Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13)

By mentioning King Uzziah, we can get a more precise dating of the passage, although that doesn't mean it was written at that time. Matthew lists him in the genealogy of Jesus, so I guess he was important.

In recent Lections we've been seeing some later Isaiah, after the return from exile, today's passage is much earlier when the southern border of the Assyrian empire was just north of Jerusalem. The northern kingdom of Judah had been warned not to ally with Assyria, but they did, and it didn't end well. In the Bible stories, the important detail is that this included allowing Assyrian deities to be worshipped in Jerusalem, thus the "people of unclean lips".

The strange thing with the hot coal is not a ritual I can explain, but it is about God forgiving Isaiah. We haven't seen much of that before and even here, it's still connected to the altar where animals are sacrificed. We also see the use of the plural by God in verse 8, something that goes back to Genesis, but is not consistently heard. Then we get the verses about God directing Isaiah to keep the people ignorant. This is to go on until the "cities lie waste". To me, this is a clue that this was written after that actually happened, but anyway. This is some sort of "scorched earth" or "redemptive violence" message. That is, you have to wipe out everything because some things are bad enough that they can't be fixed. You have to teach people a lesson. But, you leave a stump and from that the tree grows again. The "stump" in my opinion, is the ideas. Ideas are a lot harder to kill off than corruption and bad theology. Regardless, I don't see how keeping people ignorant helps anything.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

This is one of those passages that gets abused as historical evidence of Jesus. This sermon helper is intended to be about the symbolism of these texts, but sometimes, I need to address this issue. There is no corroboration of the events listed here and no citation of when they happened or who was involved or any way to verify them. They are claims by Paul. There is nothing here that says any of the people mentioned saw a resurrected body, only that "he appeared". Appeared how? It doesn't say. And the appearance doesn't happen until after the burial. There's nothing here about a cross or any witnesses to that event. Given that Paul speaks of Jesus almost exclusively in terms of a spirit of some kind, there is no reason to think he does not mean that in this case.

So what does Paul have to offer us here? Pretty much what he says; Christ died for our sins. He didn't invent the idea, he got it from scripture. And Paul is humble is about it. He knows this idea has been floated for a while now and he's the last one who saw Jesus. He worked harder, but it was grace in the end that made him what he is. Similar to the forgiveness given to Isaiah

Luke 5:1-11

If you haven't heard of "fishers of men" before, you should look that up. That's the basic reading of this verse; Jesus performs miracles and people follow him, and they also attract more followers, men in this case, but women join in too. The context of the other two Lections hints that the forgiveness part of this tale is important with Jesus taking the part of God.

As for the whining fishermen, in this case, they are indeed working hard. This is not a weekend fishing trip for relaxation, this is their livelihood, and it's not an easy one. This is a story of Jesus going where the types of people who will relate to his message are, and he is inviting them to do the same. His message will bring many in, "cast a wide net" as it were. And the nets will remain strong. But there is no hint of the job being easy either. If the analogy holds, fishing for followers will involve risk. That they follow so easily does leave me with some questions, but I guess you're meant to assume that sermon was pretty awesome.