Sermon Preview: Baptism and Temptation

The First Sunday of Lent this year is one of my favorites as a preacher. The readings are challenging and hugely significant--they're about temptation, human community, and the separation that sin creates among us.

A great deal has been written about the story of the Temptation of Christ in the wilderness. John Milton wrote a brief sequel to the classic Paradise Lost about it, calling it Paradise Regained.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky based the most famous chapter of his novel The Brothers Karamazov, on the story. When I visited my future field education site in Chicago in 2005, it was the first Sunday in Lent and the pastor preached about that chapter, called "The Grand Inquisitor."

This week continues the series "What Are We Doing Here?" with a discussion of Baptism. I wrote about baptism and mass shootings here in 2016. I preached to my conference clergy colleagues about that incident, and our own discordant practices of baptism, early last year.

See you in church!