On Message and Delivery

Hello all! Jordan here, providing all you Rambling readers with your weekly guest blog!

I wanted to talk about something that happened over on Facebook about a week ago.

My uncle, a devout Seventh-Day Adventist Christian, had posted on his status a quote from a sermon given by Tony Compolo. I want you all to pay close attention to this quote, since that's what I'll be talking about:

“I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said ’shit’ than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”

Get it? Got it?

Good.

When I first read it, I was in awe, because it's so completely true. I may not have been completely bewildered, but I was like, "Whoa! He's a pastor and he said 'shit'! Craziness!"

I responded to this message with a round of applause, for driving the point home hard. Others joined me in agreeing wholeheartedly with the strong statement. However, the message got other responses as well.

One such response:

Although true, it's probably better not to turn people off with the first four sentences of your sermon. He's lost a chunk of his listening population from the get go, knows it and doesn't seem to care.

From then on, more joined in the debate, some even bringing in Scriptural evidence that Jesus himself had used profanity to make a point once.

In all this, I was dumbfounded. So many people really were worked up over all that "shit," and they didn't realize that what they were doing was proving the guy's point. It really put things into perspective for me concerning what people believe is right and wrong, and what they hold to a higher value above others. When hearing a naughty word uttered from the lips of a pastor gets people more riled up than knowing that helpless children the world over are starving and dying every single day, you know something's wrong.

And personally, I think that anybody who missed the point aren't going to care about those children anyway. What a horrible thing to say, I know, but it seems that they're more concerned with image, the wrapping of the package instead of the content itself.

What do you think? Did the message ring clear with his delivery, or was the delivery a distraction from his message?