RoboPreacher

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...

but we embrace em 2 Kings 22-23:3 : The holidays are a bit of a crucible . Aren’t they? During the holidays our greatest expectations next to our most dreaded ones! Of colliding our biggest joys with our greatest disappointments . So much hope and expectation are crammed into the days ahead. Loading each and every moment with demands and to do’s .   …So yes, the days ahead are a bit of a crucible . Now, the etymology of crucible is cross . And for those of us who worship a crucified savior that ought to give us a little hope! And here it is: When Jesus made the cross his throne, each and every cross lost their power to kill ! Now they have become instruments of resurrection ! The days ahead are a crucible . A cross . And what that means is there’s a blessed way to live into them. Or rather, a blessed way die into them. The blessed upside - down way of our savior ! Which is good. Because if your schedule isn’t upside-down yet, it’s...

it will find you Isaiah 5:1-7 and 11:1-5 : From the Thanksgiving-ings, to the holiday office, in quotation-marks parties , to the shorter days and even shorter tempers , to the over -stimulated children and even more over -blown expectations, we’re about to go through it. Before you start to feel too sorry for yourself, though, remember for many folks the excess of the holidays only point to days gone by . There are many of us who would love to have our calendar be a little more crowded . You see? None of us are going to escape. We’re all about to go through it. The days ahead are going to nick us all up. But , for all that, it isn’t really all that, that’s going to make the days ahead so hard .   No, the biggest challenge is going to be the person who stars back at you from the mirror each morning. We are the ones who make the holidays so hard!   And one of the reasons, if not the primary reason, is a piece of advice we received; ...

can you say what you want To Be A Sermon on  Jeremiah's Call and Temple Sermon Well, you’ve made it through another Thanksgiving. How was it? These days Thanksgiving is something of a mixed bag, isn’t it? Like so many of our other big holidays, Thanksgiving is chock full of EXPECTATIONS . Everything had better be just right ; the turkey come out of the oven at time, the kids well-behaved, the family healthy and close-knit to boot.   They seem simple enough, but all these expectations are colossal ! We crush ourselves with them! Like in my family; this year, as usual, we all received the call about what we could and could not be bring up at the big meal.   On the big day, over turkey and mashed potatoes, we all followed the rules. For a few hours, long enough to get through the meal, we pulled it off too. We kept kept-up the illusion that everything was just fine. That there is no tension in our family. No dark corners in our histor...