RoboPreacher

round and round you're turning me A sermon on Paul's (non) practice of collecting compensation : Have you heard of Stockholm Syndrome ? The term comes from a real -life 1973 bank heist in, you guessed it, Stockholm, Sweden. What happened was the robbers, in a bid to secure their escape, took four of the bank employees hostage .   In the end, though, it was all for naught . The scheme was foiled when authorities released tear gas via a hole drilled from an apartment above  the bank. Happily, everyone was rescued. In fact, none of the hostages were even injured during the harrowing rescue.   Strangely , though, afterward, not a single one of the hostages would testify against the robbers. In fact, if the hostages held any ill will, it was to the authorities , not the robbers themselves! Some of the hostages even went so far as to raise money for their captives’ defense !   A quick online search will tell you Stockholm Syndrome is a coping mechanism or an emo...

but i can't recall how i was those days anymore The Holy Gospel according to St. Mark ! Jesus comes back home, but after everything he’s been up to, the hometown crowd isn’t so sure about him. In fact, there are even some who are accusing him of being out of his mind; or more literally, outside of himself … That’s the way the life of faith always looks from the outside, though. Just ask Paul; as he says, the life of faith is a life spent looking toward what cannot be seen; to the world that kind of life looks crazy. Or, for that matter, just ask Martin Luther. Luther lived with the acute awareness that he could not get himself to do the will of God; that deep down his and God’s will were at odds … Faithful fellow that he was, though, he did everything the church had to offer in the way of doing God’s will. The problem, as Luther came to find, was that nothing from the blasted religious-project actually worked , nothing could reconcile his will to God...