RoboPreacher

no safety features to hold her down A sermon on the angel Gabriel's visit to Mary and her song : Have you ever noticed every Christmas movie is really about the disaster the season is? No Christmas movie that’s left its mark is about how effortlessly the holiday season goes!   Charlie Brown is really about how unhappy Charles is! It’s a Wonderful Life is all about how poor George Bailey can’t catch a break—even on Christmas! A Christmas Story is about the near psychic break young Ralphie has trying to get that red rider BB gun! And National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is… Well, a smorgasbord of disasters ! And even those movies that subvert this trope, like the Grinch and A Christmas Carol, are still about the disaster Christmas can be for people of all strips! No one is safe! Not even those bah-humbugs out there! Despite the best-laid plans of those scoundrels , the Grinch and Mr. Scrooge, the spirit of Christmas descends upon them nonetheless ! And we love these movies. Don’...

but she could not keep from trembling  A sermon on the Mary & her hymn : In the Church we have an odd way of doing things. Of speaking. And of keeping time, too… For instance, it is now the fourth week, in-a-row we’ve begun worship with the hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel .” …Are you sick of it yet? …Has Emmanuel come ? …Has anything changed, for that matter??? …Social scientists call it “ cognitive dissonance .”  “Cognitive dissonance,” that terrible gap between what we say and reality . The gap between what we say and reality…  Nowhere is that gap more dramatically on display today than in our Gospel, the so-called, “Magnificat.” The hymn Mary sings as she visits her auntie, Elizabeth. Mary’s song, celebrating God’s mighty act of deliverance . Mary’s song celebrating God’s mighty act as if it has already happened!  While all the while, Mary is still pregnant and unwed. Still a refugee. Still a peasant , in an occupied cou...

and close the path to misery The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the 1st Chapter! Today is the last Saturday/Sunday of Advent… In just a few, all-too short days , we will celebrate Christmas. Soon our vigil will be completed. Over. In Advent we wait. We prepare.  What did you wait for?  A new you? More patience? An end to conflict? Peace at home? An era of goodwill among humanity? Concord in the family? Christ’s coming? His return? How has it been? Have the things you waited for come to fruition? Are they at least nearly fulfilled?  Perhaps it was just too hard for you. You couldn’t bring yourself to hope this year. You gave up looking forward. There wasn’t anything to look forward to. Your last hope was dashed long ago. You didn’t wait this advent. Not for anyone. For anything. For you, this season was just another trip through the motions. Christmas always seem to promise more than it delivers, doesn’t it? A person can only ...