Wasted 20 minutes

The work of communication is not easy. It is a great arrogance that preachers have that their sermons are heard and change lives. It is so often that we think we have said something significant only to discover that the congregation did not hear it. Reinhold Niebuhr once said that lots of ministers sneak up on something controversial and then slip by it and think they have been bold to get close while the congregation is grateful that the minister did not go any further. But even if you say something directly it is not always heard.

This preaching stuff is a funny experience. Last Sunday I preached on the story of Moses and God deciding what to do about the children of Israel who have just built and worshipped the Golden Calf. God tells Moses to get out of the way. God is ready to kick some butt and God declares that he is going to burn the whole lot of them up. Moses, like a great Labor leader, knows God better than God knows himself, and Moses knows that God is a promise keeping God. So Moses tells God that if God breaks his promise to the children of Israel after all these years, God's reputation as a promise keeper will be shot. God relented of the evil that he had planned. So I suggested that as Christian people our only hope is that God is still a promise keeper after all the promises we have been made by God through Jesus Christ. Our hope is not in ourselves. Our hope is not in political systems or economic arrangements. Our hope for the future is in the fact that God keeps his promises. It is not in our own ability.

I pronounced the Benediction and walked back to shake hands. The first man to greet me was one of the ushers. He shook my hand and said immediate, "You said this morning something that I believe with all my heart. You got to have faith in yourself."

I had absolutely nothing to say. I was speechless which would have been as useful as my 20 minute sermon.