To An Audience Of One
Preaching
Distinctively Different
I sometimes sit in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, recalling its distinguished list of ministers, and say to myself, "What are you doing here? You don't measure up. You cannot live up to their standards of excellence in ministry." And it is true. I can't even live up to my own expectations and standards, much less to theirs. I identify with a recent statement made about Henri Nouwen, the gifted writer of many formative books on spirituality. It was said that he spent his energy and effort to write about a life he desired to live but could not. I say to myself, "I've read Henri Nouwen and, Carver, you are no Henri Nouwen."
I also have difficulty identifying with Paul in the apologetic letter to Thessalonica when he states that he is a minister "approved of God" (v. 4), elaborating on his string of successes there. I identify with him when elsewhere he states that he is the "chief of sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). I identify with him when he moans in the book of Romans that when he desires to do good he cannot and when he desires to refrain from evil, he cannot (Romans 7:18--20). I resemble those remarks!
But to identify with the ideals and standards in our text is a thing I find most difficult. Listen to Paul's recital in 1 Thessalonians 2:1--8. There was no residue of his being persecuted and driven out of Philippi. Instead, when he arrived at Thessalonica, there were no impure motives, no error or uncleanness, no guile or selfishness, no attempt to use flattery to conceal greed. Instead, Paul was courageous, gentle as a mother's love, self--giving, and sacrificial. No wonder the mission was a rousing success (v. 1)! Here is a minster who is seeking to please only God (v. 6)! Wow! I know that this is the way I am supposed to live my life and conduct my ministry, but there is such a great distance between the sky of my ambitions and the reality of my performance. I cannot duplicate Paul's example. I cannot even live up to my own expectations of myself. And what about God's expectations? How can I ever expect to please God, much less live up to my own expectation, whether realistic or not. How can you fulfill your own calling and please God? In short, who are we trying to please? Are we trying to please people?
Keith Miller introduced to me years ago the question, "Who is your audience? To whom are you playing your life?" He said that in a sense life is like a stage and we are like actors playing our lives to an audience for their approval and applause. We can give to our audience God--like powers of approval or disapproval. In fact, we can become "approval--holics" addicted to their stamp of endorsement. Our audience can be a person, a spouse, a mentor, or a parent - living or dead. Kenny Stabler, Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, once commented on playing for Coach Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. "I would have done anything," he said. "I wanted so desperately to please that man!"
Our audience can be a group of persons. "They!" You know, "they!" "What will they think!" What will they think of me - they at the club, or the church, or the neighborhood? In covering high school sports for three newspapers I heard the account of a very gifted football player who kicked a 47--yard field goal in the State All--Star Game. Someone who knew the young man quipped, "If there had been 10,000 more fans in the stands, he would have kicked a 57--yard field goal." The question remains, who is your audience? Who are you trying to please? Who supplies your sanction?
Probably the best or worst example in scripture is Saul, the first king of the Hebrews. This tall, handsome, strapping boy was chosen to be king of Israel by God - by God himself! But it was not enough for him to hear God name him king, he had to hear it from the people as well. In 1 Samuel 13, Saul is waiting at Gilgal for Samuel to make the sacrifice before he enters into battle with the Philistines. Samuel is seven days late. The people are leaving. So, Saul, with blood on his hands, offers up the burnt offering. "The people were leaving," was Saul's comment to Samuel when asked why he had acted so foolishly. Later in 1 Samuel 14, Saul binds his people under an oath to fast as preparation for battle. Jonathan, his son, heard not the edict and ate honey. As horrible as it seems by our standards, Jonathan was to be put to death for breaking the oath. But the people said, "Not Jonathan!" And he was spared. That's what the people said. In 1 Samuel 15, Saul was commanded of God to destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions. After the victory, Saul set out to fulfill God's command when the people said, "These sheep and cattle are fine and fat. Let's keep them for ourselves!" That's what the people said! That's what Saul did. Because of Saul's disobedience, God rejected him as king of Israel. His prayers went unanswered. His successor was chosen and he sank into depression. In 1 Samuel 28, Saul, deeper still into despair, disguises himself and sneaks into the tent of the witch at Endor despite his own decree that such should be put to death. Sinking as low as one can go, he summons Samuel back from the dead and pleads, "Tell me what to do!" Saul asked the people what to do. Saul asked Samuel. He did not ask God until it was too late. Who was Saul's audience?
