Trinity and St. John Lutheran Churches, Sidney and Fairview, Montana
At Your Word I Will – 1 Kings 19:9-21, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, Luke 5:1-11
Talk is cheap, or so it is said. At first, I was going to make that, ‘or so they say,’ but part of the problem of talk being cheap is the hearers not knowing who the talker is. “Or so they say’ is not helpful. Is ‘they’ everyone, or the authorities, the experts, or some gal who talks so much she seems like many people? Or, am I saying ‘or so they say’ sarcastically, putting down the value of the saying, by repeating an overused expression? To use ‘or so it is said’ isn’t much better, but at least I’m admitting I don’t really know who is speaking.
Because talk really isn’t cheap. But rather its value depends very
significantly on the identity of the talker.
Who is speaking the words I hear, and whether I know that identity,
these two facts go a very long way to helping me understand how much stock I
should put into the words I hear.
Take for example, the statement: “Sally
loves Billy.” That sounds good to Billy,
but who said it? Did that punk Jimmy,
who can mimic Sally’s handwriting, put those words in a note and pass it around
biology class? Or did those words come
through the soft lips that are part of the same beautiful face as Sally’s
incredible green eyes? Did Sally, who is
a pretty good judge of what Sally thinks, look Billy in the eyes and say, “I
love you”? Or did Billy, in his lovesick,
fevered mind imagine she said it, imagining those words so often, he’s
convinced himself it’s true? Or is Sally
loving Billy just what ‘they say,’ the baseless opinion of the crowd, which
knows neither her heart, mind or words?
We tend to think talk is cheap,
because so much of what we hear is unreliable.
And yet we also know that very often talk is the most valuable thing,
the most cherished thing, like the value of hearing the voice of a loved one
you thought was lost or injured, saying, “I’m o.k.” Or there’s the value of the talk of Sally and
Billy, thirty, forty, or even fifty years into their life together, a husband and
wife who practice the boring and yet also priceless habit of telling each
other, every day, face to face, “I love you,” words backed up not by
perfection, but backed up by consistency, service, humility and
forgiveness.
We cannot perfect our love, nor our
consistency, service, humility, or forgiveness.
But we rightly cherish these things in our relationships, because they
are shadows of the perfect love that we all innately desire. They are also words that bring to mind the
Lord and God who is revealed in the man Jesus Christ. The importance of words and their source is for
us a shadow of God.
When you think about it, words,
patterns of waves created in the air that strike our eardrums, sounds that only
have meaning by common consent, such lowly things ought not have so much
importance. But they do. They say, “Sticks and stones can break my
bones, but words can never hurt me,” but ‘they’ are dead wrong. Words are powerful, the greater power being
found in the greater speakers. If we
could work our way back up the ranking of speakers, from the least to the
greatest, we would at the end find ourselves before the Word of God.
Which is what happened to Elijah,
and Paul, and Peter. We poor, miserable
sinners cannot work our way up through the ranking of speakers to find God, so
God sends His Word down to us.
Elijah was hiding on Mt. Horeb, also
called Mt. Sinai, the mountain of God, the same place God met Moses in the burning
bush, and also gathered Israel to give them the Ten Commandments. There on Mt. Horeb, at the entrance to a
cave, the prophet Elijah came face to face with the Speaker, with the
Word of God, who came not in a mighty rushing wind or an earthquake, or in the fire,
but in a small whisper, speaking words of comfort and promise, and
commission.
Paul, heading down the road to
Damascus to arrest and perhaps kill more Christians, came face to face with the
Word of God, the ascended and glorious Christ, asking Paul “Why are you persecuting
Me, by persecuting My people?”
Simon Peter, having heard the
teaching of Jesus and having followed the simple instructions to try one more
time for a catch of fish, realized he was in the presence of the Word of God
and fell on his knees in the boat, begging pardon for his sinfulness. And Jesus said, “Fear not.” Jesus assured Peter his sins would not be
held against him, that Peter had been chosen by God and would be used by Him,
to teach and preach the very same Word that had just given comfort and peace to
his terrified heart. “From now on,
Peter, you will be catching men.”
We base our teaching and confession
on Scripture alone, because Scripture is the Word of God, the Word of Jesus,
and the Word of Jesus is reliable. ‘He
said’ is completely reliable when the ‘He’ is God in the flesh, Jesus
Christ. For Elijah and Peter in our
readings this morning, the ultimate basis of that reliability was as yet a
future event, centuries in the future for Elijah, about three years for Peter. The Word of God to Elijah and Peter was true,
and powerful, but it was not fully revealed, not fully accomplished before the
eyes of humanity.
