Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Micah 6:1-8   Human Humans St. Andrew’s, Albany   The offerings of offerings grew increasingly absurd.   The possibilities: from plausible to impossible to preposterous.   One cannot decipher tone from the written words on a page, but “ten thousands of rivers of oil” does not feel like a serious offer.   It seems like hyperbolic at best, spiteful venom at worst.   The sixth chapter of the book of the prophet Micah begins mid-argument – an argument between frustrated mortals and the Immortal One.   And, by the time we reach the sixth verse, maybe it still is.   Displeased with the state of their world, the people call God out.   Life is hard, the world unfair, and God must be, at least partially, to blame.     This blame hurts God’s feelings – and elicits a mournful plea: “What have I done to you?”   And elicits then a strong defense.   In response to the people’s ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Micah 5:2-5a   A Prayer for Peace Trinity Church, Lansingburgh   Their prayer was a cry for all that had been lost and a longing for what had never been.   In that sense, Micah’s people didn’t ask for much except what seemed forever out of reach.   They didn’t pray for luxuries, like vast wealth or obscene riches.   They didn’t strive for power or influence.   They didn’t long for fame or glory.     They just wanted to be able to let their children play outside.   They wanted to walk carelessly though a park or daydream by a stream.   They wanted to fall asleep knowing they would wake up in the morning.   They didn’t pray for luxuries; they prayed for peace.   But they lived with war.   And so their children stayed indoors, shielded from the threat of Assyrian arrows.   The parks were battlegrounds, and the streams ran red.   And in place of day dreams t...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Epiphany 4A 1-29-23 Micah 6:1-8   What does the Lord require of you?   What does the Lord require of you?   That’s a big question.   But what if I told you: the answer to this highly consequential question is actually in this text – hidden in the sixth chapter of this twenty-seven-hundred-year old book.   Is it even possible that a minor prophet, who lived and worked more than 700 years before the birth of Jesus, clued us in to the secret of life and the heart of God ages ago?     This portion of Micah chapter 6, the one we heard this morning, is sometimes read as a court transcript, the record of a legal contention between God and Israel, with the mountains presiding.   And given the nature of the Hebrew Bible it is not surprising that one might go there.   It is certainly not without precedent; in fact, much of the prophetic canon is shaped by the legal process.     The pas...