Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Romans 5:1-5   The Unshakable Foundation St. Philip’s, Norwood   Dear Church, I know you are tired…of waking up to a world of uncertainty…of warily doomscrolling your social media…of turning on and tuning in to a steady cycle of changes, chances, and crises.   I know you are tired…of the images of pain and suffering, of war and violence, of despair.   In the nation.   In the world.   And now very much seared into your soul.   I know you are tired…because you no longer know what to do or say or how to feel, because the emotions are so mixed these days, mixed to the point of muddled.   The foundations are being shaken.   Those things long taken for granted in our society are being questioned and undermined and, in some cases, discarded.   Trust has eroded as the very technologies we believed would usher in an information age have proved at least equally adept at transmitting misinfo...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 16:16-34   Paul and Silas Do Big Things St. Paul’s, Keeseville, NY   Life is full of surprises.   One never can tell what twists and turns might be just around the corner.   One morning, Paul and Silas set off in the direction of their place of prayer.   Nothing about that day’s journey was in any way noteworthy.   It was normal; something they did.   But on one particular morning, the one noted in our reading from Acts, something in their routine changed.   On the way, on that day, they met an enslaved girl.   And that too would be unremarkable except that she decided to make a scene.   Now, these things do happen; loud and obnoxious people do exist.   And they do sometimes make life uncomfortable.   But this meeting, it turns out, was more than that, more than a singular disturbance.   This meeting would forever change each individual life.   This meeting woul...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Revelation 7:9-17   Hope from the Margins St. James, Oneonta   Everything changed in the fourth century.   Historians argue the details.   Christians debate the merits.   But what is undeniable is that during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Church was thrust into the Halls of Power for the first time in its history.   When the Emperor found Jesus, he made sure everyone else did too – whether they wanted to or not.   After centuries of exclusion, oppression, humiliation, and persecution, the sudden experience of comfort and influence was as dizzying as it was difficult to resist.   The enemy Empire of the book of Revelation, Rome, abruptly affixed the cross of Christ to its weapons of war and marched out to conquer the world.   And as the years passed, and the footprint grew, the Church and its leaders began to forget the little Church of the Book of Revelation.   That Church, s...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 9:1-20   Saul and Ananias Emmanuel, Little Falls   He was well within his rights and he was sure he was right.   Saul was a man possessed by a passion for law and order.   The law justified the order he intended to impose upon his world.   It was God’s work.   He was sure of that.   He was convinced that his mission – his mission to hunt down religious deviants and root out their bad theology – was divinely inspired, the commission of an exacting and merciless deity.   And so he marched proudly into the office of the high priest and demanded a blessing.   And he received that blessing.   He was formally deputized to rid the world of blasphemy.   This would be Saul’s legacy, how he was going to be remembered, why he would be known throughout the Empire: he was going to end the Way.     And that would make him a hero to both his religious authorities and their ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 20:19-31   Wounds Trinity, Gouverneur   The disciples needed to see the wounds.   They knew the stone was displaced and the tomb was empty – but that didn’t prove anything.   Some of the disciples, men in that very locked room, had even seen the discarded linen wrappings, but they did not see any life.   They had heard, and rejected, Mary’s startling testimony; she, they decided, was obviously sick with grief.   They could not deny that fantastical rumors were buzzing, but rumors are not evidence.   Impossible tales, unlikely explanations, were pestering their weary heads and their tender hearts – making things worse.   Their pain was fresh; their fear was real; they were trying to survive without Jesus – trying to get used to this sad, new normal.   They would not get their hopes up because high hopes crash hard.   And so, they decided to play it safe: they simply would not believ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 24:1-12   Followers Cathedral of All Saints   Unlike most preachers, Mary Magdalene was not worried about her Easter Sunday sermon.   Maybe she should have been, because, according to the Gospel, it was a flop.   But she wasn’t.   She had something else on her mind when she left the house early on Easter morning.   It had been a terrible weekend, the worst of her life.   And that is why she was dragging her listless body, her broken heart, and her satchel of spices down the barren road of a barren cemetery.   It was Easter Sunday and Mary wasn’t thinking about a sermon; she was thinking about death.   It was all she could think about.   Because what she saw on that Friday, she could never unsee.   That nightmare was burnt into her soul.   The immensity of the violence was overwhelming, of course, but the worst thing was that it was so personal.   Jesus was he...