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Do Not Be Afraid [Great Vigil of Easter - Mark 16:1-8]

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  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 16:1-8   Do Not Be Afraid The Cathedral of All Saints, Albany, NY   Of course they were afraid.   This is a scary world.   You heard tonight’s Scriptures.   In this world, though created good, predators stalk gardens of paradise, even Eden.   In this world, the innocent are enslaved and pursued to the point of hopelessness.   In this world, exiles long for home, sometimes long for what is left of home.   In this world, the path to the tomb can be treacherous and, because the shadows are so long, people have to travel in groups.   Even in the pages of the Scriptures.   Even in the earliest hours of Easter.   And then there is death.   In this world.   In the Easter Scriptures.   These women, the ones who walked to the tomb, they carried spices.   The spices were their gift for the dead, to cover the unpleasantness, and to give distraction to their unpleasant thoughts.     These Gospel women are haunted women.   They had seen terr
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Jesus Stays [Good Friday]

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  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Passion according to John   Jesus Stays   It is said that in the face of mortal danger a human will naturally react in one of two ways: fight or flight.   As the first Holy Week unfolded, in the Garden of Gethsemane, this was on full display.   Peter unsheathed his sword and took a swing.   Other disciples desperately scattered from the scene.   All acting, shall we say, naturally, in the face of danger.   All except Jesus.   Jesus didn’t fight; he commanded his disciple to put away the sword.   And Jesus didn’t fly away with the others.   In the face of mortal danger, Jesus stayed.      In the near future, as Thursday melted into Friday, Jesus would face bitter accusations.   Strangers would dismiss his goodness and smear his name.   The devoutly religious would batter him with Bible verses.   The apathetic would make light of his love and mock his reign.   Soldiers would displace his loveliness and open his flesh with fists and tho
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Location: Albany, NY, USA
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Chrism Mass of Holy Week 2024

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  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 6:1-8   Chrism Mass 2024   You are here today because someone spoke a word of God into your life.   Someone planted the seed.   Someone, at some point, became the first person who was convinced you were called to be set apart.   To be a priest.   Or to be a deacon.   To be an ordained minister of the Gospel.   For me, it was my paternal grandparents: Bob and Sharon Williamson.   And they first spoke that word into my life when I was just a boy.   The dawning days of my vocation were not of biblical proportions.   I didn’t get the divine drama of the scene in Isaiah, no sweetness of temple incense or angelic vision; my lips were not singed with a live coal.   Instead, what I remember most of those early days is a very particular scent: it was this overwhelming floral perfume, wafting from the dish of decorative soaps – certainly my grandma’s addition to the home.   They looked like little glossy roses.   And they were peach because, at
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An Answer for the Greeks [Lent 5B - John 12:20-33]

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  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 12:20-33   An Answer for the Greeks Trinity, Watervliet, NY   These Greeks were strategic.   They wanted to arrange a meeting with Jesus.   But that was difficult.   During the years of his public ministry, Jesus was always surrounded by crowds of the lame, the sick, the curious, and the skeptical.   But on this particular day, the day the Greeks decide to check in, the crowds were exceedingly large.   On that particular Sunday, Google Maps would have labeled Jesus “busier than usual” – maybe even “as busy as it gets.”   Jesus’ fame was hitting its crescendo.   He had just entered the Holy City Jerusalem.   In the city, he was greeted by palms and psalms; he was greeted as a king.   And so, for the Greeks, on that day, it was especially hard to get face time.   Jesus was a popular guy under normal circumstances; but the crowds were wild that day, that day we call Palm Sunday.   Jesus was absolutely surrounded.   And so these visiting
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Location: Watervliet, NY, USA
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Love and Baptism [Lent 4B - Ephesians 2:1-10]

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  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Ephesians 2:1-10   Love and Baptism Holy Name, Boytonville   At that point in my life, it is unlikely I would have been described as a notorious sinner – though, admittedly, I was prone to the passions of my flesh.   As I approached the baptismal font, those passions of the flesh were about all I had: a passion for sleep, for nourishment, and the selfish desire to have other people meet my every want and need.   I was one month old when I was baptized.     Like many of us, I am a product of infant baptism.   My grandfather, a United Methodist pastor, baptized me in a font not far from the Ohio River, in a village almost exactly the size of this one.   He had no sense, as he poured sacred waters over my head, how my life would go.   He did not know that I would spend my teenage years leading worship in Pentecostal churches; or that I would discover the Book of Common Prayer while attending a small evangelical college; or that I would fall i
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Location: Boyntonville, NY 12090, USA
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Following Jesus [Lent 2B - Mark 8:31-38]

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  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 8:31-38   Following Jesus St. Thomas’ Pakistani Episcopal Church   Jesus was not oblivious.   He was well aware of the excitement that followed him – a blossoming expectation that threatened full bloom.   The conversation in today’s Gospel passage follows on the heels of a miraculous banquet, the feeding of four thousand people, in the desert, with just a few loaves and fish.   Not long after the leftovers were cleared and collected, Jesus performed the stunning healing of a blind man.   Jesus was doing miracles.   And miracles make people talk and ask questions and even hope.   The disciples were not immune to the contagious excitement.   They could feel it; they were in it.   They witnessed so many miracles with Jesus, and by Jesus, that the sheer quantity could make the miraculous feel almost mundane.   They watched as Jesus’ words captured large crowds; his love transformed lives.   His gravity collected what was becoming a moveme
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Relentless mercy and fierce love [Lent 1B - Genesis 9:8-17]

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  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Genesis 9:8-17   Relentless mercy and fierce love St. Boniface, Guilderland   According to the book of Genesis, death came into this world, not through disease or atrophy, but through violence.   Brother against brother.   A clash of two creatures made in the divine image.   And that shattered God’s heart.   The pain vibrated through the universe.   God laid that pathos at the feet of Cain, the first killer, saying, “Your brother’s blood is crying out to me.”   And in that horrible early moment of human history, God recognized our fatal flaw and tried to stop it.   God inscribed Cain with a mark of protection in hopes that the cycle of violence might stop.   But it didn’t and we didn’t.   The violence continued, in thought, word, and deed.   Until God gave up and made a flood.   The reason God offered Noah for the watery disaster was human violence.   Genesis tells us that the earth was filled with violence because of people.   And God cou
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Location: Guilderland, NY 12084, USA
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