Preaching the Scriptures

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 15:1-8   Balloons and branches Grace Episcopal Church, Cherry Valley   Balloons: they are so simple.   In the bag, a balloon is nothing more than a little piece of limp rubber.   You can just flop ‘em around, stretch ‘em; that’s about it.   There is not much to a balloon.   But also, when I was kid, smacking an inflated balloon around the house was about as good as life got.   It was unbelievable.   Balloons are interesting.   They are really only as good as their filling.   With a balloon, what is inside is everything.   Now the basic filling is air.   You can blow up a balloon.   And with that one simple additive, breath, a balloon becomes like a ball that doesn’t break windows.   Incredible.   But then helium.   You fill a balloon with helium and it takes off.   If a balloon filled with helium gets away, it’s gone.   Water: that’s a fun filling.   Water balloon fights are equally fantastic and frightening.   Very fun…until one exp

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson I John 3:16-24   Words and Love St. Peter’s, Hobart   If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.   Eloquent prophecies: they will come to an end; tongues: they will cease; knowledge: it too will come to an end.     You know these words; you have heard them at weddings.   They are St. Paul’s words; they are words about words.   Beautiful words; timeless words.   But also words written to articulate the stark limitation of our words.   Proclaimed to you today by a man who wrote words about a passage of ancient words, from the first letter of John, that implore us to not love in word and speech alone.   Because, while words are great, words are not enough.   But this, an election year, we will