A Plea from a Pastor

Dear friends in the pews,

Yesterday, in a church that is widely considered one of the most "liberal" United Methodist churches in the state, we did an exercise intended to point out the discrepancy between what men and women think about regarding sexual assault. By a show of hands, we saw that this is something the majority of women think about regularly while very few men do. It was just a one question survey - "Have you ever felt the need to prepare for the possibility of being sexually assaulted?" After one worship service a person, it happened to be a woman, said something like "Your bias showed through. You should have also asked if anyone has ever been scared that they would be falsely accused of sexual assault."

One state south of me, another United Methodist preacher used a story in worship that (full disclosure) I would never have used and probably wasn't fully thought out. Another person, also happened to be a woman, walked out five minutes into the sermon and missed that the message was not intended to be about politics, but about reconciliation.

I don't blame the pastors; I don't blame the people. Words that a distant two years ago would have been seen as docile now cause people to leave churches - I know, because two years ago that happened to me as well. Pastors are told to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." We are in a time when everybody feels afflicted. The pastor now must choose between afflicting some of the afflicted more or just ignoring what lies outside the stained glass.

I share with new pastors that there are three sermons every Sunday. One is the sermon that you write. The second is the words you say (hopefully you aren't reading word for word from the manuscript!). The third is the sermon that people hear. The listener brings all their stuff to the sermon process. If the congregation I serve is a typical gathering of people, yesterday my message was heard by someone who is recovering from abuse, someone who is currently being abused, someone who has been an abuser, someone who is an abuser, someone who has been and/or is being abused and is in denial, someone who has a relative living in danger...the list goes on. Every one of these people heard what I said in a different way. It is not possible for the same sermon that I wrote or that I spoke to be heard in the same way by that variety of people. It's not that one person hear it "right" and another heard it "wrong." They simply heard it "different," and at least in some cases differently than I intended. It's nobody's fault - not mine, not the woman who spoke to me yesterday, not the pastor in Oklahoma or the person who spoke to him.

I've been preaching pretty much every Sunday for 19 years. Never in that time have I chosen my words more carefully and never in that time have I regularly felt like I ended up choosing the wrong words.

So, as a pastor, on behalf of your pastor, please understand the bind that we are in right now. When we say something that hurts please let us know. Say something afterwards like "I don't think this is what you intended, but when you said X I heard Y". Please don't ignore what hurt you - we need to know when our words aren't helpful - and at the same time please know we really truly are doing our best.

1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that love is patient and kind and rejoices in the truth. May we be patient and kind with one another while also speaking the truth to and with one another in love.

Peace,
David