A Noble Theme

Hespeler, 17 April, 2016 © Scott McAndless Matthew 22:1-14, Psalm 30, Galatians 3:23-29 A m I the only one who reads this morning’s passage from the Gospel according to Matthew and just wishes that everybody would just calm down a little bit? We have, in this passage, a parable of Jesus – a story of a dinner party. In this case, it is a wedding feast given by a king in honour of his son. The basic premise of the story is simple enough. The host of the feast wants lots of prominent guests and so he invites a large number of important people. The twist comes when none of the important people are able to attend the meal and the king kind of panics because, in that society, to give a feast and have nobody show up would reflect very negatively on the host. He ends up packing his dining hall with all sorts of undesirable people in the end.       And that is, basically, the parable that Jesus...

Stories of Hope Clothing, Episode 3: Hespeler, 3 April 2016 © Scott McAndless Isaiah 58:1-10, Acts 9:36-43, Matthew 25:31-40 D id you notice that nobody asked Peter to do anything? Peter was in Lydda when a highly respected and well-loved woman named Tabitha died in the nearby town of Joppa. And people had obviously heard something about Peter. He had a certain reputation for healing and for miracles, so they sent for him with an urgent request that he come, but that was the whole content of the message. They didn’t tell him that he was supposed to heal her (it was kind of too late for that anyways). They didn’t ask him to come and do anything – just come, please, as soon as you can.       And when he came, even then, they didn’t actually ask anything of him. They just took him to an upper room where they had laid out Tabitha’s body but they don’t even seem to have pointed her ou...