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Calling

A church board was interviewing a young man for the position of pastor. One old hard-working Irishman, who was on the board, looked at the young man sternly and asked, “Young man, is God calling you here? The young minister replied, “Well, I don’t know if God is calling me here. I am here trying to find the will of God and find out if you would like me for your next pastor.” The board member replied, “Young man, is God calling you here?” The young minister was somewhat at a loss for words and said again, “Well, I just stopped by to talk with the board and…” The board member interrupted again and said, “Young man, is God calling you here?” Finally, the young man screwed up enough courage to say, “Well, I guess God isn’t calling me here. I just stopped by to see whether we could get together.” The old board member leaned back in his seat and said, “That’s good. The last four ministers we had said that God had called them here, and we had nothing but trouble with all four of them!” That s...
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Jesus Christ Superstar

  As you probably know, Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. The album appeared first in 1970, followed by a live musical performed on Broadway in 1971, and a film version in 1973. It was very much a work of the times, building off the enthusiasm of the hippie and Jesus movements. I can remember my brother playing the album in his room; the catchy tunes and lyrics were hard to resist. In the title song, Judas sings: Every time I look at you I don’t understand Why you let the things you did get so out of hand You’d have managed better if you’d had it planned Why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land? If you’d come today you would have reached a whole nation Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication Don’t you get me wrong - I only wanna know Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ Who are you? What have you sacrificed? Jesus Christ Superstar Do you think you’re what they say you are? The song has some great questions. ...
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Radical Rest

  John Ortberg tells the story of Tattoo the basset hound…. Tattoo didn’t intend to go for an evening run, but when his owner shut his leash in the car door and took off with Tattoo still outside the vehicle, he had no choice. A motorcycle officer named Terry Filbert noticed a passing vehicle with something that appeared to be dragging behind it. As he passed the vehicle, he saw the object was a basset hound on a leash. “He was picking them up and putting them down as fast as he could,” said Filbert. He chased the car to a stop, and Tattoo was rescued, but not before the dog reached a speed of twenty to twenty-five miles per hour and rolled over several times. The dog was fine but asked not to go out for an evening walk for a long time. There are too many of us whose days are marked by “picking them up and putting them down as fast as we can.” Into such a world of busyness, Jesus comes to offer radical rest. This rest takes at least three different forms that we can see in our pass...
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Images of New Life

Eighty-six-year-old Joy Johnson, a veteran of 25 New York City marathons, died with her running shoes on. Johnson, who was the oldest runner in the 2013 marathon, fell at the 20-mile marker in the event. But she got up again, and she crossed the finish line in about eight hours. After the race she returned to her hotel room, lay down with her shoes on, and never woke up. Here’s the real kicker: Johnson didn’t run her first marathon until she was sixty-one years old. Ironically, Johnson was a career gym teacher, but a stranger to personal exercise until she took a three-mile walk in 1986. Then she started jogging and competing in 10-K races. By 1988 she had competed in her first New York City Marathon. Three years later she recorded her best time at age sixty-four: 3 hours and 55 minutes. After being a runner for a while, Johnson established a daily routine. She would wake up at 4 am, drink her coffee while reading her Bible, and then set out on an eight-mile pre-dawn run. “When you wak...
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Calling the Tax Collector

There was once a sign that said: Lost dog. Large cash reward for finder. Dog has three legs, is blind in the left eye, missing a right ear, his tail has been broken off, he was neutered accidentally by a fence, he’s almost deaf, but he answers to the name Lucky. Let me tell you: that dog is not lucky. That dog, like most of us, has been through a whole lot of mess. However, that dog is blessed because he has an owner who loves him and wants him back.  The same is true of you and me. We may not be lucky, but we are blessed because we have an owner who loves us and wants us back. His name is Jesus, and we see his tremendous love and his relentless search for lost human beings in our passage for today from Mark 2:13-17…. Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in Lev...
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