Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 16:19-31   The Beatitudes with a Plot   There is one question we must answer today at the very outset of our exploration of this unsettling Gospel passage.   If we hope to make sense of this Gospel, there is something we absolutely must determine about the finely dressed, sumptuously fed man in Jesus’ story: is he a bad man or is he a rich man?   Is he a bad man or is he a rich man?     Or perhaps we might ask ourselves: does Jesus want us to think of the man in the story as a bad man or a rich man?   At first glance, the man doesn’t look good.   Certainly, he is not presented favorably.   A poor man died, hungry and suffering, at his gate and it appears the rich man did nothing to ease his pain.   By the end of the story he is being tormented in a land of fiery agony.   He’s definitely not the hero of this story.     And yet, neither is this man presented as heartless or...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 16:19-31 It’s not too late This was the story he was born to tell.   It was in his DNA.   His mother sang this song to him in the womb – a song of a world turned up-side-down, a song of hope for the poor and forgotten, a dream to be dreamed by those covered in sores, for those dying on the side of the road.   The lyrics lived in his soul: “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly, has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”   It was Mary’s Song.   And now it was his: his story to tell.   A story of salvation, perched at the edge of the apocalypse. Jesus’ story, his parable, is the story of two men: one powerful and one lowly, one rich and one hungry.   And because this is a parable, and because Jesus’ parables tend to often employ hyperbolic language to draw the listeners in, to peak their interest, the extremes here are very extreme. ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 6:17-26 The Other Beatitudes                                                                                                       “’In spirit.’ You forgot to say ‘in spirit.’”   That’s how I imagine this went.   Someone in that crowd yelled out the “in spirit.”   That’s just life on the road.   You make enough stops.   Give enough speeches.   Stand before enough crowds: and your groupies know your bits.   Someo...