Hey, Preacher, Leave Those Tostitos Alone

Think about it – is there a dirtier word than “preach”? I’m hard pressed to think of a positive use for the word. Or the word “preacher,” for that matter. Just last night we watched an inane comedy from the late 1970s that featured one of Hollywood’s stock characters – the horribly out-of-touch minister, always good for a few laughs. Think of the great movie preachers – Rowan Atkinson in Four Weddings and a Funeral talking about the Holy Spigot; that guy in The Princess Bride going on about mahwidge; the uptight, disapproving minister in the last scenes of The Graduate; and the Southern minister Borat had a field day with.

Who wants to have someone preach at you? The word implies one-way communication of the worst kind. Even St. Francis, of all people, is credited with saying “Preach the gospel always and, if necessary, use words.” Another person with a religious name, Madonna, famously sang “Papa Don’t Preach.” One of the communication principles of the founder of Young Life was “Don’t preach, teach.” Woe unto him who doesn’t practice what he preaches. And if you do preach, you certainly don’t want to just be preaching to the choir.

But I do it. I preach. I get nervous before hand and feel somewhat deflated afterwards (even though people say nice things to me, I feel like all that work just goes up into the air and is then lost forever). One reason I’ve never been the full-time minister of a church is because I can’t imagine doing it every week. Not only do I fear I would quickly run out of things to say, I can’t imagine having any creativity left over for anything else if you write a sermon every week. I suppose, in the end, you just wind up preaching yourself, and I wonder if I’m filled with too much uncertainty at this point in my life to subject others to that every week.

For better or worse, I do it. And here’s a link to some recent sermons of mine – you can hear what I said Sunday, the Sunday before that, another Sunday in May, and, if you search far enough, you can hear a sermon I did in February. That’s over an hour's worth – I recommend it if you’re having trouble sleeping. And remember what Gandhi said, “An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

To prove Gandhi’s point, here’s a true story. One day Gretchen and I went to the grocery store together. She wandered off to find something and I didn’t see her go, which made me frustrated. Finally, I found her and then she successfully wandered off again. More frustration. Dare I say even anger. I went through the whole store before I finally found her. She was happy as a lark and said we needed tortillas. I grabbed a bag of Tostitos, and she said, “Those are tortilla chips, not tortillas, you imbecile.” NO! I lie. She didn’t actually say that. She's way too nice to say that. I’m sure she just said “Those are tortilla chips, not tortillas, sweetie,” but I heard something different. I was so frustrated I started to crush the bag of chips in my hand. And I heard a voice behind me say, “Excuse me.” I wheeled around to see who dared to interrupt me when I was damaging corn chips at Meijers. I felt like saying “You want some of this” to the guy when he said, “I don’t mean to bug you, but you preached at my church a few weeks ago and I just wanted to tell you that was one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, as I slowly eased the tension off the chip bag, feeling genuinely like an imbecile.

And now I will reveal the real reason why I preach: It’s so I have a chance to say something to myself.

Here's the link: Sermons