RoboPreacher

to start something new A sermon on the closing of Galatians I was about 26 when I served as a chaplain for my training to be a pastor. …Can you imagine that? Asking for a chaplain and having some fresh -faced twenty-something walk into your hospital room? It’s not hard for me to imagine, though. The folks I visited let me know exactly what they thought. “ You CAN’T be the chaplain,” they’d blurt , “you’re just a kid .”   During that time, I thought, once I’m ordained , then I won’t have to prove I’m really a card-carrying member of the clergy anymore. Only, that’s not what happened. After all, I was ordained just a couple of measly years after that. Plenty of you can remember those days. And while I don’t think anyone was so frank as to say I couldn’t be a pastor, it was made clear , in so many ways, that my youth was a scandal. In fact, I remember complaining about this to an older, wiser pastor. I asked him what he thought I should do. Grinning , he rubbed his bald...

from the outsider's screen The holy Gospel according to St. Luke the 7th chapter ! We all have some thing in our life that isn't working for us anymore. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism, a reaction , or a way of thinking . Whatever it is, at one time or another, it helped us get along in life. Now though, it’s just getting in the way. Despite that, we keep trying to make whatever it is work… What is it for you ? AND, what would it take to get you to finally give it up? That’s the struggle at the heart of all the tension in today’s scripture. A delegation of Jewish elders approaches Jesus, asking him to heal the servant of a centurion in town. Usually, they wouldn’t ask, they say, but this man is a worthy of it. However, when the centurion realizes that Jesus plans to drop in, he sends another envoy to call the whole thing off ! The centurion says he’s NOT worthy. Worthy. Not worthy. Which is it? To the eyes of the world , the centurion is most certainly worthy. Lif...