Preaching the Scriptures

  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 103:8-14 Our Dust It’s just dust.   This won’t hurt.   It will feel like when a gentle breeze causes your bangs to sweep across your forehead.   It will feel just like when the priest marked you as Christ’s own forever with chrism.   It’s just like that except instead of oil there will be ashes, dust. And so it won’t hurt.   Unless, that is, unless you really think about it.   If you really think about the ashes, if you sit with them and let them seep through your pores and into your soul, you will feel just how heavy something that weighs almost nothing can be.   And then it will hurt.   It will hurt like life.   And it will hurt like death. Ashes are a fitting reminder of our mortality.   They are what is left after life has left.   And they are everywhere.   Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.   Signs of decay lazily dance in the air all around us, revealing themselves mo...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Eclipse I don’t presume to know what John was thinking when Jesus showed up at the river, at his river, John’s river.   But I do know that the people who were there, the crowds that journeyed all the way out into the desert, they came to see him.   They came to get a glimpse of the man wearing the camel skins, eating the locusts.   They came to experience his unique, fiery style.   They came to be pushed under the water by his rough hands, in the corner of the river he carved out for himself.   They came for John…until they didn’t.   He was the star…until he wasn’t. Until John the Baptist was eclipsed, like the secondary star in a binary system.   And then the people moved on.   And now, in our Bible, Jesus is the primary star; John is a minor character, in the story only to support the main character.   Once he had his own disciples – until they left to follow his much more imp...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Revelation 7:9-17 All Saints' Day: baptism and burial All Saints' Day seems as if it should hold the answers. And yet instead it is like struggling to find the opening in a curtain that has no opening. Tangled up and twisted, desperate to glimpse the mysteries of the other side, to find answers to the questions that vex us, questions of life and death, of time and eternity. Here we are so close and yet no closer. What brings us here? To this place? To this day? To this place – equal parts baptism and burial. To this day – equal parts baptism and burial. What brings us here? Is there something we seek? And if so where might that something be found? In the wood of the pews – wood that wears a million fingerprints, worn into shape by a million worshipers, the living and the dead, who sit and stand and sit again and kneel and sit again, wood that holds cards and pencils but also decades of prayers whispered into the ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 14:1-14 A Funeral Text Do not let your hearts be troubled. In my father’s house there are many dwelling places. I go to prepare a place for you…so that where I am, there you may be also. I’ve read, heard, pondered, proclaimed, and preached this gospel passage so many times I’ve lost count. This Gospel is now for me about grieving families and ashes under the funeral pall. It is about saying goodbye and holding desperately to hope. This Gospel is to me “funeral” every bit as much as 1 Corinthians 13 is weddings. But this week, as I considered this Gospel, I could only think about one funeral: my grandpa’s funeral. His funeral was Friday – just two days ago – in Zanesville, OH. And my grandma asked me to officiate and preach. And so this time, this time I read and pondered this Gospel, sitting on planes and waiting in airports – traveling to bury my grandpa, and then returning back home to the loving support of my wife and kid...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Revelation 7:9-17  Death and Hope It's a little closer today.  The mystery we call death feels a closer today.  All Saints' Sunday, with its heavenly visions from the book of Revelation, its allusions to both burial and Easter, its baptismal waters sprinkling our faces with memories, always teases that veil that hangs between us and those who have already crossed the threshold.   Today, death is in the air; it's on our minds, on our hearts, it's even in the water.  Each moment, it pulls us closer.  It's pull, steady and unrelenting.  In an age of information, in which questions find answers at the stroke of a few keys, the best we can do is speculate, is guess, is live with the mystery.  No answers.  No knowledge.  At least not yet.  It lies ahead of us like an abyss – inevitable and unavoidable.  This mortal life always ends in death.  We are born and so will we die.  And we k...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 20:1-18 Easter Life Don't tell me.   I think I know why your wore your fancy clothes and your pretty dresses today.   It's because you knew what you would find here.   Fragrant white lilies.   Alleluias!   Smiling faces.   A burning paschal candle.   Joyous Easter hymns.   And an empty tomb.   Today we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.   I can think of no better reason to be fancy.   It is easy to forget then that, once upon a time, there was nothing inevitable about Easter at all.   Mary Magdalene ran to the tomb, not in an Easter gown, but in her mourning clothes, carrying a broken heart – expecting to find the sealed tomb of a corpse, of her dearly departed friend.   No lilies.   No Alleluias.   No smiling faces.   No joyous hymns.   She only expected to see a tomb – a tomb blurred by a flood of her own tears. Don't get me wrong, Mary d...