RoboPreacher

now you know He’s something like a pipe bomb, ready to blow A sermon on that time Jeremiah's sermon was destroyed : Why is it, do you suppose, that at the time we should be most open , we are so often most closed off? It’s happened to us all . Hasn’t it? We all have times when we should have listened , but instead , we raised our voices. We all have times when we should have softened , but instead , we stiffened our spin. We all have times when we should have opened our hands, but instead , we balled them into fists . We all have times when we should kept an open mind, but instead , we were hardheaded . There’s no shortage of times and places when we did the basically exact wrong thing. Don’t we? We were closed off when we should have been open . We were stubborn when we should have been understanding. We were firm when we should have been tender . Why is that? Why are we most closed off when we should be most open ? And why do we tend to do this at the most inopportune...

look fine from here A sermon on passages from Jeremiah 36 & 31:31-34 : Falling as it does at the end of November , Christ the King is an interesting little festival to preach every four years. Having just wrapped up an election , the church has us celebrate a king !   To be a Christian, insists the church, is to follow someone else; Christ , our king. It’s a good sermon. One we all do well to hear. But I’ve come to realize a sermon like that would only leave you and me in the same old settlement. And today’s scripture is all about the new covenant! Which sounds pretty good right about now . Doesn’t it? New ? I don’t know about you, but all those not so helpful habits I’ve racked up since March are beginning to take their toll. And Lord knows after the gamut of a holiday season unlike any other we’re all about to face, new will be more welcome than ever come January. But, truly new is really hard. And the past never seems quite past . Does it? …A little while ago we heard a...

where it went Jeremiah 33:14-18 : So, how was Thanksgiving? Was I right? Was it im -perfect? Were there any full-blown disasters ? …Well, if there were, and you want to talk about it, let’s schedule a visit. But the truth is, it’s a pretty safe bet to predict the holidays won’t be perfect. After all, nothing is. And the high-wire balancing act of the holidays is rife with opportunities for things to go wrong .   So no , predicting the holidays won’t be perfect is hardly prophetic. At least, not like anything Jeremiah was called to predict… To be honest, though , much of Jeremiah’s prophesies would hardly count as predictive, either! First, Jeremiah was called to speak against the people’s rampant and flagrant infidelity . And second, he was called to predict that superpower, Babylon , would come in and conquer Jerusalem. But between those two things, there’s not a lot of prediction , per se.   Saying God chooses peop...

the joke was on me A sermon from Jeremiah's final lament : Jeremiah’s prayer is a bit of a scandal for us. Isn’t it? The fact that thoughts like these are in our Bible, much less read aloud in our public worship, shocks us a little. Doesn’t it? Because every week we gather here wearing out “Sunday Best,” acting as if we have no reason for being here. As if we have it all together. That we’re doing just fine on our own, thank you very much… But poor Jeremiah, couldn’t pretend otherwise.   Jeremiah’s life was lived, as we’d say, between “a rock and a hard place.” The rock, of course, was the Rock of the Ages; God . And the hard place was the people he’d been commissioned to speak to… From the first day God spoke to Jeremiah, God had been incessant . Constantly assaulting Jeremiah with messages to deliver. That alone would be hard enough, but the people Jeremiah was to deliver the message to, were stubborn and they refused to give him a hearing...