I’ve got a beast of a summer cold that chose to pair itself with an apparently unrelated bout of…pinkeye? DELIGHTFUL. The germs have stolen my voice, so I couldn’t preach this sermon about demons last Sunday at Central CoB. Luckily, Brother Eric (who is already fighting some demons on other fronts) was the worship leader, and delivered the sermon in my stead. I haven’t shared anything for paying subscribers only, lately, so this one is behind the paywall as a thank-you, honoring of their monetary support. Don’t read too much into the fact that I am offering my gratitude in the form of musings on the demonic. I really do appreciate that y’all choose to read my writing.
Sermon 6-23-2024
Central CoB
Mark 4:35-41
The summer after I graduated from seminary, I spent a little time as a chaplain intern at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. Maybe you’ve heard of Grady: It’s the public hospital for the city of Atlanta and the only level I trauma center in the city. It’s the 10th largest hospital in the United States, and it serves *everyone,* including those neighbors who can’t get treatment anywhere else.
We interns had to be “on call” every week or so: spend the night in the hospital so that we were available at any time if patients or families of patients needed spiritual care. As you might imagine, there are all kinds of people at Grady who need all kinds of spiritual care.
The on-call room for chaplain interns was tucked away in a mostly-quiet hallway that didn’t see much action in the middle of the night. I guess that was intentional, meant as a gift to exhausted interns trying to get a few winks of sleep in between calls. But the effect was less than comforting: it was, to put it mildly, TERRIFYING to be alone in the bowels of this gigantic place where I KNEW that all manner of horrifying things were happening all night long.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Dana, Defrocked to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.