A "STICK IN THE MUD"?

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22)

It’s funny that certain verbal expressions can grab your attention and even bring back unexpected vivid memories. Such has been the case for me over the past few days with the expression a “stick in the mud”.

Friday night as I taught our Bible study, one woman who has been struggling with extreme fatigue lately was yawning, struggling to stay awake, and frankly (what I call) “isolating” during the Bible Study. Several times as I tried to discuss Mark chapters fifteen and sixteen I asked her if she was O.K. and she assured me she was. After our closing prayer, the woman apologized and said, “I don’t mean to be a stick in the mud!”

That expression “grabbed” me because it had been SO long since I’d heard it used. My mother used to use that expression. If someone was cold, distant, and boring, she’d remark, “So-in-so is a real stick in the mud”. It’s got to be an expression of my parents’ generation (or earlier) because I don’t use it, and I rarely hear anybody under forty use it.

Ironically, the VERY NEXT DAY, I was talking to a gentlemen who does not regularly attend our church but who had dropped by for our special Saturday “Day of Prayer and Fasting”. He got to chatting with my wife and me and commented that although he sees great spiritual growth in others, something is holding him back from being all he can be for God.
“I guess I’m just a stick in the mud!” he exclaimed.

Wow. Two uses of “stick in the mud” by two different people; two situations and conversations totally unrelated to each other less than twenty-four hours apart. Kind of weird, if you ask me!

This evening, I’ve been racking my brain to try to remember who had last used the expression “stick in the mud” in my presence before last Friday. After much reflection, I remember who is was. It was a woman at our church in the Fall of 2006. At the time, I was using a video series in Adult Sunday School which (unfortunately) ended up being quite controversial with some people. The series was the PBS documentary, “Country Boys”. I wrote about it on the blog several years ago. It’s an amazingly good and powerful documentary, shot in rural eastern Kentucky roughly between 1999 and 2003. Most of it focuses on two “at risk” teenage boys who attend “The David School” a private evangelical Christian school with a ministry of teaching and motivating such kids. One of them also actively attended an evangelical church and was considering going to school to become a pastor. The documentary in no way puts down evangelical Christianity. In fact, evangelical Christianity and a very conservative view of the Bible are presented in a very positive way in this lengthy documentary. But the main thing that upset people is that virtually every 30 minute segment that I showed in Sunday School contained at least one swear word, and some as many as five or six swear words. The documentary also presented the hypocrisy of the young people who loved and praised Jesus and yet engaged in premarital sex and smoking.

I had thought I could bleep the swearing my hitting the “mute” button, but on the equipment I use at the church, it automatically shifts into closed captioning. There were people who felt this was totally unacceptable in a Bible-believing church. I tied in relevant and powerful Bible passages as well as important and relevant discussion questions about what we’d viewed...and frankly I got a LOT out of this documentary and these classes, but it created such controversy I don’t think I’d be quick to use something like that again.

Now, back to “stick in the mud”. We had a visitor one Sunday- a thirty-ish guy who was originally from Alabama and had just moved into the MetroWest area. He angrily walked out of my class, complaining of a pastor who’d show “a movie with cuss words in it”. Later, a woman said to me, “Don’t let it bother you. That guy seemed like a real stick in the mud!”

I’ve been one who hasn’t shied away from secular humor and stories in the pulpit. (Don’t get me wrong, nothing dirty or anything like that!) I think talking about secular television shows, movies, etc. can be powerful sermon illustrations. For example, in his day, Billy Graham referred to “All in the Family”, “Jaws”, and “Laugh In” in a number of his sermons. In fact, he actually went on “Laugh In” as a guest, smiling and saying, “Sock it to me!” I think Graham realized that you need to find common ground in which to relate to people.

In an Assemblies of God ministers’ meeting last Fall, the speaker (one of our District Leaders) used the television show, “Desperate Housewives” as a powerful sermon illustration. I sat there thinking, “Boy, do I wish I could have some of our church people here ‘cause I’d probably get killed for doing that!”

Today, I attended an important Southern New England District (of the Assemblies of God) meeting at our largest church facility in the state (Bethany Assembly of God in Agawam). The main speaker was our General Superintendent George Wood from our national headquarters in Springfield, Missouri. (I guess it would be like the Pope for Catholics!) We had some business sessions, and some informational sessions, and then a question and answer session.

At the end of the day, our District Superintendent (like a “Bishop” in many denominations) Bob Wise made an announcement in a serious tone.

“The District has put together a six minute video clip to give our ministers some help and insight in the area of counseling people,” he said, “Let’s give our attention to it at this time.”

To my amazement it was a YouTube clip from MadTV of Bob Newhart and Mo Collins! It was hysterically funny and ministers all over that church sanctuary were laughing delightfully. Once again, I wondered if I could ever get away with doing that at our church, and I wished some of our people were present.

Is the church sanctuary such a place of “holiness” that things always have to be as morbidly solemn as a Gregorian chant, or is there a place for levity...even secular levity there? Is there a place to run a clip from MadTV during a church meeting?
I will absolutely state that twenty-five years ago that would NEVER have been done, and if it had been done, there would have been dire consequences. Those were the days when Assemblies of God ministers could be called in on the carpet and reprimanded for going to a theater to see a “G” rated movie, or for playing a soft rock cassette or 8-track tape in their car. Today, the General Superintendent from Springfield, Missouri sat and watched the MadTV clip and laughed right along with the rest of us.

I frankly DON’T see anything wrong with what Bob Wise did. It was a lot of fun.

But for you New Testament scholars, this DOES become a Romans chapter 14 issue. And if you’re not familiar with Romans 14, you ought to read it. At what point do we take liberties and “lighten up”? And, IF someone IS made uncomfortable by secular videos and levity, does that mean they’re a “stick in the mud”?

Don’t be so quick to jump to a conclusion on this one. It may NOT necessarily be all “cut and dried”. True, I enjoyed it, but on the other hand the Apostle Paul said he wouldn’t even eat meat if it offended somebody.

I’m interested in people posting their comments on this one.

Incidentally, the MadTV video is at:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE