Priest's Revenge Backfires

Remember the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry decides to heckle a woman while she's at work because the same woman had heckled him on stage the night before?  The moral is "how would hecklers like it, if they got heckled?"

Here is a case of a priest who played someone's phone message complaining about his sermon to the entire congregation.  "How would you like it if I turned the tables and complained about your complaint?" 

The man in question (Angel Llavona) didn't like it one bit.  Llavona had complained about his priest's sermon, leaving a message on the priest's answering machine.  "Father Rios, this is Angel Llavona. I attended mass on Sunday and I have seen poor homilies, but yesterday broke all records."  The priest was a tad miffed, so the next Sunday he played Llavona's phone message to the assembled congregation (which just happened to include Mr. Llavona).  Rios then asked the congregation, "what should we do?  Should we send him (Mr. Llavona) to Hell or to another Parish?"

Not surprisingly, Mr. Llavona is suing the priest and the diocese for emotional distress from embarrassment and humiliation. (Click here: Priest's response to criticism leads to lawsuit :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State).

The moral to the story here is "don't publicly humiliate those who complain about your preaching."  Or at least make sure they are not in the congregation when you do!

All kidding aside, this is one of the reasons why we in the Reformed tradition have elder visits (the elders come and visit church members), so that if the preaching is not meeting the needs of the congregation it can be discussed privately and dealt with by those elders who are responsible for overseeing the work of their pastor. 

Comments

[Raymond McPherson]

Is there a good book (or anything else) published concerning Reformed church authority, discipline, hierarchy, etc.?

Or even better, one that shows those for different denominations.

[Peggy Burke]

What's worse is the glare we get if a cell phone goes off!

[plw]

Cell phones in church........not a good thing. Set those things on 'vibrate'. I personally hate it when a cell phone goes off during worship. Wow, I can't believe the priest played the comment for the whole crowd.......how tacky can you get!

[Chris Sheman]

Remind me to leave my complaint messages anonymously.

[zrim]

The biggest shame is that the priest didn't grasp the subtlety of good Seinfeldian humor. Part of that humor is grounded in how certain things we'd all like to do ought not be done...yet are being played out in front of us. Talk about blurred lines, Father. Sheesh.

Zrim

[Rick B.]

The Soup Nazi and Communion just jumped into my head.

"Bread, nice."

"You're pushing your luck little man"

[zrim]

Soup Nazi as New Moses, I suppose: "Next!!"

[Robin]

"Glare," Peggy? What about the bouncers?!

[Ivan]

Cell phones in worship?
Is there any place you feel like you should just turn it off?

Can't we say, listening to God for this hour is more important than talking to anyone else?

For at least an hour?
I think your pastor should give a look if the Cell phone goes off during worship.
We know to turn them off during important meetings at work don't we?
Perhaps we actually show we are more concerned to hear from our boss than Christ speaking himself through his Word?

[Chris Sherman]

Now there's a way to make a buck, just start marketing these to churches.

http://www.phonejammer.com

[Phone jammer]

great! thx