Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson James 3:1-12   Speaking of Tongues St. Augustine’s, Ilion, NY   One smoked cigarette, thoughtlessly and carelessly tossed aside, can burn an entire city to the ground.   A blown tire, metal beads dragging the dark asphalt, can send a tiny spark careening into the dry road-side brush and set a mountain range on fire.   A bolt of lightning, a fire cracker, a smoldering camp fire: how great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!   This is what I learned living in Colorado Springs.   Every summer in the Rockies smells like smoke.   As the snows melt, the fires light up the western half of our nation.   Most are contained before they consume civilization, but not all.   And so, residents of the west, must be ready to flee the flames.   Our home in Colorado was close to a large city park called Palmer Park.   While not as famous as the Garden of the Gods, Palmer Park, at 730 acr...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 15   It matters Christ Church, Hudson   It all matters.   What you say and what you do and who you are: it all matters.   Your thoughts and your intentions: it all matters.   If today’s lessons make anything clear it is that: it all matters.   These scriptures don’t leave us much wiggle room; they take things seriously.   It matters to Moses in Deuteronomy.   It definitely matters in today’s psalm.   It matters when James explains what we must understand to be pure and undefiled.   It matters when Jesus reveals the contents of the human heart.   And it matters because there is water in the font and a baptismal covenant on today’s menu.   And I think, maybe, that feels like a lot of pressure, like today’s scripture passages are conspiring with the Baptismal Covenant to overwhelm us and weigh us down, to set an impossibly high standard.   If you listened closely t...