Preaching the Scriptures

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 25:31-46   Throne   It is a funny place for a throne.   There, surrounded by the bustle of a bleating flock, sits the King.   Sheep and goats milling around in his royal presence.   The mess before him is considerable.   The odor: even more considerable.       Typically, a throne is situated in a palace – surrounded by marble floors, arched entryways, dazzling fixtures.   The odors wafting through that place far surpass, in delight, the scent of the sheepfold.   Cinnamon and citrus, perhaps frankincense and myrrh.   And servants, so that the king need never dirty his precious hands.       Israel did have a celebrated tradition of shepherd kings.   But though the image loomed large in the hearts of the people, mostly it was just about David.   He was the one called from the fields, anointed in his work clothes, the holy oils streakin...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 25:1-13   The Bridesmaids   It’s not that “Keep awake” is bad advice.   In fact, in some cases it is very sound, very relevant, advice.  Keep awake so that you don’t miss your stop on the train.   Keep awake so that you don’t snore in the crowded movie theatre, or during this sermon.   Keep awake because you are driving.   There are many situations in which it is very important to keep awake.   And so it is not a bad moral to tack onto a Jesus’ parable.   It is just that it obviously does not apply to this parable.     “Keep awake” cannot be the point of this particular Gospel story.   It cannot be the point because everybody fell asleep – all ten bridesmaids featured in Jesus' parable – both the wise and the foolish – fell asleep.  And half of them joined the party anyway.  So “keep awake,” it turns out, didn’t really matter that much and theref...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Revelation 7:9-17   Great Multitude   It might just be that we are all standing on the edge of the apocalypse.   That perhaps apocalyptic vision belongs not only to entranced prophets and the writer of the book of Revelation; that apocalyptic talk is not strictly the domain of street-corner preachers and fervent Pentecostals; that apocalyptic experiences are not reserved for the movie screen.   But for those who are permanently stained with baptismal waters, those who sway to the songs of the dead.   The word “apocalypse” is widely misunderstood in our culture and even in the Church.   For most it brings to mind cataclysmic disaster, unprecedented trauma, Rapture anxieties, even the end of the world.   But the apocalypse is not the end of the world; the apocalypse is not made of earthquakes and hurricanes. But it is an act of God: it is the moment God opens our eyes so that we can see the world for what...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Exodus 33:12-23   Bold Prayers   If one find’s oneself in the presence of the British Monarch, one better behave appropriately.   In such rarified company, a guest is expected to arrive in advance of the monarch and leave before the royal exits the room.   In doing so, the guest must never turn their back to the monarch; such behavior is considered quite rude.   Do not initiate physical contact; that is not your place.   Shake only if shaken.   Do not speak unless spoken to; do not sit unless the monarch first sits; and do not eat unless you first witness food enter the mouth of the sovereign.   And ladies, if you curtsy, please remember to limit your curtsy to a short bob, “ keeping the back straight, hands by the side, dropping the knees slightly and bowing the head. ” [1]   Above all, be polite and civilized; you are meeting a royal after all.      Fortunately for him, Moses ...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Exodus 32:1-14   Seen   They were afraid.   And they felt alone and abandoned.   They were stranded in that vast and hostile desert when Moses just walked away.   He left them.   And now, there was no one left to lead the way.   No one left to escort them to the Promised Land.   No one left to walk out in front, to hear and execute the divine navigation.   No one to rescue them from hot sands and parched skin, from this scorching purgatory.     They were shriveling in the sun, wasting away day by day, stuck in neutral.   They were miserable.   But it wasn’t their fault that Moses ditched or died.   It was just clear that Moses was out of the picture.   And so there was nothing to do, nothing to see.   And they desperately needed to catch a glimpse of something.   Aaron was the one Moses left in charge.   He was the backup, the placeholder. ...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Exodus 17:1-7   Water in the desert   The desert was dry The anxiety sky high The question was: why?   Why did God rescue them from slavery in Egypt only to leave them to die a more terrible death: a death of thirst, parched mouths terrorized by the ubiquitous dust, lips broken, organs failing?   Why would Moses and his miraculous staff hatch a brilliant escape plan but not map out the vast wilderness?   Why did it have to end this way?   Egypt wasn’t good.   But also it wasn’t death.   There they were abused by their taskmasters.   They were slowly erased, ground into the sandy ground.   It was suffering but suffering with water and food and so suffering they could, at least, survive.   In Egypt, they cried out to God in desperation but not this desperate; out in that dry desert the sands of time poured through the hourglass much more quickly.   In Egypt, the future was bl...

  The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Matthew 20:1-16   Not Fair   This parable is not fair.   And this landowner, he does not appear to be great at business.     And I do hope the people in Jesus’ crowd understood that this story was a folksy parable – because if they took this as entrepreneurial advice, financial ruin was all but guaranteed.   In this strange parable, the owner of the vineyard is employing a highly questionable business model.   If the landowner followed this strange pattern daily, it would not be long before the morning shift suffered some serious atrophy; laborers would keep a lower profile at sunrise – even though the landowner, as the parable reminds us, does pay a fair daily wage.   Most of the laborers would apply in the late afternoon – knowing that their hourly rate skyrockets as the evening approaches.   As the word got out, and it would, the fields would become drastically understaffed and under-worked...