Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson I Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14   Succession Planning All Angels, Twilight Park   People still talk about his dad.   Star of David, City of David, Son of David.   The King David Hotel, and its five-star rating: it stands today in the center of the city the great ruler put on the map some 2900 years ago.   Tourists flock to see Michelangelo’s brilliant sculpture of his father’s nude form in Florence, Italy.   David looms large, still…and then…and always.   Solomon, his son, had a hard act to follow.   David overshadowed every king who ever sat on the throne, his throne, the one called, of course, the throne of David – called that no matter who was sitting on it at the time.   David’s predecessor, Saul, crumbled in his presence, became an historical footnote.   And every king who followed him, until the Babylonians paused his line in 587 BCE, were chilled by his long shadow, were measured aga...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson I Samuel 16:1-13   A New Beginning   This is a story of new beginnings: a new beginning for a young shepherd boy; a new beginning for a nation; a new beginning for an old weathered prophet; even a new beginning for God.   But in this story, like in most stories, new beginnings don’t come easy.   They are shadowed by endings.   And they rarely emerge from anything other than at least a touch of grief.   It was Samuel who had, years earlier, anointed a gangly kid from the tribe of Benjamin.   Saul was tall and handsome – so he had the look – but he was from a poor family, and a bit awkward, certainly not the most obvious royal choice.   But he was the one God chose.   And Samuel was in the business of hearing and doing God’s word and so he anointing him as king – the first king of Israel.   And so you can perhaps understand that the prophet, Samuel, was invested.   Long before he m...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson 2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a Bathsheba Samuel warned them.   He warned the people.   A king, he said, will take and take and take.   But the people wouldn’t listen.   They wanted a king; they demanded a king; they voted for king. And so they got one. Elections do matter. The warning, in the context of 1 Samuel, seemed to be rather specific, seemed to pertain only to the reign of King Saul.   Saul was the chosen one, their first king; initially everyone was excited; he was oozing with potential; he looked the part; he had great endorsements.   But things devolved quickly.   Saul took and took and took from the people; he exploited their loyalties; he neglected the Law of God.   And early in his reign he had already become the very thing Samuel feared, the very thing about which he had warned the nation.   But David, his replacement, he was different. He was a man after God’s own heart and so surely the old...

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 hidin...

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 w...