A Message To Remember: Preaching At The Fraumünster
A Message To Remember
Preaching At The Fraumünster
In 2020 I had the privilege of preaching at the Fraumünster in Zürich. This historic sanctuary, which was once a Benedictine abbey, is a birthplace of the Swiss Reformation and Reformed Christianity.
It was such a joy to proclaim the Good News in that hallowed space while looking at windows by Marc Chagall from its high pulpit. It was also a joy to reflect on the story of the Magi and encourage worried souls during the COVID-19 pandemic.
My sermon, titled “Where God Wants To Be”, can be found in the Youtube video below (it begins at 33:29). At some points the microphone began having issues; nevertheless, most of the sermon is clear. It was indeed a message to remember!
The images featured in this post are from Scotty J. Williams.
Hope and Longing (A Prayer For MLK-Inauguration Day 2025)
Hope and Longing
A Prayer For MLK-Inauguration Day 2025
While remembering the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., my country also swore in its 47th President. As all celebrations do, both brought hope and longing. Hope from challenges overcome and longing for challenges to be overcome. They also reveal a host of blessings to be counted or things worthy of gratitude as we aspire and dream.
Here is my prayer for the 2025 MLK-Inauguration Day. Please feel free to share it with the proper acknowledgements.
O Giver of all good things, Who has blessed us with another day, we acknowledge the gift of gratitude in the midst of hope and longing. We are grateful for the dreams fulfilled and the challenges behind us, and we are grateful for the dreams we hold through the challenges around us. Lord, give us eyes to see what is right in our world while seeing its wrongs, and fix our minds on joy that we might think of more than cares. The joy of Christ Your Son, which inspired Your servant Martin Luther King, and is the strength of all Who follow Him and seek to keep His humble Way. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.
The images featured in this post are from Scotty J. Williams.
Peaceful Change (A Prayer For Election Day 2024)
Peaceful Change
A Prayer For Election Day 2024
Change is never easy, but it can still be peaceful.
It’s no secret that my country’s current Election has been problematic and worrisome for many at home and abroad. As for me, I have to chosen to keep quiet this round, and to only use my voice within the solace of prayer. This choice has been very hard but has helped me to stay calm, and my greatest hope is for a peaceful change of power that brings unity.
Here is my prayer for the 2024 Election. Please feel free to share it with the proper acknowledgements.
Lord Jesus, Who is more than the Son of God and Blessed Savior, You are also the Prince of Peace that passes all understanding. Grant us this peace as we struggle with questions for today and worry over questions for the unknown days ahead. And grant this peace unto the candidates before us and the parties that have chosen them to lead our nation forward. No matter who wins let no conflict arise, and let transitions bring a calm for the good of every citizen. Lord, may our country see a peaceful change of power that leaves us all in unity and hopeful for the future. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.
The images featured in this post are from Scotty J. Williams.
My Favourite Hymn: Lord, Don't Leave Me
My Favourite Hymn
Lord, Don't Leave Me
Growing up in a congregation of the National Baptist Convention, I spent each Sunday singing in the style passed down from my ancestors. There were no instruments, save a piano for when the hymnal was used, and many hymns were unwritten and only known in our community. These songs were also composed in the time of slavery, and were not the same as Gospel music from the 20th century.
My favourite hymn of the old hymns is called, “Lord, Don’t Leave Me”, which is a prayer for the presence and protection of God. I have sang it many times while on the road of ministry, and the Lord has always answered with strength to go forward.
Here is a beautiful rendition of “Lord, Don’t Leave Me” by the Pineville AME Zion Hymn Choir of Rock Hill, South Carolina.
(The Church depicted in this post is not my home congregation, but the First African Baptist Church of New Orleans. Founded in 1817, it is Louisiana’s oldest Black Baptist Church.)
The images featured in this post are from Scotty J. Williams.
Help and Hope (A Prayer For All Saints 2024)
Help and Hope
A Prayer For All Saints 2024
Despite decades of commercialism, All Hallows’ Eve is not pagan. In fact, it is a Christian holiday that comes before All Saints Day. These feasts are like a matching set that give each other context, and without one the other loses all of its meaning. All Hallows’ Eve is a day where believers remember what death and darkness have become, and All Saints is a day where they remember what they have become.
Through Christ death and darkness have been conquered and stripped of their power, which means that they are not to be feared as they used to be. After the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension they are but quaking shadows of their former selves. Yet, for those we follow Christ, we are no longer sinful shadows. Through Him we have been brought into a glorious light and become saints of God with all the blessings of heaven.
Indeed, All Hallow’s Eve and All Saints are like a matching set, and together they call us to give thanks to Him Who was crucified, risen, and ascended on our behalf. Jesus Who, in the words of Watts’ hymn, is our Help in ages past and our Hope for years to come.
