This reading is a little quirky and fun to visualize (people so excited that they crowd the speaker into a lake! a preacher “seizing” a boat! a rough, tough fisherman taking unsolicited advice from a carpenter!).

There are a lot of different things we could look at, but I’m going to focus on a few key characteristics of Simon (elsewhere called Simon Peter or just Peter) that come out in this passage.

I’m tempted to call this post “What Jesus looks for in a disciple,” but the reality is, Jesus picked a pretty disparate group of guys as disciples, with a wide variety of temperaments and personality traits, so this really is more like, “What Jesus liked about Simon Peter”—and even then, there’s a lot more to Simon Peter’s personality and the relationship he had with Jesus than what’s shown here (think outrageous outbursts and crazy love, among others).

Still, this section shows several traits that are worth emulating.

Simon Peter was ready to help

This wasn’t the first time Simon had met Jesus—Jesus healed his mother-in-law back in Luke 4:38. But still, Jesus kind of jumps right in and co-opts the boat owned by Peter and his fishing partner (elsewhere identified as Andrew), using it as a floating pulpit.

Not only does Simon not freak out at this seeming imposition, but he takes care of the logistics, getting the boat to the proper spot for Jesus’ purpose—never mind that he’s just spent all night awake, working, and there’s more work to do (cleaning the nets) before he’s done for the day.

Simon Peter was obedient

Simon was a career fisherman. He knew what he was doing. So when Jesus starts giving him fishing advice, it really borders on insulting. After all, Jesus was a carpenter-turned-itinerant-preacher. What did he know about fishing?

But Simon seems raise no more objection than perhaps an eyebrow before readily agreeing to take what was probably downright bad advice. There’s not any real explanation of why he was so willing to do what Jesus asked him to, but clearly he took Jesus seriously.

Simon Peter was humble

When confronted with Jesus’ miracles, many people seemed to become groupies. It was fun, it was good fodder for conversation and gossip, and they followed Jesus around just to see what he’d do and say next.

Simon’s reaction was completely different. He wasn’t at the point of acknowledging Jesus as God, but even believing him to be merely God’s messenger, he immediately understood that he was totally inferior. This wasn’t a self-esteem issue; it was an honest assessment of reality. This was the moment that Simon “got” that he was in the presence of God, and that is properly a sobering experience.

One of the commentaries I read said the following:

Simon Peter represents all disciples. His humility and awareness of his sin do not disqualify him from service; they are the prerequisite for service.

Jesus does not call those who think they can help God do his work. God does not need or want servants who think they are doing God a favor. Jesus calls those who know they need to be humble before his power and presence.

Note, though, that Jesus didn’t revel in Peter’s awe and fear—he comforted him and invited him on an adventure.

Simon Peter had the right priorities

The final part of this scene is where the rubber meets the road. It’s great that Simon was willing to help out and humor the carpenter, but the real question (for all of us) is “what next?” Is this just an interesting diversion, or does it become the central focus of our lives?

For Peter and his fishing partners, the answer was clear: they left everything and got on board with Jesus’ mission.

What would it look like if we jumped in that way?

We live in a scary time. Have you watched the new recently? A friend had their boss laid off today – the layoffs got close to home again. The stock market is more than a roller coaster – it’s sea sickness on the Titanic….

How did we get here? Are we scared yet?

For years, we’ve been fascinated with homeland security. What has made us secure?

1) A strong defense and offense. Tighten borders. Attack countries that seem a threat. Tighten our borders.

2) Build a strong economy. We do this by encouraging people to spend. We do this by making money available to them – your home value is going up so refinance and take money out; we get 0% credit cards in the mail; we have 0% car loans which puts money into the auto makers pockets. Bush said it after 9/11 – go out and SPEND!!! GO SHOPPING! And we have. My life is currently deficient because I ONLY have a Palm Centrino – not an iPhone; I have a decent sized TV- not a LARGE flat screen; and my newest piece of furniture came from Craigslist. That’s okay though – I have car loan and an SUV that I put part of on a 0% credit card (which is 0% no longer! – Dave Ramsey calls this stupid tax!)

3) Enforce our morality no matter what.

And yet, it’s all fallen apart. The word depression is now common on the news – bringing us flashbacks to visions of the Great Depression – which I wasn’t there for – but I’ve heard was scary bad. In haste to fix this, the government passed a $700 billion bailout – which about half of it has been spent – and I’m excited to tell you that it has fixed our economy and we are back on level footing!!! NOT!

So, as someone who wants to be a radical Christ follower, how do I respond?

Frankly – I am excited.

Now, I come from a conservative Christian tradition which places a huge emphasis on prophecy and end-time scenarios – and so all of my friends from back in the day will probably read this and think – “Yes, he’s excited because it means it’s the END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT!!! and Jesus is coming. Which is great for him, but I’m scared of the disaster that happens before it and what if I’m not ready and what if I mess up and GO TO HELL!!!”

