Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Romans 8:26-39 Separation “Faith, hope, and love,” claims N.T. Wright, “are not deductions from our day-to-day experience; they are rooted in God’s faithfulness, God’s purposes, and above all in God’s own love, seen and known in Jesus and in the strange presence of the Holy Spirit.” [1] As I exited the building through the flag pole doors, I felt the weight of the moment.   The sound of the door closing was more symbolic than it had ever been before.   The previous week had been a dizzying mix of closure announcements and uncertainty; the ground was shifting beneath our feet; the typical was being toppled – and there was nothing we could do about it.   The news was moving fast, information and facts fluid in the face of a novel virus.   I left the church knowing that the pews would sit empty for the next couple of weeks.   I left the church knowing that the next day, a Monday, would be the last day McWilliams’ House would bustle with people

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 55:10-13 Into  the Future: A Sermon for Baccalaureate Sunday   My first college campus visit did not go as I had hoped.   Five hundred miles away from home, amidst the cornfields of Illinois, my parents turned our van right at the town’s one and only stop light.   And after a long day of travel across some very flat states, we arrived on campus.   I was seventeen and I was nervous. While my parents lodged in the cozy bliss of the Super 8 that weekend, I stayed with Dan.   Dan had a thick mane of red hair and a brilliant mathematical mind.   He was less adept socially.   Not long after we met, he took me to his dorm room.   And he left me there alone.   He explained that he had plans that evening with his friends.   And rather than invite me to join him, he invited me to spend a quiet evening in his room, by myself.   And while that does sound sad, it turns out that was not the last Friday evening I spent alone in Greenville, Illinois;