West End Umc Video Podcast Audio Podcast

Smells Like Teen Spirit – The first Sunday after Advent we have Khette Cox as guest preacher. She is a hospice chaplain and a graduate of Vanderbilt Divinity School. The scripture is the familiar story in Luke of Mary and Joseph and their young son, Jesus, having gone to Jerusalem, but on the way home the boy’s parents discovering he was not with them. When they found him after searching for three days, he was in the Temple, talking with the “teachers.” The story is placed in Luke between the story of the miraculous birth and the story of Jesus’ baptism, and as such, it is a literary bridge but also a bridge as Jesus develops into the person he is to be. This story is of Jesus beginning to discover who he is and is to be. At this stage he may not know who he is, and, in her work as a hospice chaplain, Khette has often posed the question, “Who are you?” to patients. It is a question for us, too, perhaps a challenge posed by God, prompting us to discover who we are among the people of God. During the ba