When you are inconvenienced...

Beloved of God,

    I hope that you will plan on making time to worship with us this Saturday evening in the great room. One of my great struggles in my early days here was that we were asked to refrain from singing in worship, and I remember well when that order was rescinded and we could open our mouths and praise our God together. It is a simple thing, but it is life giving, and even if you can’t be with us the whole time, it will be worth it. We’ll have a lite dinner at 5:00pm and then spend time in worship together from 6pm on, no later than 8pm. 
    Our worship team is meeting on Sunday to discuss some pressing issues that are confronting us which may affect how we worship together. Be praying for us as we meet Sunday afternoon. We will need wisdom, creativity, and perseverance. 

    Our Scripture reading for this week comes from Luke 5:1-11. It’s a story that we have in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke): Jesus is walking along the sea shore when he encounters four fishermen tending to their work, and by the time the encounter is over, they have left everything to follow him. 
    But Luke includes a detail that the other gospels leave out. While the fishermen are washing out their nets at the end of a night shift on the water, Jesus just goes and gets into Simon’s boat uninvited. He uses the shoreline as a sort of natural amphitheatre as he teaches, while Simon presumably sits there, maybe napping, perhaps tending to whatever fishing tack or rigging needed attention. 
    And when it is over, Jesus asks him to put out into deeper water and drop the nets. “Look, boss (a word only Luke uses), we’ve been at it all night and got bupkis. But since you asked…” You know the rest. The nets are so full that they can’t be hauled in alone, and when they are there is so much bounty that the boats start to sink.
    How do we respond to Jesus when he’s inconvenient? When Jesus just arrives in our boat and starts making demands, it’s not always welcome. But those demands might lead to something that shows us who he really is, and change us forever. At the end of the day, it wasn’t about the fish. It was about Simon coming to see who Jesus really was, and deciding he wanted to be with him because of who he was. Obedience often leads to a task, but those tasks often lead us right back to Jesus. 

Please join me this week in praying for:

• An end to this pandemic.
  
• In praise for the gift of snow in a dry land.
• Those among us who are carrying worry or grief over their parents.
• Those among us who have begun new ventures professionally and scholastically.
• Our worship team; for God’s guidance, wisdom, and strength.
• Those who respond to emergencies on our roads, in our wildlands, in our communities and even our homes.
• Doctors, nurses, PA’s, paramedics and others working to keep us all well. 
• The will to be obedient when we’re tired, desperate, or afraid.
• Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list.)
  

You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,

Marshall