It happened years ago, when I was still in college. Our church had just gone through a pastoral transition and I, along with just about everybody else, was excited about the ministry of our new pastor. The church seemed fuller and the atmosphere more up beat.
One night someone close to that new pastor dropped by my dorm room and the conversation came around to what was going on at my home church. I sang the praises of my new pastor, but I did mention one negative. This was during the time of my life when I was beginning to understand the role of preaching and I had become convinced that expository preaching was the way to go. It was certainly what I was going to try to do whenever I got into the ministry. I said something like, "I will tell you a something, if you promise not to share it with the pastor. I wish he was more of an expositor." The conversation took a turn away from things ministerial and I would have forgotten it expect for what happened two weeks later on a Sunday morning. I was eagerly preparing to write down the outline of the Sunday morning message when the pastor said something like, "I don't know if any of you will want to write this down, since it certainly is not expository!" Since I was, to the best of my knowledge, the only person in the habit of writing down the outlines I took the pastor's remark personally. The only conclusion I could come to was that my dorm room conversation had been relayed to the pastor.
Now, what did I learn from all of this? First, I saw that even men that I looked up to could lash out at what they took as an affront. If his goal was to put me in my place, I suppose he accomplished it. I do know that I never wrote down another thing he said. I also have tried to be bigger than to scope someone in from the pulpit. Second, I learned that if you want to keep a secret, don't tell it. Maybe it was a touch of homiletical snobbery for me to wish my pastor was more of an expositor. I could have kept that to myself and no one would be the wiser. Still, I was asked very directly about it and I thought what I was saying was in confidence. Finally, if you are going to take someone into your confidence, be reasonably sure that you can trust them. It is a hurtful thing to realize that someone you thought of as a friend just can't wait to relay your remarks. I suppose all of this is just part of growing up. I know I am more cautious in what talk about and who I talk about it with as a result of this encounter.
My first thought was that I had inadvertently hurt this man's feelings. Then something else took over, how petty was it for him to shoot at me from the pulpit of my home church? What's more, our mutual acquaintance had betrayed a trust.
