Preaching the Scriptures

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 23   In Good Hands Christ Church, Pottersville   In the bustle of this hectic age, Psalm 23 seems to slow the world down.   It speaks from another time and place, one now buried under the weight of industrialization and technological sprawl.   It feels utterly, and happily, detached from the persistent demands of the email inbox, the heightened expectations of school and work, from deadlines and task lists.   It feels calm in a way that the world does not; simple in a way that feels lost.   With the opening verses, the psalmist paints for us an idyllic picture: the soft, cool grass of the green pastures; the peaceful still of deep waters.     In a sense, this psalm has come to conjure in its readers the same feelings vacationers hope to find in these mountains, in the Adirondacks.   Urbanites flock here in the summers, drawn by the beautiful green and the refreshing waters, hoping to find...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 126   A Retrospective   I first started dreaming when you talked to me about your nightmare.     It was late in the summer of 2015. The sound of toddlers trying to be quiet filled the nervous air.   I straightened my interview best and whispered a centering prayer.   I was sitting at my dining room table, laptop open, Skype on the screen.   And, for the first time, I was seeing the faces of Grace and St. Stephen’s – a parish far away, in Colorado Springs, that I knew only from their on-line profile.   It was that profile that first piqued my interest.   It was lovely and excellent and exciting – words that I now know describe this parish perfectly.   When I first looked through its digital pages, I started to imagine standing in this pulpit, watching my children sing with the St. Nicholas choir, staring up at the lighted tower on a crisp December night.     I stumb...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 121   Pilgrim Psalm   The journey was dangerous.   And the way was not safe.   So common and pervasive was the peril that it served as the backdrop for the well-known Parable of the Good Samaritan.   That story, told by Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, begins with an unnamed traveler being stripped and beaten by robbers.   The man is left for dead on the side of the road, the road that leads to Jerusalem.   Psalm 121 is one of the best known psalms in the entire poetic collection.   It has for centuries lived in the hearts and souls of the people of God.   It is a song that instills comfort and confidence.   For centuries it has been prayed in moments of anxiety and insecurity and has been a remarkably effective conveyor of peace and tranquility.   The psalm is one of fifteen psalms grouped and categorized as Songs of Ascent, part of a collection within the larger collection.   These ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 51   Repentance   When this season opened – Lent, we call it – I remember there was unexpected snow. We came to this place, to this lawn, to be marked with the dust of death; we walked to our cars drenched in the water of life.   The snow was another symbol, washing us as we were cleansed – white flakes mixed into our black ashes.   Something about how In the midst of life we are in death.       And as we received our mixed messages from the heavens, we committed ourselves, once again, to a holy Lent.   We said words about repentance.   And mourned the 40-day loss of chocolate.       In the snow and ashes, our souls once again tried to digest the heaviness of the Lenten Exhortation, with its complex invitation and its intimidating expectations.   And the choir was singing, from the inside out, Psalm 51.     Today is the fifth Sunday of this season, the fifth ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 90:1-12   Life is Short   There are 150 psalms.   Just one is associated with Moses.   That one is Psalm 90, the psalm we recited this morning.   Moses did not write the psalm; it emerged long after his death. But it is called, in its scriptural superscription, a prayer of Moses.   And so I imagine the poet, the writer of this psalm, dwelling in the soul of a soul long at rest, like poets and storytellers often do.   I imagine the poet looking out from Moses’ tear-blurred eyes, as the man of God stands at the top of Mt. Nebo.   And this poem: inspired by that devastating view.   A promised land on the horizon, close enough to touch, but forever and ever away.   One long pursued but never achieved.   The cruel reality of mortality.   All those desert days, following the promise, chasing a dream, and then only this brief glimpse.   And then, as he ponders a world he wil...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 137 Hatreds and Hope There are parts of the Bible that are difficult to read.   There are scriptures that are difficult to read because they are confusing or obscure.   There are passages that are difficult to read because they are nothing more than a long list of unfamiliar, difficult-to-pronounce names.   And then there is Psalm 137 – a chapter of the Bible that is difficult to read because the writer says things in this psalm that most of us would never otherwise utter.   The writer paints a picture that is simply too gut-wrenching to imagine, to disturbing to envision. And it is a prayer.   A prayer that feels wrong; a prayer that causes one’s tongue to retreat from the poetry.   But not one’s mind and not one’s soul.   The soul, it seems, cannot help but puzzle over that disturbing final verse, forcing us to wrestle with the haunting question of why: why is this verse found in our sacred, holy scr...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 79 & 1 Timothy 2:1-7 Prayer and Love The Bible is a strangely complex book.   And occasionally the lectionary makes sure that we do not forget that fact.   Today is one of those days.   The contrast between the abrasive emotion of today’s psalm and the gentle inclusivity we heard in the letter to Timothy, for example, is significant; there is an emotional range displayed there.   It is kind of like the range of emotions in our nation the day after a presidential election, when half of the country, those for the whom the election did not go as they had hoped, is crying out with the psalmist, “Pour out your wrath upon the heathen” and the other half is like my grandma, posting facebook memes reminding those in anguish that the Bible does tell us to say our prayers for “kings and all who are in high positions.”   The Bible has range. What is perhaps most interesting about these divergent scriptural expressions,...