Saul depended upon others for a validation of his own worth and works not because he loved or respected them. Rather, he tried to use or manipulate others to buttress his own weak self--image. You may have heard the story about the preacher who stopped by his church one afternoon while the building was in the process of being redecorated. As he wandered through the building, darkness came before he realized. All of a sudden he found himself in a room with which he was unfamiliar. The door shut behind him. He tried the door to find no doorknob on the inside. It was dark and he began to panic. No one was around - no staff, no builders, no custodian! He waited for a moment so that his eyes could adjust to the darkness. Suddenly he turned and saw the figure of another man. He was frightened, but he regained his composure and said, "What are you doing here?" The man did not respond. He thought the man looked like him, only bigger, meaner looking, and ugly. He asked again, "What are you doing here?" Again the figure of the man did not respond.
Just as he was about to strike out against the ugly man, his eyes better adjusted to the darkness and he found himself facing a mirror! Possibly it is true that when our own self--image is distorted, we panic and tend to strike out against others around us.
It also may be true that a warped self--perception will blur our own sense of what is important and what is not. Evelyn Underhill in her classic work, The Spiritual Life, states:
Any spiritual view which focuses attention on ourselves, and puts the human creature with its small ideas and adventures in the center foreground, is dangerous till we recognize its absurdity....
We mostly spend our lives conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do. Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual - even on the religious - plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest.1
Some of the most miserable people I know spend every waking moment in mortal fear worrying about what "they" may think. They try to mask this fear with desire, "We want, I want"; or with boasting, "We have, I have"; or with the attention getting, "I do, I've been...." Often it is no more than an outward facade posted to shield an empty or noisy heart - a heart that God already knows. While we all wish to be respected by our peers, we can expend all our effort and energy in the exercise to have, to want, or to do, forgetting they have no ultimate significance and still leave unsatisfied the need "to be"! Joy in life is found as we become more and more who and what God created us to be. There is an old rabbinic saying, "In this life we sometimes have to choose between pleasing God and pleasing people. And in the long run, it is better to please God for God is more apt to remember."
Another reason to neglect the need for attainment and accumulation and the pursuit of the need "to be" is that things aren't always what they seem. Dudley Rose was the Merrill Fellowship advisor at Harvard. He told the story of a time he was called on the telephone by a bookstore clerk. "I have an old man in the store rummaging through some old books who says that you will verify his check. He is shabbily dressed and says his name is 'Mara' or 'Morrow' or something like that." Dudley responded, "Is this man tall, slender, and gray--headed?" "Yeah!" the clerk said. "Believe he is!" "Listen my friend," Rose continued, "if he offers you a check for the books, take it! If he offers you a check for the building, take it! Ever heard of Merrill--Lynch?" Things are not always the way they seem. And they are not with Charles Merrill either. Born to privilege, he spends much of his time and money seeking to eradicate illiteracy in the formerly Communist block countries. Why would he do that? Is he trying to please God? Maybe he feels God is more apt to remember.
How can we please God anyway? If we sometimes have to make a choice between pleasing God and people, how do we please God? I am not sure that I know, but perhaps it works somewhat with our heavenly parent as it does with our earthly ones. Are there not ways we can please our earthly parents? Does anything bring more joy to the heart of a parent than simply to talk to them? In spiritual terms we call that prayer. Are not our parents delighted and pleased when we go to see them and interact with them? In spiritual terms we call that worship. Do not our parents beam when they see us reflect the lessons they have taught to us? In spiritual terms we call that obedience. I personally think it brings great satisfaction to our parents when we reflect the name we received from them. I am a Christian. I truly believe that in some way the great heart of God is pleased when I feebly reflect the Name of the One by which I am called, the name of "Little Christ."
A grandfather spent his passion in his rose garden. It was a true joy of his life. His life was made more joyous as one day his three--year--old granddaughter picked a rose that already was his, gave it to him, and said, "I love you, Grandpa!" How much more is our loving heavenly Father pleased when we return our lives which already belong to him?
It is the wonderful lesson learned by Paul: "that we loved you so much that we shared not only the gospel with you but our very lives as well, because you are so dear to us" (v. 8). Paul is an example of the wonderful freedom we possess when we seek only to please Christ. It was the freedom espoused by Saint Francis when he felt he had to renounce the wealth of his family and the confines of the church in order to please God. It was not a freedom for irresponsibility or carelessness, but a freedom to be unhindered in one's love for God. It was the freedom from the necessity of having to please others whose preferences change as does the wind and the freedom to please the God who never changes. It is the freedom to decide before the opinion polls are in. It is the freedom to possess our possessions instead of being possessed by them. It is the freedom to give as God in joy gave to us.
