RoboPreacher

and grace will lead us home A sermon on 1st Peter's admonition to converts :   Seeing as it’s a holiday weekend and we’re all a little distracted , let’s begin with some participation . Shall we? Here’s what I’d like you to consider: What’s one place you especially feel at home ? And if you’re thinking of answering “ home ,” well, try to be a little more specific , please! Is there a particular room or effect that’s especially comforting to you?   Start thinking, too. I’m going to ask you to share . For me, the answer would be that weird L-shaped sitting room in the parsonage. In particular, it would be sitting on the couch during January , as winter light poured in through the big picture window and reflected off the clean, hardwood floors.   How’s that for specific? And you know what, I didn’t have to think that hard about it, either! I remember that moment so clearly . However, Amanda , no doubt, will be quick to point out she’s not in that example.   But he...

'tis only the splendor of light hideth thee a sermon on Isaiah's sermon about fruitless vineyards : This passage sounds so, well, primitive ! Doesn’t it? All this talk of GOD letting the people have it strikes our ears as problematic . It sounds needlessly retributive and wrathful .   No, we know better. Don’t we? We know God would never do anything like that. Or, if God ever did, that was the God of the Old Testament, as we like to say. Since then, God has turned over a new leaf. These days, God is as treacherous as a leaf . Now, God is hopelessly merciful .   A couple of things. First of all, that’s a heresy. And it’s an old one, too. The heresy is known as Marcionism, and the name comes from the founder, Marcion.   Marcion was a theologian (of course) who lived in what’s now Turkey during the second century. And like us , he found the violence in the Old Testament distasteful . Like us, Marcion couldn’t reconcile the Old Testament’s depiction of God with the one...