Monthly Archives: February 2014

Spelling It Out

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Epiphany 5A, February 2, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 58:1-12 You will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.
1 Corinthians 2:1-16 So that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
Matthew 5:13-20 You are the salt…you are the light.

O God of salt and light, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I don’t know about you, but from time to time someone tells me that they don’t believe in or that they don’t like “organized religion.” My knee-jerk response is to shake my head and say, “We’re really not that organized.” But if I can keep quiet a minute and ask what it is that the person doesn’t believe in or like, it’s usually hypocrisy. I can eagerly affirm that I share the feelings of disgust for hypocrisy. And then, if the person is willing to continue the conversation, I muse out loud that much of the Bible -– both the first and the second testaments -– is devoted to calling religious people to account for hypocrisy. The Bible may have been written for the people who need the most help. (I am one of them.) Continue reading →

Listening to Anna

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Presentation of Jesus in the Temple,  February 2, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Malachi 3:1-4 Who can stand when he appears?”(Anna can.)
Hebrews 2:14-18 Free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
Luke 2:22-40 There was also a prophet, Anna.

O God of the prophets, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Because today is fortieth day after Christmas, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, which the Gospel of Luke tells us occurred, as required, when Mary and Joseph took their infant into the Temple in Jerusalem to dedicate him to God and to celebrate the return to purity of his mother. There actually is no known requirement or even custom of presenting an infant in the temple, but there was a rite of purification for a mother after delivering a baby.

In Jesus’ time, a mother of a son could return to a state of purity after 40 days with the offering of a sheep and a dove if she could afford it, or the offering of two doves if she were poor. The mother of a daughter took 80 days, twice as long to regain purity (whatever). The Church celebration of this feast on February 2 used to be known as The Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mother. In 1969 the name got changed by the Roman Catholic Church, and the Episcopalians followed suit in our 1979 Book of Common Prayer. When February 2 falls on a Sunday, the Feast trumps the usual Sunday lectionary appointments. Since February 2 doesn’t fall on a Sunday very often (the last time was in 2003), we typically don’t hear this part of the infancy narrative so long after Christmas. Perhaps it’s a little jarring. You might notice that it’s completely incompatible with the Gospel of Matthew’s story of the Holy Family’s escape to Egypt to avoid King Herod. Continue reading →