RoboPreacher

where the people come apart A sermon from Ezekiel's meta-sermon to dry bones :  The calendar bears down on us with particular intensity during this time of the year. There’s so much to do : There are the cards to mail. The meals to prepare. The gatherings to host and attend. The ensembles to don. The gifts to purchase and wrap. The relationships to tend. And , I shouldn’t forget to mention the services to make it to, too. The Advent calendar becomes downright sinister with all those tasks on our to-do lists. Another day is over ; did you accomplish everything?   Luckily , I suppose , there are still enough unopened doors on our Advent calendars to tell ourselves we’ll manage to pull everything off this year. Despite our mixed track record when it comes to managing all those Advent activities in years past. And despite all those deadlines we’ve already missed. The time for that tomfoolery had come and gone for the people the prophet Ezekiel spoke to, though. They...

though i'm beginning to An Advent sermon on Joel 2:12-17; 26-32 : In today’s scripture, the prophet Joel asks you to bring something difficult to worship… And no , he’s not talking about money or spending that rare free evening on some joyless committee bickering about the color of the sanctuary carpet. No, Joel is talking about something much harder to bring to worship; your heart . Your heart as it really is. And all of it, too. Cracks and all … And we have no shortage of things that break our heart THESE days. Do we? Loved ones we can’t visit. Loved ones who have died . Trips that have been canceled . Holiday gatherings that have been called off. And that’s just the low hanging fruit. Isn’t it? I’m sure you could easily add to this list yourself … Tragically , those “broken hearts and dirty windows that make life difficult to see," to quote John Prine (RIP), are a fact of life. And yet , despite this fact, when it comes to worship, we think WE need to mend our hearts...

i should be satisfied Isaiah 40:1-11 “ Prepare the way of the Lord .”   … Sounds pretty good . Doesn’t it?   It certainly fits with our most beloved image of ourselves and our lives; as preparing . Getting ready . Day by day, little by little, putting our lives , and the life of the world , a little more in order … Prepare the way of the Lord ; yeah, it sounds good… It sounds good only so long as you don’t actually think about it. The Advent devotion Amanda and I are reading offers a helpful description.   It read: All we can imagine is that God is infinite , overwhelming , and beyond words. Millions of light years mean less to God than a centimeter for us . Nebulae and the Milky Way are likes specks of dust that dance in the sun for God . God upholds everything with almighty power. God knows everything , even the invisible electrons that revolve in their orbit. …Then the writer asks, “what about us .” What about us , indeed...

imma stand & deliver it Advent 2 sermon from Joel: What a hodgepodge passage of scripture! The timeline isn’t clear. Prophecies of judgement are crammed next to prophecies of hope… And I’d be tempted to complain about it; but I know you all have bigger grievances during these busy, busy days. It’s a chaotic time of the year, isn’t it? So, I’ve got to ask, it is my pastor-y duty. It is now , after all, the second week of Advent. The Long, Dark Night  gets ever closer .  How about it? Are you any more ready, any more prepared than you were a week ago? Are you ready for Jesus’ arrival??? …Okay. Perhaps we should set our sights a little lower . Are you prepared for all the stress that’s part and parcel to this time of year? Are you ready for yet another meal with the in-laws? Is the house prepared? What about the gifts, have they all been purchased and wrapped? Or how about the sorrows of this season? Are you ready for your first, or fifti...

...these shackles i've made in an attempt to be free A sermon from Philippians There are days when faith comes as easy as a spring sunrise. Things go the way they ought to. Everything just falls into place… The trouble, though, is those days are fewer and further apart than the other days. The days when faith does not come easy. Whatsoever…  Too often, right when we wake up, what faith we’ve managed to cobble together is already threatening to break apart. We have to gather our faith up. We try to hold it together. We do what we can to get through our days with our faith in one piece. Intact.  As my favorite musician quips, “ We need faith for the same reason it’s so hard to find. ” That’s the trouble. It isn’t easy to keep up the faith, is it? We hear the pastor drone on, how God is a God of love. After a short hour we have to leave . We have to live most of our lives out there, in the real-world.  The headlines of terror and trag...