Holy Voice Mail?

Holy Voice Mail?

Growing up, when the phone rang, we were trained on how to answer the phone.
“Hello, McDonald residence. May I ask who’s calling?”.
The caller responded and then we were to say, “Please hold and I’ll see if they are available”. Or, “I’m sorry, _____ is unavailable, May I take a message?”.
Mom, a former Chicago executive, was a stickler over phone etiquette. Every person was to be treated as if they were the President of the United States. Period. My Dad was in business and was the Chaplain for the American Legion.
Every call held the potential for a need or need met.
Every call still does!
Now we have caller ID, Voice Mail, email, IM, texting, I could go on and on with the many ways you could live life interrupted.

Recently Tom and I listened to a fabulous teaching series. While we thoroughly enjoyed the humorous and clever teaching there was one hard driven point that troubled Tom. During a segment on the importance of establishing boundaries and setting priorities, the speaker used the story of Jesus walking on the water as a reference passage to rationalize and validate his use of screening calls sending anyone outside his rather small circle of last names to voice mail! Tom was incensed at the arrogant mocking of desperate people asking for help as if they were whining babies! So, we read his reference of the Mark 6 report of Jesus walking on water in several versions…..

Eugene H. Peterson said in The Message:
…..He intended to go right by them. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and screamed, scared out of their wits. Jesus was quick to comfort them: “Courage! It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” As soon as he climbed in the boat, the wind died down…..

While it appears that Jesus did have intentions of passing by He chose to respond to the calls of his disciples, right away.
He did NOT send their calls to Holy Voice Mail and listen a week later.
The great Physician, Jesus, is on call 24/7!
I pray when my phone rings that I will remember my Mother’s teaching and Jesus‘ example! Those of us in ministry can relate to Physicians and new parents. Emergencies rarely happen between 9 & 5, and young ones need to be tended to continuouslyJ
Many are called….few are chosen!
Screening calls? Voice Mail? What would Jesus do?