RoboPreacher

& somehow, i see / it's free A sermon for the confirmation of Chase & Jack: Chase , Jack, dear brothers in Christ, welcome to the faith ! Did that sound odd ? I bet it did. I bet it did, but I want you to know I meant it. And, what’s more , the peculiarity of that sentence is no accident, either. Herein lies your first lesson today: Faith is not intuitive. On the contrary , faith is counterintuitive . The more strange , the closer you are to that blessed and mysterious beating heart of faith. With any luck, you’ll find yourself saying, “How odd of God” many times.   With that, we’ve come upon our second lesson for today: Faith is not a program. And faith is not a formula, either. Faith is not a way to hide from life. And neither is faith a guide to make the confusing twists and turns of reality fit into a predetermined mold.   No, faith doesn’t tell you what lies ahead . Truth be told, real faith really wants nothing to do with that kind of chicanery . No, fa...

these things get louder The second sermon on baptism, with Paul's letter to the Romans as our guide: Much trouble is caused imagining “sin” is only something we do . Or, if we remember our catechism, something we fail to do .   And, while it is what do, and fail to, that unleashes sin. Sin is so much more than just actions . It’s a power that’s been let loose . Sin is a power that’s been let loose in the world… Kind of like that great sci-fi series; “Stranger Things.” A show about this ragtag crew of outcasts who stumble upon an experiment gone horribly wrong.   A weapons manufacturer, exploring paranormal weapons, opened a portal to another dimension. Instead of accessing weapon power, though, they just unlocked a path for the monster who inhabited that dimension, to wreak havoc on ours .   Basically it’s the story of Adam and Eve and the aftermath. A tale of an action that began a terrible chain reaction.   That’s how sin works. Mor...