In the business world the aim of recruiting is to match the right person to the right job so the expectations of employer and applicant are met. In today’s tight labour market, it sometimes seems applicants will only look for jobs that suit them on their terms.

Jesus has a different approach to recruitment. Jesus is looking for people who will trust even as they struggle to trust. He is looking for people who don’t have the skills, who don’t have the talent, who don’t have a clue about fishing for people, who are not worthy even to be in God’s presence. Jesus is looking for people who aren’t even looking for him, who are distracted by other things, and who have got their life mapped out for themselves. Jesus is looking for those sort of people, and when he finds them he says: “Let’s go fishing”.

“Where is love?” Thus sang Oliver Twist after being thrown into the cellar of a funeral parlour. (If you’re singing it in your head now, you have to elongate the ‘Wh – er – e’)

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love”. Thus warbled Hal David to a Burt Bacharach melody.

“All you need is love”. Thus sang the Beatles (although no one could hear them above the screaming of teenage girls).

“Without love I am nothing”. Thus growled Paul of Tarsus (I am imagining some Leonard Cohen whiskey and gravel)

Oliver’s question is a good one. If love is so important why is it so hard to find in our world? And if it’s so hard to find in our world, what does that say about us?

Paul pulls no punches when he writes to the church in Corinth. I suspect he would be slightly bemused to see his ‘Chapter 13’ has become a smash hit in the pop charts and on the wedding circuit.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow’s a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present. – The source of this famous quote is unknown, but it is spoken best by an elderly tortoise, Grandmaster Oogway, in Kung Fu Panda.