But for Paul in our Epistle today, telling
the Corinthians about the Word of the Cross, as also for you, the ultimate
foundation of the authority and reliability of the Word, the reason you can and
should stake everything on the Word of God, is a revealed and
accomplished-in-human-history fact. For
the Jesus who spoke to Paul, converting Him to Christianity and making him into
the Church’s greatest missionary, is the Jesus who bears the scars of the Cross
in His own glorified body. The Jesus who
spoke to Paul, and who speaks to you today, is the Jesus who delivered on all
the threats and promises of God, not by wreaking destruction and woe on us
sinners, but rather by accepting all the wrath of God onto Himself, dying once
for all, so that in His resurrection, you can believe, and rejoice, that the
Word of God to you is “fear not.” The
Word of God in Christ is “God loves you, forgives you, is with you now and
looks forward to having you with Him, face to face, in joy and glory,
forever.” This is not what “they say.” This
is “Thus sayeth the Lord.” This is what
God has said, and done.
Peter does an amazing thing in that
boat turned into a pulpit. Peter says:
Master, at Your Word I will. Peter gives
us the good example, showing us how to live.
Peter makes time to hear the Word of Jesus, setting aside his work,
literally loaning his workroom to Jesus as a place from which to preach. Then Peter sits, and listens to Jesus. Well, I assume he sat, since standing in a
boat is tricky. Regardless, sitting or
standing, something in the Words of Jesus made an impression on Peter. And so, despite the seeming foolishness of
Jesus’ suggestion that they let down the nets and try again, Peter hears the
Lord’s command and says, “At Your Word, I will.” Convinced by Jesus’ Words that the
foolishness of God is wiser than men, Peter lets down the nets, and receives a
miraculous catch of fish.
We too, need to set aside our work, and
sit, and listen to Jesus, as we have done today. And, at the Word of Jesus, we should say ‘I
will,’ and do whatever God tells us. But
we don’t. Not fully, not very often. We can’t quite trust enough. We usually falter at the edge of action. We really want Sally to love Billy, like she
promised, and for Billy to love Sally, like he promised. We want to see that love lived out, and Sally
and Billy want that too. But we all know
how hard that is in the long run. If
they don’t have a well of forgiveness to draw on, the risk is high that Billy
and Sally’s words and love will not endure.
And this, sadly, applies to every promise we make. In promising to do what we say, especially in
promising to do the will of God, our talk is cheap. We should still make and keep promises, but
we cannot completely rely on anyone’s promises.
Except One. There is One who said it and did it, every time. There is One who heard the Word of God, who heard His Father say, “Put down the nets for a catch,” and replied, “At Your Word, I will.” Jesus shares His Father’s will from eternity, so, when He heard the command, “Go, catch me a great catch of fish,” Jesus did it. Jesus did it, and does it today, and will continue doing it until the boat of His Church is completely filled. Jesus is the Fisherman. The net Jesus casts is His own Body, arms spread out on the Cross to catch all our sins. Jesus spread out His arms because the catch the Father desires is sinners, sinners in need of forgiveness, dying people in need of new life.
The result? After all the casting of nets, which is the
proclamation of Christ, and after all the squirming of those fish, which is our
ongoing sin, after all the Word of Jesus is spoken, for however long it takes, then
comes the harvest of salvation, forever and ever.
Jesus has been speaking His Word to Makyya
and Milanya, and they were publicly caught into the net of His Body today,
through Holy Baptism. Sorry to say, they
will wiggle and squirm and try to get out of God’s net. They will still sin, and suffer from sin in
their lives. But the Fisherman, the
Talker, Jesus, the One whose Word is completely reliable, is drawing them in, and He
will not stop. When they sin, when you
sin, when I sin, Jesus speaks to us again, calling us on our sin. Jesus reproaches us and warns us of the
punishment our sin deserves. Do not think
you can hide your sins from Jesus. Do not
think that because the world says something isn’t a sin, Jesus goes along with what
“they say.” God hates sin, and so when you
sin, when you ignore and break His Law, you are in danger of squirming out of His
net, and back into the sea of condemnation.
Fear not, God has caught you. In Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Word of God to you is “I love you, forever and ever,”
In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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