Concerning Sermons (3): Converse Not Teach
Preacher, please don’t teach anymore.
I long to converse.
Can you do that in your sermon?
I knew my failures.
I knew my hurts.
I knew my guilt and shame.
You don’t seem to know.
You sound like you still want to convince me.
No, I knew I fell short.
You sound like I don’t know the way back.
No, I just lack motivation.
You sound like you never failed.
No, I don’t need a faultless instructor.
Do you know what I need?
Can you talk to me as if Jesus spoke to the woman at the well? Nicodemus at night?
Can you show me His character, faithfulness, towards Israelites? Towards a sinful David, a remorseful Simon and a Paul with thorn?
You know what I am getting at?
Afraid you don’t.
If you had known, you would not have always recalled your struggles as a seminary student about money, grades or family rebukes, in an attempt to show empathy.
It is so manufactured. Not that your story was fabricated. But your history’s relevance to me was overestimated. You never realise that I simply can’t relay to a dedicated seminarian who gave it all up for Christ!
I am just struggling to keep sanity between job demands, family obligations, financial burdens, and disappearing available time!
That’s not to mention the indescribable pressure on me exerted by the crooked society and politics, by the falsehood and silence of church and clergy as if nothing has changed since 2019.
I just need understanding, encouragement, a look of mercy, and a space to breathe.
I am not even asking for political allegiance, or even agreement to my political persuasion.
Just that you acknowledge it is a reality and not dismiss it with your thunderous silence.
You already dress as if you are distinct, sanctified you would say, in well tailored suit and tie.
Very different.
Your language is so literary as if you read it right out of best sellers.
So different a vernacular.
You are so up there.
I am so down here.
You are teaching, asserting, and convicting.
Totally segregated.
Too remote, preacher.
I am not here for an opera.
I am here to sit at the feet of Jesus!
Don’t worry pastor.
I will be taught.
Only by your willingness to show me a Christ likeness that meets me at my level; that looks at me with understanding.
Only by your demeanour that does not demean my lowliness, sins, and shame.
Only by your patience towards me, confidence in me, and encouragement of me.
It’s often printed in books and uttered in sermons that the congregation gets to meet God in the Word, the sermon.
This is the God I pray to meet in all your sermons:
“The LORD is exalted over all the nations,
his glory above the heavens.
Who is like the LORD our God,
the One who sits enthroned on high,
who stoops down to look
on the heavens and the earth?
He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes,
with the princes of his people.
He settles the childless woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.” (Ps 113:4-9, NIV)
With God’s grace I will stand up, walk one step at a time.
The Word of God has taught and will teach.
Thus, you need not teach pastor; just converse.
