Preaching the Scriptures

T he Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 10:34-43   Water St. James, Au Sable Forks   We live on a world of water.   Seventy-one percent of the surface of our planet is covered in the stuff.   And that water makes life possible.   The smallest to the largest lifeforms are teeming with liquid life.   Including us.   Each person, each human being, is mostly water: babies are almost 80% water weight; adults around 60%.   Water allows us to think (the brain is about ¾ water); to breathe (the lungs are more than 80% water); to pulse with life (the heart is about 75% water and our blood checks in around 90%).   We are a water people on a watery world.   And in this big world, we happen to live and minister in a diocese very much defined by water.   Our southern border is a mountain range named after a kill, a creek – the Catskill Mountains.   Our northern border is the St. Lawrence.   Not far from here, our eastern...

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 2:1-20   Beautifully Strange Cathedral of All Saints, Albany   The very first Christmas was tucked into, what might have been, the quietest corner of the world.   So quiet that it was almost like a little secret between God and a select few.   And the few were not social influencers or cultural heavy weights; they were not people positioned to start a buzz.   Instead, they were social pariahs, cultural leftovers: a young couple unmarried with child and some suspect nomads – people who didn’t matter.   And so, Christmas started as a whisper.   But, as you know, the secret got out.   Like a rumor that went viral.     And so tonight, from this pulpit, I feel like I am telling you something you already know: this timeless story of a peasant baby who became the Savior of the world.   You could likely recite the details of this Lukan account without notes, off the cuff – because the ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 1:18-25                                       Plans St. Luke’s, Catskill   It was not the happiest day of his life, the day he found out his beloved was pregnant.   It was supposed to be, but it was not.   We tried for months – my wife and me.   Throwing away all of those negative tests.   Piles of disappointing plastic.   And feeling defeated.   And sad.   And so Jen’s grandmother, now of blessed memory, told us to book a trip.   So that we would have to think about something else.     And so, out of ideas, and trusting an older wisdom, we did.   We booked a vacation to Italy – a trip with enough detail and nervousness to occupy, or rather distract, our frazzled minds.   ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 3:1-12   The Moral Code of Scrooge Grace, Waterford   ‘Tis the season…of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.   At this point in history, it is, I believe, scientifically impossible to avoid the basic framework of the beloved 1843 novella during the month of December.   The story of Scrooge and his ghosts has been endlessly re-told and adapted.   In addition to the printed page, Old Scrooge has been on the screen since 1901, in what I can only imagine, was a highly ambitious, significantly condensed, six-minute retelling of the story.   Since then, there have been dozens of additional adaptations – all longer than six minutes.   You can watch versions featuring Bill Murray, George C. Scott, Mr. Magoo, Mickey Mouse (my own nostalgic favorite), Bugs Bunny, the Flintstones, Dr. Who, the animated Ghostbusters, Barbie, Dolly Parton, Mr. Belvedere, and, of course, the Muppets – to name just a few. ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 2:1-5   Dream Bigger St. Paul’s, Greenwich   Once again we welcome the advent of a new year.   This sanctified new year comes with considerably less fanfare than the one that will begin on January first.   We celebrate this new year around an altar instead of a television, at a respectable hour, not in the middle of the night.   This morning, we lit a single candle instead of dropping a gaudy, luminous ball.   Moments from now, we will drink consecrated wine rather than bubbly champagne.   And I am the only person who dared to wear a festive, pointy hat at this New Year’s celebration.     A short month from now, when the ball does drop, we will muster up our courage and make our resolutions: new dreams to wrap around our old lives.   But today, at this dawning, we do something a little different.   Recognizing that our resolve is always and forever a bit too thin, we dar...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 23:33-43   The Sign Calvary, Burnt Hills, NY   The sign is a joke.   Not a funny joke; not a joke that brings joy or happiness to the world.   It is, instead, one of those “clever” jokes, like a cartoon in the New Yorker. Maybe it doesn’t make you laugh out loud, but if you get it, if you can untangle the irony, you smile a little and feel smart.   The sign was that kind of joke.   And the joke, this joke, it is on us.   Because we clearly don’t get it, don’t get the clever irony.   We take the sign, nailed as it was just above the head of Jesus, literally.   As if that sign was an informative museum plaque.   And that is a strange stance to take, given the circumstance, in light of the terrible events of this Gospel story.       Most everyone in the story was in on the joke.   The leaders riffed on it, for the entertainment of the crowd, stand-up in ...