Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 2:1-21   What do we do with this fire?   What do we do with this fire? Breaking into locked spaces Scorching one-hundred and twenty faces Undermining homeostasis   In the upper room Where they were waiting It blew in on the breeze   At first among them And then on them Living lighters Just milling about Each saw one hundred and nineteen fires The others’ fires Everywhere Spotlighting the frenzied faces of friends and fellows Each person saw mant, but felt just one, one tongue of flame And one was enough   You don’t need to see what can be felt It’s like faith But in the hair On the scalp Like a burning bush: Consumed but not consumed   Disruptive To the days of silent prayer And talking And pacing And waiting Waiting for something To come down from the skies Like the angels promised   But not this No one expected this: To be set...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 2:1-5   Hope. In these times.   If I had to describe hope, I might say that it is like a ghost. Caught in glances but never really caught And that it appears much more fragile than everything around it And that when I most need to hold it tight against my soul Against my body My arms feel emptier than I wish they would.   It always feels like there is less of it than there should be. But especially this week. When a news report about our shooting Is interrupted by a news report about a city in Virginia A shooting in Virginia That, in time, will be interrupted by another shooting and another Wounds upon wounds More dead.   Too many. Tremors of grief and the terrible aftershocks that threaten to throw the world off its axis. This world haunted by violence. And despair. And death. But not hope.   What will come of this Advent? This new season? What will it bring?   ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 35:4-7a   Dreamer   Isaiah was as dreamer.   And I mean that as a compliment.   And I say that, because, while I know pretty much what every person in this world is against these days, I know almost nothing of their dreams.   I know what makes them rage, but I have no idea what brings tears to their eyes.     It sometimes feels like we are living on a scorched earth.   To me it feels like everywhere I look there is seething discontent, just so much anger; every post, that is not a baby, a pet, or a pun, is a complaint, frustration, or insult; every headline a tragedy; every cable news segment a red-hot poker; every life and every death fuel for some partisan fire.     Of course, there are things in the world that should fill us with holy anger, but just probably not everything.     I don’t claim to know all the reasons for all the anger; I’m sure they are legion. ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 2:1-21 PENTECOST: A Holy Spirit Poem (in 50 Lines) Holy Spirit, I can't put my finger on you I can't get my mind around you. But every time I charge into you, O Formless Mist, collapse into your abyss,       a little piece of you becomes lodged in my chest – reduced by an elusive Lover,       yet filled: with the heartbeat of God, with breath, with life. I am Jacob wrestling the air, hip displaced all the same. I am Abram in the presence of a divine stranger,       but what does one give a ghost? Probably not a fatted calf I am Elijah utterly devastated by a whirlwind and yet here I stand still. Shaken and stirred, shaken and still – is this what you call peace or upheaval? You have no name by which to address you – only adjectives –       insufficient, incomplete, inconsequential? Maybe There is no sacred name ...