Preaching the Scriptures

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 13:24-30, 36-42   In the Garden St. Mark’s, Malone   In the Spring of 2020, I planted a garden.   Property-bound by a mysterious pandemic, my ministry suddenly became work from home.   Screens are inevitable, even in the healthiest of times, but during the earliest days of COVID there was little else.   Morning Prayer and Bible Studies were livestreamed from my living room.   Sermons were recorded for digital upload.   Pastoral care was done by actually talking on the phone.   Everything else, and there was a lot of else, was a seemingly inexhaustible series of Zoom meetings.   The garden became my excuse to disconnect and go outside.   The first thing I planted in my garden was spinach.   I don’t remember why.   Maybe because it can be planted early in the growing season.   Maybe because I was told it is easier to grow than some other veggies.   Maybe because e...

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30   250 Zion, Colton   Yesterday we celebrated the 250th anniversary of the birth of our country.   The semiquincentennial is a momentous occasion – a cause for parades, fireworks, and fanfares.   And we live in an amazing part of the country to revel in it.   Our diocese is dotted with blue historical signs pointing to the earliest days of our national organization.   And yet, for many, it was a complex event given the national strife we are experiencing.   In our United States, we feel the weight of our divisions.   Our one country can feel like an uneasy collection of competing ideologies.     We live in an intensely partisan time – one driven by social media, cash infusions, and political theatre.   The partisanship in our nation is exhausting and it is relentless.   At some level it feels like not many of us really like it, and yet we can’t seem to quit...

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Galatians 3:23-29   A Confirmation Sermon St. John, Massena   Tonight we celebrate the vibrant faith and deepening commitment of our brothers and sisters in Christ, these holy siblings who, moments from now, will bow their heads and open their hearts in expectation.   They are already baptized Christians, already called to ministry in the waters of baptism.   But tonight they are courageous enough to pray for a little more Holy Spirit power.   They are courageous enough to invite the wild influence of the Holy Spirit to undermine any chance they might have had to be ordinary, to be normal.   Instead, they are choosing to live life against the grain.   On this special occasion these precious children of God will reaffirm their allegiance to Jesus and to Jesus alone.   They have determined that their precious lives will be dictated by the demands of love, offered in service to others and in ministry to th...

 T he Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 10:40-42   Welcome you, welcome me Trinity, Potsdam   Friends, you are all over this Gospel passage.   You play every part, like the star of a one-person show.   You are guest and host.   You are prophet and little one.   You are filling the glass and you are emptying it.   This entire tenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel has been complex and encompassing.   It is a missionary commissioning; Jesus is sending his followers out of his shadow and into the world.   The exhortations volley between promise and warning, celebration and suffering.   Even last week in our Gospel we ran the gamut: biological families were at odds even as the household of God was coming together, life was lost and gained, words told in the dark found the light, whispers were shouted from the rooftops.   Life on the Gospel mission was hard, but every moment was held in the loving, attentive gaze of Go...

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7   How the Story Goes St. Luke the Physician, Saranac Lake   In the heat of the day, on the horizon of the desert, the distance is always out of focus.   The hottest heat bends and warps reality.   Abraham was trying to find a bit of relief, an occasional breeze, as the world around him was trying not to melt into a puddle of chaos.   It was hot in the desert.   Blazing hot.  One could smell the stale brine of the Dead Sea from Mamre.  And in that suffocating heat, one could also feel a hint of the death for which the sea was named.  It was not the most hospitable place.    And so, given the treacherous conditions, the patriarch was probably not expecting to see a traveling trio come into focus.   But there they were: three men walking in his general direction.  Abraham should have instantly kicked into threat assessment mode.   They were thre...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 28:16-20   Go! St. John, Delhi   Another week; another mountain.   The disciples have once again gathered at altitude to watch the resurrected Jesus leave.   It feels like we just did this.   Two Sundays ago, on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, on the Sunday after the Ascension, we heard of a similar scene, that time from Luke’s perspective, this time from Matthew’s.   And while the stories do bear a striking resemblance, there is an important distinction between these two goodbyes.   In the telling we heard two weeks ago, the disciples were told to huddle up in an upper room and prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit.   That is not the message of this Gospel passage, these final verses of Matthew’s Gospel.   In Acts, the disciples were directed to wait; here they are told to “GO”!   This “go” is famously how the Gospel of Matthew ends.   It is a stirring and memora...