“Bringing the Message of Christ Today”      (Return to Sermon Page)

February 7, 2010

Luke 5: 1-11     I Corinthians 15: 1-11         

          Once again we hear the story of Jesus’ call of the disciples.  Luke tells it differently than the other gospel writers.  In the other stories, Jesus walks along the lakeshore, says “follow me”, and immediately they drop everything and go.  It’s sort of puzzling why they would. 

In Luke, Jesus has been about his ministry for some time.  He has become very popular.  His success means that he needs helpers.  The ones he chooses to be his disciples are already with him, part of that crowd that follows him around.  They have seen him in action in a wide variety of settings and he has gotten to know them. 

          They don’t follow simply because he is a good preacher or because he has painted a wonderful vision of the kingdom to come.  They have seen the healings, the exorcisms, the love and the hope he has brought to so many people right now. 

 But then Jesus demonstrates the miraculous ways of God in the catch of fish.  Simon Peter is an experienced fisherman.  He knows there are no fish to be caught.  There are unlikely to be plentiful fish on one side of the boat and not the other.

It’s not Peter’s skill as a fisherman that is in question. 

It is whether or not God will provide what we need.

Jesus didn’t create the fish; he demonstrated the power of God.
 

In that dirty smelly fishing boat Simon Peter ‘sees’ fully who Jesus is.  And in humility, he kneels down.  One of my sources says:

“The same power that caused him to fall to his knees is the power that lifts him into Christ’s service.”  And so it is with every disciple. 

Whether we come to faith through a long process of learning and growing, or are grasped by that power in a moment of conversion as Paul was, the result is the same.  In the dirty, smelly, difficult moments of our lives, Christ finds us, and our lives are changed forever. 

          In those moments we are also called to serve, not because we are more worthy than others, but because we have seen a love that must be shared.

          We have a new frame-work that shapes our decision making and our actions.   As Paul says: we stand in/on the gospel:  It is our grounding.  It is our anchor.  It is our starting point.  It shapes our point of view.

          We connect with the gospel stories; we recognize them as our story whether they happened to us in the same way or not.  As our understanding grows, as our faith develops,  as we are ready to see,  God continually unfolds God’s revelation to us.

          The gospel is handed down to us; but it is a revelation that only God can give. It is not our creation.  The gospel is God’s gift to us.  When we tell our stories we are telling the latest manifestation of that gift; we have all the other stories to measure ours by to confirm that it is of the gospel.  We are responsible for making sure that the message is shared in a way that is compelling, but the life changing is God’s.

I go to some lengths to parse out this understanding because I think in this day and age we easily are confused about where our responsibility lies.  We know that traditional ways of sharing the gospel are not working.  Every denomination is experiencing declining membership and worship attendance.

First of all, we are losing people from community.

It is true that the ways of the world are very seductive.  If we do not stay grounded in the gospel story, it slips away from us.  Our faith becomes undermined and our perspective becomes weakened by the pull of ‘success’ or greed or immediate satisfaction over long term change.  Worship, classes, service are all ways to keep faith renewed and vibrant.  If these are irrelevant or boring or unauthentic, people will not stay in community.

Secondly, we are not attracting people in.  Often we hear: we must reach the youth.  Where are the youth?  The youth are important; as they enter into adulthood and take the first steps that shape the rest of their lives, they need grounding in the basics of faith to sustain and guide them.

But I remember that my generation was the first to ‘drop out’. 

And it was actually my parents generation who were the first un-churched, however they were raised.  And since then, in many congregations we can see big gaps in the age demographics, lots of sixty year olds but few fifty year olds, some forty year olds, but not twenty or thirty year olds, etc.

          How do we connect with people so that they come into contact with the power and the love of Christ?   How do we set a context where that grace is known and shown?  Integrity and authenticity are key.  We must wear our faith on our sleeves and deep in our souls.  We have to be the real deal.  Not perfect, not phony.  We must lead lives that are consistent with what we say we believe.  Ultimately, we are the best book, the best statement, the best witness of the love of Christ.

          We have been reticent about our faith for far too long.

Technology gives us new tools to connect. 

We must figure out how to employ them because they are becoming the first line method to connect with people.  It used to be that you met people face to face first, and developed relationships from there.  The world has changed dramatically. 

It is not the same world we had even 5-6 yrs ago. 

I was reading in the paper that Facebook was created in 2004.  Now we have My Space, and varieties of Second Life, and a whole world of online games.  Whether or not you use them, most of our world does. 

          Music is a powerful way to teach about faith; it always has been.  Many of the images in our hymnals are woefully out of date.  Most of the tunes are too.  How can we sing the Lord’s song in a new place?

But in the end, these are simply tools to communicate an old idea that is as fresh as today: that Christ is God’s son, who walked this earth, died and rose again. 

In so doing he demonstrated the love of God for us,  the power of forgiveness to transforms lives and the mercy that accompanies us and continues to bring us new life each and every day.

This is what we are called to share:  Our story of faith, the story, the gospel. It is first heard from others.  It continues to gain strength as we see it lived out.

It becomes our story when it is written in our hearts.