Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Christmas Eve 2016 Luke 2:1-20 One Tiny Flame I can't explain this. I hope you understand. It all came out of God like poetry instead of prose – beautiful but hard to make sense of. How did the one who spoke creation into being get caught up in the small town drama of a pregnant teen who see angels? How did the God who spilled the stars across the universe like marbles become enclosed in the cramped, black space of a virgin womb? See I can't explain this. I hope you understand. Christmas presents us with more questions than answers. Christmas, I think, means to leave us tongue-tied, at a loss, in awe and wonder, clinging desperately to whatever faith gives us the eyes to see God in that manger. Christmas means to leave us breathlessly pondering all these things in our hearts. So Christmas is, of course, mysterious; it is, after all, God wrapped in packaging much, much too small. But also Christmas is teaching me...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 35:1-10 Hope in the Desert Hope needs a desert in which to bloom. This is what Advent tells us. Elizabeth and Mary, John the Baptist and Jesus: new life born in impossible places; hope blooming in the desert. This also reminds us, this season of Advent, that we don't come by hope easily. It is not mere optimism, born of some dishonest naivety, like a cheap salve more likely to bring infection than healing. Hope digs in deep; it has to. Henri Nouwen makes the distinction saying, “While optimism makes us live as if someday soon things will go better for us, hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present, with the deep trust that God will never leave us alone.” 1 And so, in that sense, maybe the chasm separating the two is filled with trust. Optimism justifies our lack of trust. Hope needs trust to survive. But like most things in the desert, hope is also dangerous. So whi...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 11:1-10 Visions of the Messiah Today is the second Sunday of the Advent season. And we have yet to catch a glimpse of the pregnant Virgin Mother or of the dazed and confused Joseph. We have yet to see angels. It seems, surely by now,, we should have arrived at the gates of Bethlehem. And yet, our readings have yet to speak of any of those most familiar Advent nouns. Instead we get guesses, the predictions of prophets and poets – prophets and poets peering into a hazy future their eyes would never see. The visions of Isaiah and the Psalmist – visions as ominous as they are thrilling as they are hopeful – speak of the world as it might be. But not only that, they speak also of the Messiah – long promised, long expected – who will finally make the dream the reality. The prophet Isaiah dreams of the peaceable kingdom. A world in which the wolf snuggles the lamb and leopards nap with baby goats. He dreams of a world in w...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 2:1-5 Expecting Folks do tend to confuse the seasons of Advent and Lent. It's understandable; it is not hard to do. There are some clear similarities: they both end in the same sound: -ent; some churches use the same liturgical color for both seasons; at this parish we worship in old-style language only during the two seasons of Advent and Lent; and both are often, unfortunately, greatly overshadowed by the feasts they precede: Christmas and Easter. And so when people ask me to explain the difference between these two seasons, and that has happened many times in my decade of ordained ministry, I always say the same thing: “It is the difference between preparing for a death and preparing for a birth.” I have prepared for a birth – a couple of times actually. I know that time. That pregnant time is unlike any other time. The days, so filled with expectation, seem at once to move too slowly and too quickly. You wait for th...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 23:33-43 The King Who Lost the Vote Jesus stood before the voting public one time . Just once. Like a King awaiting his royal throne, he stood before them, wearing an elegant robe and a custom-made crown. The winner would win freedom. But the crowd chose someone else; they voted for the other guy – and it wasn't close. But then, they also cast their vote for him. In one united voice the rallying masses chanted, “Crucify! Crucify him!” Jesus had healed their sick; he had fed their hungry; he had raised their dead. But standing before them now, he did not look like a king. His robe mocked him; his crown drained him. It was obvious to them. They needed a strong king; someone who would fight. And he was weak. He gave nice speeches. And he dreamed of impossible kingdoms. But they needed someone who would take real action; not someone who snuck away to quiet prayer gardens. And so they voted Barabbas. He would actu...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 6:20-31 Baptismal Poverty He speaks of poverty as if it were a key, a key to a door, a door to a room, a room in a house, a house in a kingdom. But what kind of kingdom would be possessed by the poor? And what kind of King would give the kingdom over to poverty? He speaks of poverty as one who has known her intimately, who understands the kind of vulnerability that breeds perfect trust in God. True poverty is never cheap. It does not come and go with the Dow or the balance of a savings account. Poverty is a brand, a mark – something that never goes away. Like an accent. Like a scar. Poverty finds a way into the soul. Poverty finds a way to break your heart. Sometimes poverty is a choice. Sometimes poverty is an inheritance. But also poverty is always a destiny, a destination – both internal and external. And in that sense I suppose Jesus on the plain speaks a universal language, speaks to a universal human experienc...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 19:1-10 Seeing Miracles Where's the miracle? Before Jesus entered Jericho he had done some pretty spectacular works – showstopping stuff. He healed lepers. He restored the crippled. His touch made the sick well. He cast out demons and renewed tortured minds. He even raised the dead, brought dearly departed people back to life. And just before today's story, in the previous tale found in Luke's Gospel, Jesus made a blind man see. And when he wasn't performing some miraculous healing, Jesus was blowing minds with his profound teachings. He told brilliant parables. He bestowed timeless wisdom. He challenged the entrenched religious and political systems in clever and often devastating ways. But now he walks into Jericho and he sees Zacchaeus. And no one is miraculously healed. And there is no amazing sermon. But there is some controversy – which is, I guess, the other thing Jesus does well ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Genesis 32:22-31 God in the Dark Some people find God in the Light. Some people see God's face in a beautiful sunrise. Some watch the Spirit dance on the golden horizon, all tingly warm embrace, all peace and comfort. But some only seem to encounter God in the dark. Jacob was one of those men. And in a way, I guess it is fitting. He was the kind of guy who was always on the run, staying in the shadows, like a fox who can't help but feel the warm breath of the hounds. He always heard footsteps. I mean, to be fair, he chose this life. That day he strapped goat skin to his arm – his first great scheme, snatching the blessing from his older brother – there was no going back; he set this course. And in some ways, the treachery and scheming made for him a good life. He did arrive at the Jabbok with his two wives, his two, well, the text says maids, but those maids were more than just maids, they were two of the four mothers o...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 How Long? I still remember the day so vividly. Friday, December 14, 2012. It was my day off and so I was home with my family – now three since Oscar was born the previous September. We sat in the family room, a bright, cool winter sun flooding into our space, and we turned on the TV. On the screen was a terrible nightmare that had escaped into the real world. Even now, almost four years later, it's still too horrible to think about. And yet parents lived it. Their little children frozen in time by a mad man with guns. I remember staring at the television screen, sick to my stomach, sick to the soul, the death toll growing: tiny lives that never fully blossomed, hopes and dreams never fully realized. Denial is the first stage of grief, but it wasn't that, it just seemed unreal, too terrible to be real. Never before, nor since, have I cried so much for people I did not know. I remember those tears,...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 16:19-31 Cross the Chasm The chasm was always there, it's just that it never went away. It is explicitly noted in death, it's fixed in death, but it started long before the poor man fell into Abraham's bosom. The chasm appeared when the poor man was left to rot away by the gate and the rich man was too busy Scrooge-ing through an ocean of gold coins to notice. Or maybe he noticed but didn't care. Or maybe crossing the chasm just felt like a bad investment. If last week's parable was confusing, and it was, today's is much less so. There are a lot of hiding spots in the ambiguity of last week's parable; we are not so fortunate today. But that doesn't mean it is impossible to distract ourselves from Jesus' intense, confrontational message about wealth and possessions. We could easily get bogged down in the peripheral details of the story; we could easily, as some have done, turn this para...