TODAY’S SERMON

I remember it clearly, the day I was born. I popped out and there was Dr. Ware standing over me. I said “what the f#ck are you looking at.” (I didn’t know about the no preposition rule at the end of a sentence thing. Hell I was only 5 mins old). I then asked the nurse for a cigarette. Dr. Ware was startled that I wasn’t crying. He was about to smack me on my rear, but I said “don’t touch me perv, or I’ll be on you like a spider monkey.” I knew the Orioles were only 2.5 games behind the Sox and still in the pennant race, so I jumped off the table and out the hospital door. I walked over to the Tempo Room, one of Richmond’s most popular “gentleman’s club” at the time. I knew they would have the game on. A couple days later my parents found me loitering outside the Grace Street 7’11 with a bottle of Ripple in my hand.

You see I’m not a crier or one of these overly emotional types. In fact, I’ve alway been a troublemaker and a scoundrel. My good friend Linda Joynes ( aka “Big Money”) knew me well. She’s no longer with us, but she would often tell me that I “don’t have one female cell in my body.” Sure I have empathy for people, but I don’t tear up and blubber about, wailing and crying when something sad or unfortunate happens. Indeed, women’s emotions confound me, indeed they freak me out. I’m into fixing problems, not yapping and boo-hoo-ing about things I can’t fix.

If one asks me why I’m a believer, why do I believe in the tenets of Christianity, why do I believe what was alleged to have happened happened…… I can give you a spirited fact and logic based answer. But what is the most powerful testimony is what happened to me in church this morning, and happens to me almost every church service.

I’m a mean old snake. I have a hard shell, and damn it, I certainly don’t cry. I’m a man for godsakes. But yet, this “thing” happens all the time. Suddenly, during a particular hymn or the doxology, the Holy Spirit floods me with overwhelming joy and love. Often my eyes get a bit watery. Suddenly, I love everybody and everything, even left wing commies.

Now if this can happen to a pettifoggering, smartass he-man like myself, to me there’s no question “it’s all true.” If I was a biological clump of cells devoid from the Creator’s making and protection, this wouldn’t happen, and it happens at the exact time He is being praised and exalted in Church.

So there……