I Hate Listening to Sermons

Since I walked away from the ministry, I hate listening to sermons. I really do.

Yep, I didn't qualify that or add anything to it. There it is, right up front, all alone.

I hate listening to sermons. Can't stand it.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm a Christian who struggles with sin and desperately needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ preached to me on a regular basis. I absolutely love the Word of God. Nonetheless, I hate listening to sermons.

Surely now that I've said it four times (counting the title of this post), you believe that I really mean it.

Ok, all of that was for the people reading this post who aren't former ministers. You former ministers know exactly what I'm talking about.

It really started in seminary... It turns out, the more you learn about how to do something well, the harder it is to be patient with those who do not do it well, especially when it's their job to do it well.

Let me explain. I've learned what it means to preach the Word. I understand the theories and principles behind it. I get, in the abstract, what preaching fundamentally IS. So when I sit down to listen to a sermon, I expect it to conform with what preaching is supposed to be.

Preaching is fundamentally about preaching the Word (2 Tim 4:1-2). That very Word of God is personified throughout the Old Testament prophets, a theme that John takes up in the opening of his gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Powerful words, these.

We really shouldn't ask, "What is the Word of God?" but rather, "WHO is the Word of God?" The answer is Jesus, God the Son, who became a man and fulfilled his role in the covenant of redemption, according to which he would become a man, live sinlessly, lay down his life for his people and be rewarded with eternal life, glorification, and ultimately a bride, his people, whom he would redeem by shedding his blood, whom he would clothe in his righteousness and present to himself blameless and glorified, and who would be devoted to him in utter gratitude for all he had done for her. This is the God man, the Word become flesh.

And THIS is what the content of preaching is. Jesus: who he is, what he has done, what that means for us, what it implies for us, etc. Preaching must be Christ centered, Christ focused, Christ saturated.

So far this is theological finger painting. Nonetheless, even those who would articulate just such a view of preaching, even if they consciously aim at this as their standard, will always fail to execute perfectly because we're sinners.

Furthermore, Jesus must be preached in every passage. No, it does not matter that your sermon text is a list of names in a genealogy in the Old Testament. Jesus said that the Scriptures testify to him (John 5:39). Furthermore, when Jesus met with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he taught through the entire Old Testament. And what was his subject matter? Himself (Luke 24:25-27).

Paul also confirms this of course. He says that the law and the prophets (= Old Testament) bear witness to the imputed righteousness of God that is credited to us by faith in Christ alone (Rom 3:21-26). Christ is explicitly mentioned as the content and subject of preaching (Col 1:28, 1 Cor 1:23). He is the fullness of our wisdom from God (1 Cor 1:30).

But, some say, what about the Old Testament? You can't preach about Jesus from the Old Testament without reading Jesus back into the text. Certainly the Jews of ancient times would not have understood it so.

Very well, let's talk about the purpose of the existence of Israel. Why did Israel ever exist at all? Why did God do that? Let's start from the beginning.

Gen 3:15 - undoubtedly you know the passage. Adam and his (so far) nameless wife have just sinned by doing the one thing God commanded them not to. God comes and demands that Adam account for himself, and he blames his wife. God turns to his wife and she blames the serpent. God never asked the serpent anything. (Ever wondered why?) Then comes the curse, and as part of the curse on the serpent, God says that one will come, the seed of the woman, who will crush the serpent's head. And of course the serpent is the Death-bringer, so crushing his head is a reference to triumph over Death. Who is that seed of the woman? That word "seed" becomes extremely important in the book of Genesis, something that Paul takes up in Gal 3:16. (Hint: Paul explicitly says that the Seed is none other than Jesus Christ.) Adam is so full of hope and inspiration that he gives his wife a (new?) name: Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. Translation: thanks to the Seed promise, we didn't die, my wife will have children, and they will LIVE! They were supposed to die for eating the fruit - but they were spared. So Eve is redeemed and given a new name.

However, you know how it goes from there...Abel seemed to be the Seed, but then Cain kills him. And so begins the awful history of fallen man. The flood. Sodom and Gomorrah.

Then God revives his Seed promise by talking to a guy named Abram, who is later renamed Abraham. God promises to Abram in Gen 15 that he will have a Son who will inherit the land. And he promises him Seed. There's that word again. So basically, God promised that Abraham would have a Son who would be the Seed promised in Gen 3:15, the Seed of the woman, Eve. And God promised to Abraham that his Seed would inherit the land of Israel, and that his Seed would be as numerous as the stars of the sky, etc. Who was that referring to again Paul? Christ! (Gal 3:16)

So the big deal about Abraham is that his line would give birth to Christ, the promised coming one who would conquer Death and crush the head of the serpent. And God adds that he will inherit the land. And as the Old Testament progresses, the promise gets filled out more and more.

Who were the children of Israel? They were some of the children of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob who had 12 sons whose lines became the 12 tribes of Israel. What made those people special? The promise that they would give birth to Christ.

