Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 2:1-20   Immanuel   36 weeks and 4 days into Jen’s second pregnancy I returned home from a vestry retreat.   That night, as we slept, a snowstorm swept into Northwest Ohio and Jen, my wife, was awakened by contractions.   She gently and calmly roused me from my sleep to inform me that she was driving herself to the hospital, in the snowstorm.   I, of course, made a counter-offer, one that I thought was quite strong, one that she quickly and decisively rejected.   She was driving to the hospital convinced that she would return to our bed in a matter of hours with the diagnosis of false labor.   And I was to stay home with our two-year old because he was a terrible sleeper and why wake him for false labor pains.   And so, aware I was not winning this negotiation, I laid back down, phone in hand, resigned to await my wife’s promised return.   The contractions, it turned out, were not false; ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 1:39-55   Carrying Jesus   Some women crave pickles, at least that is what I am told – mostly by sitcoms – and so I suppose it must be true. My wife craved chocolate milk – a glass a day, assuming there was milk and chocolate syrup in the house. Mary craved revolution, which is one of those pregnancy cravings one does not hear about often.   When she was with child, the young Mary, before Jesus stretched her body far enough to leave marks, before Jesus carved lines of grief into her angelic face, composed her timeless, prophetic song while running through the hill country – in the space between home and the future.   Perhaps rehearsing the lines, over and over again, praying and struggling to find the right words and then shouting them out to the wild beasts when they finally came.     Or maybe not.   Maybe she had no words on account of being so overwhelmed.   And maybe simply fell in...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Baruch 5:1-9   Stewards of Hope   More than 2500 years ago, the prophet Isaiah offered a beautiful word of hope to a community living in exile, to a people watering the shores of the rivers of Babylon with their tears.   500 years later, the author of Baruch, repackaged and reused that same word of hope for the communities of the Diaspora struggling to survive the pressures of isolation and Hellenization.   More than century after the composition of Baruch, the author of Luke’s Gospel speaks Isaiah’s word of hope to a faith community living under the oppressive rule of an Empire that lined their streets with bloody crosses.   And then almost 2000 years after the composition of the third Gospel, a 23-year old seminarian preached his first sermon about that same ancient word of hope to the one grouchy, old man who was willing to drive to church in a snowstorm for the 8 o’clock service – then for another 100 or so who c...