RoboPreacher

for dancing in the street A sermon on Paul's sermon on the great, ancient Christ Hymn : Summer is just around the corner. Memorial Day is tomorrow , and with it, vacation -season.   Ah, the summer . That lovely little season of long , lazy days. Warm summer days that break with the cool of the night into free and easy evenings. Yes, the summer , that reprieve from the regular grind . The summer with its excursions for no other purpose than fun and relaxation .   I don’t know about you , but I can’t wait. Now I know that talking about vacation after the violent and senseless past couple of weeks we’ve had can seem obnoxiously trivial . But trust me, nothing could be further from the case. In fact, nothing could be more pertinent . More imperative to our survival .   Our own survival from ourselves . Ourselves and that old compulsion of ours for self- destruction .   And just to be clear, I don’t mean that we all need a break . Although we desperatel...

we don't have to think twice, baby (we can drive each other crazy) A sermon on the introduction to Paul's Epistle to the Philippians : Paul’s not writing this epistle to the folks at First Lutheran in Philippi for any ol’ reason. No , Paul’s writing this letter because this church he’s founded is facing a crisis . And as their founder , Paul knows he’s the only one who can address this mess . What’s happened, as Paul relates right at the top of this correspondence, is that the founder of their church has been incarcerated ! Incarcerated. Am I being too subtle ?!?   Paul’s writing this letter, that’s become a part of the holy writ by the way, because he’s in the hoosegow ! Paul’s in jail! And, unsurprisingly , this incident has caused a bit of a stir back at the church Paul himself helped get off the ground! It’s really not that surprising this turn of events has precipitated a bit of a quandary for the folks back in Philippi, either. After all, how would you like t...

doin' real well A sermon on Paul's sermon in Athens , of all places Paul’s missionary endeavors landed him in Athens . Athens, that birthplace of democracy . And hometown of Socrates , to boot. So, with a little time to kill, Paul took a walk around while he waited for his companions to join him. However , all Paul found in that seat of culture and scholarship was a bunch of religion !   And the worst kind of religion, too! The idolatrous kind. The kind of religion with a lot of talk . A lot of talk that has nothing to say when you’re down and out . The kind of religion that has no teeth ! The kind of religion that’s the worst kind of substitute . Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever got some cheap substitute when you were expecting the real deal? I know when I was out East, I was never pleased when the crab cakes I ordered were made from imitation crab meat instead of the real McCoy. And, of course, the converse is true, too. Getting the goods when all you were exp...

each night as i sleep, into my heart you creep A sermon on Saul's so-called conversion Saul didn’t get more religion on that dusty road to Damascus. And he didn’t get new religion, either. No, Saul already had plenty of religion. He had it in spades . And that was the problem. …I hadn’t been a pastor long when I got one of those calls . The kind that comes out of the blue . The kind that isn’t made by a parishioner. The kind that comes from someone so far at the end of their rope, they’re willing to talk to someone they don’t even know about their personal life.   These kinds of calls are not unheard of. They come in occasionally. Although, not as frequently as one might hope.   Unsure exactly what I was getting myself into, I made arrangements to meet with the individual later that week. He didn’t want to meet that day. And he didn’t want to meet in the church, either. When we finally met up, it didn’t take long for him to launch into the litany. He had blown up a rel...

come on, baby, the laugh's on me A sermon on that time Jesus showed up after that Easter morn Glad Easter tidings to all you, you stalwarts ! You who are here today , on this Sunday after Easter. This infamously low Sunday. While the rest of the world has gone back to business as usual, you’ve turned up here all over again . Blessings. Only, over the years, I’ve learned that the Sunday after Easter (and Christmas, for that matter) are just as, if not more important than the big festival day. Last week, the music , the crowds , the finery , and the feast all created a momentum of their own. There was no time to worry if all this isn’t just a bunch of whistling in the dark during. This week, though, all that is gone . And that absence begs the question, What happened? What was that all about? What now ? Where’d everyone go? And was last week just an anomaly ? This always happens after a significant event, by the way. A loved one dies , and suddenly it feels like your world ...