Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 8 Beautiful Trinity This week I drove a road – the road through the mountains. I drove that road and I most unexpectedly became a witness to the agony and ecstasy of creation – as if transported to the beginning, before there was time. I saw the saw the mountains reach for the heavens with their violent thrusts, lifting their blankets of white to meet the white clouds. I saw aged peaks rounded off by the gentle caress of the wind of God. I saw two pronghorn antelopes kiss in the muted watercolors that stretch across the severe plains. I saw streams cut the rocky ground, spilling crystal clear blood, life-giving waters. I saw the agony and ecstasy of creation; I drove right through it – trying to keep my car on the road, trying to keep my breath. I saw mountains, valleys, and plains. I saw streams and lakes. I saw snow caps and creatures. I saw the love of this Triune God, poured out in this great creative expression. Spe

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 2:1-21 PENTECOST: A Holy Spirit Poem (in 50 Lines) Holy Spirit, I can't put my finger on you I can't get my mind around you. But every time I charge into you, O Formless Mist, collapse into your abyss,       a little piece of you becomes lodged in my chest – reduced by an elusive Lover,       yet filled: with the heartbeat of God, with breath, with life. I am Jacob wrestling the air, hip displaced all the same. I am Abram in the presence of a divine stranger,       but what does one give a ghost? Probably not a fatted calf I am Elijah utterly devastated by a whirlwind and yet here I stand still. Shaken and stirred, shaken and still – is this what you call peace or upheaval? You have no name by which to address you – only adjectives –       insufficient, incomplete, inconsequential? Maybe There is no sacred name No YHWH from the burning bush No Jesus from the angel lips Just Ghost or Spirit or Par

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 5:1-9 What We Deserve This guy was a real piece of work. I mean, I didn't know him. I don't even know that much about him, not even his name. But he just doesn't seem like a very good dude. Not that you would know that from our Gospel reading today. We got the good ending: a healed man walking into the sunset, carrying the mat upon which he helplessly reclined for weeks, months, years. It is a lovely ending – only, it's not the ending at all. The real ending is not lovely. The real ending is the religious leaders plotting Jesus' death. And it is really this guy's fault. I'm telling you: this guy was a real piece of work. First, Jesus finds him lying beside the pool by the Sheep Gate. I should be clear, this wasn't like a public swimming pool for the neighborhood kids; he wasn't sun-bathing. He was sick and so was everyone else parked by this pool. They were the blind, lame, an