Heart & Soul
January 1, 2000
I know of an old preacher who was dying of brain cancer. As his health deteriorated, he lost his ability to speak. This was no surprise, for the doctors had told him it would happen. What did surprise him was his own reaction. He wrote to his family saying how pleased he was that when he lost his voice and therefore his ability to preach, he had kept his pleasure in God. He'd had dark doubts about his motivations. Had preaching become an idol? Would he no longer love God when he was no longer able to do the thing he loved to do for God? Had he slipped into what T. S. Eliot said was the greatest betrayal of all: doing the right thing for the wrong reasons? He was relieved to discover that, at the end of his life, he had not. He still loved God more than preaching. Preaching can be heady stuff. True, it is sometimes the opposite. Bruce Thielemann said the call to preach brings no special honor, just special pain, calling "those anointed to it as the sea calls its sailors; and just like the sea, it batters and bruises and does not rest. … To preach, to really preach, is to die naked a little at a time, and to know each time you do it that you must do it again." But more often the mere fact of having people sit and listen to you week in and week out can poison the soul. I vividly remember the first time I made a broad gesture as I spoke, pointing toward the sanctuary exit, and saw half the congregation turn, as one person, to look that direction. My reaction: Wow! I hope to see that happen again! In a single stroke of narcissism, I was losing God while preaching about him. The content was theological, but the subject was me. Great betrayal. Right words, wrong reasons. Irenaeus said the glory of God is man fully alive, and the ...
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