Here is my prayer for this year’s All Saints. Please feel free to share it with the proper acknowledgements.
O Christ our Help and Hope, we thank You for this day where we can think of Your loving and redemptive work beyond the Easter season. By Your crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension You have brought us out of darkness that Your light might rule our lives. And by these things You have also silenced the voice of death, that life alone might speak and have the final word forever. Help us to remember what darkness and death have become through You, and what we, who once feared them, have become through You. They are powerless shadows while we are precious saints and children of the One Who sent You out of love to save us. In Your gracious name we pray. Amen.
The images featured in this post are from Scotty J. Williams.
Mother Tree (A Poem of Gratitude)
Mother Tree
A Poem of Gratitude
In July of 2021, during a stressful season in life and ministry, I came before the Mother Tree of Congo Square. Under this old oak some of my ancestors gathered to pray, and like them I sought for relief from the burdens that I carried. Four years later I returned to the Mother Tree with gratitude, and thanked the Lord for bringing my family and I to a new season. This poem of four verses, which represent the years until my prayer was fully answered, is an expression of gratitude. It also recalls the wisdom of Elders from my childhood that I continue to glean from.
Mother Tree
1. To the Mother Tree I came again in olden Congo Square
To pray as father/mother did with spirit made aware
Aware of things my Elders warned while I still naive
And prideful drunk on foolish dreams of youthful mind deceived
I hear their voices, “Listen Chile, yuh don know whuh’cha do,
Or where yuh go in dayz ahead or whuh’cha gonna do.
De past an present stranguh now you ain’t dry friend
An look, you ain’t acquaintance now an even ain’t begin”
And then I answer back, in dialects refined,
“What was for you is not for me in this a different time.”
2. The time for me is past I lay at roots Her feet
And beckon Her, the Mother Tree, intern them to the deep
Deep was the aching that my Elders sought to warn
The cup they knew, which touched my lips, of motley wine and thorns
“Wine of de world”, they say, lamenting from the taste
The taste I took, like them before, returning to that place
While not as days of yore, my time was much the same
But only difference dress and speech with punishment for names
The slurs for them now banned, but burned upon the heart
For those against us close their lips to shout the names import
3. My future perched above, unharmed upon Her branch
It chirps that light upon the leaves with messages attached
Attached and bound to strength that carried me thus far
And wafted me on noble winds to gaze upon our star
“Let not de tings dat were”, my Elders gently say,
“Be obstacle to tings dat are, an put yuh off de way.”
This path is all we have without a fork or turn
No more for us than straight ahead to blessings we have yearned
Her branches bear me gifts and bid me lift my voice
To meet with Hers that fall below in leaves that now rejoice
4. I touch the bark and say, “Your son is now back home,
Like all your children here and gone across the ages roam.”
Roam and return I have to offer Her my thanks
But not a praise for saving me, for this was not her place.
Thank Her for silent ear, I did, and staying there
While living still to welcome me with spirit made aware
More than an aged oak where those before me prayed
The Mother Tree for those to come, long after me someday.
The images featured in this post are by Scotty J. Williams.
This poem is © Scotty J. Williams
All Will Be Well: Three Comforts For Worried Americans
All Will Be Well
Three Comforts For Worried Americans
Just As Troubled
This election season I am choosing to be quiet, and will make no posts on candidates or who I think will win. Instead, I am spending time reading up on John Adams. My favourite Founding Father from my county’s Old Republic.
Upon moving to the Netherlands, where Adams once served as Ambassador, I learned of his biography by the late David McCullough. This masterpriece reads like D.B. Jackson’s Thieftaker Chronicles, and it shows a young America just as troubled as today.
Though Adam’s lifetime had no shots at former Presidents, there were still the shots of British guns and booming canon fire. And though there was no hardened Left and Right-wing spectrum, Americans still had divides like Loyalists and Patriots.
Indeed, our Old Republic was just as troubled as now, but even so, as McCoullough writes, Adams found a bit of hope. He believed, like Julian of Norwich, that all would be well, and he did so from three comforts I am finding in his story.
Comfort 1
The first comfort is things that did not happen to America, and especially the ills we feared or “what ifs” unfulfilled. There were sufferings possible that did not come to pass, from World War III to a sequel of our deadly Civil War. Even our individual lives were spared from several pains, and the greatest pain was death and leaving cherished ones behind. So much has not occurred, which is cause for showing gratitude. We can be hopeful from the things that did not happen in the past.
Comfort 2
The second comfort is what is happening in America, which is more than just the heavy cares that burden us at present. There are joys before our eyes that lift us from the sorrows, and blessings to be counted as we curse the current troubles. While divisions seem to thrive, there are broken walls between us, and we are still finding common ground in the things that really matter. So much is taking place, which is also cause for gratitude. We can be hopeful from what is happening or taking place right now.
