Mark Whittall

How many of you are surfers? Now I know that Ottawa isn’t exactly the surfing capital of the world. We’re a long way from the nearest ocean. But surely there are a few of us who have tried surfing, or have at least watched surfers while on holidays, Or maybe we even watched some surfing on TV during the Olympics last year in Tokyo. So I’m going to assume that we know at least a little bit about surfing, ok? Let me ask you then, what is the most important thing about surfing?

When Jesus said “Love one another,” I bet you that they thought he meant just us, you know, Jesus’ disciples and friends, those twenty people who were gathered in the upper room on the night before Jesus died. Boy were they in for a big surprise. During the Easter season, for seven Sundays and then again on the Day of Pentecost, we read from the book of Acts, the story of the early church. The Acts of the Apostles begins with those twenty people who gather in that upper room

“My sheep hear my voice.” Can you hear God’s voice in the midst of all the other voices competing for our attention? It’s not always easy, and yet I think it just might be one of the most important challenges that we face. Sometimes I call it the “recognition problem”. How do we recognize God’s voice speaking to us in the midst of all the noise? How can we know what God is calling us to do? Often, I find our Bible readings quite unhelpful on this point. So often in scrip