THE CLASSIC FOOTBALL FOLLY

It was a misty day at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco when the '49ers were playing the Minnesota Vikings in a routine game on October 25, 1964. But what happened that day on one play wasn't routine; that one play became the biggest folly in the history of the National Football League.

San Francisco quarterback George Mira threw a pass to Billy Kilmer that was complete, but the Kilmer fumbled the ball, and right there was Viking defensive end Jim Marshall to grab the ball and run for daylight toward the end zone. The trouble was that there was too much daylight because Marshall had gotten turned around and was running the wrong way toward and eventually into his own end zone, the one he was being paid to defend.

When he crossed into his own end zone and tossed the ball out of bounds in celebration of what he thought was a touchdown, the refs ruled that he'd scored a safety and awarded San Francisco 2 points and the ball. No worries though, Minnesota won the game, but nobody remembers that. They only remember the classic football folly, the day and the play in which Jim Marshall ran the wrong way.

WRONG WAY SERMONS

Every Sunday, thousands of Wrong Way Jim Marshalls stand behind pulpits and instruct the listeners from the Bible that they're reading the wrong way. But this is no simple folly. What they're doing Sunday after Sunday is dishonoring to the Scriptures by their wrong way runs to what they think is sermonic glory.

There they are, having spent the week playing golf and trying to get ready for Sunday, and they're about to unfold an account in the Bible, one they've found either in the Old or the New Testament. They may want the listeners to know how smart they are or how clever they are because they've come up with something new, something nobody has ever seen before in all of church history. After their 30-40 minutes of their pulpit posturing is over, they'll be basking in the waves of congregational congratulations and they're looking forward to it. But first, the sermon.

PASTOR GOODPASTURE

Pastor Goodpasture has spent his time, once he left the 18th hole after shooting a 6 over par, studying Mark 6, giving special attention to verse 39: "And He [Jesus] commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass." He's decided to build his sermon on "the green grass." But before he gets to that meaty subject, he spends some time learning a "Leadership Principle" he gleaned from the verse, that Jesus took charge, showing His organizational skills by having the crowd "sit down by groups."

Goodpasture takes his concordance and looks up every reference to "grass" in the Bible.  His concordance is telling him that there are 61 references to the word. He sees where Joseph dreamed about seven cows grazing on marsh grass, he finds a reference in Job about a donkey braying over its grass, his keen eye catches a reference in the Psalms about the wicked springing up like grass, and then finds that Isaiah says that people are grass. He reads all 61 references and by Sunday morning, after the ushers have taken the offering, Pastor Goodpasture is ready to preach on, "The Green, Green Grass of Home." He concludes the service by having the choir sing a song of the same name accompanied by a Tom Jones CD played over the $10,000 sound system in the auditorium, the money for which was taken from the Missions Fund because the deacons classified the expenditure as "outreach."

The congregation gave its congratulations to Pastor Goodpasture for a job well done, saying that they'd never thought of that before, whatever "that" meant.

FICTION BECOMES FACT

Although the above story is fiction, it's not far from the truth: thousands of sermons are preached each week on an incidental detail in a biblical account. There here have been sermons on David's 5 smooth stones, Peter's "fixing his gaze" on the lame man in Acts 3:4, the corner of a field in Lev. 19:9, and way back in church history, there was a sermon devoted to the number of servants Abraham had, trying to show that the number carried a hidden meaning.

DANGER ZONE: JUNK SERMONS

When incidental details become the fodder for sermons, the congregation should realize, but usually doesn't, that they are in a danger zone because such junk sermons are a weekly trivialization of the Bible. The point of the feeding of the multitude is not to harvest a leadership principle, nor that the grass was green. Those are simply incidental details in the account; the point of the point of David's confrontation of Goliath was not the number of rocks he had at the ready; the point of the story of Gideon's battle with the Midianites is not that we battle problems in our lives.

DANGER ZONE: THE ALLEGORICAL METHOD

Also in the danger zone is the companion incidental detail sermons: allegorizing the text, that is, finding some "hidden meaning" under the surface of the green grass, the corner of the field, or the number of Abraham's servants, which then turns the Bible into putty with the teacher making the Bible say whatever he wants it to say and the literal meaning is gone with the wind.

Through the allegorical method of interpretation, things are introduced from the account which aren't there. A pastor, speaking on David and Goliath, somehow found Christ in the story when he announced his subject as "Christ Slays the Giant of Sin."


DANGER ZONE: AN INCIDENTAL DETAIL BECOMES A DOCTRINE

The congregation is in further danger if the pastor constructs a doctrine out of an incidental detail. When hat happens, the incidental detail becomes authoritative, but, in reality, no doctrine of Christianity hangs on an incidental detail in any biblical account and to construct one on such tissue paper can lead to heresy.

DANGER ZONE: DISTRACTION

By focusing on an incidental detail, the teacher distracts the learner from the big story of the Bible, that is, how God is moving in redemptive history; how God is moving to glorify His Son in human history.

Any student at most any Bible college can tell you that he's endured scores of such incidental sermons in chapel services. The problem then is, that when he graduates, he thinks that's the way to do it and he spends his years of ministry not only boring people to death with simplistic incidental detail sermons, but leading them into the danger zones.