Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson I Kings 19:15-16, 19-21   Next Christ Church, Walton   This was not exactly an appealing offer.   That is, if it was an offer at all.   It was more like a high-stakes game of tag.   And Elisha was now “it”.   Elisha was working the plow, sweating it out at the family farm.   Elijah, the prophet, the extremely controversial prophet, finds Elisha at work and, without a word, tosses his mantle, his vocational cloak, onto the younger man, who was probably sufficiently hot without an extra cloak.   Relieved of his mantle, the prophet just keeps walking.   No negotiation.   No sales pitch.   No carefully constructed succession plan. No explanation.   Just some thrown clothes.   But apparently the message was clear.   Elisha knew he was next.   Though I’m not quite sure Elisha fully understood what it meant to be next.   If he knew what he was really g...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 8:26-39   The Man in the Cemetery Church of the Redeemer, Rensselaer   No one visited the cemetery anymore.   It was occupied by a man who was himself occupied.   And so everyone else in the country of the Gerasenes avoided the old tombs, the graves of their ancestors and friends, because they were afraid.   The man in the cemetery wasn’t always like this.   There was a time, before the occupation, that he was more, I guess you might say, normal.   When it first happened, his loved ones tried to help.   They wrapped him up in chains to try to subdue his chaos and frenzy.   But it never worked.   And so now, he was alone, with the dead.   Alone, except for his demons.   Unlike the humans, his demons refused to leave.   And they refused to let him leave, refused to return him to the people he once knew and loved.   The town was terrorized by the man’s wild...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Romans 5:1-5   The Unshakable Foundation St. Philip’s, Norwood   Dear Church, I know you are tired…of waking up to a world of uncertainty…of warily doomscrolling your social media…of turning on and tuning in to a steady cycle of changes, chances, and crises.   I know you are tired…of the images of pain and suffering, of war and violence, of despair.   In the nation.   In the world.   And now very much seared into your soul.   I know you are tired…because you no longer know what to do or say or how to feel, because the emotions are so mixed these days, mixed to the point of muddled.   The foundations are being shaken.   Those things long taken for granted in our society are being questioned and undermined and, in some cases, discarded.   Trust has eroded as the very technologies we believed would usher in an information age have proved at least equally adept at transmitting misinfo...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 16:16-34   Paul and Silas Do Big Things St. Paul’s, Keeseville, NY   Life is full of surprises.   One never can tell what twists and turns might be just around the corner.   One morning, Paul and Silas set off in the direction of their place of prayer.   Nothing about that day’s journey was in any way noteworthy.   It was normal; something they did.   But on one particular morning, the one noted in our reading from Acts, something in their routine changed.   On the way, on that day, they met an enslaved girl.   And that too would be unremarkable except that she decided to make a scene.   Now, these things do happen; loud and obnoxious people do exist.   And they do sometimes make life uncomfortable.   But this meeting, it turns out, was more than that, more than a singular disturbance.   This meeting would forever change each individual life.   This meeting woul...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Revelation 7:9-17   Hope from the Margins St. James, Oneonta   Everything changed in the fourth century.   Historians argue the details.   Christians debate the merits.   But what is undeniable is that during the reign of Emperor Constantine the Church was thrust into the Halls of Power for the first time in its history.   When the Emperor found Jesus, he made sure everyone else did too – whether they wanted to or not.   After centuries of exclusion, oppression, humiliation, and persecution, the sudden experience of comfort and influence was as dizzying as it was difficult to resist.   The enemy Empire of the book of Revelation, Rome, abruptly affixed the cross of Christ to its weapons of war and marched out to conquer the world.   And as the years passed, and the footprint grew, the Church and its leaders began to forget the little Church of the Book of Revelation.   That Church, s...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 9:1-20   Saul and Ananias Emmanuel, Little Falls   He was well within his rights and he was sure he was right.   Saul was a man possessed by a passion for law and order.   The law justified the order he intended to impose upon his world.   It was God’s work.   He was sure of that.   He was convinced that his mission – his mission to hunt down religious deviants and root out their bad theology – was divinely inspired, the commission of an exacting and merciless deity.   And so he marched proudly into the office of the high priest and demanded a blessing.   And he received that blessing.   He was formally deputized to rid the world of blasphemy.   This would be Saul’s legacy, how he was going to be remembered, why he would be known throughout the Empire: he was going to end the Way.     And that would make him a hero to both his religious authorities and their ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 20:19-31   Wounds Trinity, Gouverneur   The disciples needed to see the wounds.   They knew the stone was displaced and the tomb was empty – but that didn’t prove anything.   Some of the disciples, men in that very locked room, had even seen the discarded linen wrappings, but they did not see any life.   They had heard, and rejected, Mary’s startling testimony; she, they decided, was obviously sick with grief.   They could not deny that fantastical rumors were buzzing, but rumors are not evidence.   Impossible tales, unlikely explanations, were pestering their weary heads and their tender hearts – making things worse.   Their pain was fresh; their fear was real; they were trying to survive without Jesus – trying to get used to this sad, new normal.   They would not get their hopes up because high hopes crash hard.   And so, they decided to play it safe: they simply would not believ...