Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 9:35-38     Remember Your “Why” Cathedral of All Saints and St. Thomas, Tupper Lake   In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus never once checks his email.   And I think we all know what that means: he is going to fall hopelessly behind – and then have to spend the rest of the week desperately trying to catch up.     Of course, I am only kidding: no one ever catches up on email, not even Jesus.   Because they just keep coming – always and forever.     The expectations of ministry have certainly changed over the centuries.   Priests and deacons of the past would never have imagined the shape and demands of ordained life in the 21 st century.   And it is not just your inbox.   Administrative expectations and mundane tasks constantly clog up our to-do lists.   You have to fill out the parochial report.   And beg someone to serve on the vestry.   And proo...

  The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 10:35-45   Human   As I came to, I realized I was being cradled like a baby by Miss Deanna.   Deanna was a was a robust and refined black woman, probably 40 years my senior.   I noticed, supported by her gentle arms, that her round face looked concerned, and her cheeks glistened with tears.   It was a confusing moment.   Because I was not a baby; I was a thirty-five-year-old man being cradled like a baby and we were in the chancel of the chapel.   Why was she sweetly and tenderly holding me?   Why was she crying?   I shifted my gaze, still trying to make sense of the situation.   The small eight o’clock congregation looked a bit panicked.   Someone in the back was on the phone, calling the paramedics.   Lying in Miss Deanna’s lap, on the floor of the chapel, I started to piece things together.   The last thing I could remember was the Prayers of the People. ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 6:1-8   Chrism Mass 2024   You are here today because someone spoke a word of God into your life.   Someone planted the seed.   Someone, at some point, became the first person who was convinced you were called to be set apart.   To be a priest.   Or to be a deacon.   To be an ordained minister of the Gospel.   For me, it was my paternal grandparents: Bob and Sharon Williamson.   And they first spoke that word into my life when I was just a boy.   The dawning days of my vocation were not of biblical proportions.   I didn’t get the divine drama of the scene in Isaiah, no sweetness of temple incense or angelic vision; my lips were not singed with a live coal.   Instead, what I remember most of those early days is a very particular scent: it was this overwhelming floral perfume, wafting from the dish of decorative soaps – certainly my grandma’s addition to the home.   Th...