“Joe, where do you find those great sermon illustrations?”

“I love to preach and teach, but the hardest part for me is the sermon illustration, finding just the right story or quote to reinforce what I’m teaching.”

Okey dokey. You’ve come to the right place, friend. I’ve got a deal for you, and it’s not the Joe McKeever Sermon Illustration Service (which doesn’t exist, thankfully) for only a couple of hundred bucks a year. Nope. It’s far better than that.

But you have to stay with me to the end. Okay?

1) Martin Van Buren, our eighth president, wrote an autobiography in which he laboriously laid out the details of his life. Unfortunately, the commander-in-chief wrote all those pages without once mentioning his wife.

Now, that’s a great sermon starter for Mother’s Day or a message on the home. After all, no one is more important in the home than the wife and mother, and yet, let’s face it–we take her for granted.

2) Paul McCartney’s latest album is titled “Memory Almost Full.” The former Beatle says the inspiration came from a phrase he saw on his cell phone. In a recent interview from Paris, the 65-year-old musician said, “It seemed symbolic of our lives today. Your messages are always full. And your mind is full. And it doesn’t matter if you’re my age or 20. I think that we all need to delete stuff every so often.”

You can tell that story in the sermon introduction and then light out in a hundred directions. Think of Paul in Philippians 3 as he forgets those things that are behind. Gordon MacDonald once wrote that he could look at the clutter on your desk and tell the shape you were in spiritually. Uh oh.

I’m two years older than Sir Paul, but in recent years have noticed I have a harder time remembering people’s names. I used to have a reputation for being great with names, but it seems that my memory bank is filled. Now, the only way I can retain a new name is to drop an old one!

A pastor friend sent me a note the other day about cleaning out the clutter in his office. He made that into a sermon illustration, making the same point as McCartney’s. This very day, my Mom said she and sister Carolyn are plowing through the clutter on the dining room table that accumulated over the last week following Dad’s death with the coming and going of so many friends and loved ones. We all have to clean out and throw away sometimes.

Continue reading →

Growing up in rural Alabama, I learned early on to listen to preachers with discernment. Mainly, I would hear some of them wax eloquent (or as the kid said, ‘wax an elephant’) on major sins of our time. Among the mortal sins capable of sending one to hell was card playing.

That’s when I wanted to stand up and say, “Oh, come on! Card playing? Give me a break.”

We played Old Maid. And Go Fish. And in my teen years, rummy.

Rummy became our family game. Not ‘gin rummy.’ Just ‘rummy.’ With our own rules, I suppose. Deuces wild. No betting of course. Nothing, absolutely nothing, going on at this dining room table except great fellowship between family members. For a large family–mom and dad and six children–made up of people who could not in a hundred years manage to utter those syllables ‘I love you,’ the fellowship and camaraderie of playing rummy accomplished the same thing. We loved each other dearly.

Dad put us up to it. In our young childhood, Pinochle was his game, and he and his buddies would sometimes play it all night long in our living room. If they gambled, I couldn’t tell it.

But somewhere along the way, he taught the older children how to play rummy. Once he found out we could play as well as he could–almost–the war was on. This was not the old man humoring the little children by condescending to play with them; we were a match for him in every way.

I told you this family is populated by characters and only characters. The nature of the foursome would change every time someone swapped seats with a sibling. Ronnie is quiet and intense; Glenn is funny and laughs loud. Patricia is intense, Carolyn funny, and Charlie–well, Charlie was all of the above. “I couldn’t rummy with a rummy machine!” I recall him saying, and have smiled at that ever since. Me, I don’t care who wins. I love the fellowship of the give and take, the foolishness, the competition, between these whom I love with all my heart.

Oh, for the record, Mom did not play. Not once. She hovered nearby, however, making sure everyone had popcorn or ice cream or a glass of iced tea.

My sons grew up playing rummy and have taught their children the game. The 10-year-old twins can hold their own with anyone in the family.

So, why do preachers no longer call card-playing sinful? If I had to guess, it’s because they finally looked around and discovered that sinfulness is a matter of the human heart, of rebellion against God, of selfishly using, abusing, and misusing another human being, of neglecting the things of God. But to play a harmless child’s game with those you love, nope. Not in a hundred years is that a sin. In fact, it blesses us so much, it ought to be taught in Sunday school!!

Not long ago I ran across a sermon from a friend which he preached a quarter century ago, in which he was declaring dancing to be of the devil. That’s another one that usually got lumped in with card-playing in those days.

Now, I doubt not that playing cards while gambling or any kind of lewd dancing is wrong and leads the participants into all kinds of trouble. So, this is not to deny that. Anything that leads people into sin is a form of sin.

Stay with me here a moment.

