RoboPreacher

I-1098, the LPPO, & an ELCA social statement. on Prezi This is a presentation I am working on which addresses Washington state's I-1098 in light of the ELCA social statement: Sufficient, Systainable Livelihood For All. You may notice I am not interested in the popular blog post about why Lutheran's are " dying out ". As I see it, there are more pressing issues than what place Lutherans are in, in the Christendom race.

Luke 16-1-13: Please pray with me: God, may the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts be commendable in your sight. Amen. This parable of Jesus is a confusing one, and I must admit it struck me throughout the week. For one thing, Jesus has this very ominous statement: No slave can serve two masters . I found it interesting that my first sermon for my internship, which is split between two locations, I would get the saying: no slave can two masters… Apart from difficult sayings like that, though, I think the question this parable begs is, who is this scoundrel who apparently has a better grasp on the dealings of God’s will, than the children of light? What, exactly, was Jesus trying to tell the disciples and the Pharisees who overheard, about the economy of God with this parable the commends a cheater? What is Jesus, this person constantly questioning the rules of society and the religious establishment, getting at with this parable? We have to won...

Luke 16-1-13: Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager,” and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.” Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, that that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me in their homes’. So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil’. He said to him, ‘Take you bill, sit down quickly, and make is fifty’. Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat’. He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty’. And his master commended the dishonest ma...

Right now I am physically in an in-between place. My summer with the Metro Lutheran has come to an end, and now I am in respite at my folk’s place for a few days until I start my journey west to begin my year-long internship. The back drop for this post is three different news articles. The first is one I wrote for the Metro Lutheran concerning women’s ordination, the second is an article about inclusive language in contemporary, North American, mainline churches (how’s that for a string of adjectives!), and the last is a fantastic article about the men and women in North America today. Briefly, a few words (well, adjectives) about myself: male, white, and lower-middle-class. Also, in-between places. You will have to forgive my lack of citations, I do not have access to my books, they are in transit. The question of gender is one that is of particular interest to me. One, I was not raised by my biological father, yet I did, and do, have many wonderful, loving male ...

This post is particularly difficult for me. I am from Iowa, the nearest "city" I grew up to was Cedar Rapids . I remember trips into town, to worship, get groceries and the like. For many Cedar Rapids isn't much of a city. It is modestly sized and doesn't boast of anything particularly important. The capitol, before the flood, was located on an island. This little trait was shared only by Paris. Cedar Rapids, however, boast something else important. Something else not often given attention. Cedar Rapids hosts the Mother Mosque in America. This mosque, built in 1934, is the first permanent structure built to serve specifically as a mosque in North America. I remember how proud I felt when I learned this. This pride is contrasted to a deep pain over recent events. The opposition to Cordoba House, a Muslim center to be built near ground zero, is well documented . (Listen to the audio, especially the recording of the commission meeting, to get a sense of the ...