conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

getting it together for the scouts

Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
~ Luke 5:10-11

Preaching without notes, as so many of my colleagues will tell you, takes more time and not less. No matter how often I repeat this truth to myself, I am always amazed and just how much time it takes. I can crank out a usable manuscript in a few hours. To get the sermon together so that I can wander about and talk with people takes a couple of days of concentration, study, and most of all, prayer. This sermon is no different.

I want to talk once more about why we proclaim. I've been talking about proclamation at church for the last couple of Sundays. I think it's good to talk about talking...especially in a time when talking about religion is so contentious. The passage from Isaiah reminds us just how dangerous it can be to speak of God's love in a world bent on violence and hatred. But Isaiah responds anyway...and in the affirmative at that.

Jesus, in Luke's Gospel this morning is working through something else entirely. I get the prophetic call that Jesus issues to Peter (the foundation of the church is the prophetic call of Isaiah), but the important piece in this is the fishing metaphor to me. Have the fishermen forgotten how to fish? Have the prophets forgotten how to prophesy? Jesus will spend his life (lose his life, really) showing us what it means to be a prophet. So, what makes it possible to forget how to fish? What makes us forget how to prophesy?

I'm sure there is a very long list. We'll find out today.

In the end, however, for the Christian, it is the person of Christ who catches the fish and who catches the people. It is only by being the Body of Christ that the prophetic Word can be heard in the world. It is only through Christ that we who claim to be his Body can do anything at all.

Posted by tripp at February 7, 2010 06:22 AM