The Little White Church on Main Street, Canmore, Alberta
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. (1 Samuel 3: 9, 10) There are many “call stories” in the Bible, and the one we heard today is ready for the stage. The characters in this scene are an aging priest named Eli, his young charge Samuel, and off stage, a voice which the audience understands to be the voice of God, though not immediately understood as such by young Samuel. From previous scenes and scenes yet to come we have …
A note of thanks before I begin: one of the great gifts of online worship, is that I get to experience other preachers, which we were rarely able to do when everyone was in their own building at the same time, many of us without an online presence. Two sermons I have heard recently on the call stories of Jesus to the early disciples have greatly influenced my approach to today’s Bible texts, so I’d like to give a shout-out …
Fritz Wendt, a German Lutheran pastor now working in the USA as a trained therapist, offers this assessment of today’s reading from the 4th chapter of Matthew: “[the ministry of Jesus] has begun, and he immediately begins recruiting staff for his work; he breaks into the ordered lives of Simon Peter and his brother Andrew and calls them into service. His simple words hit the mark: ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ click here for PDF …