First you must read this, from which this quotation comes:
I had to leave church Sunday morning when it turned out that the sermon was not about bearing up under desperate circumstances, when you feel like you're going crazy because something is being perpetrated upon you and your country that is so obscene that it simply cannot be happening.
What a fine, faithful Christian witness this is. "Unless the sermon is about my concerns and mine only, I'm leaving." Actually, I've known people like this and while I don't encourage them to keep walking, I usually don't knock myself out to see they come back. Anyone who comes to church and can see only their concerns is not invested in the teaching of Jesus or the redemption offered through the cross. Folks who take their place in the community of faith in order to have the community address their specific needs, and their needs only, generally don't involve themselves in any aspect of parish life other than pew warming. They also tend to complain, often, about everything from a color scheme in the stained glass to the font style used in the Sunday orders of service. I really don't know how, given the litany of things that bother them, they have the concentration to meditate on the eternal.
They also harsh the mellow of the people who come to worship as a community and participate with their fellow congregants in corporate worship. The latter group tends to look to the sermon for something uplifting and meaningful for the parish and greater church as well as for them. If it is not specific to their immediate concerns, that doesn't mean that it's time for them to leave and eat ice cream.
It really doesn't mean that they have to create an artificial "Jesuit" to ratify statements such as this:
Now, I am a reform Christian, so it is permissible for me to secretly believe that God hates this woman, too.
Right, because "secret beliefs" have always been cherished in Christianity. Just ask the Gnostics.
Okay, I'm sounding like a seminary professor or scolding pastor again. Lileks' response is much better:
I understand; I had to leave church once because the sermon was not about the death of Gwen Stacy at the hands of the Green Goblin, which bothered me a lot and took up a great deal of my imagination. Of course, I was ten, but it was an emotional reaction and hence unassailable.
[If you don't get the reference, you need to familiarize yourself with Marvel Comics' Spiderman oeuvre.]