Two weeks ago at church, on my way to pick up my kids after service, the guy behind me said, “It was entertaining I guess, but that didn’t feel like church at all.”
I immediately turned around and was about to hit him with my copy of the English Standard Version of the Bible, which I’ve been told leaves bruises that are 14% closer to the original intent of the Hebrew, but he threw up the gang sign for “First Time Visitor.” I backed off instantly. If there’s one group of people you can’t strike with a Bible at church, it is first time visitors. Pastors really frown on that.
So instead, I just glared at him with a look that said, “You enjoy that first time visitor status, because next week, it’s gone. Soon you’ll just be a second time visitor and there’s not a gift basket that comes with that.” Then I backed away slowly, keeping my eyes on him.
It didn’t happen exactly that way, but I did hear someone complaining and it made me sad. Not because he didn’t enjoy church, but rather he was not partaking in the fine art of the post sermon lunch critique. He was just casually throwing out comments in the hall instead of serving them up over a buffet style lunch with friends and family. I used to be a professional. I was so good at complaining about church that I should have been interviewed on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” by James Lipton. (If you’ve never seen it before, James Lipton does an amazingly pretentious job of interviewing actors in front of a crowd of film students as if they cured Eczema with their performance in the movie Blade 3.)
Here, from inside my head, is what I would imagine that interview might look like:
James Lipton:
Ladies and gentleman, good students of life and art, today we will be joined by Jon Acuff. Oft thought of as the Goethe of Grumbling, the Handel of Hating, the Twain of Tearing apart a church service, today he will grace us with his presence and unfold the blanket of sermon analysis he has woven oh these many years. Please join me in welcoming him, I give you Jon Acuff.
Me:
You’re too kind James. Thank you for that, but to be honest, that introduction was a little long. Lots of words. Lost me there in the middle.
James Lipton:
Oh my, you’re doing it right now, aren’t you? You’re deconstructing my sentences as if they were a sermon. How delightful. Tell me, and the students gathered here today, when did you start critiquing sermons?
Me:
Well James, I realized very early on that the best way to avoid being impacted by a sermon is to analyze it. I knew that if I could pretend I was there to study it and dissect it from the outside, I could save myself all the hassle of actually learning and applying the message to my life.
James Lipton:
So instead of being a participant in the worship experience, you’re an observer?
Me:
Yes, exactly, although in that last sentence I would have worked a little harder to achieve alliteration. You could have easily said, “So instead of being a participant, you can be a pretender?”
James Lipton:
But is that what you are doing? When you critique, are you really pretending?
Me:
Good question. Some people do discuss the sermon because they want to learn from it. For me, I’m just trying to pretend I am listening and look super duper holy. To that end, I find there are a few phrases every master complainer must know:
1. I’m just not being fed.
What a fantastic way to look as if you’re more spiritual than the pastor himself.
2. That message was not meant for me.
You are so generous to have sat there patiently while someone else that needed that sermon was able to receive it. What kindness.
3. That didn’t feel like church.
What a perfect smokescreen of vagueness. How can anyone argue with your feeling? What does that even mean? More organ? Less organ? Better lasers? No lasers?
4. There wasn’t enough Bible in that for me. That felt like a business leadership book.
What’s enough? No one knows, which is why this is such a gem.
5. I’m not sure that sermon works in a postmodern world.
I’m not even sure I know what the word “postmodern” means, but it’s fun to say. Few things make you look smarter than repeating this word. Repeatedly.
James Lipton:
A master at work, truly a master at work. In closing, I’d like to leave you with a thought Drew Barrymore shared with me: “I’ve always said that one night, I’m going to find myself in some field somewhere, I’m standing on grass, and it’s raining, and I’m with the person I love, and I know I’m at the very point I’ve been dreaming of getting to.”
Me:
What? That’s how we’re wrapping up this fictional conversation?
James Lipton:
Exactly.
Is James Lipton ever going to interview me for my talent in sermon complaining? Probably not, but I’d like to think that somewhere, he’s stroking his beard with a big stack of blue note cards in front of him, quietly clapping and saying, “bravo, Jon Acuff, bravo.”
