The day a preacher lost me with his first illustration…
When the desire to be 'right' overtakes the need to love well
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
— 1 Corinthians 13:1–2
I’ve been mulling this one for some time. Unsure whether to share my thoughts.
Now, with some removal from the incident, I think my reflections on the event are fair, so here we go…
I was at a conference some time ago now, and the topic of the opening keynote address was Fellowship.
In his opening illustration, one of the keynote speakers related an incident in which a couple came to his church for the first time. When he inquired as to what they were looking for they said, “Good fellowship”.
The speaker asked them to elaborate.
They replied along the lines of supper and good conversation.
The speaker admitted he was feeling particularly pugnacious that day and responded along the following lines:
“Are you saying we wouldn’t have fellowship if we didn’t have supper or conversations?”
The speaker joked that he wasn’t sure he ever saw them again.
The audience laughed.
I was dismayed.
The speaker went on to give an exegetical masterclass in his chosen NT text about the grace of God in fellowship. And yet he lost me on his first illustration. I’d zoned out. What happened?
For all the talk of the grace of God in fellowship, the opening illustration contradicted the exegesis that followed. It was utterly graceless. The speaker had encountered a couple looking for fellowship. He chose, instead, to enter a game of theological chess: “Do you think we’d have fellowship without the supper…?”
Check mate.
It was a beat down and a belittling. Probably humiliating.
I’m not surprised the visiting couple didn’t return. I wouldn’t.
They came looking for fellowship. They left, probably dizzy from the unexpected war of words. They were implicitly accused of being theologically naïve—and probably unwanted!—as it was made clear they were not up to the theological standard imposed by the minister.
I freely admit that I have acted similarly in the past and have come to regret it. It is no way to engage in loving ministry.
I’ve since begun to wonder if the speaker was even correct in his dismissal regarding the importance of food to good fellowship.
In the modern version of Ocean’s 11, Brad Pitt’s character, Rusty, is almost always filmed with food in his hand. Strikingly, this is not unlike the depiction of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel. He’s always dining with people. Jesus’ ministry was, in a very real sense, a ministry of meals. If you don’t believe me, read Tim Chester’s A Meal with Jesus to see what I mean.
Moreover, Jesus establishes his new covenant with a meal that is still celebrated today (Mark 14:12–26); the early church broke bread together in service of its fellowship (Acts 2); Peter is urged by God through a vision to embrace table fellowship with gentiles (Acts 10–11), and Paul is aghast that sometime later Peter compromised the gospel by refusing table fellowship with gentile believers out of fear (Gal 2:11–21). Paul also rebuked the Corinthian church on account of how they conducted themselves during Lord’s Supper and the disproportionate feasting that coincided with it (1 Cor 11:17–34).
Contrary to my conference speaker’s contention, food and drink, it turns out, are very much central to Christian fellowship.
All of this brings me back to the tragedy in the church hall that fateful Sunday.
Sometimes, within my reformed-evangelical tribe particularly, we are so concerned with being right, that we miss—or worse, dismiss—the opportunity to love and serve people well. In the case described above, a couple came looking for fellowship, and instead received a theological inquisition.
Was the visiting couple’s description of fellowship shallow or naïve? Perhaps. But who can deny that good food and conversation positively contribute to good fellowship? It’s a wonderful context for learning how you’re in partnership in gospel ministry in your various spheres of life.
The heartbreak for me is that in that church hall, the speaker had the opportunity to acknowledge this couple’s good desire for fellowship and invite them into a richer expression of fellowship than they had articulated. But instead of offering a cup of coffee, a slice of cake, and taking an interest in the lives of the couple, he engaged in a theological interrogation. They came looking for fellowship, but instead were drawn into a conflict they never asked for.
Consequently, they never returned. And why would they?
What a tragedy.
Finally, to compound the issue, this illustration was presented to a group of ministers as a positive example of theological acumen; the preacher using the couple as a naïve and negative foil for his stellar exposition—ironically—on the topic of the grace of God in fellowship.
For me, at least, the whole thing rang hollow. The opening salvo was as graceless as the exegesis was flawless. It left a bitter taste in my mouth and my heart remained disengaged.
All I could hear in the distance was a resounding gong.
Or maybe it was a clanging cymbal.