Nope – that’s not why I’m excited. I hope Jesus comes back this month. But I don’t know if it’s right now or 6 months or 60 years… I think it’s coming soon – but I don’t have the holy script – (and – subject of a different note or something, but it seems when people do get “the script” they start living out of fear and control instead of faith and rest… – but I digress…)

I’m excited because I think that as a Christ follower I actually have something to say. And simply put, in this culture of fear, I have hope.

And my hope is simply this – we get to finally get our priorities in tact and get back to what God has been saying all along.

1) My kingdom is not of this world – otherwise my followers would fight. Funny, the fighting hasn’t worked. Time for something else. I am ashamed that Christians promote war. Government of the people, by the people, for the people is NOT a theocracy!!!!

2) Money is not where peace comes from. Peace does not come from a 401K; peace does not come from financial security. Peace comes from a spirit of Thanksgiving because we were lost and God rescued us before – and He will do it again; peace comes from presenting all our petitions to GOD – not our financial adviser or mortgage company.

3) Romans 1 says that God gave them over to their sinful desires. Since we cannot change people – why are we going to war with them? Maybe what they need is Jesus looking into their eyes saying “neither do I condemn you! Go and sin no more…”

So, I’m excited. I’m excite that we may see an amazing true spiritual revival of something that means something to people and makes a difference in their lives. I’m excited that we get to present hope when everything else has fallen apart. I’m excited that we get to remember that money and control never satisfy and we are pushed to rest in God taking care of us!

And that is my rant for tonight…. What do you think? Put up some comments….

Then last night, I admitted to myself that there was no way I’d be doing five separate posts, but that it shouldn’t stop me from at least reading the material.

And I thought that maybe reading them all at once would help me find the common theme—last week, reading them one at a time, I had no idea during the first few passages what the overall thread was going to be.

Clearly, this theory was somewhat flawed. I read all five passages, and while I saw interesting things here and there, no overarching theme jumped out at me.

Let’s see… Jesus heals some lepers… we’re encouraged to talk to God and focus on good things… a lady named Abigail saves a bunch of people even though her husband is a dope who would have gotten them all killed… there’s a psalm of thanksgiving… and we read a description of the worship of God in heaven.

Fortunately for me, Brian posted a note on Facebook talking about his sermon topic. (Is the true value of social media being able to spy on your pastor’s sermon prep?!?)

In that note, Brian talks about how it’s exciting to be a Christian, especially in times of economic and cultural instability, because we have hope, and not only that, but our job is to share that hope.

By focusing on God (a theme I now realize runs through the readings), we get the perspective and peace that current circumstances might otherwise take from us. Sounds like some good news among everything else you hear!

It makes me think of a verse from one of my favorite bands, Switchfoot:

…He said, “Live like no tomorrow”
Every day we borrow
Brings us one step closer to the end
Infinity
Where’s your treasure?
Who’s your hope?
If you get the world and lose your soul

Only by prioritizing things that matter do we get the “treasure” and “hope” things right. Yes, the economy impacts us. But what if a bad economy is our ticket to being able to offer the real treasure? What if wars (and the backlash against them) help us share God’s peace? What if global poverty is exactly what we need to spur us into some real, meaningful action?

I think Ishmael kind of got a raw deal. Other people made some questionable choices—understandable, given the culture, but not ideal choices—but he was the one who mostly had to live with the results.

Granted, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Sure, he was a slave, but reading between the lines, Abraham still cared for him and was reluctant to send him away, and generally speaking, it sounds like Abraham was a good master to the slaves in his household.

But no matter how good the master is, very few of us would choose slavery. Or so we’d say…

Yet according to Paul in Galatians 4:21, that’s exactly what the Galatians were doing. Instead of embracing the freedom-truths of the Gospel, they preferred to focus on the rules of the law given to Moses.

As mentioned before, I can understand the appeal. But how many people get to choose between slavery and freedom? Not much of a choice, really, since choosing slavery ends in… slavery, with stubborn refusal to enjoy the pleasures of freedom.

But something holds us back. Maybe, like me, you prefer the “orderly” rules to the wild unknown. Maybe your analytical side likes the logic of the law. Maybe you feel better when you “earn” something.

Whatever the reasons, we have to get over ourselves! Even though we try to make it sound holy, our resistance is almost always about us. Time to shift the focus to Jesus and see what happens.

There is a lot I’d like to know about these stories of Abram/Abraham’s family.

I’m curious about Ishmael. How was he raised? There were 13 years between his birth and the time that God told Abram that he would have another son, this one with Sarah as the mother. Until that point, who raised Ishmael—Sarah, or his mother, Hagar?

And then there’s Sarah. If she did have a hand in raising Ishmael, why did she turn on him so quickly? And if she didn’t, what changed from her original plan?

I wonder about Abraham. I can’t imagine the stress he probably lived with, mediating (or maybe just trying to hide from) the two strong-willed women. He may have been rich, but money doesn’t fix those kinds of problems!

Finally, I wonder about God. Why did He wait so long to send Sarah a child of her own (or even state that it was His intention to do so)? Obviously He had his reasons.