God has not called any of us to please people. God has called us to love people and to serve people. We are called to please God. Don't you see how liberating that can be? I do not have to try to be like the great ministers before me or like Paul because I could not if I tried. That would be phony! All I have to do is to try authentically "to be" me. To paraphrase the rabbi: I don't think God will ask me when I stand before him, "Why were you not Billy Graham or the Apostle Paul?" I think he will say, "Why weren't you Gary?" If I can authentically try to be the best me I can be, that might be a good start in pleasing God and in playing my life to an audience of One.
Andy Tampling and his wife began their ministry in a small church in northern Florida. The first Sunday he was in the pulpit a white boutonniere appeared with his name on it. He put it on. Every Sunday the white boutonniere was there. Wearing a white boutonniere became his trademark. He had no idea who was sending it. He and his wife would often sit over a cup of coffee and imagine who in the church was doing that. They went to the florist and asked who was sending it. The florist said, "It's paid for in cash and they wish to remain anonymous."
As he moved from that church to the First Baptist Church of Opp, Alabama, the flower was there in the pulpit as before. "Well, whoever it is, they are sending it from Florida." They again would talk, "Well, could it be...?" Years later they moved to the First Baptist Church of Sylacauga, Alabama, and the flower was on the pulpit the first Sunday and every Sunday thereafter. They would discuss it. "Well, I think it is...." "No," she died. "It can't be her. It has to be someone else." He asked others. No one knew! The florist would not say a word. He then accepted a call to serve the First Baptist Church of Birmingham. The flower was sent anonymously every Sunday.
After seventeen years of pastoral ministry, Andy resigned to head up the Department of Retirement Centers for the State Convention. The second Sunday out of the pastorate, he was preaching a supply sermon in a church in Montgomery. As he and his wife were about to walk into the sanctuary, she turned to him and said, "This is difficult for you, isn't it?" He agreed, "Yes, it is." She said, "This is the first Sunday in seventeen years that you have not had a church." And then she said, "I'm sorry, that I forgot to order your flower."
With that he stopped cold still in his tracks. A lump emerged in his throat. He turned to her incredulously and said, "It was you? All these years, it was you?" He said that he wiped a tear with one hand and took hers in the other and walked into the sanctuary. Just a little flower!
There is no telling how long love can last if you don't care who gets the credit. It is called seeking to please the God who already knows.
____________
1. Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life (New York: Harper and Row), p. 24.
I also have difficulty identifying with Paul in the apologetic letter to Thessalonica when he states that he is a minister "approved of God" (v. 4), elaborating on his string of successes there. I identify with him when elsewhere he states that he is the "chief of sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). I identify with him when he moans in the book of Romans that when he desires to do good he cannot and when he desires to refrain from evil, he cannot (Romans 7:18--20). I resemble those remarks!
But to identify with the ideals and standards in our text is a thing I find most difficult. Listen to Paul's recital in 1 Thessalonians 2:1--8. There was no residue of his being persecuted and driven out of Philippi. Instead, when he arrived at Thessalonica, there were no impure motives, no error or uncleanness, no guile or selfishness, no attempt to use flattery to conceal greed. Instead, Paul was courageous, gentle as a mother's love, self--giving, and sacrificial. No wonder the mission was a rousing success (v. 1)! Here is a minster who is seeking to please only God (v. 6)! Wow! I know that this is the way I am supposed to live my life and conduct my ministry, but there is such a great distance between the sky of my ambitions and the reality of my performance. I cannot duplicate Paul's example. I cannot even live up to my own expectations of myself. And what about God's expectations? How can I ever expect to please God, much less live up to my own expectation, whether realistic or not. How can you fulfill your own calling and please God? In short, who are we trying to please? Are we trying to please people?
Keith Miller introduced to me years ago the question, "Who is your audience? To whom are you playing your life?" He said that in a sense life is like a stage and we are like actors playing our lives to an audience for their approval and applause. We can give to our audience God--like powers of approval or disapproval. In fact, we can become "approval--holics" addicted to their stamp of endorsement. Our audience can be a person, a spouse, a mentor, or a parent - living or dead. Kenny Stabler, Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, once commented on playing for Coach Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. "I would have done anything," he said. "I wanted so desperately to please that man!"
