RoboPreacher

but I don't care A sermon from the hodgepodge of Luke 5 : This is one of those passages from the Bible that you hear and think, “I’ve heard this before.”  This passage has that ring of familiarity to it, doesn’t it? Well, it sounds so familiar, because it is .  This is one of the few passages in the Bible that turns up in all four Gospels!  It’s a surprisingly rare thing for a account of Jesus’ ministry to turn up in all four gospels. And this passage does! Well, parts of it anyway… With the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, this passage tells of the drafting of the first disciples. How Jesus called Peter and his partners, to follow him. How then and there, they dropped everything and did just that.  With the Gospel of John, this passage tells about how, after a night of failure , Jesus tells Peter to cast out to some spot or another. How when Jesus’ orders are followed the result is a catch is so big, the nets can barely keep from break...

upon our eyes Sermon on Jesus' Baptism; Luke 3:1-22 : There’s a book I haven’t read. A movie was made of it, though; and I have seen that. “Big Fish.” It’s basically a Father/Son story. The son, a consummate practicalist; and the father… The father who is, well, always telling these tall tales .  The son can’t stand it, and wishes for nothing more than his father to face up to reality.  It all comes to a head in the father’s last days. As his death comes, the son expects his father to finally give up the charade . The father, though , doesn’t . The father doesn’t, predictably, because of another one of his far-fetched stories… …When he was a boy, says the father, he and some buddies dared one another to run to the door of a dilapidated building on the edge of town. Rumor was, a witch lived there. And if you looked her in the eye, you’d see you own death… As the father tells it, he went to the door. And when the witch jumped out, he calmly asked her t...

for auld lang syne "Another New Year, and the one who makes all things new " Happy New Year’s! And for us, it is a happy occasion. It exemplifies all we hold most dear; Cherishing our past and hopefully looking ahead to what’s next . New Year’s; the celebration of last year and the promise of all the next one. It’s a holiday that embodies are highest aspirations… And sure, there may be room for improvement , but that’s what New Year’s resolutions are for. A new year, a new you. Time to turn over a new leaf… Although by now I’ve turned over enough new leaves to fill a forrest … And if we had to admit it, that’d be the rub of New Year’s. Wouldn’t it? Our past is just a little more sordid than the glitter that falls as the ball drops. Our future is not as full of the promise as innocent “baby new year.” …In 1985, after years of declining sales, Coke-Cola decided to catch up and catch on. Pepsi, loaded with sugar and artificial sweeteners, ...

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...

well mister they vanish right into the air Final sermon from the Old Testament :  Before we hear our reading, I would like to set it up: It begins, of course, with old Sarah and Abraham. The two of them, trying to make a go of it in the wilderness. Without a child. When out of nowhere, God sends a messenger to those two with a promise. A promises that sounds too good to be true. God will send them offspring.  But not just a child. God promises to multiply their descendants. Even providing their descendants land to inhabit. God, the messenger says, is going to make these two ancestors of a great people! Old and childless though they may have been, God stayed faithful. In time sending them a child. And then, two grandchildren! And then, a gaggle of great-grandchildren! …Right when it began to look as if the promise made to Sarah and Abraham was about to be fulfilled, the grandchildren were at each other’s throats. Jacob’s brother sell him in to s...