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I've always been amazed by spiders. I love to watch them spin their webs and catch their prey. I remember as a child we had lots of spiders in our garage and we would catch flies and other bugs and throw them into a web to see the spider come rushing out along the strands to plunge in the paralyzing digestive juices. It would then wrap the prey up in a nice little bundle, for a late-night snack.

Some spiders stay at the middle of a web that is stretched between branches or boards. Other spiders have a tunnel that disappears into a corner of a bush or a building. In either case, the spider stays at that center spot or waits at the mouth of the tunnel, waiting for the slightest movement of the web, indicating supper!

I know preachers' minds make sometimes unlikely connections, but the truth is that this image of the spider and the web came to mind as I was preparing for this series of sermons over the next few Sundays which deal with the powerful gospel message as told in the first letter of John.

Let us not confuse the three short letters of John near the end of the New Testament with the Gospel according to Saint John, situated early on in the New Testament, following the first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Scholars are not certain whether the writer of the Gospel of John also wrote these three letters, though much of the wording and flavor are the same. For our purposes it really doesn't matter. It is interesting to note, however, that the author of Second and Third John refers to himself as "the elder." It is fairly safe to assume that it is this same "elder" who wrote First John as well.

As I said, the image of a spider came to mind as I was reading 1 John 3, and I'll tell you why. In the first verse of chapter 3, the elder writes that "the reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know God." And then in 2 John and 3 John, the elder admonishes his readers to "abide in him." Abide in God.

What an image. There are so many things we are called to do as followers of Jesus. John, the elder, says that the main one is to "abide in God."

And here's where the spider crawled onto the web of my brain. I pictured the spider, staying in the comforting, safe home, either at the center of the web or in the dark cavity at the end of the tunnel. Only when there is something very important to do does that spider venture forth. And when the job is done, back home it goes.

Think how the spider would be unable to focus on its purpose if it were wandering about on the web, rather than staying at home.

I thought about us. I thought about myself. Scampering about on the web, doing so many things, important things, good things, but not necessarily the most important thing, which is "abiding in God," absorbing the mind of God. For Christians that means coming to know the mind of Christ.

You see, according to the author of 1 John, the reason those who stand outside the community of faith don't know us, and don't understand us, is that they do not know the God we worship. Those who have not heard of or come to know the God revealed through Jesus Christ, only know a God who pats you on the head and answers your prayers if you are good, and sees that you are run over by a back hoe or get cancer if you're bad. For such uninformed folks, talk of forgiveness and loving your enemies just sounds naive and stupid.

That's not to mention those who can't relate to a loving Father because of all that their own father did to them or because their father was absent for them, either emotionally or physically. There are many images of God. Just to say the name God doesn't mean that we're talking about the same entity.

Jesus came to introduce us to who God is. And while many of the struggles in this world, such as with morality and the existence of pain and suffering and evil remain the same, knowing who God is, knowing with whom we are dealing, makes all the difference. Jesus was always saying, "You have heard it said, but I say ..." -- six times in Matthew alone.

If that is true, then our task is clearly to continue to focus on maintaining a relationship with God. If the challenges of the world seduce us into just running around the web of life, putting out fires and doing lots of seemingly good things, and forget our center, forget our motivation and our mentor and our power and our guide, we will find ourselves out of gas, angry at those who don't respond to the gospel, and judgmental in our approach.

The elder writes in verse 3 that if our hope is in God, we are purified. Our motivations are purified, our minds and hearts are purified, and we find more energy to live and serve as we place our hope and trust, not in our own efforts and creativity, but in the secret, powerful, mysterious, sometimes agonizingly slow activity of almighty God.

The disciples were often irritated and confused about Jesus. He would be off praying when people needed him (Mark 1), or he would be asleep in the boat when the waves and wind were raging (Matthew 8). That's because Jesus knew all about spiders. He stayed "at home," at the center, in the heart of God, and from that center found the peace that passes all understanding, which enabled him to function out in the web of life, out in the challenging world of sin and selfishness, with peace and courage, confident in the power and ultimate victory of God.

Learn from the spider. Follow Jesus.