Then, in mid-flight over the Atlantic, the windshield of the jet airliner was smashed by the force of the storm and the pilot was sucked out. However, he managed to hold on to a part of the plane until some unknown force which I believe was God flipped him back into the cockpit. He was able to continue the flight and land the plane safely in New York."
Most of the kids were riveted to this story of a miraculous intervention told by our new pastor as part of his sermon. Many of the adults that morning were trying not to laugh. Afterwards, as I shook hands with him at the door, I asked, "Pastor, have you ever flown in a jet?"
"No," he replied confidently, "I've never had the privilege of flying in an airplane, but I have my stories on good authority!"
Over the years I have heard some ministers illustrate their sermons by the use of tall tales and exaggerated circumstances. This tendency is very unsettling. Sometimes it is downright embarrassing. I have always believed that the compromised veracity of the minister that comes with the use of such illustrations, far outweighs any practical spiritual benefit the story may have.
Not all ministers tell tall tales
I'm not speaking of all ministers! I certainly enjoy interesting presentations and there is certainly nothing wrong with telling a story to illustrate or highlight a sermon point. Nor is there anything wrong, of course, with using parables to bring home a critical lesson. Jesus used both stories and parables to increase the effectiveness of His teaching. But Jesus never presented a story as truth that was an obvious fabrication or exaggeration of the facts.
Thankfully, most ministers would never embellish a story during a sermon. My life has been blessed by these servants of God.
I am concerned about the few prevaricators who give ministry a bad name, causing some to question the veracity of all clergy. James Patterson and Peter Kim1 report that thirty-two percent of Americans believe they've been lied to by a clergy-person while forty-two per cent believe that they've been lied to by attorneys. This national survey seems to indicate that the ministry is running only ten percent behind lawyers in America's veracity ratings. It is sad that the few are able to tarnish the credibility of hundreds of fine pastors! Surely ministers, of all citizens, should bend over backwards to preserve integrity!
Lying to illustrate truth?
"And I watched while the demon shrieked and whirled around the room. The walls and windows shook."
It was the third time I had heard this first-person, eyewitness account told by the same charismatic evangelist in various churches during the preceding few years. Each time the telling had been further embellished. It bothered me that my children made fun of this minister's stories and that any overall effectiveness his message may have had on my family was nullified by his hyperbole.
Since I take very seriously the role of the minister as God's messenger I had no desire to speak out against this evangelist and, indeed, never mentioned my reactions to his sermon illustrations to anyone. However, one day, while speaking to the conference ministerial secretary about another matter, I casually asked about this evangelist's penchant for storytelling. Did he think it was a problem? Had anyone complained?
He smiled and replied. "He's a good man. He does lean toward exaggeration to make his sermon points, but he doesn't mean any harm by it." I then asked facetiously, "Does the ministerial credentialing process include a license to lie?" The ministerial secretary replied just as facetiously, "The license includes only the telling of sanctified lies!" We both enjoyed a hearty laugh but the laughter covered a deeper question, one of importance to both the pastor and the worshiper: Is telling a "tall tale" to make a point during the delivery of a sermon justified if it helps to get the point across to the worshipers?
A lying culture
Patterson and Kim report that "lying has become a cultural trait in America. Lying is embedded in our national character. Americans lie about everything and usually for no good reason." Another researcher, Sissela Bok, claims that people do have good reasons for lying and those reasons are innumerable. She writes that we lie to: coerce, avoid, be tactful, make people feel better, prevent perceived harm, get what we want, get people to like us, appear reason able, justify, deceive, avoid blame, have power, support the best interests of others, keep up appearances and, of course, for national security.2
I'd like to add to Bok's list: to make a point during a sermon, even though I believe most minsters' pulpit fabrications have no malicious intent. I believe that their intent is honorable. It would seem that, in a warped sense, some pastors embellish a story to make a point in the name of the Lord. This is what I call ministerial mendacity! These embellishments somehow become justified in the pulpit when supposedly told with the hope of winning a soul to Christ. What a contradiction!