This is the ENTIRE REASON for Israel's existence. This is what set them apart. This is what made them special. This is why they were God's special, chosen people, his lasting possession, his inheritance (bride language). What made them special was that they were people of the promise. Their hope was in Christ, the one who would be born who would redeem them from Death, the Seed of the woman who was now revealed to be the Seed of Abraham, who might be born at any time.

This is why, for example, Tamar was so desperate to have a child of Judah's line (Gen 38). It's a bizarre story and we often don't know what to make of it, but she went to extraordinary lengths to become part of Jesus' family tree. She wanted to be part of the family of promise because she believed in the promise and wanted redemption from death through the promised Seed to come. Granted, her methods were crazy, but God blessed her for her faith, not her deeds, even though her faith did shine through in her sin-tainted deeds.

So the ENTIRE POINT of the history of Israel points to Jesus. Jesus' birth in the New Testament gives significance to literally everything that happened in the Old Testament, because the Old Testament is the story of Israel, the people of the promise. The Old Testament only means anything at all because of the birth of Christ. It's not only what makes Israel's story significant to us, it's also what made their story significant to them at the time. Their hope was in the Messiah to come, and they all knew that was what made them God's chosen people. They were the promise people who hoped in Christ. Granted, they didn't know exactly what they were hoping for, didn't fully understand it, but neither do we fully understand heaven or what the resurrection will be like - yet that's what distinguishes us as the church. We are those who hope in heaven, who hope in the resurrection, in the age to come. We hope in things we don't fully understand.

If the entirety of the significance of the nation of Israel flows from the birth of Christ and the promises that were made about him, beginning all the way back at the very beginning of human history in the Garden of Eden - then isn't Jesus the POINT of the Old Testament?

And this is what Matthew does so eloquently in Matt 2:15. When Joseph brings his wife and son Jesus out of Egypt where they had hidden, Matthew says that this fulfills the words of Scripture and quotes from Hosea 11:1, "Out of Egypt I brought my son." The only problem is that if you go back to Hos 11:1, you'll see that it VERY clearly is referring to Israel as God's son. But don't worry - Matthew knows what he's doing. He's just saying what I've been saying.

Matthew is just saying that Israel as a nation was a living, breathing testimony to Jesus Christ. They were a nation set apart. God was calling attention to them and drawing the world's gaze upon them. And the world has surely noticed and has been paying attention ever since. But the whole reason for doing so was to prepare the stage for the coming of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was, as they say, in the loins of his ancestors when they were called out of Egypt and Pharaoh and his army was drowned in the Red Sea. Their very existence and especially the story of their remarkable history bears witness to their hope in the coming Messiah who would redeem them from death. They were the Jesus people, heralding his coming on the stage of world history simply by being who they were. The Word which would be made flesh was already on the lips of his people, because their existence spoke of him long before he became a man. Their existence spoke a Word, and that is the very Word who became flesh. And that Word is recorded in the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

And OH! What a rich Word it is! How robust and full of color, character, emotion, tragedies, comedies; there are stories of heroes, cowards, men, women, children, ridiculously old people living almost a millennium; there are angels of light and monsters of the deep; there are stories of battles and warriors and kings and queens, temples and empires; there are historical narratives, poetry, prophecy, prose, mind bending wisdom literature, visions, crazy dreams, impossibly long lists of names and even a book of songs. And all of it, every single last word of it, somehow, in some way testifies to the coming of Jesus Christ and its significance.

Even the best ministers can screw it up at times. It can be really hard.

But as hard as it is - and this is really why I hate listening to sermons - foolish, sinful, prideful men inevitably make it harder than it needs to be.

Please, please, for Christ's sake, preach sermons that are simple, clear and concise. Preach the text as it shines light on Jesus Christ. Tell me what Jesus has done for me. Encourage me to hope in him. This is the point of Scripture. Yes, convict me, rebuke me, but remind me that I am redeemed. After all, isn't that the point of convicting me of my sin, to remind me to appreciate how much I need Christ and how precious his shed blood on my behalf actually is? Isn't THAT what I need?

But that is SO rarely what you get. Like I said, even if you're aiming at these goals, they're very hard to strike perfectly. Obviously when I preached sermons, that's what I was aiming for. I don't think I ever really nailed it. Only Scripture can really do that.

Sadly, most men are not even aiming at these goals deliberately to begin with. Oh sure, most men, at least in reformed and presbyterian circles, will insist that preaching must be Christ centered in theory. And yet in practice, they'll preach a moralistic sermon that says little if anything about Jesus. Rather than telling me what Jesus has done for me, they'll beat me over the head with what I need to do for him.

Worse, many men are not deliberately aiming at simplicity, clarity, brevity. They can't help it. They're sinners. They want you to know how well read they are, so they quote unnecessarily long passages from Calvin, making everyone's eyes glaze over. I love Calvin - but please don't ever read long quotes from him in a sermon. It takes a lot of time and careful thought to puzzle out what he's saying - and that's for seminary graduates! How much more is it hard to follow for laymen!

Too often they are more concerned with impressing you than communicating with you. They don't care as much that you understand the message of the text first and foremost, they care first and foremost that you walk away from the sermon saying, "Wow! Our pastor is brilliant! Clearly he's very well read! Have you seen how many books he has in his study? I've been looking for preaching like this my whole life!"

