Don't Take the Preacher Too Seriously!

Some people are taking what I preach too seriously. Is that a weird thing for a pastor to say? Don’t take me too seriously!
I had an epiphany, early on in my ministry, that my job was to preach the Scriptures. More specifically, my job is to preach the Scripture of that particular week. I shouldn’t try to harmonize that Scripture with all Scriptures; I shouldn’t try to harmonize that Scripture with my theology; I shouldn’t necessarily even try to harmonize that Scripture with good theology. Sometimes a Scripture is meant to clash with our beliefs, poke holes in time honored theology, balance other much-beloved Scriptures. Preach the Word! That is my job.
There are at least two problems that come up in regards to this. The first is that sometimes my theology, my biases, even my politics poke through. I try hard not to let it happen too often, but I am human and it does happen. It’s not all bad, when it does happen, though. Don’t take those parts of my sermons as gospel. Rather, take them as “here is one person’s attempt to apply this Scripture.” Then, even my biases can be blessed moments. The goal of a sermon is to help us to apply God’s Word to our individual and corporate lives.
Your application may be different. My application may be wrong! My job is to keep trying to apply the Scriptures and take you along for the journey. Your job is to go on that journey and see where the Holy Spirit takes you with your application of the Scriptures.
The second problem that comes up is that sometimes people assume they are seeing my bias, when what they are really seeing is that week’s Scripture. I don’t always like what I preach! Some of God’s messages are as hard for me to hear as they are for you to hear. I try hard to preach them anyway, and to preach them without too much hedging. Sometimes we just need to let a Scripture be hard! If we try to explain, hedge, harmonize, contextualize, and qualify too much, we wind up saying nothing of value.
If I say something you don’t agree with, so what! If it was just me talking, roll your eyes and move on. It’s also possible that it was the Holy Spirit talking. Each of us is responsible to figure that out prayerfully with God. Sometimes the Spirit wants us uncomfortable, wants us challenged, wants us angry, even. If we hear something from the pulpit that we don’t agree with, we have to prayerfully figure out where it came from. Did it come from the Scripture? Did it come from the Spirit? Or was it just the preacher?
If I say something you don’t agree with, then come talk to me about it, or send me an email. Sometimes I’m wrong, and I’ve been known to admit it. Sometimes people misunderstood or I didn’t make myself clear, and a conversation can clear things up. Sometimes what ticked someone off really came from God, and maybe together we can figure that out.
We Christians are supposed to disagree sometimes, and we are supposed to learn from it! Sometimes we are supposed to come to agreement. Always, we are supposed to come to love!

Romans 12:9-10
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good;
love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor.