Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Romans 5:1-5   Suffering and Hope   Candy Land, a game “lovingly” described on Wikipedia as requiring, “no reading…minimal counting skills [and] no strategy,” is a wonderfully accessible way to introduce even the youngest of children to the timeless idea of journey.   It is true that the Candy Land journey is a bit more simplistic than the journey through life – all laid out as it is in a predictably static two dimensions.   But while the path on the board is clear, every trip has its own challenges. At times the cards you draw will set you off in the direction of your goal; at others times there are setbacks and slowdowns in the cards.   You might be forced to retrace your steps a time or two; your plastic child could at times get stuck in some sticky sugar for a turn.   But what is always true is that the road begins at the Cupcake Commons, runs past the Lollypop Woods, and ends at the Promised Land of Candy C...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 2:1-21   Speaking Your Language   But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”   Which makes me question whether the others were familiar with the general concept of intoxication.   Because, typically, drunkenness does not endow one with heightened linguistic abilities or the grasp of previously unknown languages.   At least that is what I have been told.   I guess I don’t really know; I don’t drink. Then again, also I don’t speak Phrygian.   Is that a coincidence?   Would I speak Phrygian if I imbibed a healthy dose of that new wine?   There was someone in that chaotic crowd, described in our reading from Acts, who did speak Phrygian.   One Galilean, for one day and probably never again, spoke the language of a people very far removed from the Galilean hills.   One Galilean, after being set on fire and then blown out the door by a powerful gust of interior wind...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21     Stop Waiting for Jesus   Almost ten years ago I re-wrote a sermon.   On a Friday.   In the background, the babbling of a toddler clashed with the increasingly devastating news reports coming through my television screen.   As I struggled to find words, something worthwhile to say to my people, something to say about something unspeakable, the death toll kept rising.   Parents kept weeping.   I was a new dad and I was watching people live my worst nightmare.   Except for the exceptionally cruel people with their conspiracy theories, it felt like the entire nation wept with the people of Newtown, Connecticut.   How could we not?   Twenty children, little children, children barely able to tie their own shoes.   Six adult staff members.   All stolen away without mercy and without warning.   The victims walked into school, an elementa...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 11:1-18   Even the Gentiles   I’m not sure one can truly understand this story from the book of Acts unless you first understand the story of Jonah.   I don’t mean the big fish part.   I don’t mean the stuff they put in illustrated Children’s Bibles.   I mean the real reason Jonah ran away to Joppa when God gave him orders for Ninevah.     At first it is a mystery; the reader can’t actually know why Jonah refuses the mission because the book does not immediately tell us.   And so we are, initially, left to speculate.   Ninevah was the capital of an enemy empire.   And so at first it seems like maybe Jonah is afraid of what will happen to him there.   The city was infamously wicked and violent.   It was a scary place.   And for Jonah, a foreigner, it would have been especially scary.   But it turns out, that’s not it.   Jonah’s reason is not clear until th...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 9:1-20   The Conversion of Saul   Saul was not the kind of guy you want to know.   I’m not saying he didn’t have friends; he did.   You didn’t want to know them either.   Saul and his friends were the bad guys; the kind of guys who are fueled by hatred and the cruelest brand of prejudice; the kind of guys who believe the worst conspiracy theories and spread the vilest rumors.   Saul and his friends, on the road to Damascus, were a first century lynch mob, breathing threats and murder, gleefully terrorizing the early Church, men on the forefront of an attempted religious cleansing.   Hatred was their business, maybe even their chosen hobby.   Saul, the ringleader of this violent band, had a reputation – and it was not a good one.   Ananias, in today’s passage from Acts, shares with God what he has heard about Saul.   Saul, from Ananias’ lips to God’s ears, had done much evil to the sa...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John 20:1-18   Show Up   There was no hope on the first Easter morning.   Just dark skies and heavy hearts and the stubborn shadow of the cross.   And a lonely woman carrying spices and ointments to the place where they laid her dearest friend to rest.   There was no hope on the dusty road that she traveled.   It was a road of sorrows, made muddy by the tears of too many mourners.   The road led to death, to a valley of dry bones and faded memories.   And no amount of beautiful flowers or well-manicured trees or impressive monuments could disguise the fact that Mary was lugging her oppressive grief and her broken heart to a cemetery.   There was no hope in that empty tomb.   It was not a cause for joy on that first Easter morning; it was a symbol of the emptiness Mary felt.   It was yet another reason to weep, until even her tear ducts were emptied out.   When she saw the th...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Passion according to John   Good Friday: A Reflection   What now?   A hopeless disciple standing beside a woman watching her son die.   And he is dying.   The cause of death will be suffocation or excessive blood loss or maybe a broken heart.   But he will die on that cross.   The Son of God, brown skin stained with red blood, calloused hands pierced with spikes the color of gunmetal: he will die on a Roman cross with a charge of treason written above his head in three languages.   The breath that gave life to the world will run out.   The sacred heart that holds us will stop beating.   The eyes that wept over Jerusalem will close in eternal rest.   This is not a passion play.   This is passion in its truest and rawest form: immense human suffering.   This is not just a temporary setback on the way to Easter.   This is death – the most human of fates.   And it hap...