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| Balcony Garden, DC, 2011 |
EP: Psalm 97, 138; Isaiah 49:1-6; Galatians 2:1-9
Peter and Paul have always struck me as two different kinds of bookends: both holding up the middle, but in differing ways, with equal weight. Peter being the kinda-person you would want to have a beer with, hang out and talk - someone to laugh and joke with and have a good time, and at that same time be able to learn something. Paul is different: stand-offish, officious, cranky, the kinda-person who in a different set of circumstances would have been the boarding school disciplinarian. Not really someone with whom you would want to casually hang out. Two different bookends who approached life and their ministry with the same objective, but with differing methods based on their own peculiar personalities.
Many times in life we can try to emulate people whom we respect. Emulate does not mean mimic, copy, be the same as. We are called to be ourselves, using the individualized gifts God gave us to further do the work the Spirit prods us toward. Fitting a narrow model, a particular mode of being is not how we should live as the Body of Christ in the world today. But instead, we should simply be ourselves...beautiful in our own right...perfect in our own imperfect way. And at the same time, emulating the one whose Body we are an individualized part.
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Copyright 2012, The Rev. John F. Dwyer. All Rights Reserved.
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