Celebration Farewell Retirement Banquet

Celebration Farewell Retirement Banquet 12/5/2021

1 Thessalonias 5:1-24 Romans 12:12-16

I want to say thank you for all of you coming to be with me in this time of celebration. Thank you to the members of the Celebration/Anniversary Team that made all of this possible. Thank you my friend Roger for your words. I want to introduce my Mom to you because without her, we would not be here today.

I thank all the members of my family who have come out to celebrate this event with me. It’s been a double blessing in that some of my brothers and sisters on my father’s side are just meeting the ones on my mother’s side.

I thank my wife Rev. Dr. Toby Gillespie-Mobley who has worked by my side in one way or another for the past 40 years in ministry. Much of the success I have had in ministry has its roots in her gifts, her love, and her support

When she and I met at seminary and started doing our field education work together with a tutoring/Sunday school program in a public housing complex, we had no idea we were actually launching a 42 year ministry team and a 41 year marriage.

I want to thank all of you who have been in one of the congregations we served. It was an incredible journey of walking with you and with Jesus through some of the most wonderful years of my life.

Wow this journey actually began with a failed bargain I tried to make with God. I came to know the Lord when I was 17. My grandmother Louise Bascomb had gotten saved and just fell head over heels in love with Jesus. She had started going to church under Rev. Baker in Hornell NY.

I started going to church the summer before my senior year of high school. I had been hurt in a football game my junior year and did not want that to happen again. Because I wanted a football scholarship to go to college I started going to church.

I figured if I went to church and put money in church, and tried to do right, “God would have to watch over me on the football field. Well that plan worked until the third game of my senior year. We were playing Sayre in Pa. I was a starting safety. They ran a play to my right. I read it perfectly and came up with a great hit and tackled the ball carrier. That hit was so hard I remembered seeing those sparkling stars.

The next thing I remembered was being on the bench and looking at the score board and seeing the other team was ahead. The last I had remembered, we were ahead in the game. I asked, “When did they score? A guy looked at me and said, “What do you mean when did they score, you blocked the extra point.” I have no memory of that event.

My neck was sore and the coach didn’t let me go back in the game because I must have had some kind of a concussion. There was I time when I wasn’t answering questions they asked. I was told to go to the hospital the next day just to check out things and make sure it was okay for me to play the next week.

I went to St. James Hospital. They did some x-rays and told me to wait. Well after a while I got tired of waiting, and started to walk toward the exit. The nurse came toward the door, and asked if I was Ricky Mobley. I said yes.

To my surprise, she said the doctor wants you to go to bed right away. I couldn’t believe I was in a wheel chair going up to a hospital room. I remember it seemed cold in that room. She told me the doctor would be in soon. I just wanted to know how many games I was going to have to miss.

The doctor came in and started talking. He said that I had injured my neck pretty badly and that I had cracked a bone. All I wanted to know was how many games I would miss.

He said, if I had of stayed in that game, I could have been paralyzed from the neck down. I still wanted to know how many games I would miss. He told me that I would never be able to play football again.

It seemed my world had ended because I was living for football and going to college. When he left I was stunned. I got out of the bed and got on the floor crying asking God how could you let this. I was going to church and even putting money in church so why did this happen.