RoboPreacher

no more amnesty A sermon on information about kingdom consolidation : I suppose the only thing to say about today’s Scripture is, what am I going to do with it?!?! I don’t know if you noticed , but there’s not really anything happening in this passage! There’s no action! Nothing of significance is taking place, not really! Oh sure, David is crowned king of all of Israel. And yes, there’s the no holds barred rejoicing as they take the ark to Jerusalem. But that’s not really all that spicy ! It’d be like saying there’s a war brewing in the Holy Land. It’d be like noting that we’re really going to belt it out when we get to sing, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.” Sure, there’s information in those two sentences, but there isn’t much drama to them! Is there? On their own, they’re just facts. And that’s fine and all, but the trouble is, I’ve got to preach an entire sermon here! What am I supposed to do with today’s passage?!? It’s not hard to summarize the gist . After all the twi...

will sometimes make a rich man weep / & knock him off his feet A Pentecost sermon on Philippians' conclusion I like the Narrative Lectionary because there’s just one passage of Scripture instead of a series of loosely connected ones. Focusing on one passage is much less confusing in a world that’s less and less familiar with the Bible .   I also appreciate the straight progression through the Bible. I believe this strategy helps broaden our familiarity with the entire gamut of the Bible. Hopefully, working our way from Genesis to Pentecost helps us see that the Bible is a unified story culminating in Christ . Today , though, we have two passages. And this is because, although we’re working our way through Paul’s Epistle to the Church in Philippi, you can’t not have the reading of that first Pentecost on Pentecost Sunday! Can you?! At first, this bothered me. Frankly, I wanted to preach on Philippians . And having another long passage before the one we were focus...

time will never matter The Holy Gospel according to St. John the 13th chapter ! This sermon isn’t about our “ nevers ,” it’s about Jesus’ always … On the night as the pot started to boil over. The night before everything hit the fan. The night before the final reckoning. The night even the air was tense .   Jesus gathered his inner circle around a table.   Only, instead of laying out a plan to take down the enemy, Jesus took off his robe. Instead of putting on a military uniform, he puts on servant’s rags. And instead of taking up arms, he picks up a bowl. On the night when all the forces of evil will wage war with Jesus, Jesus doesn’t stand up to the wicked ruler, instead he kneels at the side of his disciples! He wages no righteous war, instead he washes their dirty feet.   * Even Judas’, who would betray him… And Peter, along with the rest of us, will have none of it. He tells Jesus “ never .” “You will never wash my feet,” P...