RoboPreacher

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew! Well; there you have it … You have to admit, though, it is a little ironic… I mean here we are, going through all the trouble of showing up when we could be anywhere else; hoping maybe God would show up too, hoping we would see God today. Only to hear that God isn’t here. God has already beat us to the door, apparently. God is outside these walls; albeit amongst those folks who are hardest to be around, maybe even the ones we try to avoid. Isn’t that always how it goes, though ??? But; there you have it anyway … If nothing else at least this parable is straight-forward. When we care for ‘the least of these,’ we take care of Jesus himself; and conversely when we fail to take care of the least of these we ignore the Son of God. Yes, although it is only a small consolation at least this parable is easy to understand; hard to do , but easy to understand…  I suppose it goes without saying, though, that u...

and nothin' more  / man, that's nothin' The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew! One slave received five talents, another two, and finally the last slave received just one talent…  Well I don’t know about you, but listening to this parable today, I can’t help but think that it’s be great to just get one talent! Now, don’t get me wrong, you’re all great. I don’t suppose I’m surprising any of you, though, when I point out that there’s always room in the pews and yet none in the budget… No, we weren’t the congregation that got those five talents. All we have to do is look over our shoulder to that congregation sitting on the edge of town to see the contrast. Just look at them! Of course they’re going to multiply, adding a satellite location in town even… It seems, that we’re the congregation just trying to hold onto what little we have, during these dog days of being the church in the twenty-first century - when fewer and fewer folks appear to go to c...

catch me up, i've got warmth in my bones The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 25th chapter! I love it when we have an upbeat, even chaotic prelude (like last week). It’s great coming into worship -led by a flame- with the sense that anything could happen. It’s a good way to begin worship, anticipating that anything could happen, because, well , maybe it could …  Remember how I used to make you share with each other what you thought God might do during our worship (an exercise I learned from former ELCA Bishop, Mark Hansen)? Well, I only gave that up reluctantly. The truth is, it’s a good question. More precisely, it’s a good way to begin worship: anticipating that God is going to do something, that anything could happen. That’s what today’s parable is about … I remember once when I was younger, and my uncle was going to drive in from Washington State, to visit us all in Iowa. His siblings decided to keep this a secret from my grandmother. Their ide...

he wasn't really where it's at “You used to laugh about, everyone who was hanging out. Now you don’t talk so loud, now you don’t seem so proud; about having to be scrounging for your next meal,” Bob Dylan sings defiantly on his brilliant “Like a Rolling Stone.” But then he poses the question, “How does it feel?” How does it feel ? …It’s a rhetorical question, of course.  As Dylan croons, “how does it feel,” you can’t help but have the sense that you know the person he is singing to: someone who had laughed at all the unfortunate ones, only to inevitably find themselves among those same down and outs of the world one day… Dylan’s song has such power because it is a song that is sung to each of us. This song hasn’t stayed with us simply because we love seeing someone get their just-deserts (although we do love seeing that). No, the reason Bob Dylan’s adept “Like a Rolling Stone,” is so powerful is because we know deep down that we are the one’s he is singing ...