Preaching the Scriptures

  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...