Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 5:13-20   The Light of the World   What are you, exactly?   What are we?   Jesus seems to have some thoughts.   In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, he is name calling.   You are the salt of the earth.   You are the light of the world.   Maybe you are a lamp on a lampstand or a city on a hill.   If you play your cards right, live your days well, Jesus might even, one day, call you great in the kingdom of heaven.   Today is our Annual Meeting Sunday.   Each year, in the lead-up to the Annual Meeting, I spend a lot of time reflecting on the nature and identity of our church.   That big question: what are we?   I think about what we have done and who we have been.   I assess what we are doing and who we are.   And I wonder what God will call us to do next and who God will call us to be in the days that will make up our future.   Grace and St. ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Christmas Eve 2016 Luke 2:1-20 One Tiny Flame I can't explain this. I hope you understand. It all came out of God like poetry instead of prose – beautiful but hard to make sense of. How did the one who spoke creation into being get caught up in the small town drama of a pregnant teen who see angels? How did the God who spilled the stars across the universe like marbles become enclosed in the cramped, black space of a virgin womb? See I can't explain this. I hope you understand. Christmas presents us with more questions than answers. Christmas, I think, means to leave us tongue-tied, at a loss, in awe and wonder, clinging desperately to whatever faith gives us the eyes to see God in that manger. Christmas means to leave us breathlessly pondering all these things in our hearts. So Christmas is, of course, mysterious; it is, after all, God wrapped in packaging much, much too small. But also Christmas is teaching me...