RoboPreacher

i want you around A sermon on the First Chapter of Ruth Like so many good stories this one begins on the run . After a famine hits, Naomi and her husband pack-up, get the boys in their carseats and say goodbye to their old life in search of a better one… …It’s a familiar story, isn’t it? I grew up in a small town, west and north of here. By small I mean, 8 blocks long by three blocks wide. My friends and I, we spent high school talking about how once we left, we’d never go back. How we were going to leave and find something better . …Only, it’s not that simple, is it? The past doesn’t let go of us so easily. And it’s no different for Naomi, either. She can only run for so long before everything she’s been running from, catches up with her…. And in spades, too. First , Death comes for her husband.   And then, if that weren’t enough, right when her boys get to be the age when Naomi can start expecting grandchildren, Death finds her again ...

lead me to water lord, i sure am thirsty A sermon from the Christ Hymn in Philippians 2 This is one of those passage that sounds nice… “Be of the same mind. Have the same love. Be in full accord.” It does. It sounds nice. It sounds nice, UNTIL you realize you DON’T actually want to! Be honest. Who here really wants to, in humility, regard others as better than ourselves? Are any of us really so eager, NOT to pursue our own interests, but somebody else’s ? Well??? Because that’s the rub with passage like this, isn’t it?   Nice as it MAY sound, deep down, we don’t actually want to.   When the rubber hits the road, there’s something in us , that insists on insisting on our own way, isn’t there? We all have this part of ourselves that is willing do pursue our own interests before all else. As bad as that realization may be, what’s worse is when, after hearing a passage like this, the pastor just glibly climbs in the pulpit and proce...

despite of all your losing A sermon from the introduction of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (1:1-18a ): Well, I finally saw the new marvel movie… You know, the BIG one, with all the superheroes.   But I’ve got to confess; I got a little bored .   Not because it wasn’t good. It was.   It’s just that, in those movies where the “fate of the whole world hangs in the balance,” I just tend to lose a little interest… I’m like Emmet, in the Lego-Movie. When they’re trying to explain the significance of the magic red-block to him. It cuts to his head, what he’s hearing; and it’s just explosions. That’s how it is for me too in these movies where some stones are the key to whether humanity makes it or not… Because the truth is, my world isn’t that big. I can’t relate to those stakes!   My world is comprised of small things. You know, petty grievances. Short -comings. The occasional victory; that in perspective isn’t really that b...

the city of hope A lesson from the Acts of the Apostles : It’s good to be back! And especially to this weather ! As nice as the vacation was; by the final few days, I was telling all these stories about YOU ! Yeah, you …. At some point I realized it, and worse than that, what it meant!   “ Darn it!” I thought to myself, “I miss them! They’ve wormed their way into my heart!” I couldn’t help but wonder how I’ll ever keep y’all under control , now that I’m fond of you!!! …But, I hope the treachery is mutual . In fact, I remember when I first came, and how Cooper — good Lutheran than he is— was suspicious … “Who’s that,” he asked. And when he was told I was the new pastor, he replied, “He’s not my pastor.”   After a few months though, his tune had changed to greeting me with a “Pahstohr Rye-un!” as I rushed into the sanctuary on Sunday morning. Because the deal it, this is what God LOVES to do ; take strangers and turn them into kind...

'til i wanted to change The Holy Gospel according to St. John the 21st chapter ! The third time Jesus asks Peter if he loved him, it cut Peter to the heart… But not because Jesus asked three times if Peter loves him. Now, to understand why , you need to go back to when that day began .   When he and the other disciples all struggled together to haul the nets in.   As the ship swayed back and forth, and the men instinctively rocked their bodies forth and back to counterbalance the momentum that would overturn their ship… For Peter, it was one of those moments that’s almost surreal . He thinks how easily the boat could capsize. Just a little too far one way or the other, and everything would go overboard . Peter can’t help but think about how this because his old life, precariously balanced as it had been, was now overturned… We know what that’s like, don’t we? How it takes so much to keep our lives from flipping. How all it ta...