Continue reading →

We just returned from Alabama. The family all knows about the nearly 70 “comments” you have left on this blog and several have urged me to thank you here. My sister Carolyn is printing them out so Mom can read them.

I started out trying to respond to each of them, and I may yet. Add to those another large number that bypassed the “comments” section and came straight to my internet mailbox. Then, tonight when we checked the mailbox in the front yard, a dozen or so cards were in the three-days’ mail.

Some of our dear friends called us, and others sent flowers. And several even attended the service. That was most overwhelming of all.

Thank you. So very much.

Monday, I borrowed Carolyn’s computer and typed the program for the service. On one side, we just photocopied the obituary, on the right we listed the order of the speakers (Pastor Mickey Crane, my nephew Steve McKeever, our sister Patricia Phelps filling in for our brother Glenn who decided he could not do this, me, and then our brother Ronnie; interspersed with two songs each from our three Kilgore cousins–Johnny, Mike, and Rebecca–and our cousin Dr. Bill Chadwick), and on the back side a poem I wrote for Dad several years ago called “The Last Mantrip,” comparing the coalminers’ ride out of the darkness to the top of the mine and daylight to the last trip we make in Christ, leaving behind the darkness of this world and arriving in His glory. It’s not great poetry, but Dad liked it and even had it printed in the National Journal for the United Mine Workers Union. That was very special.

Anyway, I typed it and then found a printer who could print it out at that moment so we would have it for that evening, to give out at the wake and next morning at the service.

Monday noon, while waiting on Mom and Patricia to return from getting their hair done in Double Springs, I sketched out a drawing of Pop’s empty chair and colored it, and decided to run off copies to give to special friends. The printer said, “No, I don’t have a color printer.” He told me who did, but promised it would cost an arm and a leg. That’s when I decided to run by the First Baptist Church (of Jasper; which is where Carolyn lives and the wake would be held).

Continue reading →

I am well aware that when our parent dies, it feels like no parent has ever died anywhere in the world, not like this. So, thank you for indulging me in this.

I know that when people plan their own funeral services, they make such elaborate plans you would think it was the ruler of a sovereign nation with unlimited resources. Death has such a finality about it, it feels as if we should do something really significant. In our case, Dad left no instructions about his funeral. The obituary, prepared by my siblings, says Tuesday’s service will be held by–get this now–Pastor Mickey Crane, mom and dad’s longtime preacher, but also by Rev. Ron McKeever (my big brother), Glenn McKeever (one year younger than Ron, and not a preacher, but eloquent about life and death and those he loves), me, and Rev. Steve McKeever (Ron’s eldest child). Bring your lunch.

When you read the blog about “My Father,” notice the large number of comments from friends old and new, near and far, some dearer than brothers and some whom we’ve never met. I am overwhelmed. In addition, almost that many friends who read the blog skipped the “leave a comment” section and sent e-mails directly to my address. I’m trying to answer each one.

This Sunday morning, my 13-year-old grandson Grant will accompany me on the 7 hour drive to north Alabama. The rest of the family comes in Monday for the Tuesday funeral.

I plan to take notes on some of the Carl McKeever stories that are told and retold over the next 2 days, and post some of the more interesting ones here. Just to make you aware.

Saturday night, my Mom said, “It feels so lonely.” My niece was on her way down to spend the night with her. I said, “After nearly 74 years of marriage, I’m certain it does.”

We will appreciate prayers for Mom.

Continue reading →

Can you be thankful and sad at the same time?

Carl J. McKeever died this morning.

That is the saddest sentence I have ever typed.

He was born April 13, 1912 in the Slick Lizard community just outside Nauvoo, Alabama. His mother, Bessie Lowry McKeever was 17 and his father George was 20. Carl was the first of their 12 children. George would die in his mid-40s of a heart attack, leaving Bessie carrying the yet-to-be-born Georgelle.

Carl dropped out of school in the 7th grade to help earn a living. He carried water for a planer mill for two years, then went to work inside the coal mines, working for his father, doing a man’s work for a man’s wages. For the next 35 years, he worked the mines in North Alabama, Virginia, and West Virginia, without missing one day from accident or sickness. That’s not to say he did not have an accident or wasn’t sick; it’s more a tribute to his work ethic. We found out after his retirement from disability that he had broken his back in those difficult years of the 1940-1950s and had just gone on to work.

In 1930 when Carl met Lois Jane Kilgore at the New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church, two miles north of Nauvoo, everything changed for him. Her family life was the essence of stability. This was a church-going, salt-of-the-earth farm family. John Wesley “Virge” Kilgore and his wife Sarah Noles Kilgore had nine children–Lois was in the middle of the pack–each one a winner and each devoted to the others. Carl did a good thing when he married into this family on March 3, 1934.

