Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 4:35-41 & I Samuel 17 Heroes in the Time of Fear I still remember it vividly – because fear is like that; it sticks in the soul.   When I was a child, we lived in a dodgy neighborhood, close to a junk yard.   Our house was a long, brick ranch – and my bedroom was at one end, while my parents’ room was at the opposite end.   A long hallway separated us. And I had this fear that, in the night, someone was going to drive down our long driveway, the one between the junk yard and our home, and break into our house and take me or hurt me – me at the end of the long hallway.   Any time I heard a noise late at night, fear washed over me, whispered its dark secrets into my frantic mind.   And I would pull the red quilt, the one decorated with the birds of Ohio, the one from my grandmother, over my head and I would try my best not to move a muscle.   I would slow my breathing so that no intruder could hear me hidin...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson I Samuel 15:34-16:13 Seeds of Hope I feel like I don’t even know him anymore.   I’m thrown.   Samuel: he used to be so brave.   But now, his tears and jitters even got God’s all-seeing x-ray eyes rolling.   If this reading from I Samuel started just a few verses earlier, you would certainly understand and share my surprise. See, before the tears and the reluctance, Samuel was standing tall.   No tears.   No fears.   In fact in the verses immediately preceding today’s passage, Samuel quite literally hacked the king of Amalek into pieces with his sword.   He did that and then just turned around and walked away without saying another word.   Crazy stuff; not for the timid or the faint of heart.   That does not seem like a dude who would get nervous about a trip to Bethlehem.   Just before cutting up the foreign king, Samuel cut his own king down to size – not with a sword, but with his w...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Mark 2:23 – 3:6 All Fall Down If Jesus asked me the same question, I could have unequivocally answered Yes.  I have read.  I have read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food.  I have read that.  Actually a number of people in the congregation have read that - recently in fact.  Because that story is found in the book of I Samuel and we just finished studying I Samuel in our Wednesday evening Bible study.  If you are new to the story, what you should know is that David was on the run from Saul - that is the occasion that drove him to the house of God. King Saul was trying to kill him; the king was jealous and paranoid and in his madness decided that pinning David to the wall with a spear was the best cure for his anxiety.  Given the urgency of the situation, David and his band of ruffians needed to get out of town quickly – so quickly in fact that they did not even bother to gather ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 2:1-21 Doors, walls, and ceilings If you think about it, the Easter season is, to a certain degree a rather damning critique of the effectiveness of doors, walls, and ceilings.   One has these items for a very specific reason: to keep things out and to keep things in.   And generally, I think we find they are actually quite useful.   Without doors, walls, and ceilings our habitations would be reduced to a stack of windows in a field, plus some rather weathered books and items of clothing, also probably some dangerously emboldened squirrels.   And yet, for all of their general effectiveness in our own lives, doors, walls, and ceilings continually let the disciples down following the resurrection.   By the day of Pentecost, if pressed, they might have been inclined to admit that these items no longer properly functioned in the post-Resurrection world. It started on Easter morning when the rock door of the tom...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 15:9-17 The Price of Love When we first started dating, because I was super charming, every time Jen asked me to do something I would say, “I do what I want, ‘cause I’m sweet.”   I’m sure she found that very endearing.   I mean, she still married me, so… But I have a confession to make: that wasn’t entirely true.   I mean, I am sweet, obviously.   But I did not do whatever I wanted.   Because that’s just not how love works.   And I love her. Because of my love for Jen, my life changed.   Love changed me.   I made compromises that I would not have otherwise made, and that I would not have made for anyone else.   I altered my patterns and routines.   I changed behaviors and attitudes.   I spent my time and money differently.   I pretended to be interested in stuff she liked.   I followed her to India for three weeks, because she asked me if I was interested, I was not interes...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 10:11-18 Hearing Voices Let’s talk about hearing voices.   Because at the most basic level, every passage about Jesus in the role of the Good Shepherd, is really about hearing voices.   Jesus himself says earlier in the same chapter from which today’s Gospel reading comes, “The sheep follow the shepherd because they know his voice.”   And that is why today, Good Shepherd Sunday, is about hearing voices. And, by the way, that is true: sheep do learn to recognize the voice of their shepherd.   They recognize that the voice belongs to the one who feeds them and protects them and meets their deepest needs.   They do not respond to the voices of strangers.   Instead they have remarkable ability to sort through the noise, to hone in on the one voice that matters.   They are perceptive enough to know the voice of the shepherd. And that seems like a nice metaphor to us, I think.   I think Christians re...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 24:36b-48 Resurrection I think Easter season is great.   Don’t you think it’s great?   There is so much joy and excitement in the church.   There are alleluias all over the liturgy.   The lessons are interesting – so full of wonder and amazement.   The new Paschal Candle is burning every week; it looks so good back there by the font.   And at my house, when the kids aren’t paying attention, there is still some Easter candy up for grabs.   It’s just a great season.   It feels good living in Eastertide. I like everything about this season.   Well, I mean, there is one thing.   And I don’t want to seem like I am complaining; this is a great Church season.   But we are sort of forced to think about and talk about perhaps our strangest creedal doctrine an awful lot: resurrection.   Now don’t get me wrong.   I am big fan of the resurrection.   But it is just not the easi...