Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Ephesians 3:14-21 With and Without Long before the introduction of the Doomsday Clock, before weapons were capable of mass destruction, back when the world had four corners and the seas were populated with monsters, a man called Paul, well Saul, but then Paul, thought the world was about to end.   With a blast, not of bomb but of trumpet.   And not into oblivion but into something new – like rebirth, like resurrection.   Any day now…   The clock was ticking; creation groaning; redemption coming.   Any day now… I stood still and just stared at a wall.   Is that pilgrimage?   Halfway between me and Paul lived a man named Herbert, a monk who bought the Episcopate and built a cathedral.   The very cathedral in which I stood and stared at the wall.   I was looking at his name.   One thousand years stood between Herbert and Paul.   One thousand years stands between Herbert and me – me, ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 6:1-13 Listening I will never, ever forget the first time I preached – because it was super weird.   I had started a couple months earlier as the seminary intern at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chatham, New Jersey.   I was still fairly new to the Episcopal Church, having been raised in the Pentecostal tradition.   And Elizabeth, the Rector for whom I worked, gave me a couple months to immerse myself in the community before assigning me Advent 2, Year C. I had taught classes at the parish; I had given talks.   But the sermon is different.   There is really nothing quite like it.   A sermon begins as something incredibly intimate – at its best, a private conversation between the preacher, the Holy Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit – one person’s fumbling attempt to say something true, to preach something faithful, to relay what it seems God wants the congregation to hear that week.   And then, that immen...