reading in the New Orleans paper about Bryant’s doings, decided to check him out locally, since he’s from Raceland. They discovered he had pulled the same shenanigans there, and in fact, had taken possession of a house across the street from his 87-year-old mother. His brother has been living in that house. When asked about her sons, the mother replied that she has enough troubles of her own without meddling in theirs.)

Second, Elizabeth Luter, the extreme opposite of the first fellow. One smart lady.

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My friend Rudy sat in my office today and told me the definitive story that drives his witness.

“I was living in a northern state and driving an hour and a half each way to work inside Canada. On the way, I drove through this Indian reserve, a real poor place with lots of ramshackle houses. This particular morning, going past the reserve I noticed a fellow working on a car and lying half-way under it. At that moment, the Holy Spirit told me to stop and witness to him. I didn’t do it.”

“All the time I drove on to work, I kept thinking, ‘I should have done it.’ But I knew I would have been late for work if I had. All day, it ate at me. I should have stopped.”

“That evening on my way home, I decided I would stop by his house and find the man I’d seen under the car that morning. To my surprise, there were cars everywhere and a crowd had gathered. I got out of my car and said to them, ‘I want to see the man who was working on his car here this morning.’ Somebody said, ‘He’s dead. He got killed in a traffic accident today.'”

“That was one lesson I had to learn the hard way,” Rudy said, “and one I will never forget. When the Lord says to do something, do it.”

Rudy may be the most consistent soulwinner I know. He told me of the time he went fishing with a friend and some fellows he had never met. “My friend is a Christian,” he said, “but he sort of compartmentalizes his Christianity. He introduced me to these guys and said, ‘Watch yourself today. Rudy is a preacher.'”

“That did it. They clammed up and hardly said two words to me. I knew I was going to have to loosen them up or we’d never get to know one another. I have a favorite little joke that I decided to tell them. I said, ‘Say, do either of you know how to sell a duck to somebody who is hard of hearing?’ They looked at each other, and one said, ‘What was that?’ The other said, ‘Do we know how to sell a duck to somebody who is hard of hearing?’ They looked at me and said, ‘I reckon not.'”

Rudy said, “WANNA BUY A DUCK??!!” at the top of his lungs.

The men burst out laughing and kept laughing for the next five minutes. (Rudy’s wife Rose said, “That’s a guy joke. I think it’s stupid.”) Rudy said, “But that loosened them up and we had a great time that day, and yes, I did tell them about the Lord.”

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