Preaching the Scriptures

  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 Luke 12:49-56   Bringing peace   There are contradictions in the Bible.   I don’t say that to be controversial or scandalous.   I say that because it is true.   Ezra says that 200 singers accompanied the assembly; Nehemiah claims there were 245.   I Kings is more conservative on Solomon’s extraordinary love of baths than is the author of 2 Chronicles.   In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a single colt; in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus creatively, and flexibly, straddles two animals at once.   Jesus carries his own cross in John’s Gospel, a Gospel that actually has very little in common with the other three canonical Gospels; Simon of Cyrene helps out in Matthew’s telling.         None of these contradictions are all that significant.   They do not alter or compromise the central message of the canon.   Neither are the contradictions unexpected.   There are 66 books...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 12:49-56 Peace? On the night Jesus was born, there were shepherds, in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks.   And beyond those fields, more fields, empty space, the quiet stillness of a resting world.   The whole scene existing in a time before electric lights and frantic traffic and billowing smokestacks forever changed our understanding of time and space and sky.   Above them, those lonely laborers, there was only the glittering, velvety blackness.   Until, there against that familiar backdrop, the impossible: a multitude of angelic beings, so many that space became crowded.   More than sight, they were also sound.   Into that silent night, the angels began reciting their ancient songs, songs that originated beyond the world of mortals, in the hidden mystery that is God’s heavenly presence.   Sadly, we know very little of those sacred songs that filled that night sky.   Nothing of the othe...