David, who can't be much older than 30 and doesn't spend a lot of time in the pulpit, stood in front of the large, stoic, congregation at FPC, and with the most humble of deliveries preached a whale of a sermon on Sunday morning. Five minutes in I knew I was going to have to share at least a snippet with you because, well, he started off with a Houston Nutt tale. I'm almost 100 percent sure that's the first time Nutt's name was ever uttered from the pulpit of FPC of Jackson. It was a special day....
Felker said that in 2001 the No. 1 and No. 2 quarterbacks for Nutt's Arkansas Razorbacks were both injured and the depth at quarterback was so thin that Nutt went to the intramural fields to try to find a quarterback. THE INTRAMURAL FIELDS!
I had to investigate.
Here's a clip from a 2001 game story of Ole Miss vs. Arkansas to jog your memory:
FAYETTEVILLE - Ole Miss started senior quarterback Romaro Miller for the 29th consecutive time on Saturday.
Arkansas started freshman quarterback Zak Clark on a gimpy right ankle and backed him with John Rutledge, a just-activated walkon playing intramural flag football this time last week.
The experience difference, plus Ole Miss' annual kickoff return for a touchdown against Arkansas, manifested in the Rebels' 38-24 Southeastern Conference victory Saturday weathered by 49,647 on a raw, chilly day at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.Felker said that Nutt's recruitment of Rutledge straight off the flag football field engulfed Arkansas media that season, in part because, well, it was crazy, but also because people love the idea of an SEC football coach going to the least likely place to find a quarterback and then plucking him straight off the playground.
That's what Nutt did. He took a kid that wasn't worthy of a college scholarship and made him an SEC quarterback. Rags to riches. It's a fun story. The kind that finds it's way into movies. Nutt jokes aside, it was a fun opener for Sunday morning's scripture reading and Felker had my undivided attention.
The scripture was 2 Samuel 9.
It's the story of King David's kindness to Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth was the crippled grandson of Saul, the deceased and defeated king who had tried many times to kill David. In Old Testament times Mephibosheth would have been a likely candidate to be slaughtered just by virtue of his relationship to Saul. But David wanted to show kindness to him because David wanted to honor Mephibosheth's dead father Jonathan, David's friend and Saul's son, who also died in battle.
If you read the scripture you'll find that David wanted to show love to Mephibosheth. He sought him out. Not only did he do good to Mephibosheth, he did way more. David brought Mephibosheth into the King's table to eat. He treated him like a son. Mephibosheth, the grandson of Saul, and a crippled enemy of David, was brought into the King's table and treated like a son for the rest of his days, and for nothing that Mephibosheth had done or could do for David.
Felker said that the story of David and Mephibosheth is a beautiful foreshadowing of the Gospel.
God sought us - sinners and enemies of God - out. He sent his only son to die on the cross for us. We did nothing for God to deserve that sacrifice. We are like Mephibosheth - crippled enemies of the most high, stuck in sin and unworthy, but God sent Jesus, his only son, to make the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be brought in to dine the rest of our days at the King's table. God didn't just save us. He made us sons (see Galatians 4). He was too good to us. Just like David was to Mephibosheth.
It was a beautiful sermon. I wish you could have been there. I don't usually get preachy here on the blog, but when the son of a former Mississippi State football coach kicks off his sermon with a Houston Nutt story about intramural quarterbacks, well, I just had to share.
It was too good not to.
If you want to listen for yourself, click here.