In the long-forgotten days before every young person carried a cell phone; in fact, when most households shared a single line; teenagers used to rely on whoever answered the phone to let them know when a call was for them. The phone would ring, someone would pick up and ask, “who is this?” and then (at least in my household) a parent’s voice would reverberate throughout the house, up the stairs and into my room.
“It’s for you!”
My reply was predictable, and just as loud, “who is it?” A casual acquaintance, or a supervisor from work, would get me off my bed and to the phone… eventually. But a phone call from a best friend, or someone I was interested in dating, would have me scrambling to get to the phone as fast as I could get there.
There’s something of that sense of urgency in the disciples’ response to Jesus as he called them away from their nets in the gospel reading for this Sunday. He doesn’t give much of a sales pitch. He calls, and immediately they come. That makes me think that there was something in the message he was preaching and the healing in his hands that sounded and felt like love – because only love has ever been able to get me to move that quickly.
The reminder for us all this Sunday is that God is love, God is calling, and it’s for you.
In Christ,
Pastor Erik
By Proclamation 