RoboPreacher

visions of rapture now burst on my sight A sermon on a better sermon about love in Christ : This is one of those passages where the pastor can’t help but be a bit miffed ! In this passage, John encapsulates the entire Bible AND all of theology, too! And he does it with just one sentence! Worse still, the sentence is simple ! But worst of all, the sentence is short , to boot!   It’s just three little words: God is love . What else is there to say?!? God is love . Amen ! Let’s go home! Right?!? If I were to do that, though , in no time, you’d start thinking, “Gee, Pastor’s job is awfully easy.” And sure , that may be true! But who is Saint John to make it so plain ?!? The least John could do is have the decency to resort to cliche or summary ! It’d be one thing if this sentence was on the shallow side. But it’s not ! In this short and simple sentence, John has compacted the breadth of faith into one explosive sentence: God is love . Whammo! Now, maybe you’re a bit unc...

oh / got a little lesson A sermon on Jesus overturning the tables   The crowd industriously bustled this way and that. But while the business of the day consumed everyone else , Jesus threw himself upon the wheels and cogs of the entire apparatus! Fashioning something like a whip, Jesus drove out all the livestock! With a thundering voice, he ordered those selling doves for sacrifices to get out of the temple. And with holy zeal , unlike anything the disciples had yet seen, Jesus flipped over the tables and poured out all the coins of those exchanging pagan money for religiously sanctioned tender . Before the ordeal was over, Jesus had brought the entire proceedings of the day to a grinding halt . Watching the scene play out, the disciples couldn’t help but remember a stanza from the beloved 69th Psalm, “ Zeal for your house will consume me.” It’s an alluring thought. Isn’t it? To be consumed by something. Our great artists, athletes, and inventors often speak of a burn...

here as i am A sermon on 1 John 4:7-21 Here we are, at the end of First John.   I don’t know about you , though, but I loved working though this book.   First John was a sermon first delivered to a church in the first century. And, it turns out to be just as applicable for us , in the twenty- first !   Apparently preaching on how to be church when it isn’t easy, doesn’t lose its vitality over the years… But, as much as I hate to admit it, as we come to the end of First John I can’t help but feeling like the preacher squandered the end of this sermon!   This sermon just fizzles out with all its confusing and redundant repetition… And it’s too bad, because First John is a great sermon. It’s honest and faithful. It pulls no punches. It refuses to rely on anything other than the Good News.   Only to, here at the end, break one of my most cherished rules: subtly . When I’m working on a sermon, if it feels like I’m being ...