RoboPreacher

from exodus for exile   As we noted during earlier, we're moving through a lot of time, quickly.... Last week we had Exodus , or liberation. What happened between that story last week and the story of exile this week is that those people of God, after some years wandering in the wilderness did, finally, come into the promised land! Before the people came into the land, though, Moses stops them and gives a sermon . A sermon reminding the people who they are, and reminding them of the laws God gave them at that mountain. It is almost as if Moses is saying, it is important to pause before we get to the promise because should we ever forget God's commands, if we should forget who we are and where we came, from it will be all to easy for us to turn into the Egyptians ourselves... There's the tragedy of the story of exile; Something happened once God's people finally reached the promise... Have you ever heard that rhetorical question: What...

Before First Reading : Today we begin our journey through the important moments in God's story as a part of our discipleship series. Now until October, each Saturday/Sunday we will hear an important story in the history of God's disciples throughout the ages. It is important for us to be familiar with these moments so that we can find ourselves within these stories of God, so that God's larger story can help us make sense of our part of the story we live out today, so that we can be shaped into God's disciples...   The first story, the story to begin our discipleship journey is not creation, but Exodus, liberation... Through Abraham, God had begun to form a people set apart. This tribe of Abraham's descendent's, the Israelites, had come to Egypt. For a while things were fine in Egypt. Eventually, though, the Egyptians, led by the Pharaoh, decided the Israelites were becoming too numerous. The Egyptians decided to make the Israelites slave...

A reading from Philippians 3:20-21 Walt was a good man, he was committed to serving this community. He served in the military and during his civilian life, Walter served as a police officer and on the civil defense commission.   As his family will tell you, Walt liked to stay busy... He'd often retire, only to find himself taking up another vocation. It wasn't easy for him to sit still, he got bored easily.   But it wasn't just civil service that kept him busy, either. Walt had plenty of hobbies Even as Walt wrestled with his health, there was the garden that needed attention; and those specials meals to cook. Apparently Walt could cook a mean pizza, and he loved to share his mother's recipes from Austria. Yes, Walt liked to stay busy, but he wasn't a busy-body. In the midst of those jobs he would retire from and then take up again, Walter would make time for his family. Take a vacation so Jared could visit some place or another...

but then you make me crawl   The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke the 12th chapter! Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But Jesus said to him, "Friend, who set me to be judge or arbitrator over you?" And Jesus said to everyone, "Take care! Be on guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then Jesus told a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, "What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' Then he said, ' I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all of my grain and my goods. And I will said to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have pre...