Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 6:8-7:2a, 51c-60   Stones   What becomes of these stones?   Ancient as the worlds, as old as time.   Declared good by the God who crafted them at the beginning, in the beginning.   But now heaped around the body of a saint.   Stained with his blood.   Silently they sleep as the horror of the scene steals the life from a child of God, and the humanity from the frenzied perpetrators.   The ones who took and tossed and killed.   These stones could have been something else, served a more noble purpose.   They could have cushioned the head of Father Jacob, as he dreamed of angels and ladders.   They could have made an altar and felt the heavenly fire called down by Elijah.   They could have formed the foundation of the Temple, been a brick in the wall, or even become the chief cornerstone.   They could have fasted with Jesus in the wilderness, resisting the temptation to become bread.   But instead, against their will, they stole life from a

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Genesis 45:1-15   Pit, Prison, Palace: Joseph and the Salvation Story   The brothers were speechless because they were afraid.   They were afraid because standing before them was a ghost, a ghost that they created.   A ghost that had haunted them for years, pursued them in their dreams and in their nightmares.   But only in dreams and nightmares, until now.   Now this one they could not forget was weeping before them.   Joseph: he finally caught them – and they could not escape because they could not wake up because this was not a dream.      It had to be true; every word, every tear: it had to be true.   No one in Egypt knew their secret.   No one else in the world, not even their own father, knew the true story.   They never told anyone.   The real truth was too terrible to speak, what they had done – and to their own baby brother.   They had lived with that lie for a long time; they guarded it like a precious treasure; they kept it like a