Sermons & Worship by Rev. Laurie DeMott (Page 10)

Luke 2:1-7 [Introduction to scripture]  We are a multi-denominational church which respects the various Christian traditions represented by the members of our church and so today, in honor of those who come from a Catholic, Anglican, or some other high church tradition, I will be preaching a homily instead of a sermon.  I grew up Baptist so I’m not exactly sure of the official difference between a homily and a sermon but in my mind, a sermon requires a preacher to…

excerpts from Nehemiah Background to ScriptureI have been preaching through the Hebrew scriptures — what Christians call the Old Testament — and today is the last of that series before we move into Advent so before we turn to Jesus I want to give you a very quick review of the history of the Israelites, to put everything in context because remember Jesus was Jewish.  These are the stories of his ancestors so for the last time fall, here it…

Ezra 3:10-13 Background to Scripture:In 597, the Babylonians conquered Judea and over a period of 15 years, deported the Jews into exile in Babylon. (There were three deportations of Jews to Babylon —  597 BCE, 587/586 BCE, and 582/581 BCE.)  In 539 BCE, the Persian Emperor Cyrus conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to go home, though Judea would no longer be an independent nation but would be considered a province of Persia. This is called the period of…

The Book of Esther Do you know the song “Baby Shark?”  If you knew it before this last week, you are either the parent of a three year old or a Washington Nationals fan.  Last week was baseball’s World Series which went seven games and was won by the Washington Nationals.  The Nationals, or the Nats, as their fans call them, were the underdogs in the series; they were playing the strong Houston Astros who came into the series with…

Daniel 3; I Peter 1:3-7 King Nebuchadnezzar ordered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be thrown into the flaming fiery furnace for their refusal to bow down to his statue.  The Bible doesn’t say what kind of furnace this was, but we can assume it was some sort of pottery kiln or massive oven with a viewing port to check on the progress of whatever it was that was cooking in there, and in the story it was Shadrach, Meshach, and…

Jeremiah 36:20-24 As you know, I have been preaching a series on the important stories of the Hebrew scriptures, our Old Testament, and I chose all of those stories way back at the end of the summer.  Back in August, I spent a few days skimming through the Bible and reviewing commentaries in order to compile the list of stories that I would preach on this fall and I tried to choose a story from each of Israel’s historical periods:…

I Samuel 25 Background to scripture: Saul was the first King of Israel but he wasn’t a very strong King and after some missteps, God tells the prophet Samuel that God has chosen the young man David to be King instead.  Since Saul remains on the throne until his death, we have to assume that God didn’t expect the transfer of power immediately but was talking about succession: instead of the throne passing to Saul’s children after his death, it…

I Samuel 9:1-6, 15-17, 10:14-16 What do donkeys have to do with Kings?   Here in Chapters 9 and 10, we have the story of the anointing of Saul as the first King of Israel, chosen to bring together the twelve tribes under one rule so that they might be strengthened as a people and finally know peace from their enemies.   And we also have the story of Saul, the dutiful son out looking for his Dad’s lost donkeys. …

Judges 13:1-5, 15:1-11 Let’s begin by getting the bad joke out of the way.  Who was the greatest comedian in the Bible?  Samson — because he brought down the house! Most people, even the biblically illiterate, have heard of Samson and the long hair that gave him superhuman strength and many can probably even name his mistress, Delilah.  If they know the full story of Samson and Delilah, or have seen the Cecil B. DeMille film of 1949, they will…

Judges 6:36-40 In 1200 BCE, 1200 years before the birth of Christ, the people of Israel lived unsteadily in the Promised Land.  They had entered under the leadership of Joshua, and eventually the twelve tribes had each settled in different areas of Canaan — modern day Israel — where they mingled with the Canaanites and constantly battled the threat of invaders on their borders, mostly a variety of ‘ites’ — the Hittites, the Moabites, the Amalekites.  Even though the Israelites…