I was feeling pretty good about myself one day not long ago. Then someone told me that something I had said off the cuff several months earlier had deeply wounded a friend. I had been unaware that my quick comment had been mistaken for criticism, so the revelation came as a complete shock. Suddenly I didn't feel so good about myself.
In fact, I began to feel like a complete klutz.
I was scheduled to preach that day at my home church, but the revelation of my own fallibility sent me into such a tailspin that I was ready to resign all my leadership responsibilities and go home.
Fortunately, I don't usually stay in such a state of despair for long. Coming up on the rebound, I got through my sermon in fine form, and I'm told that God used my vocal chords to implant His word in people's lives that day. Probably the experience of finding out how feeble and fallible my own words were drove me to rely more closely on God to give me His words.
Which is an important lesson every preacher needs to relearn at least once a week.
The pulpit is a lofty perch, and looking down from its heights can give one a feeling of greatness. Human faces upturned in awe or even in mere expectancy can leave a preacher feeling that God has really blessed him or her with abilities worth admiring.
At best such an attitude can lead us to walk circumspectly to avoid disappointing or misleading the flock. At worst it can make us walk haughtily and demand obeisance.
But either reaction is sinful in God's sight—even walking circumspectly if my motive is maintaining a good public image.
Both reactions are sinful because both look to and exalt the power of the flesh. They both raise the person in the pulpit to an atmosphere more rare than God intended humans to breathe.
Worship is a natural human reaction, and we prefer to worship the visible rather than the invisible. So it is natural for some in the congregation to paint a halo about the preacher's head and to hold him or her in idolatrous esteem.
The peril to the halo painter is exceeded only by the peril of the one thus haloed. The wise man's observation that "pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" is a prophecy that can spell disaster, both for the one with his or her head in the clouds and the one whose perception of the exalted hero is obscured by those clouds.
Perhaps it is healthy for the preacher's opinion of himself or herself to take an occasional nosedive. Better yet, the preacher should maintain a consistently humble self-image. The best way for us to maintain a proper self-image is to stay on our knees until we catch a clear vision of the exalted God we serve.
James urges us to confess our faults to one another and pray for one another that we may be healed (James5:16). The ability to recognize and confess our faults and to seek prayer and healing is characteristic of good spiritual health. Inability to see or accept ourselves as poor, naked sinners, as much in need of God's grace as the humblest pew warmer, is a symptom of Laodicean blindness.
And a healthy dose of confession is also valuable as an antidote to members' propensity for clergy veneration. (Of course, confessing your faults is also useful for beating critics to the punch!)
Recently the American media had a heyday criticizing and poking fun at television evangelists. It was amazing to me to see the press continue to play up the story—giving it front-cover exposure on weekly newsmagazines—even weeks after the first revelations about a moral fall and the subsequent cover-up scheme.
In the media response to the story I sensed not just a desire to play up a story people were interested in, but something deeper. Is it possible that the story tapped a reservoir of resentment and released a flood of bitterness that had been just waiting for a small breach in the dike? Newsweek, for example, took the occasion to expose income levels and other noncomplimentary details about several of the most prominent evangelists, some of whom had no direct relationship to what was dubbed the "Pearlygate" scandal.
If there is a reservoir of anger at evangelists, can we blame it totally on the "liberal leanings" of "media moguls"? Or could it be that either intentionally or unintentionally, those who are the focus of the anger have taken on a "holy" image that sets them up for a fall and makes others rejoice over their fall? Could it be that we men and women of the clergy set ourselves up for criticism by simply taking ourselves too seriously?
When I allow myself or any other human being to be viewed as a paragon of virtue, I have missed the point of the gospel, which is "Christ in you, the hope of glory." It is "not I, but Christ," who is to "be honored, loved, exalted." "Not I, but Christ," who is to "be seen, be known, be heard."
God is the one we are to take seriously. And He is serious about holiness, virtue, and a circumspect walk. But these are to be the outworking of His Spirit within us, not the outshining of our own attempts at righteousness.—Kenneth R. Wade.