Our audience can be a group of persons. "They!" You know, "they!" "What will they think!" What will they think of me - they at the club, or the church, or the neighborhood? In covering high school sports for three newspapers I heard the account of a very gifted football player who kicked a 47--yard field goal in the State All--Star Game. Someone who knew the young man quipped, "If there had been 10,000 more fans in the stands, he would have kicked a 57--yard field goal." The question remains, who is your audience? Who are you trying to please? Who supplies your sanction?
Probably the best or worst example in scripture is Saul, the first king of the Hebrews. This tall, handsome, strapping boy was chosen to be king of Israel by God - by God himself! But it was not enough for him to hear God name him king, he had to hear it from the people as well. In 1 Samuel 13, Saul is waiting at Gilgal for Samuel to make the sacrifice before he enters into battle with the Philistines. Samuel is seven days late. The people are leaving. So, Saul, with blood on his hands, offers up the burnt offering. "The people were leaving," was Saul's comment to Samuel when asked why he had acted so foolishly. Later in 1 Samuel 14, Saul binds his people under an oath to fast as preparation for battle. Jonathan, his son, heard not the edict and ate honey. As horrible as it seems by our standards, Jonathan was to be put to death for breaking the oath. But the people said, "Not Jonathan!" And he was spared. That's what the people said. In 1 Samuel 15, Saul was commanded of God to destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions. After the victory, Saul set out to fulfill God's command when the people said, "These sheep and cattle are fine and fat. Let's keep them for ourselves!" That's what the people said! That's what Saul did. Because of Saul's disobedience, God rejected him as king of Israel. His prayers went unanswered. His successor was chosen and he sank into depression. In 1 Samuel 28, Saul, deeper still into despair, disguises himself and sneaks into the tent of the witch at Endor despite his own decree that such should be put to death. Sinking as low as one can go, he summons Samuel back from the dead and pleads, "Tell me what to do!" Saul asked the people what to do. Saul asked Samuel. He did not ask God until it was too late. Who was Saul's audience?
Saul depended upon others for a validation of his own worth and works not because he loved or respected them. Rather, he tried to use or manipulate others to buttress his own weak self--image. You may have heard the story about the preacher who stopped by his church one afternoon while the building was in the process of being redecorated. As he wandered through the building, darkness came before he realized. All of a sudden he found himself in a room with which he was unfamiliar. The door shut behind him. He tried the door to find no doorknob on the inside. It was dark and he began to panic. No one was around - no staff, no builders, no custodian! He waited for a moment so that his eyes could adjust to the darkness. Suddenly he turned and saw the figure of another man. He was frightened, but he regained his composure and said, "What are you doing here?" The man did not respond. He thought the man looked like him, only bigger, meaner looking, and ugly. He asked again, "What are you doing here?" Again the figure of the man did not respond.
Just as he was about to strike out against the ugly man, his eyes better adjusted to the darkness and he found himself facing a mirror! Possibly it is true that when our own self--image is distorted, we panic and tend to strike out against others around us.
It also may be true that a warped self--perception will blur our own sense of what is important and what is not. Evelyn Underhill in her classic work, The Spiritual Life, states:
Any spiritual view which focuses attention on ourselves, and puts the human creature with its small ideas and adventures in the center foreground, is dangerous till we recognize its absurdity....
We mostly spend our lives conjugating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do. Craving, clutching, and fussing, on the material, political, social, emotional, intellectual - even on the religious - plane, we are kept in perpetual unrest.1
Some of the most miserable people I know spend every waking moment in mortal fear worrying about what "they" may think. They try to mask this fear with desire, "We want, I want"; or with boasting, "We have, I have"; or with the attention getting, "I do, I've been...." Often it is no more than an outward facade posted to shield an empty or noisy heart - a heart that God already knows. While we all wish to be respected by our peers, we can expend all our effort and energy in the exercise to have, to want, or to do, forgetting they have no ultimate significance and still leave unsatisfied the need "to be"! Joy in life is found as we become more and more who and what God created us to be. There is an old rabbinic saying, "In this life we sometimes have to choose between pleasing God and pleasing people. And in the long run, it is better to please God for God is more apt to remember."
Another reason to neglect the need for attainment and accumulation and the pursuit of the need "to be" is that things aren't always what they seem. Dudley Rose was the Merrill Fellowship advisor at Harvard. He told the story of a time he was called on the telephone by a bookstore clerk. "I have an old man in the store rummaging through some old books who says that you will verify his check. He is shabbily dressed and says his name is 'Mara' or 'Morrow' or something like that." Dudley responded, "Is this man tall, slender, and gray--headed?" "Yeah!" the clerk said. "Believe he is!" "Listen my friend," Rose continued, "if he offers you a check for the books, take it! If he offers you a check for the building, take it! Ever heard of Merrill--Lynch?" Things are not always the way they seem. And they are not with Charles Merrill either. Born to privilege, he spends much of his time and money seeking to eradicate illiteracy in the formerly Communist block countries. Why would he do that? Is he trying to please God? Maybe he feels God is more apt to remember.
