A Fresh Perspective

The story I read earlier from Luke 5, which is today’s sermon text, is Luke’s account of the call of Peter to be a disciple of Jesus. It’s different than the other two versions in the Gospels. In Mark’s account, which is followed by Matthew, Peter and his brother, Andrew, are by the seaside, apparently attending to their nets, when Jesus calls them to follow him. They immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus. That’s one version of the call of Simon Peter given by Mark and Matthew. In John’s account, Jesus calls Andrew first, who was not at the seaside fishing or attending nets at all, but with John the Baptist at the time. In John’s version Andrew is a follower of John the Baptist. He heeds the call, then goes out and finds his brother, Peter, and brings him to Jesus. Now, the reason I call attention to this is to remind you that we are not reading historical reports. There are echoes of memories in these stories, but these stories function more like parables crafted for the purpo...

Paul, or someone within the Pauline tradition, begins this part of the letter begging his readers to live up to their calling. If Paul didn’t write this, whoever did is someone who reflects Paul’s passion. He once again emphasizes that our calling from God is about unity. It is about living as one people. He calls upon his readers to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Let me remind you, in case you have forgotten or wasn’t hear the Sunday I emphasized this, the unity this writer is talking about is not just the unity of the local church. Nor is it just about the unity of the universal church. It is a unity that includes everything and everyone on earth and in heaven. The writer laid this out in his opening words, namely, that God’s purpose, that has now been definitively revealed through Christ, is that all things on earth and in heaven will be gathered up, unified, brought together, made one in Christ. To say that all things are brought together i...

A florist mixed up two orders on a busy day. One was to go to a new business, the other to a funeral. The next day, the guy with the new business stormed into the shop, “What’s the big idea? The flowers that arrived for our reception said, “Rest in peace.” The florist responded, “Well, if you think that’s bad you should have seen the people at the funeral who got the flowers that said, “Good luck in your new location.” When some people think of Easter and the meaning of Jesus’ resurrection, it means little more than belief in an afterlife. I don’t think any of us here would question that the resurrection of Jesus offers hope that there is “more” after death, that physical death does not have the last word. But of course, one might believe in life after death and not believe in the resurrection of Jesus at all. Perhaps the first place to start in reflecting on the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus is with the first disciples who claimed to be witnesses to the risen Christ. T...

Author, storyteller, and pastor Philip Gulley says that for a brief period in his life he was a Cub Scout. He joined under the false impression he would be given a pocketknife. His scoutmaster was the Pastor of the United Methodist church in town. Each week he required them to repeat the law of scouting. So they all said: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. Then he would add, “Just like Jesus.” He explained how Jesus was like a Boy Scout. He camped outside, cooked over a fire, helped people, was kind to the elderly, obeyed his mother (I might add, except for the time when Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem and his parents spent several days looking for him, which, by the way, is the only childhood story we have of Jesus), and went to church. Gulley says that image of Jesus as Scoutmaster stuck with him for several years.  Most people reading this were taught about Jesus from an early age. Many peo...