Early on in their relationship, Dad made a profession of faith and was baptized in the creek that runs between the church and the Kilgore place, three miles up the Poplar Springs Road. He joked that thereafter the creek was called Blackwater. Which it is.

I will not attempt to try to capture in a few words all that this man was. He was a contradiction on many levels, in many ways. Until his middle years, his language was profane (but not obscene; there’s a difference) and he had a temper. When he disciplined his six children–I’m number four–it became an experience you would not soon forget. I would not say he had a love for the bottle in those early years, but a weakness for it would be closer to the truth. He never missed a day of work, always took care of his family, but Mom used to say he could come within a mile of a still and become intoxicated. Thankfully, he gave up even the occasional drink nearly 50 years ago. But I still remember some of those times. You don’t forget them.

Continue reading →

One of the ways I know the Lord is sending me a message is when I’m reading a familiar scripture and suddenly, something I’d never seen jumps off the page and grabs my attention. That happened Thursday morning of this week.

In a passage where our Lord is urging His audience to turn their focus from the rich and well-to-do toward the needy and helpless, Jesus says, “When you give a party (reception, banquet), do not invite those who can return the invitation. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” These people do not have the means to repay you, Jesus says, however, “you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

That line stood out in bold print: “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

All the bells went off inside. What a great promise. Jesus looks into the distant future and sees a time when debts will be paid, when rewards will be handed out, when the faithful will receive the recognition God has promised.

The line from Proverbs comes to mind: “He who gives to the poor lends to the Lord and He will repay him for his good deed.” (Pr. 19:17) Jesus is foreseeing that precise moment when God pays the debt in full. It’s a thrilling thought.

Later that morning, a pastor friend in Kentucky emailed me about his work with a commission seeking to curtail gambling in that state. They also deal with other moral issues, including the control of alcohol and drugs. He sent some pretty disturbing statistics, enough to discourage many a volunteer in this line of work.

I wrote him back that he must not get discouraged, that anything he can do to protect children and families from these scourges is a great work. That’s when Luke 14:14 came to mind. “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” I said to him, “You may never know this side of the judgment just how many lives you save, how much good you do, how many children you bless.” He agreed that it means working by faith, knowing you’re doing the work of the Lord and trusting Him to use it.

That’s tough, as we both know so well.

Continue reading →

(A little something based on the 7 portions of Luke 18)

“Pray or quit,” the Lord said. I don’t pray easily–it’s an uphill effort to stop my pace, quieten my mind, and force my thoughts toward God–but I certainly do not want to weaken and quit. I will pray anyway.

Jesus told a story we call the parable of the unjust judge. Every Bible teacher I know has his own twist on this–some saying it teaches persistence, some that it is giving a reverse image of reality, that God is not like the judge, we are not like the widow, and prayer is not about breaking down God’s reluctance but laying hold of His willingness–but I know one thing for sure.

Sometimes I feel God is not listening to a thing I say. I will pray anyway.

The Lord told of two men who went up to the temple to pray, one a self-righteous Pharisee who walked up and addressed God as an equal, the other a bashful tax-collector too ashamed to come near or look up. Both were praying, but Jesus said only the one who admitted to his sin made contact with a forgiving God that day.

Sometimes I feel self-righteous and sometimes unworthy. I will pray anyway.

When the parents brought little children for Jesus to bless, the disciples were protecting Him and hurrying them away, lest the noise and hubbub disturb the Lord. He put a stop to that and held the children up as the very models of what God wanted in each of them.

I’m usually like the erring disciples, and often not very childlike. I will pray anyway.

A man we call the rich young ruler approached Jesus with the question every soulwinner lives for: ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ When the Lord told him, he didn’t like the answer and went away sad. That set off a discussion among the disciples over who can be saved and who cannot. Surely, they had thought, someone so obviously blessed by the Lord as this man had a leg up on the rest of us. Turns out he didn’t and that his wealth was actually an obstacle to his faith. Who knew?

Sometimes I trust in the wrong things to make me right before God. I will pray anyway.

Continue reading →

District Attorney Eddie Jordan says he has resigned, but the Secretary of State’s office says no one has notified them, and nothing happens until they get the word. Meanwhile, Keva Landrum-Johnson has presumably taken over the office. She’s a highly respected prosecutor, we’re told, and a hire of the former DA, Harry Connick, Senior.

Meanwhile, no one still has any ideas as to how the DA’s office can pay the $3.7 million judgment as a result of Jordan’s discriminatory firing of whites and hiring blacks. He’s gone, but the damage is done, and the bill has to be paid. With the talk of asset seizure, the newspaper points out that taking over desks and computers in the office of the district of attorney will not come close to raising that amount of money.

