Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 13:24-37   Keep Awake   For Lincoln, Nebraska businessman, Robert Kay the fourth time was the charm.   His first three attempts to summit Mount Everest had ended in disappointment; the fourth in pinnacular triumph.   But reaching the “roof of the world” is never the end of the story.   The final goal is getting back home.   And the most dangerous part of the entire expedition is after the apex, between the peak and the base of the mountain.   The most important thing one must do is keep awake during the decent back through the “Death Zone.”   And too often climbers do not.   “It was like watching a character die in a television show, Robert Kay said [in a story reported on Nebraska’s NPR network.] Except it was real. Kay thought he was dying. ‘It was a detached sensation,’ he recalled. ‘I didn’t feel scared or upset. I know where [and] when I'm going to die and it's right here in a few seconds. Not many people get to know ex

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 90:1-12   Life is Short   There are 150 psalms.   Just one is associated with Moses.   That one is Psalm 90, the psalm we recited this morning.   Moses did not write the psalm; it emerged long after his death. But it is called, in its scriptural superscription, a prayer of Moses.   And so I imagine the poet, the writer of this psalm, dwelling in the soul of a soul long at rest, like poets and storytellers often do.   I imagine the poet looking out from Moses’ tear-blurred eyes, as the man of God stands at the top of Mt. Nebo.   And this poem: inspired by that devastating view.   A promised land on the horizon, close enough to touch, but forever and ever away.   One long pursued but never achieved.   The cruel reality of mortality.   All those desert days, following the promise, chasing a dream, and then only this brief glimpse.   And then, as he ponders a world he will never know, the mountain wind turns the hallowed leader into dust d

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 5:1-12   Unsung Saints   This has been a hard year, really hard.   Death, division, and discrimination have dominated the news cycle and more than a few dinner table discussions.   Arguments and anxiety are as ubiquitous as the screens on which they are featured.   The world has never been smaller and we have perhaps never felt more isolated.           And I recognize that is a strange thing to say on All Saints’ Day: that we are isolated.   Strange, because we stand today in the midst of this immense Communion of Saints, connected to a great mystical fellowship of holy ancestors.   We dine with them around this holy table; we pray with them; we feel their presence as we rehearse the very liturgical language they spoke while on this earth.   We stand haunted by this beautiful, holy mystery: soaked in the heavenly love of generations of saints.   And yet, even as we feel so connected to those whom we have never met, to the long dead