Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song And Praise

I must be honest with you this morning. There are days when our scripture readings present us with words that cause clergy to cringe when, after reading, they have to say, “The gospel good news of our Lord.” Today is one of those days. Today, I truthfully say to you that I am finding the gospel of Jesus Christ increasingly countercultural in our present context. Following Jesus takes courage. Jesus addresses this in our gospel reading today as he talks about discipleship. It would be so easy to gloss over this reading and say Jesus really did not mean what he is saying here.  It would be so easy to simply water down his words and sugar coat them.  It would be so easy to use another reading, one that provides us with a sugar-coated Christianity; but that would also leave us with a sugar-coated cross.  Quite frankly, eliminating what this passage is all about would mean eliminating an honest, lay it on the line call to discipleship.  So, today we are going to wrestle with this gospel reading and tackle this cal