Preaching the Truth
By Gary Freeman
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Last year a certain church hired a new preacher. Naturally, the elders took him aside for the purpose of having an intimate talk with him. "What we want you to do is to preach the truth," they told him. "Do not let the truth be compromised. Preach it with boldness, with courage, with fearlessness. By all means, preach the truth!"
It goes without saying that the preacher was very conscientious and lacked smarts. For his first sermon he chose to preach on tolerance to men of all races. The elders called him in.
"That ain't it," they said. "We told you to preach the truth. We didn't say nothing about messing around with civil rights."
"You're right," responded the preacher, sadly chastened. "I won't make that mistake again."
"Well you'd better not or you'll get fired," they shouted pleasantly. "Just preach the truth!"
The following sermon the preacher chose to expatiate on the evils of materialism and the problem of poverty. It was a very wealthy church. The elders called him in.
"That ain't it," they said to him. "Our rich members didn't like it at all. What are they teaching you young preachers in college nowadays? If we wanted a social worker we would have hired one. Preach the truth! We want a preacher who is sound in the faith."
The preacher was abject. He promised to reform at the earliest opportunity. The elders assured him that the following Sunday would not be too early.
For his next mistake, the preacher took as his text the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, and he pointed out that the Pharisee stands closest to the modern Christian. He tried to paraphrase Jesus by saying, "Alcoholics Anonymous will go into the kingdom of heaven before the institutionalized church."
The elders were cataplectic. After they had called him in for his weekly reprimand the preacher began to defend himself. "I know what you're going to say. You're going to tell me how that still ain't it. But if you knew all along exactly what 'it' is, then why do you need me? Why don't you do your own preaching? What you really hired me for was to intuit what you think the truth is and then preach that. I'm supposed to record my impressions of your religious prejudices and then play it back to you each week. You don't want a preacher, you want a tape recorder."
The elders were seething, fuming, foaming, shuddering and pulling out their hair. The preacher wondered if they were upset. Since they were momentarily
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"You want me to be as irrelevant as possible, to cover ground that's been covered a million times before, to fight battles that were won or lost years ago, to make sure that Christianity justifies you without changing you. You would likely be perfectly content if I preached every other sermon on how you can't be saved by the Old Testament.."
"Did you hear that?" asked the elders of one another, as if they had recognized a familiar, beloved tune. "Say that again very slowly."
"You...can't...be...saved...by...the...Old...Testament," repeated the preacher.
I think he's got it! By George, he's got it!" They began to grab the preacher's hands and to dance around the room playing Spanish music on the sackbut and psaltery and chanting something about how one can't be saved by the Old Testament.
The story has a very happy ending. The following Sunday the preacher began a series of twenty-six sermons on the measurement and construction of the ark. The elders were so satisfied he was now sound in the faith, that they began sleeping through all of the sermons, as did the other members. It was the supreme testimony to the fact that he was finally preaching the truth.
Editor's Note. Gary Freeman labors with the Church of Christ, 3425 Mayfield Road, Cleveland Heights 18, Ohio, and the above is taken from the bulletin of that congregation.