Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 4:35-41 & I Samuel 17 Heroes in the Time of Fear I still remember it vividly – because fear is like that; it sticks in the soul.   When I was a child, we lived in a dodgy neighborhood, close to a junk yard.   Our house was a long, brick ranch – and my bedroom was at one end, while my parents’ room was at the opposite end.   A long hallway separated us. And I had this fear that, in the night, someone was going to drive down our long driveway, the one between the junk yard and our home, and break into our house and take me or hurt me – me at the end of the long hallway.   Any time I heard a noise late at night, fear washed over me, whispered its dark secrets into my frantic mind.   And I would pull the red quilt, the one decorated with the birds of Ohio, the one from my grandmother, over my head and I would try my best not to move a muscle.   I would slow my breathing so that no intruder could hear me hiding.   I would lie still beneat

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson I Samuel 15:34-16:13 Seeds of Hope I feel like I don’t even know him anymore.   I’m thrown.   Samuel: he used to be so brave.   But now, his tears and jitters even got God’s all-seeing x-ray eyes rolling.   If this reading from I Samuel started just a few verses earlier, you would certainly understand and share my surprise. See, before the tears and the reluctance, Samuel was standing tall.   No tears.   No fears.   In fact in the verses immediately preceding today’s passage, Samuel quite literally hacked the king of Amalek into pieces with his sword.   He did that and then just turned around and walked away without saying another word.   Crazy stuff; not for the timid or the faint of heart.   That does not seem like a dude who would get nervous about a trip to Bethlehem.   Just before cutting up the foreign king, Samuel cut his own king down to size – not with a sword, but with his words, every bit as sharp.   Samuel was so devastating

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 2:23 – 3:6 All Fall Down If Jesus asked me the same question, I could have unequivocally answered Yes.  I have read.  I have read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food.  I have read that.  Actually a number of people in the congregation have read that - recently in fact.  Because that story is found in the book of I Samuel and we just finished studying I Samuel in our Wednesday evening Bible study.  If you are new to the story, what you should know is that David was on the run from Saul - that is the occasion that drove him to the house of God. King Saul was trying to kill him; the king was jealous and paranoid and in his madness decided that pinning David to the wall with a spear was the best cure for his anxiety.  Given the urgency of the situation, David and his band of ruffians needed to get out of town quickly – so quickly in fact that they did not even bother to gather the needed supplies – things like