EASTER DAY 2015 MARK 16:1-8

I’ve discovered a new way to save time. I’m not a very good typist, and I spend

quite a few hours each week at the keyboard doing this: mime typing with one

finger of each hand. But, now that I have a smartphone with a voice recognition

feature, I can dictate letters, emails and even sermons, and the phone types

them, and I save myself maybe a couple of hours a week. The only problem

with this is that what the voice recognition thing types is sometimes very

different from what I say. It’s an accent thing. Even though I have the setting

on ‘British English’ (like there’s some other kind) its performance is pretty hit

and miss. So, for example last week I dictated the phrase “the theological

content of the sermon”, which my phone typed as “the theological content of

the salmon”. Smart fish. Then there was this gem: "The Bridge currently

serves those in need residing in Zip code 17011." It typed, "the British army

says those in need residing in sectors won seven of one more." What is the

British army doing in my sentence? It’s like the 19th century all over again.

Turn your back for a second and the British army are invading. We’re here to

add this sentence to our Empire. But, the best, and maybe the most eerily true

one, is what it typed when I said the word, ‘Episcopalians’. ‘Escape aliens’.

Those of you getting confirmed next month – do you really want to become

escape aliens? I couldn’t decide if this was a warning, ‘escape aliens, they’ve

landed. They want to take us off in their spaceships and do experiments on us’;

or if it was a new classification the Immigration Service are using. I have a

green card in my wallet that says I’m a Resident Alien, maybe I should have one

that says I’m an Escape Alien. Or maybe it’s a comment on Episcopalians.

We’re all so weird that we may as well be from another planet.

Read the full Sermon here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/public/documents/3205892/20150405_Escape_Aliens_easter.pdf