Maybe having certainty earlier on would have prompted Sarah to treat Hagar and Ishmael even worse. Maybe God wanted to wait until it was painfully obvious that this baby boy was all his doing and there was no chance of it being interpreted as a natural even.

Despite not having a full understanding of all of the nuances, though, I take comfort in God’s promise to Hagar. More than just promising to help him out, God heard Ishmael.

I don’t know about you, but being truly heard probably means more to me even than action most of the time. And fortunately for me, we still have every reason to believe that God does hear us. That’s good news… even if He doesn’t always tell us all the details!

Yesterday’s reading was focused on Abram’s physical children (or lack thereof), and today’s reading takes that concept a step further by talking about his spiritual children—or at least that’s the theory.

The problem is that, as humans, we pretty much always manage to confuse ourselves and pick the wrong things to focus on. This was as much a problem for the Galatian Christians (some of Abram’s spiritual children) as it is for us now.

The first chunk of today’s reading shows us Paul, pretty frustrated with the Galatians (one of my Bibles starts out the passage with, “You crazy Galatians!” and another takes it even further: “You stupid Galatians!”).

What had him so frustrated? Apparently some of the Galatians were undergoing circumcision as a way of trying to “complete” what God started. Rather than keeping Jesus as the central focus, they had fallen into the (familiar) trap of worrying about rules and regulations.

It’s not hard to understand, at least not for me. I like rules and regulations (at least most of the time) because they’re like checklists; I know exactly what to do, and I know when I’m done.

As much as the checklist-style religion thing appeals to me, though, that’s not how God works at all. As far as I can tell, he’s not really interested in making my life easy so much as making me holy.

By placing my faith in the checklist, I’m essentially suggesting that I can make me holy.

Not only does it not work, but it’s actually kind of insulting to God when you think about it—He goes to the incredible (and frankly, inexplicable) effort of sending His son to die for me, and I basically say, “No worries, I can handle it!” That’s the height of arrogance on my part!

When we try to use the rules to help us feel like we’re on top of things, not only are we deluding ourselves (because the odds of us actually being on top of all the rules are almost nil), but we’re ignoring their purpose as a catalyst to bring us close to God.

According to Paul, if we’re looking to the rules first, we’re going about it all backwards. The Message puts it this way: “Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you?”

It’s not hard to guess the answer he’s looking for. The only hard part is dragging our eyes away from the rules and keeping them focused continually on Jesus.

Trying to do God’s will can be a challenge. Sometimes it’s a challenge because of temptation or selfish desires, but other times, even good motives and our attempts at the “right” actions aren’t enough.

For years, God had been telling Abram that he was going to be the head of a big family, despite the fact that his wife, Sarai, was barren. Often this promise was more of an assumption—really, just an aside in a larger promise—than a specific topic of conversation.

But in Genesis 15, Abram calls God on it. God’s promised Abram protection and rewards, but Abram replies:

O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth. You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.

Despite this kind-of-whiny approach, God gets specific in his promise:

Then the Lord said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” Then the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”

“Excellent!” Abram must be thinking. God makes a covenant with Abram, complete with a ritual and a vision, and everything’s good. Except…

Abram waits and waits. No son. Waits some more. Still no son.

We don’t get an actual timeline for this bit (at least not that I’m seeing), but at the beginning of chapter 16 of Genesis, we’re told that the action starts 10 years after Abram settled in the land of Canaan, so it’s probably been a couple of years.

We don’t see any more recorded conversations with God in the meantime, and I can understand why Abram and his wife, Sarai, start to doubt. Not that they doubt God’s promise, mind you. They just wonder if they aren’t supposed to be taking some initiative.

So Sarai comes up with a plan: she has a younger servant, and she convinces Abram to sleep with her to produce a son. This is a bit shocking to our modern, Western sensibilities, but in their culture, the only real suprise is that it didn’t happen earlier—apparently it was a common solution to the “problem” of infertility.

Sure enough, the servant, Hagar, conceives, and everything quickly goes downhill. Sarai realizes she actually isn’t okay with this arrangement, and she blames Abram, who refuses to get involved. Sarai takes her anger out on the pregnant Hagar, who runs away, and it’s pretty much a big mess.

And this is where it gets tricky for me. It’s tricky because the whole mess could have been avoided if Sarai and Abram had been patient—but they would have had to have been really patient, because it took about 13 more years before God moved forward with the “you’re gonna have a son” plan.

13 years is a long time to wait—and that’s on top of however many years they waited before getting Hagar involved.

To make it worse, they didn’t have any crystal-clear instruction from God before that point that they were supposed to wait for Sarai to get pregnant. Today, we’d get fertility treatment; back then, a “substitute wife” was the closest equivalent.

This leaves me with the perplexing question: when am I supposed to take action, and when am I supposed to truly wait on God? Because my personality is always going to jump to “take action,” but clearly that’s not always in line with God’s plan.

So how do I know which is which? How do you know?