Television personality Garry Moore had a marvelous comeback to those who sent him crank letters. Whenever he received a particularly nasty letter, he would send it back with a note: “The enclosed letter arrived on my desk a few days ago. I am sending it to you in the belief that as a responsible citizen you should know that some idiot is sending out letters over your signature.”
I confess: My mouth watered when I read that. I know it’s wrong, but I have spent an embarrassing amount of time replaying in my mind angry encounters I have had with people in the church-mental polemics in which I parry all their hostile thrusts with the devastatingly witty repartee I wish I would have delivered. Of course, my words leave them a quivering heap on the floor, begging my forgiveness. Mea culpa.
If all this shocks you, and you can in no way relate, you should turn the page and read something else in this fine journal. But if you can relate, please read on.
Thank you, I knew you would.
Paul too, faced a lot of harsh and unfair critics, the people in the Corinthian church being second only to the forty-some Jews who vowed not to eat or drink until they killed him (Acts 23:12). If there are two top put-downs a congregation can lay on its minister, Corinth delivered both: They said he couldn’t preach and that the other pastors they had were better. That stings. I know.
But instead of indulging a comeback, Paul wrote, “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any hu-man court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.”
Translated: “I don’t care what you think. And I don’t care what I think, either.”
Though blunt, Paul’s words were a reminder that only one opinion counts in the church-not theirs, not his, but God’s. And God hasn’t spoken yet. For Paul continues, “It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes” (1 Cor. 4:3-5a).
It’s tough to be a pastor. The needs and expectations of a congregation can be like water, filling up every unclaimed and undefined space in our lives. What we don’t know about ourselves and our calling, someone or something in the church will try to tell us.
Then there are the hazards of the public side of ministry, preaching in particular. Former nhl goalie Jacques Plante was asked how he liked his position. He said, “How would you like a job where, if you made a mistake, a big red light goes on and 18,000 people boo?” That’s how preaching can be and often is. The only hope is to carry each sermon before the tribunal of the one and only wise and righteous judge-God; to care not what they think, or what you think, but only what he thinks.
So, what does God think about what we are doing? Paul’s counsel is to take a wait-and-see attitude: “Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes.”
Does that mean we can know nothing now of what God thinks about our work? Almost, I think, or at least nothing final or definitive.
There are times, however, when I preach, that I am sure I feel what Olympic champion Eric Liddell said he felt when he ran: God’s pleasure. I know that I know that I know that God is pleased with me. But what I feel is not about how well I compare to another or to some standard of homiletic excellence. It is, I think, God’s gracious delight in his child working in faith to please his Father. Paul hints at this when he speaks of God’s judgment as the time “each will receive his praise from God.”
We were saved by grace. We also work and will be judged by that same grace. God’s standards are infinitely higher and purer than any human standard. They are also infinitely more gracious.
Ben Patterson is dean of the chapel at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
1997 by Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.
