HELLO!

FIRST, as I have mentioned before, there are two email lists associated with our church. 125 persons signed up to receive my daily blog. 480 people receive weekly updates from the office. I use the latter list only on Saturday, to give you a sense of what to expect on Sunday and any upcoming funerals. It appears there is an issue with the daily blog list as many are no longer receiving the email I send every evening. I can assure you I have never missed a day since I started writing these in 2020. If you don’t receive the blog, you can read it by going to the Church Website, Rev. Kevin’s Daily Blog: https://www.woodlawnunited.ca/rev-kevins-daily-blog/todays-blog I have asked the office to look into this issue.

Our focus this Sunday is Matthew 4:12-23. I like the Cotton Patch Version, translated by Clarence Jordan. When Jesus learned John the Baptist had been arrested, he set out spreading his ideas. “Reshape your lives, for God’s new order is confronting you.” As he was walking beside a Lake, he saw two brothers, Simon (nicknamed Rock) and Andrew, putting out a net. He says to them, “Come with me, and I’ll train you to net people.” Right away they left their fishing gear and walked with him. A little further on Jesus saw two more brothers, Jim and Jack Zebedee. He invited them, and right away they left their boat and walked with him. He traveled teaching and spreading the good news of the new order, and healing every sickness and disease news of him spread. Folks brought to him all who were ill and he made them well. Large crowds followed him.

The Gospels remind us we are born into a story. The story we tell is about the true power in the universe coming to us in Jesus, who by word and deed showed us a way of compassion and forgiveness that bestows dignity and worth on every human being. That’s the different story we tell, and because of that story we seek a better Way, a way of love and justice, of truth and light. That’s the story we tell our children. That’s the story we try to live by. And this story draws others to it, to us, when we live the story, embody the story. When the church is the story, the church is alive.

In our Gospel reading this week, Jesus says, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately, Matthew’s Gospel tells us, these brothers left their boats and followed Jesus. Jesus did not invite them to abandon who they were; he invited them to become their most authentic, God-ordained selves. N. T. Wright, in his book Jesus and the Victory of God, highlights the invitation as the most characteristic aspect of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus not only announces the advent of God’s promised reign, he also invites people to come forward and be part of that kin-dom story. The challenge of Jesus isn’t the intellectual question, do you agree? Rather, Jesus pushes us toward a political question of, will you join up? A church that stops inviting is not Jesus’ church. Surveys reveal the most common answer given by those who attend church, as to how they got there, “someone invited me”. But what they feel invited to, is a mission. We have a story to share. This story makes us who we were meant to be.

Join me in this story telling, this story living. Peace, Kevin

PS I will see some of you on Saturday morning, as you pick up your fish chowder at the church. I will be wearing my New England Patriots jersey.