Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 18:9-14   Surprise All Saints, Round Lake   Are you shocked?   Are you stunned?     When Jesus hit that wild, twist of an ending, did you discover that your mouth was left agape, your eyes bulging wide?   Or, were you not surprised at all by the surprise at the end of this parable?   Did you even realize that you were supposed to be surprised?   The truth is: The Sixth Sense or Planet of the Apes are not shocking movies on the twentieth viewing.   Or after a series of spoilers.   The endings are not as twisty when you see them coming.   A surprise doesn’t feel jarring if it is not a surprise to its audience.   If you already know the identity of Luke’s father, “Luke, I am your father” doesn’t take your breath away; it just registers as a dramatically delivered mundane fact.   This Gospel reading is old news – about 2000 years old, to be almost exact. And it i...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Genesis 32:22-31   Heel Turn Christ Church, Cooperstown   Jacob was a heel.   It was right there in his name.   He was branded a bad guy at birth.   It’s not that he was evil, per say, but he did have a history of morally questionable behavior.   And it started in the womb.   It can be hard to outrun a name.   Or overcome a first impression.   Jacob struggled with both.   Because his name was the first impression.   And it stuck.   It could have been a cute story of how twins like to stick together.   But that is not how his parents, or the Bible, told the birth story.   When mom and dad, Rebekah and Isaac, saw Jacob’s little hand gripping the heel of his slightly older brother, they decided that the younger one would always be scheming to supplant the older one.   The name Jacob in Hebrew is related to the word for “heel,” and the phrase “one who grasps the...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15   Investing in Hope St. Luke’s on the Hill, Mechanicville   Jeremiah didn’t really need another property.   He already had a home.   And he spent all of his time there.   Because he was under house arrest.   As a political prisoner.   Because of treason.   King Zedekiah, it seems, was not a fan of Jeremiah’s work.   He did not like those poems at all.       Already plenty stressed out, it does not appear to be the ideal time for the prophet to get into real estate.   But you know what they say, “Strike while the iron is hot.”   And, in Jeremiah’s defense, there were some deals to be had.   For sale signs were popping up everywhere.   Folks, like Jeremiah’s cousin Hanamel, were desperate to unload their properties.   But still Jeremiah wasn’t exactly living in, what you might call, a buyer’s market.   Because of the siege...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Jeremiah 18:1-11   A Crozier Story St. John’s, Johnstown   The prophet Jeremiah went down to the potter’s house.   And in the house he found, no surprise, a potter.   The potter was working at his wheel, spinning clay into earthen vessels.   Or at least trying to turn clay into earthen vessels.   Sometimes the clay did not quite cooperate.   And so Jeremiah watched as the potter took a deep breath, slowed the wheel, wrapped some messy fingers around the awkward lump, and started again.   Until that lump of clay became what the potter dreamed it would be.   Tuesday is the two-year anniversary of my election as your bishop.   Election day was a wild day.   The family woke up early – because mountain time zone – unsure if everything or nothing in our lives would change.   A few hours later, it was everything.   The election thrust us, suddenly, into a season of total tra...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16   Image of God St. John’s, Massena, NY   In the beginning, after chaos was ordered, after the light was divided from the darkness, after the planets were rounded into balls, after waves crashed, birds chirped, and cattle grazed, God reached into the ground to form one final creature.   On the sixth day, the day before the creation of rest, God formed a human.   And all the good was declared very good.   Before people, the earth was already teeming with life.   The water brought forth swarms of living creatures: some too small to see, some large enough to boggle the mind.   The skies were animated with winged birds: levitating hummingbirds, soaring eagles, and sparrows that cut through the air.   The soil vibrated with the movement of creeping things: worms burrowed and spiders webbed and grasshoppers hopped on grass.   And, of course, the wild beasts, the Bible love...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 5:1-12   Brave to be Blessed Regional Confirmations 2025   You must be brave to be blessed.   Because it is no small thing to allow the beautifully dangerous words of Jesus into your heart and into your life.   The Beatitudes, what we call tonight’s Gospel passage, if you take them seriously, will set you at odds.   You will wear them like brilliant colors in a black and white world.   St. Oscar Romero said of this Gospel: “all the Beatitudes subvert what the world believes in, and they sow the seed of a transformation that we will not see finished until the kingdom of heaven…becomes reality.” [1]   And so you must be brave to be blessed.   Because Jesus is calling you to change an entrenched and stubborn world into the kingdom of heaven.              And to do so, to sow the seeds of transformation, to change the world in Jesus’ n...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 58:9b-14 & Prayer attributed to St. Francis   Life of Prayer St. Francis Mission, Albany   Sometimes a prayer is spoken.   Sometimes a prayer travels from the head to the heart to the heavens, ascends in silence.   Sometimes a prayer takes on our flesh in lives in our streets.   Because, at our best, our lives are the prayer, offered to God for the sake of this world.   Ten years ago, this community, the St. Francis Mission, was born for that purpose: To love the Lord and to love your neighbors through prayer, worship, and service.   It is a purpose you continue to live daily – a prayer spoken, breathed, and lived in this community, in this place, in this neighborhood, a neighborhood desperate to bask in the light of Christ.     Ten years ago, this community, took the name of St. Francis.   Also you claimed his prayer.   And that prayer became part of, not only y...