They use big words and theological jargon. They drop names to prove they've read books. They make elaborate points because they want you to know how deeply they've studied and thought about the passage. They teach you about Greek or Hebrew to show you that they can read the original languages and conduct sophisticated linguistic analysis.

They are, in short, like Tamar who prostituted herself and yet, despite herself, managed to bear witness to her hope in Christ anyway and was blessed by being grafted into Jesus' household.

And this is why I hate listening to sermons. I hate obscure sermons no one understands. I hate sermons full of undefined jargon. I hate sermons laced with discussions of the finer nuances of Greek grammar or the often bewildering definitions of Hebrew words. I hate sermons full of names of famous reformers or theologians. I hate academic, pompous, narcissistic sermons designed to impress the audience with the erudition of the speaker rather than communicate the message of the text to everyone present including the children.

The Bible is clear. We believe in the perspicuity of the Scriptures. Why don't we believe in the necessity of clarity in preaching? Why don't we value simplicity? Brevity?

I was actually - I kid you not - critiqued for preaching sermons that were too simple, too easy to understand, too clear. I'm not kidding! Not just by one guy, but SEVERAL pastors! And they were passing along not just their own criticism, but that of many in the congregation as well!

But doesn't Paul say to the Corinthians that the trouble with their three-ring circus they called a worship service was that no one understood the message? He says it's pointless to speak in uninterpreted tongues because no one knows what you're saying (1 Cor 14:6-11). It's much better to speak something that's intelligible, he says.

Likewise, when Christ's disciples ask him why he speaks in parables, he responds that he doesn't want people to understand - otherwise they'd turn and repent and he'd heal them (Matt 13:10-16). The very least thing we can take away from this passage is that understanding the message comes first, then repentance and then healing. And that understanding can't happen unless what's being said is understandable. Much more could be said about that passage, but this is an undeniable implication of it.

And this is why I hate listening to sermons. There's always something wrong with it, tarnishing God's glory, whether mishandling the text or speaking to impress. Either way, it's very uncomfortable for me.

And now that I occupy the pew and never again the pulpit, I can't do anything but just sit there and take it in and try to make the best of it. It's awful. It's almost always a tremendous struggle.

I'm very grateful for the pastor I now have. I have a good relationship with him, and he definitely aims at simplicity most of the time and clarity. He also really takes preaching Christ in all Scripture very seriously. Knowing his heart allows me to forgive him his imperfections.

But there is nothing, nothing, nothing so satisfying as preaching Christ as boldly and clearly as you can from a passage of Scripture. There is a satisfaction in that that cannot be matched by anything else in this world. This is the real reason why sitting in the pew and noticing the shortcomings of sermons (I canNOT turn off the noticing!) is so hard. Just being in the pew and not in the pulpit is so much...less...of an experience.

I can liken my relationship to the Word to the relationship a man has with his wife. And yes, I mean in the biblical sense of knowing. When you wrestle with a text all week preparing to preach it, there's an intimacy with that text. It gets into you somehow and consumes you. It's all you can think about. You're eating dinner...thinking about the text...thinking about the text...what's that noise? "Huh? Oh, sorry, what were you saying honey?" It keeps you up at night because there's something you still can't quite wrap your mind around. It's an intense, all-consuming relationship that you have with that text that week.

And then comes Sunday, that glorious day. That's when you finally get up there and let it all out of you. And it comes out in a flood of emotional and spiritual energy. And it leaves you exhausted but extremely satisfied, even though you feel self conscious about it almost immediately afterward. Like I said, just like a man and his wife.

To walk away from the pulpit is to walk away from...THAT.

To then go and sit in the pew...

I've never been divorced. But I can kind of imagine what it must be like when a man's wife leaves him and he's sad about it but goes along with it. And she takes the kids. And his life has just become so sad. And every other weekend, when he picks up the kids for their short visit, he has to see her together with her new husband. And he puts his arm around her or holds her hand...

And all you can think about is that that's your WIFE. But you don't get to have that relationship with her anymore. You get to hang out with your kids a little bit, but you aren't really their father anymore.

I don't mean to downplay the pain those men go through at all. I'm sure it's absolutely awful and they would prefer to gouge their eyes out. Nonetheless, I think it's an apt analogy.

And you know what's worse? There's only one guy (in most cases) in your entire church who can even begin to relate to what you're feeling because he knows what it is to preach - your pastor. And yet, he can't relate either because he's never had it ripped away from him like a wife who demands a divorce and walks out with the kids and you're powerless to stop her.

That's why I started this blog. I recently began talking to a man who was violently cast out of the ministry. Here at last I met someone who actually understood because he's been there. And I was able to do the same for him. I was actually able to give him some job procurement advice...

...and I felt a satisfaction I haven't known in a very, very long time.

This blog is a place where former ministers can commune together, learn from each other, and for the first time, communicate with others who have been there. We can advise each other. We can help each other heal.

Remember, this website is purely anonymous: both those who post and those who comment. Comments that name people (including the name of the commenter), churches or organizations will be deleted.