'Celebrity Edition' Sunday Sermons

Celebrities preaching on topical issues of interest to...themselves.

Will Smith on ‘Turning the Other Cheek’:

Our passage this morning is from Matthew 5 and Jesus’ admonition to “turn the other cheek.”

Love makes you do strange things, so at the Academy Awards when Chris Rock insulted my wife, Jada, I immediately thought of this saying of our Lord. Chris seemed to be offering me his cheek, so I “turned it” with a strong, stern slap of my right hand.

I reacted emotionally, and it was wrong. But it led me to read further in Matthew. I found the next verse to be very comforting:

And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

Chris decided not to press charges, so he must have been reading this verse, too, thank the Lord!

But don't think that God fails to administer justice in cases like mine. The Williams sisters cornered me after the awards ceremony, and beat me to within an inch of my life with their carbon-fiber composite tennis rackets.

Ted Cruz on ‘becoming as a little (racist) child’ [with poster board illustration]

As you can see from my poster, babies are innocent. Indeed, Jesus said “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3-4).

Many of Jesus' words here are mysterious. For instance, the admonition to "humble yourself." Puzzling. I've had a call in to my spiritual advisor Joel Osteen to clarify this, but haven't received a response yet.

Anyway, we know that babies are not born racist. They have to be taught racism. That's something we know a lot about here in Texas. But that comes later. Babies at this age don't know to avoid people unlike themselves.

Perhaps illegal immigrant babies are racist, I don't know. I'm not a sociologist. But as I'm speaking to you this morning, I've sort of lost my train of thought. …er, just checking my Twitter feed ...What were we talking about again?

Joe Biden on 'Idle Words'

Matthew 12:26 says, “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”

Yes, I've made a lot of gaffes in my day. They're part of my political baggage. Most of them just make me look old and demented. But some words can come back to bite you.

Case in point, in Poland I reacted emotionally to the suffering Ukrainian refugees I saw and rashly said Vladimir Putin “cannot remain in power.” And I immediately had to “give account” of those words. We don't have a policy to get rid of Putin. But I’m not walking it back, no. What I meant was, morally, Putin should stop doing bad things. Just like I should quit spouting idle words. And the press should stop spreading my idle words all around the world. What if YOUR idle words were spread around the world? You wouldn't like it, would you? Didn’t think so.

And this brings us to another verse. James 3:5 - “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”

Luckily, God explains why you may be hearing a lot more gaffes coming out of my mouth:

James 3:8 - “But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.”

Mitch McConnell on Jesus’ Footwear

Many of you were surprised when I castigated former President Trump for his role in stirring up the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. And others of you were just as puzzled when I later completely changed my mind and defended him.

It’s all explained as we examine Jesus’ sandals.

To understand me—or anyone else—you have to “walk a mile in their moccasins” as the saying goes. But Jesus wasn't wearing moccasins. No, he was wearing leather flip flops.

But we need to go deeper with our exegesis. If you examine the etymology of “flip” and “flop,” we find them showing up throughout the Bible. During His ministry Jesus walked hundreds of miles on foot—always wearing his flip-flops. Before the woman could wash Jesus’ feet, she first had to remove his flip flops (Luke 7:36-50). Same thing when Jesus washed the disciples feet (John 13:14–17).

Jesus’ flip flops are all over the Gospels!

Therefore I think you can see that MY “flip flop” on President Trump’s accountability for the Jan. 6 insurrection is just orthodox doctrinal thinking. In the same way a zen koan doesn’t follow strict rationality. Look past the obvious and comprehend the spiritual! Amen?

Next Week: Tucker Carlson on why the biblical “Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh” who would “come out of the north” (Ezekiel 38:1-4) is not referring prophetically to Russia but rather to “Northern California” i.e. San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi.