Oh no it’s not
Having preached at the rate of at least 90 sermons per year for over 25 years, the last thing I would want to do is diminish the value of the Gospel. It has power to challenge and transform, and often acts as the lightning conductor to channel heaven’s power to earth. However, there are times when it would serve us well to interact with the Gospel in same way that a pantomime audience interacts with the key players on stage.
Consider Matthew’s account of the calling of the first disciples, for instance – on which I was preaching yesterday. When Jesus promises that Simon and Andrew will be ‘fishers of men‘, a knowing panto audience might shout out ‘oh no they won’t’. Andrew, Peter and their companions singularly failed to live up to this description during the lifetime of Jesus. They were hesitant, unsure, incapable sometimes of providing the healing for which people sought – and often as surprised by everyone else in the audience by the teachings of Christ! A preacher responding to that panto shout-out would go on to explain that the call of God can take a long time to bear fruit. These men would be key players in the birth of the Christian church but not yet – not by a long chalk. Like William Carey working away in India for seven years before seeing Krishna Pal, his first convert, come to faith – the call of God often comes with elastic sewn in.
I was once taught that the great value of using puppets in worship was that they can ask the questions everyone is thinking but no-one is voicing. Introducing puppets into an adult sermon is fraught with all kinds of difficulties. How can we encourage an intelligent and humble interrogation of the text, though?
Fishers of men?
