Decades ago – I think it was in the spring of 1984! – I attended my first National Conference on Preaching. My good friend, Bob Tyler, then the preacher at Peachtree City Christian Church, reached out to me and said we should attend. I had just become the preaching minister at First Christian Church of College Park (later FCC Tyrone).
At that conference, I first heard Dr. William Willimon preach. He was the dean of the chapel at Duke University. His sermon on John 3 and the story of Nicodemus has impacted my life since that time. I wore out the cassette (remember those?) of that sermon over the years. I also heard Dr. James Earl Massey, an African-American scholar at Anderson University, who was brave enough to think that “hermeneutics” must impact “homiletics.” I would later find out that he and one of my Christian-Church heroes – Dr. Myron J. Taylor – were friends.
I also heard a sermon from Dr. Bill Self, built on the analogy of The Old Man and the Sea. Self was pastor at Wieuca Road Baptist Church, the host congregation for the National Conference on Preaching that year. If you know anything about Atlanta, you will know that this church was in the heart of Buckhead. This was in the era of the conservative takeover of the SBC. Self was viewed as less than orthodox. I also wore out the cassette version of that sermon. I can still sense the power of that sermon as an example of what real, prophetic preaching was all about.
Fast forward about forty-plus years. I’m in Key West, Florida – one of my personal bucket-list places – and I see this photo of the fishing trip that inspired that book. It was the last major work of Hemingway’s lifetime. (He is pictured at right.)
I’m not a huge fan of Hemingway, but visiting his home in Key West and seeing his influence in a variety of places in this old Florida town reminded me of Bill Self’s sermon from nearly forty years ago. He kept saying something like, “If they are going to take you down, let it be a big shark, not the nibbling of minnows who take small bites.” Self was being nibbled at by minutia, while the essential message of the gospel was being ignored.
I can’t say that is a direct quote from the sermon. But it is what I walked out of the sanctuary of Wieuca Road Baptist Church that night thinking: I won’t let the minnows nibble me to death. If I’m going down, it will take a shark!
In many areas of life, including ministry, it is easy to be a victim of a nibbling minnow who keeps after us. Thank God for Hemingway’s novel, pointing out that reality, and for Bill Self, who preached such a powerful sermon many years ago. I’m also thankful for a trip to Key West, where I saw this photo in one of the many Hemingway locations you can visit!
Wye Huxford 