Cussing in church

So yesterday I used a four letter word in church. During the sermon, that is. See, I was given the opportunity to preach yesterday. I've never done anything like that before, and I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it.

The context: I was preaching on the Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican. I wanted to make the point that the opposite of mercy, according to this text, is not cruelty, but contempt, a failure of optimism, a belief that people do not change.

"What does it mean to be like the Pharisee? It means believing that people never change, that enemies must always be enemies, that betrayers must always remain betrayers. We become like the Pharisee when we are so damn cocksure that we know the ending of other people's stories, when we have no more capacity for surprise."

I went on to say that, according to the Gospel, this is the most damning and damnable aspect of our personalities: contempt for other people.

I suppose at some level I'm afraid of being criticized for what I said, which is why I'm still thinking about it, even writing about it. But as I was walking to church yesterday morning, sorting out what I wanted to say, this just came to me as the most powerful way of communicating a point I wanted to make.

I remember a story about an old monk addressing a churchful of seminarians about monasticism. He kind of glared around at the students, then opened by saying, "Some of you think you know about monks. Most of what you think you know is a lot of bullshit."

I've always aspired to this kind of boldness. Now I'm trying to figure out if what I said was bold, or just stupid, if it strengthened the point I was trying to make, or detracted from it.

I'm interested in others' thoughts on this.