Preaching the Scriptures

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 2:1-21   Superpower St. John’s, Troy   It was April of 2023, and I was sitting in St. Michael’s Chapel at Christ the King for the first, but not the last, time.   Where the congregation typically sits were the members of the diocesan Profile and Search Committee.   Before the altar, on high, backless stools, were those in discernment, those prayerfully considering a new form of ministry.   I was on one of those stools.   And, along with my fellow candidates, I was answering questions pulled, if I am remembering correctly, randomly from a hat, or from some similar utilitarian receptacle.     The questions throughout this semi-finalist retreat had been probing and challenging and appropriately complex.   Those days we spent together were days of deep discernment.   The committee needed to leave that retreat with a slate of finalists to present to the public.   Each question alo...

T he Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 1:1-14   Hard to Believe Good Shepherd, Elizabethtown   It was hard to believe.   And they were standing right there, watching it happen.   They thought that Jesus might finally settle down, after everything, but instead he was going up.   And there was no stopping him.   Before their very eyes, he was lifted up, beyond their reach, beyond their words, beyond any feeble attempt to reason with him, or beg him to stay.   There was nothing they could do but watch him go.   And that is exactly what they did: they just stood there staring, stunned silent, mouths agape, angels lecturing and shouting instructions.   They likely arrived on the scene with some preconceived notion, some sense of expectation.   But they were not expecting this.   It was just so hard to believe.   But for the disciples, this was nothing new.   Not really.   Jesus had this tendency to surprise...

T he Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 10:34-43   Water St. James, Au Sable Forks   We live on a world of water.   Seventy-one percent of the surface of our planet is covered in the stuff.   And that water makes life possible.   The smallest to the largest lifeforms are teeming with liquid life.   Including us.   Each person, each human being, is mostly water: babies are almost 80% water weight; adults around 60%.   Water allows us to think (the brain is about ¾ water); to breathe (the lungs are more than 80% water); to pulse with life (the heart is about 75% water and our blood checks in around 90%).   We are a water people on a watery world.   And in this big world, we happen to live and minister in a diocese very much defined by water.   Our southern border is a mountain range named after a kill, a creek – the Catskill Mountains.   Our northern border is the St. Lawrence.   Not far from here, our eastern...

  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...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 9:1-20   Saul and Ananias Emmanuel, Little Falls   He was well within his rights and he was sure he was right.   Saul was a man possessed by a passion for law and order.   The law justified the order he intended to impose upon his world.   It was God’s work.   He was sure of that.   He was convinced that his mission – his mission to hunt down religious deviants and root out their bad theology – was divinely inspired, the commission of an exacting and merciless deity.   And so he marched proudly into the office of the high priest and demanded a blessing.   And he received that blessing.   He was formally deputized to rid the world of blasphemy.   This would be Saul’s legacy, how he was going to be remembered, why he would be known throughout the Empire: he was going to end the Way.     And that would make him a hero to both his religious authorities and their ...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 2:1-21 & Romans 8:22-27   Pentecostal Hope St. Ann's, Amsterdam, NY   All they had was unseen hope.   Because Incarnation had faded into invisible right before their startled eyes.   In a matter of weeks, these disciples had witnessed death and then life and now out of sight.   In a matter of weeks, they experienced impossible pain and unexpected joy and…what now?   Maybe both?   Jesus left again.   Not on a cross but on a cloud.   This was not the sting of death but also this time it was chosen, and so it still stung.   And anyway, he was gone.   And together they were alone.     Once again, for the second time in as many months, the future was hazy.   And in the dizzying presence of change, they reverted to old patterns.   Every time Jesus was gone, they locked up in a room.   They were disciples and, by nature, disciples follow.   The...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 1:15-17, 21-26   Faithful and Good St. Paul’s, Albany   Everything changed with the cast of a lot.   It was such a small thing that made such a big difference.   And it could have gone either way – there were two qualified candidates – but the lot fell on Matthias.   And so, when the lot settled, Matthias became the twelfth disciple, the replacement, the one who restored their number.   Filling the Judas-sized hole is a short story in the book of Acts, but it was a big deal – certainly in the history of our faith.   It was one of the very first tasks of the Easter Church; in the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost the followers of Jesus prayed and filled out the depth chart.   That’s it; that’s the list.   Peter cared deeply about this task.   Everyone remembers Peter’s stunning speech on the day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter two, but his first sermon is what we re...