Hearing and answering God's call

Scripture:1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20) and Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18  • Deuteronomy 5:12-15 and Psalm 81:1-10  • 2 Corinthians 4:5-12  • Mark 2:23-3:6

 Our Scripture this week is full of hearing and responding to God's call. What do we hear and heed in our busy lives? Who does God call? How? How can we hear God''s call? As we read this week's Scripture, we are invited to consider the value of human life, of all life, especially when reading beautiful Psalm 135, and Jesus' teaching about feeding the hungry, and healing on the Sabbath, telling us that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is made for humankind. Read The Rev. Kate Matthews' "Listening, Hearing, Acting," and The Rev. Danáe Ashley's "Bread, Law and Spirit, who considers questions we ask, such as "Why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I supposed to do with my life," discussing ways of discerning God's call to us, and what is life affirming, and what is not.

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

139:18 I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I come to the end -- I am still with you.