James

It is so good to be back with you after a three month sabbatical. As most of you know, I’ve been on the road…in the air…down the trail…in the desert, at the ocean, journeying for two months in the back country in Africa with a month in Europe. This has been the longest stretch I’ve gone without preaching in twenty five years. This morning is a kind of homecoming for me, and we also welcome our students this day, some back from college break…some here for the first time. We’re so glad to have you with us. So let me speak this morning a word of celebration. A message of homecoming. A word of welcome.

    It was some time before I knew Robert’s name.  He and his wife used to come to Hopwood to ask for help on Sunday morning, usually during Sunday School.  It seemed to me like they were classic “users,” they figured out that people wouldn’t want to spend too much time with their problems, what with classes going on and whatnot.  Robert would sit out in their beat up old car, engine idling.  He sent his skinny, backward wife in to do the dirty work.  Go get a few bucks and we’re out of here.  I felt sorry for her, and I was sure I didn’t like him.  Then one day I went out to the car and started talking to him, and I was surprised by what I found.  I discovered he was a gentle, caring man.  I found that they both carried on despite crippling illnessess and disabilities.  I discovered that Robert was ashamed to come in...ashamed of his clothes, ashamed at having to beg, ashamed to be seen in such a fine place as this, by such fine people as us.  We started to visit; I began praying with them, and they would pray for me.  Sometimes they stayed for a service.  I began visiting them when they were in the hospital.  One day in the hospital, a nurse came in and asked:  “Are you his case worker?”   
    “No,” I said, I’m...well, Robert is my friend.  We’re  friends.”
    He talked about that day for years.  “I still remember,” he would say, “how you told that nurse that we was friends.  It’s not the money...you’re my friend.”  That doesn’t mean that friends don’t sometimes drive you crazy...but Robert is teaching me not to define people by their problems. 

Doin' His Job...Malcolm Holcomb

up on a roof down in a ditch
workin' in a plant it dont matter what shift
jesus is there and i just cant quit
doin' my job

layin' rock drivin' a nail
drivin' a truck deliverin' mail
jesus is there and he never fails
when i'm doin' my job

chorus
thank you lord for my job
praise your name in the mornin' light
gonna keep on prayin' mornin' noon and night
thank you lord sweet lord for my job

    There was once a man who loved dogs. He owned a couple dogs, belongs to the SPCA, worked at the dog pound. One day his neighbor watched as he poured a new sidewalk on his front lawn. He had just smoothed out the last square foot of cement when a big collie strayed across his sidewalk leaving footprints all through the wet concrete. The man shooed the dog out and smoothed out the footprints. He went inside to get some twine to string up around the sidewalk only to discover the dog had gotten back onto the sidewalk and messed it up again. He smoothed it out again and put up the twine. About five minutes later he looked out and saw the same collie sitting in the wet concrete, cooling himself off.  The fellow went inside, got his gun and came out and shot the dog dead. The neighbor rushed over and said, "Why did you do that?  I thought you loved dogs."  The old boy cradled the gun in the crook of his arm and said "I do, I love dogs in the abstract.  But I hate dogs in the concrete."    
    Sometimes that’s the way we are.  We love humanity.  It’s people we can’t stand.  We love unity.  It’s people we can’t get along with...

    Opening up about our prayer lives can be intimidating and maybe even a little embarassing. I have a theory that we tend to be overly optimistic in assessing the depth of other people’s prayer life and perhaps overly critical of our own. Let’s get it right out on the table.  Let’s start out with a little poll this morning...a simple show of hands will do.  How many of us here this morning are totally happy with the depth of our prayer lives?  How many of us feel like we’ve pretty much got this prayer thing down?  Who here this morning would say “I think I pray enough...and I pray well?”  Anyone?