authority” (4:32 NRSV). From town to town and in the synagogues of Judea the people were given hope because Jesus proclaimed the “good news of the kingdom of God” (4:43–44). The reports of the demonstrable healing power of the word that cured Simon’s mother-in-law and many others compelled the crowd to the water’s edge to hear, to listen. God’s word lived among them. In this account of crowd and call, in this summoning of Simon, God moves again, as God had moved previously among and with the people