Worship Sundays at 9 am
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…from Worship at Good Sam on January 25, 2015
First Reading: Jonah 3:1–5, 10 (Click to go directly to the NRSV Bible Text) The book of Jonah is a comedy starring a reluctant prophet who is given a one-sentence message: Nineveh will be destroyed in forty days. Much to Jonah’s dismay, the people of Nineveh repent. The point of the story is to get the reader to wrestle with the question “On whom should God have mercy?”
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 Paul does not disapprove of marriage or other human social institutions. He does, however, want Christians to live in the present in fervent anticipation of God’s future, which even now has dawned through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Gospel: Mark 1:14–20 Before Jesus calls his first disciples, he proclaims a message that becomes known as “the gospel” or good news from God. God is ready to rule our lives. Those who realize this will respond with repentance and faith.
Did you ever play the game Telephone? How crazy it is to pass a message and hope that it will get to others with the same content. Perhaps that is why being called by God is something we must find and hear for ourselves. It must be our own sense or hearing of God’s call. Yet other people can be helpful in clarifying our sense of call, because we too can sometimes hear what we want to hear (or should I say, not hear what we do not want to hear). But in the end, it is we who must hear and answer our own sense of being called.
Sermon title this Sunday “(Ring… Ring… Ring…) Leave a Message at the Beep!”