People love to ask, “What is your favorite ________?” You can fill in the blank. Over the years I have been asked about anything from favorite color to favorite exotic animal. A lot of the time I can only scratch my head and shrug. It is not that I do not have favorites. You can ask RuthAnn, I am loaded up with them. I think sometimes she is confounded because I have so many. It is just that on certain matters I have no opinion, especially when it comes to things I am not interested in. In my life BAC (Before Accepting Christ) most of that lack of interest had to do with anything I considered religious.
It is not that I didn’t have knowledge of the Christian world. I mean, I was raised in a Christian home and I did attend Christian schools all the way through high school. It was just that by my mid 20’s when my addictions took firm hold of my life, I wanted nothing to do with discussions about my ‘favorite’ Bible verses or Christian songs. Yet I was always running into people, even in the low life bars where I hung around who wanted to do just that.
Jimmy was one of those people. I drank with him many nights sitting at the end of the bar most of the time watching the ‘Showtime Lakers’. Magic Johnson and Kareem playing the game I loved at a level I could only watch in awe. Jimmy had been a fixture in the San Fernando Road bars for years. He was an aficionado on just about everything. When it came to basketball, he remembered when the Lakers moved from Minneapolis to LA and would talk about his favorite players from the last 20 years. Challenging me to argue against his knowledge and when it came to basketball and the Lakers, well I was pretty much up to the challenge.
Other nights he would expound on his favorite foods. Once being a merchant marine, he had eaten foods from around the world. I could not compete with his knowledge, even though I had much cooking experience myself. My favorite foods seemed weak to him, he would say, “Your favorite food is Lasagna? Come on, boyo, half the country says that, don’t you have a better palette then that?” My response would be a shrug and seek a way to change the conversation. Jimmy had a lot of knowledge. History, geography and then there was religion.
What I haven’t told you is that Jimmy was an Anglican Minister and was the pastor of a church in the heart of San Fernando, California. After a rough and tumble life at sea, he had returned to his native state without a clue of his future. As he told the story, one day he was sitting on a bench waiting for a bus when he looked up there was a church and by the power of God he was drawn to that place. Without thinking the next thing, he knew he was sitting in a pew, tears running down his face. Jimmy had an epiphany, he knew he was called to serve God as a minister. So, at almost 50 years old, he entered the seminary and now he was, in his words, ‘a man of God.’
Along with that and because of his struggle and winning his battle with ‘demon rum’, Jimmy believed his other calling was to ‘save’ the sots who frequented the 10 or so bars along this stretch of San Fernando Road. Hence his sitting next to me many a night. As he would sip on a cup of black coffee or a seltzer water, I would slug down one whiskey and coke after another. He never preached or berated. What he would do is be into challenging me about my favorite memory or something and then immediately ask, “Now, how about your favorite Bible verse?” He was pretty sneaky about it and I would have to shake my head and say something like this, “Ahhh, Jimmy, I aint drunk enough for you to pull that one on me. I have said this before, and I will say it again. My favorite Bible verse is, “God loves those who love themselves.” He would smile, “John, boyo, you know better than that, that is not in the Book. But here is one that is,…..” Then he would quote a verse that had something to do with God’s love. God’s love for the sinner. God’s love for the lost. He never minded when I would hurriedly change the subject. Now I know why.
I never asked him but I think and now believe myself that God’s Word is what the Book of Hebrews says it is, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. For the word of God is living and active.” (Hebrews 4:12) I have seen for years now that many of those ‘favorite’ verses that Jimmy added to our conversation have come back to me in ways that have sliced through the man I used to be. Those very verses have been a part of my transformation. And even if I thought, at the time, I was not listening. They were implanted in me, seeds waiting to sprout once Jesus, the Water of Life was poured on to them.
Today before I leave, I want to share just a few of the maybe 100 or more ‘favorites’ Jimmy shared with me in his wonderfully sneaky way. Just a note before I do. Jimmy went to his rest before I left LA. I was no longer drinking in that bar but still heard he had a major heart attack and died. From what I was told more than half the drunks from San Fernando Road were at his funeral and a bunch of them had been attending his church. Jimmy did what I wish to do, share not my mumblings but His saving words. I pray one of these are the word you needed to hear or read today, courtesy of Jimmy’s favorites list:
“For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” (Romans 5:6)
“He will swallow up death for all time, And the Lord GOD will wipe tears away from all faces, And He will remove the reproach of His people from all the earth; For the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:8)
“But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)
“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)
Blessings and Happy Sabbath,
John
3/15/19
