Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Extravagant Love He never even finished his speech.   A shame really, it was brilliant in its brevity and emotional impact.   He rolled that speech over in his head on an infinite loop, making sure every word was just right.   He had rehearsed it so many times that the biggest challenge, at this point, was not remembering the words but making it sound sincere.   It was, admittedly, a sales pitch, even a strong one, but still as he walked the long road home, he was unsure if his father would buy it.   His father was soft, too kind, too loving.   The younger son knew that he left his father brokenhearted.   It was a tender situation.   This young man, his father’s younger son, was hopeful; but even so, it felt like a long shot. Today’s parable opens simply enough: there was a man who had two sons.   That is not terribly unusual.   I have two sons.   Also, I am a man....

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Deuteronomy 26:1-11 The Story of a Man The man’s eyes welled up with tears at the calming sound of the stream, not another mirage this time, but an actual stream.   The blue waters called out to him as if to say, “This place is nothing like the desert.”   The desert was all he had ever known.   He was born there: a wanderer from birth.   He grew up there, a there that was always changing and yet somehow always the same.   Food was scarce, water scarcer.   And they, his people, were always on the move, just walking through purgatory. But no longer; it was a miracle: to stand still.   And even more: to stand still on a patch of green.   The man, born in desolation, thought to himself, or was it out loud, “This must be what the Garden of Eden was like.”   And to have his own plot of land, after wandering for so long, a stranger in strange lands, it felt to him like the Promised Land.   And so his...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Psalm 103:8-14 Our Dust It’s just dust.   This won’t hurt.   It will feel like when a gentle breeze causes your bangs to sweep across your forehead.   It will feel just like when the priest marked you as Christ’s own forever with chrism.   It’s just like that except instead of oil there will be ashes, dust. And so it won’t hurt.   Unless, that is, unless you really think about it.   If you really think about the ashes, if you sit with them and let them seep through your pores and into your soul, you will feel just how heavy something that weighs almost nothing can be.   And then it will hurt.   It will hurt like life.   And it will hurt like death. Ashes are a fitting reminder of our mortality.   They are what is left after life has left.   And they are everywhere.   Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.   Signs of decay lazily dance in the air all around us, revealing themselves mo...

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...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Isaiah 6:1-8 Call Stories It was a truly stunning moment of beauty.   Isaiah the prophet, but not yet a prophet, was in the Temple.   And in that holiest of places, the world suddenly melted away.   Around him no longer stone, no more parachuting specks of dust floating lazily through the sunlight, no more stubborn sacrificial bulls bellowing out in panicked protest, all of it gone; until there was just God, with a robe that spilled from the heavenly throne like a lava flow, unavoidable and encompassing.   Divine presence: not in the way one assumes or theologizes that God is always with us but silent and unseen; this was divine presence in that thick, tangible way, like when a dream becomes true.   It was a vision but it was as real as anything or maybe more real than everything.   Sometimes life pivots on something that cannot be touched, cannot be held, can only be experienced soul-deep.   And this was li...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a Body Someone in this room, in the very room in which we are now gathered, is a kidney.   Someone else in this room is an eyeball.   Or at least that is what the Apostle Paul would have us believe, that is the analogy he spins in today’s reading from his first letter to the Corinthians. There are many metaphors and analogies used to make sense of the Church – this mysterious mystical Christian community of which each baptized person is a member.   The image of the Body of Christ is one of the most enduring – perhaps because we all have bodies and each of those bodies is made of basically the same parts.   Being embodied is a universal human, and divine, experience. We all have kidneys, or at least one.   And, from here at least, it appears we all have eyeballs.   And I think we can all admit that those parts are better when they are firmly connected to the other parts of our body; that ...