Comfort 3
The final comfort is what could happen in America, which, like what is happening, is more than woeful cares. With the pains that we might face are a vast amount of joys. Good things that are possible and brighten up the future. Just as sufferings are guaranteed, so are joys within this life, and the generations after us will be blessed to know their beauty. Much good will take place, which is further cause for gratitude. We can be hopeful from the things that could happen in the future.
All Will Be Well
St. Paul once wrote that one should think upon what is wholesome. What is true, respected, right, pure, lovely, and worthy of praise. Such things have never been absent from the American story, which includes the false, uncouth, imperfect, sordid, and unlovely. We cannot deny the unwholesome which has its time and place. Yet, we must acknowledge where things are right and let them have their place.
What I like the most about McCollough’s account of Adams’ life, is that he shows a man who gives what is wholesome a proper focus and place. Through the sounds of angry guns and canon fire around him, he enjoyed a glass of Madeira and a conversation with friends. And though an ardent Patriot he still cared for the Loyalist, and found relief from great divides in familial bonds at home.
In this election season I pray that all Americans would be like Adams, and think upon what is wholesome as they worry for the future. May we rest in the comforts in our past and in our present, and may these comforts bring us hope that somehow all will be well.
The images featured in this post are from Scotty J. Williams.
Good Things: A Prayer For Independence Day 2024
Good Things
A Prayer For Independence Day 2024
In response to the many wrongs or problems of my country, I have decided to follow St. Paul’s words in Philippians 4:8. I have decided to think upon the good things of America. The true, lovely, right, pure, excellent, and admirable.
To be clear, Paul does not say to overlook the bad things, but shows that there is more to life than facing trials and troubles. There are rays of hope that call for joyful celebration, and remind one that no problem in this world will last forever.
As I see the problems plaguing America at present, I have hope for the future that they one day will expire. This hope is rooted in the blessings that I ponder. The good things of my homeland that make it worth celebrating.
Yes there is so much wrong, but there is so much that is right, and for this I am very grateful and, dare I say, very proud.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
Here is my prayer for this year’s July 4th. Please feel free to share it with the proper acknowledgements.
O Sovereign Lord, under Whose eye nations rise and fall, I thank You for the nation that is celebrated today. Thank You for its past with many joys and imperfections, and thank You for its present even with its many troubles. Grant humility, courage, and constant wisdom to its leaders, and help its people to leave their fears and walk together united. And may all within this land not take their rights for granted. Good things wrought from selfless works by those who came before them. In Your holy name I pray. Amen.
The images featured in this post are from Scotty J. Williams.
Ready (A Prayer for Leaders)
Ready
A prayer for leaders.
This week a parishioner where I serve will become the mayor of a nearby city, and sadly, due to an ongoing cold, I will miss their inauguration. Like all leaders taking new roles, they are grateful for this opportunity. Yet, new roles also have things that can leave one feeling ill equipped.
Though never being in politics or taking a chain of office, I know the worries that leaders can feel when it comes to preparation for a new charge. Therefore, as I rejoice with the parishioner, I think about their possible worries, and pray that they (and all other leaders) will know that they are ready and up to the tasks.
Almighty God, Who governs all things with perfect wisdom and love, give those who lead a humble heart of confidence and peace. Remind them that, though not perfect, they have everything they need, and help them to find the things they lack for the sake of those they serve. Let them know that they are more than ready for the charges they must keep, and bless them with wisdom and courage to the face every challenge and care. Amen.
The images featured in this post are by Scotty J. Williams.
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Victory! (A Prayer for Ascension)
Amen!
A prayer for the Ascension 2024.
Contrary to popular belief, Ascension is more than one day. In fact, it is a four day celebration for when Christ returned to heaven. It is also, as St. Paul writes, a celebration of His victory, for when He left the earth He took of host of enemies defeated.
Behind the risen Christ were a train of conquered captives, who faced the mockery of angels, saints, and all the company of heaven. From the devil to sin and death, each faced humiliation, and heard the shout of victory for son for God descended. And for those in Christ, we benefit from this great victory, and are given gifts to proclaim it that the world might know His love.
Here is my Ascension prayer for 2024. Feel free to share it and use it with the proper acknowledgements of its source.
O Lamb of God, Who sits upon the throne forever, we celebrate Your triumph and we shout with all the heavens. You have conquered every foe while shattering their power, and because of this we have no fear and face this life with courage. Help us who look above like the very first disciples, to be a means or witness that reveals Your gracious presence. May we show You truly live by keeping Your commandment to all love and serve all people as You did upon the earth. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.
The images featured in this post are by Scotty J. Williams.
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