RoboPreacher

to recreate us A sermon on the Israelite's wandering the wilderness It all began with so much promise : There were the staggering plagues. The hasty escape. The harrowing passage through the Red Sea. The songs of triumph belted out from the safe side of the shore. And then there was the much-needed respite of Elim. Elim, that little oasis full of fresh water and lush palm trees. For the Israelites, though , all that is now well in the past . A distant memory. And if that wasn’t enough , their destination still lies a good way ahead of them. So far ahead, in fact, they can’t make out the faintest glimmer of their journey’s end , the Promised Land to which God is leading them. For all intents and purposes, it appears as though God has left the Israelites in as dire of straights as they’ve ever known.   This is the very essence of the wilderness. The wilderness is that place betwixt and between . In the wilderness , all those comforts of the past are roundly a thing of ...

what a spell we're all pinned under A reading from 1 Kings; chapter 12, verses 1-17 and 25-29 : A central tenet of the reformation is “ simul justus et peccator .” That’s latin for, “ simultaneously saint and sinner.”   What this nifty little phrase means is that to be a human is to be both a sinners and a saint! At the same time. All of the time! That rings true to life. Doesn’t it? I know it does for me . And not in some theoretical way, either. But in a real life kind of way. Daily I experience the tug of war of being caught between sinner and saint. Of wanting to do the right thing, and failing to. And, of experiencing the disorienting encounter of having done the right thing, but NOT when I were trying to! …We are, if nothing else, a confusing mixture of good and evil… And this description is one you can see playing itself out over and over again.   Not least of all, in scripture … Today’s scripture begins with King Reh...