The NBA Hornets began their first full season in New Orleans since Katrina, and the last I heard, they still had lots of empty seats to fill. Only 7,000 season tickets have been sold, leading some to question whether this city can support more than one professional sports team. Pastors have started receiving promotions in the mail, encouraging them to bring church groups to the games. Point of Grace, the popular Christian trio, will be featured one evening when they hope to attract lots of our folks.

Those who keep up with the goings-on in New Orleans or who get their N.O. news only from this blog will recall the lawsuit against the police force of the West Bank town of Gretna. In the awful days following Katrina, when the city was being featured on national television–exposing the misery at the Superdome and Convention Center, the chaos inside and out, people drowning in their homes, and first-responders rescuing people from their housetops–some residents of New Orleans who were trying to flee the city were turned back from crossing the downtown bridge (proper name: The Crescent City Connection) leading into the Algiers section of New Orleans and on to Jefferson Parish. Members of that police department and deputies from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s office closed the bridge to pedestrians.

Back then–and ever since–the defenders of this completely irrational act insisted that the West Bank had nothing to offer the people of New Orleans. I find that incomprehensible beyond belief. The West Bank had something New Orleanians needed badly–high, dry ground!

Continue reading →

The pastor stood in the pulpit of one of our churches last Sunday and gave a perfect description of what stress does to a body.

“I was going over my calendar,” he said, “checking on dates and places. And then I saw something that caught my attention. A month earlier, I had an appointment to speak at a certain place. And I realized that I had forgotten it. I failed to make that appointment.”

Every preacher knows that fear. That’s why we live and die by our calendars.

He said, “There was nothing to do but to call the brother who invited me and apologize. I got him on the phone and told him what had happened. I told him I have no excuse. I just forgot it. I hope you will forgive me. There was a long pause on the other end.”

He continued, “Finally, the man spoke up. He said, ‘Pastor, you came. You didn’t forget. You spoke to our group. I distinctly remember what you said. You had just come back from the Southern Baptist Convention and you told our group why believing in the Bible was so important to you.”

The pastor said, “I couldn’t believe it. How could I have gone there and spoken to that group, and now not remember a single thing about it.”

Someone reported that to me, so the next day, I mentioned it to him. “This is all about stress, isn’t it.” He admitted that it was, then told me of the circumstances that had filled his life with stress to the breaking point at that time.

Continue reading →

Today, Tuesday, New Orleans’ District Attorney Eddie Jordan resigned. There may be a few people sad, but not all that many. Jordan is the former U. S. Attorney who put four-time governor Edwin Edwards into the state penitentiary for racketeering, and was a hero to a lot of people. Now he leaves his office in disgrace.

What happened was this.

Jordan won election to this post after long-time D.A. Harry Connick, Senior, had retired. Connick is a white, one of the few Anglo office-holders in New Orleans the last few decades. If anyone had a problem with how Connick ran things, other than the usual gripes you hear about anyone in city government, I never heard. But when Jordan came in, he took over with a vengeance.

He fired 36 employees in the D.A.’s office, all of them white, then hired a whole battery of new employees, all of them African-American. He assured everyone there was nothing racist about that. Now, there may have been a day when an incoming politician could get by with that, but these days, there are laws against racial discrimination. I don’t know Mr. Jordan, but friends who do say he is the kindest, nicest gentleman you will ever meet. Even so, it may not have occurred to him that laws against racial discrimination work both ways.

The fired employees hired lawyers and took it to the courts, and without batting an eye, the court ruled against Jordan. His office was to pay nearly $2 million in actual and punitive damages.

Jordan kept insisting he was not a racist and not guilty of this charge, and so appealed the ruling. The state supreme court ruled unanimously that the lower courts had done right and he was liable for the damages, which by then had accrued to over $3 million.

Meanwhile, as this was being fought in the courts, New Orleans became a battle ground for gangs and drug pushers and multiple overnight killings became the rule. The DA’s office was never able to keep up with all the crime and most killings went unsolved. The public was outraged.

Occasionally, an assistant DA would get a conviction of some minor criminal and the public would howl again, wondering why they weren’t finding the murderers and ending the killings. Jordan responded that he could only prosecute what the police department brings to him, that his people are not the investigators. But the perception was there.

Next came wholesale departures from the DA’s office. Poor wages, heavy work loads, and bad public relations conspired to encourage assistant district-attorneys to seek employment elsewhere.

When the supreme court ruled that the DA’s office had to pay the $3 million, Jordan turned to the city for help, insisting his office did not have the money. City Council President Arnie Fielkow said, “No way.” The city is still in a crisis situation and needs infusions of money, he pointed out, and does not have the money to bail out Jordan’s office. Talk surfaced about impeaching Jordan.

Then last week came the final straw.

Continue reading →