This past week, our family visited Capilano Suspension Bridge with some other extended family. This other family saw a sign for a nature tour and wanted to participate. Most of my family wanted to as well. I was skeptical. I was sure that slowly walking around and hearing in-depth details about trees was going to be a short-lived idea with young kids. Also, I had engaged in a recent conflict that was still very much on my mind. I was not in the headspace for factoids about otters. All this added up to me being a very reluctant participant in this nature tour.
I know what you’re expecting. This is the part where I tell you how amazing it was, how I learned from it, how it blew me away. Nope. That’s not what happened. What happened was that I was as disengaged and uninterested as I thought I would be. And it wasn’t because the guide was bad at her job. She was very knowledgeable and passionate about her subject matter. The content was fine too. There was even something about trees spewing out explosive and flammable sap during forest fires. That’s a cool sentence. In addition, our son actually did ok, as did the rest of the kids. But me? I just didn’t care. I half-listened. I had other things on my mind and this talk addressed none of that.
Here’s what I did realize: this is how some people feel about preaching. I can see it on Sundays. Lots of people are super-engaged. They’re listening. I can tell. But there are others who barely make eye contact and who are visibly itching to be out of there. They are probably thinking the same things I was. Sure, the speaker seems knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. The content is fine. But I just don’t care. I’ve got other things on my mind and this talk is addressing none of that.
On one level, it’s a good reminder for preachers like me to connect what we see in the Scriptures to what people are thinking and experiencing in day to day life.
But I thought about something else.
What if the nature guide had said this: “within the next hour, your life is going to be on the line. You will face a life or death situation. What I tell you about trees, otters, and woodpeckers will literally save your life in that situation if you listen well.” If those were the stakes, I would listen, wouldn’t I? Even if it didn’t seem immediately relevant, the knowledge that this could be life or death would trump everything else competing for my attention.
This is, in fact, the content matter when we preach the word of God. It is life and death. I mean that literally as it concerns eternity. When we share the good news of Jesus, the eternal fate of those who hear it is at stake. Maybe a lot of preaching, including mine, doesn’t do well enough at connecting the dots with everyday life. But it could be that the greater failure is in not making the high stakes of listening clearer to people. This is not a nature tour. This is not random bits of information that will have no consequences for your life. This is the most important material possible. It is the difference between heaven and hell, the difference between the misery of sin and the joy of the Holy Spirit. Do I communicate that? Do those who hear me preach have that expectation and understanding?
There’s an old quote by Annie Dillard that I’m reminded of. It might have something to do with what I’ve written above. Here’s what she wrote:
“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.”
Annie Dillard
Do we believe what we say? Do we believe that preaching is the communication of God’s Word, with the consequences being eternal life or eternal death? Because, to say it one more time: this is not a nature tour.
