Sermons by Rev. Jason S. Glombicki (Page 68)

Have you ever met someone whose reputation preceded them? Maybe it was when you met your boss’ boss for the first time. Maybe it was a public figure, or even Mickey Mouse. Before you met you had heard all about them. Whether the reputation was accurate or not, others set the tone for your interaction with that person. Reputations are interesting. After all, our unique reputation isn’t something that we can control; instead we can only have influence on it. Our reputation lives apart from us and has the potential to live on after us through our legacy…

Quick poll: Who has heard of today’s gospel reading before today? Sometimes this reading is called “The Parable of the Good Samaritan” – has anyone heard the term “Good Samarian” before? That title “Good Samaritan” is something many of us are fairly familiar with in our context. Where have you heard it before? …

I wonder what this this current time period will be called? Like, what “age” will this be? What I mean is that we’ve had the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and if we skip ahead we find the Space Age and the Digital Age. So what “age” are we in? One author argues that this is the “age of loneliness.” He says that historically we are a species that is shaped by contact with others. Yet, we now seem to exist apart. If you think about children or adults engaged in parallel play with some technological tablet, phone, or computer this becomes clear. We’d rather look at pictures and posts in a park rather than enjoy the people and pets around us. Research suggests that this social isolation is as strong of a cause for death as smoking and obesity. Individuals are generally more likely to turn to a TV for consolation than to turn toward a friend, in fact two-fifths of older adults report that the TV is their primary companion…