Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 10:46-52 Blind Beggar It was Jesus Day in Jericho.   Finally.   The day had been long circled on the old moon chart, or whatever people in first century Palestine used as calendars.   It was finally here. I imagine the sun breaking over the rocky hills that special morning; it probably looked a little bit brighter.   Somewhere at the edge of the village a young man is roused from sleep by his alarm.   And after feeding his alarm clock, a rooster, he races into town to join the throng of groupies gathered to get a look at Jesus, to catch a glimpse.   The air in the little village is electric.   Jesus’ reputation preceded him.   Everyone in town was talking, telling stories: about the healings, about the miracles.   And also about the drama.   People just love drama – and Jesus had some pretty dramatic encounters with the religious leaders, with some important people.   It was going to...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Job 38:1-7, 34-41 The   Cause of Love This is kinda like the Sermon on the Mount, this passage from Job, if Jesus had a much more confrontational presentation style.   Instead of “Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them” we get “Gird up your loins like a man and answer me this: who feeds the raven its prey?   I know: not you.”   So like I said, similar but different. Now I’m not going to assume that everyone here is an expert on the book of Job.   We’re dropped into the 38 th chapter today; 37 chapters worth of stuff has already happened, leading us up to this point.   He’s the quick and dirty summary: Job is wealthy and righteous.   He loses everything right at the beginning of the book.   Everything, that is, except his wife, who urges him to curse God and die.   He doesn’t do that.   Instead, he sits in ashes an...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 10:2-16 Talking about Divorce in Church So, I don’t really want to talk about divorce.   You probably don’t want to talk about divorce.   Jesus doesn’t really want to talk about divorce, although folks won’t stop asking him about divorce in today’s Gospel, so he does.   Nobody really wants to talk about divorce.   But we talk about tough stuff here. So, I guess we’re talking about divorce today.   It is difficult to talk about divorce in the Church because the Church has such a rotten history around the subject.   Mostly the Church has been the place where folks going through a painful divorce go to add insult to injury.   Historically, the Church has mostly indiscriminately condemned divorced persons, treating them like second-class members, barring them, in some cases, from even receiving the healing sacrament of Holy Communion.   Sometimes, and in some places, the stigma in the Church is so inte...