Sermon: “Everything Old is New (and Old)”, Isaiah 9:1-7 (June 11, 2023)

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This morning, we’re continuing our mini sermon series on Isaiah. Last week we talked about Isaiah’s call to prophecy, and over the next three weeks, we’ll be exploring one prophecy from each of the major divisions of the book: the section written before the Babylonian exile, the section written after the southern kingdom of Judah had fallen, and the section written in anticipation of Israel’s eventual restoration.

Sermon: “A War By Any Other Name”, Isaiah 1:10-20; 2:1-5 (November 20, 2022 - Reign of Christ Sunday)

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I’m going start today’s sermon with a confession and a story. The confession is that the scripture readings we just heard were mostly not what the Narrative Lectionary assigned for today. The bulk of today’s assigned readings (which would have been from Isaiah 36 and 37, in case you want to look it up later) recount a wartime exchange between the kings of Assyria and Judah (the southern kingdom of Israel). But half of the words in these passages are difficult-to-pronounce names, and I found it challenging to keep all the characters, their locations, and the metaphors straight. So instead of forcing the liturgist to suffer through all of this, I’ll just summarize it for you myself instead. Storytime!