It seems we Christians, including all ministers, are part of a larger lying culture. Every study on truth-telling indicates that prevarication is now acceptable! Carmen DeSena in her book, Lies: The Whole Truth,3 says that in compiling her book she was shocked to discover how much we human beings lie, and to whom. Her research shows that children lie and that they do so for "attention, to avoid chores, out of fear, to control, for approval, but most significantly, because their parents and other adults teach them to." She points out that people learn to lie very early in life.
In other words, children learn to lie by example. Therefore, it's reason able to conclude that if children grow up in a church admiring and enjoying the embellished stories of a favorite pastor, they are likely to believe forever that this is an acceptable pulpit and thus conversational practice. Should one of them enter the ministry he or she will see no reason not to perpetuate the practice that was so entertaining during child hood.
The divine perspective on truth-telling
In addition to many pointed biblical passages condemning prevarication, God has preserved numerous accounts of biblical people who believed, for one reason or another, that falsification of facts would serve their best interest. These stories prove that God is serious about the seriousness of the sin of prevarication:
Bold-faced lie: Genesis 4 tells us the story of Cain who brought the wrong sacrifice and then killed Abel in a jealous rage. When God inquired of him, "Where is thy brother?" he replied, "I know not; am I my brother's keeper?"
The rationalization lie: Knowing that the Pharaoh would covet his beautiful wife, Abraham reasoned that he was not guilty of falsehood in representing Sarah as his sister since she was, in fact, his half-sister (Gen. 12).
The premeditated lie: The Genesis 27 account of the deliberate lying of Jacob with his mother Rebekah's help, successfully plotted the deception of both Esau and Isaac and is clearly pictured as leading to some of the dominating horrors in Jacob's life.
The circumstantial lie: In 1 Samuel 21 and 22 we read of David's lie to save his own life, but it resulted in the high priest, Ahimelech, losing his! The greed-based lie: Gehazi coveted the gifts which Elisha refused. For lying about it Elisha pronounced the curse of leprosy on him (2 Kings 5).
The little white lie: In Acts 4, Ananias, held back some of the profit from the sale of his land while claiming that he had given all. Within three hours both he and his wife, Sapphira, were dead.
Scripture makes it clear that God doesn't treat lightly any form of deception. It has also been said that "God requires that truthfulness shall mark his people, even in the greatest peril."4 If we are not to lie, even when in danger of losing our lives, how much more truthful should we be when presenting the morning sermon!
The author's view from the pew
As a layperson sitting in the pew, looking up at you in the pulpit, with my Bible open, I expect you to stand in place of God to me and my family.
You see, we desperately need your expert knowledge of divine truth, as revealed in the Word of God. We need you to feed our souls with information and insight from the Word that will help us overcome sin and enable us to walk more closely with God. Then, each week we will be back for another spiritual feast knowing that you have prepared the food in the form of a prayerful, Spirit-filled sermon.
It's important for us to know that every word that comes out of your mouth during your sermon has come under the scrutiny of God that the Holy Spirit has inspired it for our good. While we learn from true stories about real people related to your sermon topic we cringe at embellished, frivolous stories because they cause us to lose interest in righteousness. When such stories are related, we tend to focus on the incredible story instead of the underlying message and this keeps us from being brought face to face with our sins and the need to candidly acknowledge them. Without this weekly analysis and confession of our sins we cannot progress in holiness and develop the depth of character to which God calls us.
When you tell a "tall tale" in the pulpit to illustrate a particular point in your sermon it leads us to believe that you can't be trusted in other areas that are critical to our spiritual life. Areas like guiding our children, praying for and anointing our sick, counseling troubled couples contemplating divorce, maintaining our confidences as we share with you our concerns and troubles.
Down deep we really don't want sermons that entertain us. We want to bring friends and family members to our church knowing that they will hear a Christ-centered message that will inspire them to join us in serving Jesus Christ. We know that more and more, as we move toward the end of all things, we are going to face lying wonders of all kinds, and we need you to be a preacher of honor and truth to whom ministerial mendacity of any kind is abhorrent.
We want to be able to say to our friends and family, "If you want to know Jesus, let me introduce you to my pastor."
1 James Patterson and Peter Kim, The Day America Told the Truth (Prentice Hall Press), 1991.
2 Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (Pantheon Books, 1978).
3 Carmen DeSena, Lies: The Whole Truth (Putnam Publishing Group, 1993).
4 Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn.. 1913), 656.
