Preaching the Scriptures

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 4:1-11   Desert Days St. George’s, Clifton Park   The water was fine.   But the desert was calling.   There is no denying that the lush riverbank of the River Jordan was, in that moment, the place to be.   It was kinda like the first century version of Daytona Beach during Spring Break: alluring but overstimulating.   It’s a party but it can’t last forever.   Or so I’ve heard.   I mean, I spent my college spring breaks in Ohio eating cookies and playing video games.   So what do I know?   But the Gospel does tell us that those River Jordan crowds flocked from everywhere. “The people of Jerusalem, and all Judea” were there.   And all the people from the “region along the Jordan” were showing up.   There was something magnetic about that stretch of river.   Curiosity, skepticism, desperation, peer pressure, boredom, FOMO, sometimes even the Spirit: whatever the reason,...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Exodus 17:1-7   Water in the desert   The desert was dry The anxiety sky high The question was: why?   Why did God rescue them from slavery in Egypt only to leave them to die a more terrible death: a death of thirst, parched mouths terrorized by the ubiquitous dust, lips broken, organs failing?   Why would Moses and his miraculous staff hatch a brilliant escape plan but not map out the vast wilderness?   Why did it have to end this way?   Egypt wasn’t good.   But also it wasn’t death.   There they were abused by their taskmasters.   They were slowly erased, ground into the sandy ground.   It was suffering but suffering with water and food and so suffering they could, at least, survive.   In Egypt, they cried out to God in desperation but not this desperate; out in that dry desert the sands of time poured through the hourglass much more quickly.   In Egypt, the future was bl...