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 Lent 5A 3-29-20 Ezekiel 37:1-14 In the Valley Lazarus is dead.   In the passage from John’s Gospel that we heard today, Lazarus is dead, actually dead – at least at the beginning of that passage, at least until the breath of God fills his tomb and his body.   But in the valley of dry bones, that place in which there is nothing but death, no one is actually dead.   In our reading from the prophet Ezekiel, our first reading this morning, no one, not a single person in that valley, is dead, but something is dead…and that is hope.   And that is what this strange vision is about. This passage from the prophet emerges from the days of exile.   The nation of Israel was in exile and so was their prophet – away from home, stranded in a strange land.   It was a painful and disorienting time.   Very suddenly, everything around which the community gathered was taken from them.   They could no longer worship...