Bad words in the pulpit

A few months ago I preached a sermon that a lot of people loved and a few people hated. I heard from both groups but spent more time, as is perennially the case in ministry, with the few.

I didn’t set off to be controversial. I looked at the texts, read some commentaries. (Get behind me, Satan.) And then, in the middle of the week, a United Methodist preacher's kid made the news. Sandra Fluke testified before a congressional panel about the Obama administration’s contraception mandate, after which the Georgetown Law student suffered a verbal attack by Rush Limbaugh.

At least in my neck of the woods, the cultural conversation that followed lacked a Christian voice reminding people that Jesus didn’t call women “sluts.” So I did what I felt called to do: I preached a Lenten sermon on birth control and standing up for those without a voice.