Awake

From the PreachingNow ezine:

The ones who watch

In his book Stewards of the Story: The Task of Preaching (Westminster John Knox), James Earl Massey relates this story: “Franz Kafka wrote about his vision of a large city at night in which just a few people were awake. Kafka likened it to a military encampment in which everyone is asleep except a few guards on duty keeping watch. Asked why the few are still awake when all the others in the city are asleep, Kafka answered, ‘Because someone must be watching, someone must be there.’

“We who preach owe it to those who hear us, and to our Lord, who called us to be that someone who watches, ready to speak a trusted word as a trustworthy person.”

And who among us are awake and watching?