Lectionary Musings from the Church Anew Blog: November 16 and 23, and Looking Toward Advent
Each week, we’ll offer a curated selection of blog posts that speak to the upcoming lectionary texts to help spark your imagination and serve as a thought partner for you. We hope these musings meet you right where you are with a fresh, bold, and faithful witness.
November 16, 2025
Semi-continuous Old Testament: Isaiah 65:17-25
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “The Discomforting Gift of Newness”
This new Jerusalem is not some heavenly escape. It is, rather, a viable city where society is marked in healthy ways: by an absence of infant mortality (Isaiah 65:20); by a viable peaceable economy absent of predatory threat (vv. 21-22); by healthy child bearing, in which both mother and child are kept safe (v. 23); by the acute attentiveness of God to their prayers (v. 24); and by a full reconciliation of all parts of the environment (v. 25).
Narrative Lectionary: Isaiah 9:1-7
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “The Size of Government”
As I thought about the size of government in relation to the role of government, I remembered the anticipatory oracle of Isaiah to which we Christians appeal at Christmas. The prophet anticipates the coming of the “good king” (messiah) who will undertake the proper role of government. … The new government will have many roles: counselor, military might, peace. … The NRSV translates, “his authority will grow.” The more familiar KJV has it: The increase of his government shall know no end. Talk about “big government”!
November 23, 2025
Christ the King / Reign of Christ
Rev. Jenny Sung, “Permission to Feel More Than Gratitude”
In Philippi we saw the first Christian Church built in 314 CE, and now it sits in ruins. We saw the ruins of wealthy cities and powerful empires. We saw the tombs of Emperors who were worshipped like Gods and to dust they have returned. No amount of money or power kept them from crumbling. After seeing site after site of ruins, you wonder what’s the point? What will survive? Even now many worry about the institution of the Church. Everything turns to dust, and yet … there we sat. A group of 26 humans on this pilgrimage compelled by the same story that drove Paul to these holy spaces. Despite the many ruins and fallen empires this story continues on. This story continues to draw us close. This story still keeps its promise.
Many of us just celebrated The Reign of Christ Sunday remembering God is God. Everything else we try to worship or lift up turns to dust.
As Advent Dawns
Ryan Panzer, “Finding the Stillness of Advent in a Culture of Yuletide Intensity”
Today I would argue that our current cultural understanding of Christmas isn't as a time of excess but as a time of fervor. We don't view December as a season of consumption and spending, as some would suggest, but a period of vigor. We don't attend 9 Christmas dinners and wrap 35 presents or sit through 5 school concerts because of a desire to consume. We do it because we are caught up in the new-found intensity of the yuletide. This isn't a season of consumption. It's a season of hustle.
Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “The Advent of Agency”
In the same way it is possible in the church, in the midst of lament over our loss of traditional church, traditional culture, and dominant nationalism, to give voice to assurances about God’s fidelity that persists in and through our deepest losses, and is not disrupted by those losses. Thus we have loss to lament; but then we come to affirmation. The church can celebrate that affirmation in the face of lament; but that affirmation leads to neither resignation nor complacency. Rather, it leads to agency, to the readiness and capacity to act in constructive, imaginative ways in defiance toward newness.
Editor’s Note: Have you had a look at our newest Advent To Go? If you’re a lectionary preacher unsure about a sermon series, you might be interested to know that our resources primarily use the assigned texts for the day. Of the lectionary readings for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, our only changes are on Advent 1 and 3. On the first Sunday of Advent, we make space for the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah (traditionally left out of the RCL!). On the third Sunday of Advent, we focus on the annunciation to Mary, expanding on the lectionary’s use of her Magnificat as the Psalm for the day. Give it a look - you might just find yourself saying “Yes!”.
