Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Christmas Eve 2023 Luke 2:1-20   Emmanuel in a world that is not safe   What I remember most vividly of our first moments together are his perfectly round head and the clarion cry that belied the smallness of his body.   Isaiah, my youngest son, came into the world on a Sunday morning and, as he continues to do, made his presence known.   It snowed on Saturday night, the night preceding his birth – a thick, Spring snow.   And Jen went into labor, before we were ready, twenty-three days in advance of Isaiah’s Annunciation due date.     That Sunday evening we sat in our hospital room with our newborn baby.   And, in that strange mix of exhaustion and euphoria, we looked out the window, a few stories above the nearby park.   The oaks had not yet turned green.   It was early in the month of March and the snow still fell, though now gently.   Like in a snow globe, as it begins to settle.   And for a moment, on the other side of birth, with

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 126   A Retrospective   I first started dreaming when you talked to me about your nightmare.     It was late in the summer of 2015. The sound of toddlers trying to be quiet filled the nervous air.   I straightened my interview best and whispered a centering prayer.   I was sitting at my dining room table, laptop open, Skype on the screen.   And, for the first time, I was seeing the faces of Grace and St. Stephen’s – a parish far away, in Colorado Springs, that I knew only from their on-line profile.   It was that profile that first piqued my interest.   It was lovely and excellent and exciting – words that I now know describe this parish perfectly.   When I first looked through its digital pages, I started to imagine standing in this pulpit, watching my children sing with the St. Nicholas choir, staring up at the lighted tower on a crisp December night.     I stumbled upon that profile one July evening, during one of those rare

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 64:1-9   And come down   Marty McFly slyly swipes the sports almanac from a devious young Biff.   Sarah Connor and Arnold protect the future savior of the human race from Skynet and a speedy shape-shifting Terminator.   Bill and Ted scour the past for history homework help.   In each of these time-travel movies, the heroes journey into the past with an important mission: to prevent a dystopian future.   Time-travel fantasies are often preoccupied with intervention: stopping Hitler before the onset of the Holocaust, evacuating a building before a horrific attack, using one’s historical knowledge to prevent a catastrophe.   In every case: using one’s power for good, to save innocent lives, to decrease human suffering, to make the world a better place.   If we had the power to prevent bad things, wouldn’t we be morally obligated to use our power to do just that?     Standing in the dust of a world of rubble, the prophet Isaiah es

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 25:31-46   Throne   It is a funny place for a throne.   There, surrounded by the bustle of a bleating flock, sits the King.   Sheep and goats milling around in his royal presence.   The mess before him is considerable.   The odor: even more considerable.       Typically, a throne is situated in a palace – surrounded by marble floors, arched entryways, dazzling fixtures.   The odors wafting through that place far surpass, in delight, the scent of the sheepfold.   Cinnamon and citrus, perhaps frankincense and myrrh.   And servants, so that the king need never dirty his precious hands.       Israel did have a celebrated tradition of shepherd kings.   But though the image loomed large in the hearts of the people, mostly it was just about David.   He was the one called from the fields, anointed in his work clothes, the holy oils streaking down his dusty face.     It was an idyllic, encouraging depiction.   David was a king created

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 25:1-13   The Bridesmaids   It’s not that “Keep awake” is bad advice.   In fact, in some cases it is very sound, very relevant, advice.  Keep awake so that you don’t miss your stop on the train.   Keep awake so that you don’t snore in the crowded movie theatre, or during this sermon.   Keep awake because you are driving.   There are many situations in which it is very important to keep awake.   And so it is not a bad moral to tack onto a Jesus’ parable.   It is just that it obviously does not apply to this parable.     “Keep awake” cannot be the point of this particular Gospel story.   It cannot be the point because everybody fell asleep – all ten bridesmaids featured in Jesus' parable – both the wise and the foolish – fell asleep.  And half of them joined the party anyway.  So “keep awake,” it turns out, didn’t really matter that much and therefore cannot be the point of the parable.   Now, there are other parables in this v

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Revelation 7:9-17   Great Multitude   It might just be that we are all standing on the edge of the apocalypse.   That perhaps apocalyptic vision belongs not only to entranced prophets and the writer of the book of Revelation; that apocalyptic talk is not strictly the domain of street-corner preachers and fervent Pentecostals; that apocalyptic experiences are not reserved for the movie screen.   But for those who are permanently stained with baptismal waters, those who sway to the songs of the dead.   The word “apocalypse” is widely misunderstood in our culture and even in the Church.   For most it brings to mind cataclysmic disaster, unprecedented trauma, Rapture anxieties, even the end of the world.   But the apocalypse is not the end of the world; the apocalypse is not made of earthquakes and hurricanes. But it is an act of God: it is the moment God opens our eyes so that we can see the world for what it really is.     The word “apocal

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Exodus 33:12-23   Bold Prayers   If one find’s oneself in the presence of the British Monarch, one better behave appropriately.   In such rarified company, a guest is expected to arrive in advance of the monarch and leave before the royal exits the room.   In doing so, the guest must never turn their back to the monarch; such behavior is considered quite rude.   Do not initiate physical contact; that is not your place.   Shake only if shaken.   Do not speak unless spoken to; do not sit unless the monarch first sits; and do not eat unless you first witness food enter the mouth of the sovereign.   And ladies, if you curtsy, please remember to limit your curtsy to a short bob, “ keeping the back straight, hands by the side, dropping the knees slightly and bowing the head. ” [1]   Above all, be polite and civilized; you are meeting a royal after all.      Fortunately for him, Moses was not meeting a British royal; Moses was only meeting with God