How can we please God anyway? If we sometimes have to make a choice between pleasing God and people, how do we please God? I am not sure that I know, but perhaps it works somewhat with our heavenly parent as it does with our earthly ones. Are there not ways we can please our earthly parents? Does anything bring more joy to the heart of a parent than simply to talk to them? In spiritual terms we call that prayer. Are not our parents delighted and pleased when we go to see them and interact with them? In spiritual terms we call that worship. Do not our parents beam when they see us reflect the lessons they have taught to us? In spiritual terms we call that obedience. I personally think it brings great satisfaction to our parents when we reflect the name we received from them. I am a Christian. I truly believe that in some way the great heart of God is pleased when I feebly reflect the Name of the One by which I am called, the name of "Little Christ."
A grandfather spent his passion in his rose garden. It was a true joy of his life. His life was made more joyous as one day his three--year--old granddaughter picked a rose that already was his, gave it to him, and said, "I love you, Grandpa!" How much more is our loving heavenly Father pleased when we return our lives which already belong to him?
It is the wonderful lesson learned by Paul: "that we loved you so much that we shared not only the gospel with you but our very lives as well, because you are so dear to us" (v. 8). Paul is an example of the wonderful freedom we possess when we seek only to please Christ. It was the freedom espoused by Saint Francis when he felt he had to renounce the wealth of his family and the confines of the church in order to please God. It was not a freedom for irresponsibility or carelessness, but a freedom to be unhindered in one's love for God. It was the freedom from the necessity of having to please others whose preferences change as does the wind and the freedom to please the God who never changes. It is the freedom to decide before the opinion polls are in. It is the freedom to possess our possessions instead of being possessed by them. It is the freedom to give as God in joy gave to us.
God has not called any of us to please people. God has called us to love people and to serve people. We are called to please God. Don't you see how liberating that can be? I do not have to try to be like the great ministers before me or like Paul because I could not if I tried. That would be phony! All I have to do is to try authentically "to be" me. To paraphrase the rabbi: I don't think God will ask me when I stand before him, "Why were you not Billy Graham or the Apostle Paul?" I think he will say, "Why weren't you Gary?" If I can authentically try to be the best me I can be, that might be a good start in pleasing God and in playing my life to an audience of One.
Andy Tampling and his wife began their ministry in a small church in northern Florida. The first Sunday he was in the pulpit a white boutonniere appeared with his name on it. He put it on. Every Sunday the white boutonniere was there. Wearing a white boutonniere became his trademark. He had no idea who was sending it. He and his wife would often sit over a cup of coffee and imagine who in the church was doing that. They went to the florist and asked who was sending it. The florist said, "It's paid for in cash and they wish to remain anonymous."
As he moved from that church to the First Baptist Church of Opp, Alabama, the flower was there in the pulpit as before. "Well, whoever it is, they are sending it from Florida." They again would talk, "Well, could it be...?" Years later they moved to the First Baptist Church of Sylacauga, Alabama, and the flower was on the pulpit the first Sunday and every Sunday thereafter. They would discuss it. "Well, I think it is...." "No," she died. "It can't be her. It has to be someone else." He asked others. No one knew! The florist would not say a word. He then accepted a call to serve the First Baptist Church of Birmingham. The flower was sent anonymously every Sunday.
After seventeen years of pastoral ministry, Andy resigned to head up the Department of Retirement Centers for the State Convention. The second Sunday out of the pastorate, he was preaching a supply sermon in a church in Montgomery. As he and his wife were about to walk into the sanctuary, she turned to him and said, "This is difficult for you, isn't it?" He agreed, "Yes, it is." She said, "This is the first Sunday in seventeen years that you have not had a church." And then she said, "I'm sorry, that I forgot to order your flower."
With that he stopped cold still in his tracks. A lump emerged in his throat. He turned to her incredulously and said, "It was you? All these years, it was you?" He said that he wiped a tear with one hand and took hers in the other and walked into the sanctuary. Just a little flower!
There is no telling how long love can last if you don't care who gets the credit. It is called seeking to please the God who already knows.
____________
1. Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life (New York: Harper and Row), p. 24.
