Monthly Archives: May 2019

Fixer-Uppers

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Sixth Sunday in Easter, Year C, May 26, 2019.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 16:9-15. Come and stay at my home.
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5. Gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night.
John 14:23-29.  We will come to them and make our home with them.

O God of Homecoming, 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.

More visions this week in our scripture readings: today a vision of Paul, another vision of John of Patmos, and more of the vision of John the Evangelist. What strikes me about the three visions last week and this week is that they are visions of home. They’ve reminded me that I really miss the occupation description “homemaker.” I’m sorry that it has become a bad word for progressives and I want to take it back. I also miss the name home economics as a course of study. The root meaning of the word economy is household. A household or home, in this sense, is a place where the residents (who are not necessarily related) share their meals and rest together. There is an economy.

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Surprising Visions of Peace

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Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year C
May 19, 2019

Acts 11:1-18 The spirit told me…not to make a distinction between them and us.
Revelation 21:1-6 I am making all things new…to the thirsty I will give water as a gift.
John 13:31-35 I give you a new commandment, [in order] that you love one another.
O God of all, 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.


We are thirty-five days into Eastertide, and our scripture lessons today describe visions: Peter’s vision, John of Patmos’ vision, and John the Evangelist’s vision. While Peter was in a trance of prayer, he had a life-changing dream that revealed there is no distinction between “them” and “us.” In other words, when it comes to the redeeming urge or work of the Holy One, (also known as Jesus Christ for Christians), there is no Jew or Gentile, no free or slave, no male and female, [1]  no insiders and outsiders, no gender binary; all people are one. While there are always those in the center and those on the margins, those with more power and those with less, those of us who have and use more than our fair share of resources and those who do not have their basic needs met, we are all one. Peter realizes that he should not be hindering the work of God by deciding who is inside and who is outside of God’s reach when it comes to sacred and profane practices. Here’s where we often get tripped up as Christians. How does any of us decide what is godly is and what it’s not? Well, for starters, as our Presiding Bishop Curry is fond of saying, “if it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” Of course it gets complicated, but that’s where we start. If it looks like there are competing interests that all have to do with love, we might need to enlarge our view. We might need to look at the situation from 30,000 feet where differences become imperceptible.

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Come alive!

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Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year C
May 12, 2019

Acts 9:36-43 He gave her his hand and helped her up.
Revelation 7:9-17 He will guide them to springs of the water of life.
John 10:22-30 It was winter.

O God of eternal life, 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.

During Eastertide, our lectionary offers no lessons from the First Testament. The effect, I think, is to overemphasize a break between Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ religious identity and tradition. Instead, we have passages from the Acts of the Apostles’ romantic accounts of the beginnings of Christianity, written toward the end of the first century about “the good old days.” (Always be suspicious when you hear about good old days, because they’ve never been good for everybody.) Today it’s Peter raising Dorcas from the dead with a line that is almost exactly the same as what Jesus said to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead. Jesus reportedly said, “talitha cum” which means arise or wake up, come alive! Here Peter says, “tabitha anasteythi” which means arise or wake up, come alive!. In other words, Peter was ministering just like Jesus.

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Looking for Resurrection Joy

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Third Sunday of Easter, Year C, May 5, 2019.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 9:1-6(7-20).  Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen.
Revelation 5:11-14. And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’.
John 21:1-19. Come and have breakfast.

O God of Resurrection, 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.

We are going deep into the Great Fifty Days of Easter, the extended celebration of the Resurrection of the Dead. I’m always grateful that the Church calendar gives 40 days for Lent, but 50 days for Easter. Lent is easier for many of us – we can easily believe in the need for focus on penitence, prayer, study, and almsgiving. Many of you tell me that Lent is your favorite season. On the other hand, a season of increased focus on resurrection joy really trips people up. So the Church gives us extra time – an extension or sorts – to observe, to celebrate new life for what has seemed unredeemable, discarded, lost or dead! Some of you might be thinking that fifty days is not long enough. That’s okay – this is a group project, not an individual assignment, and every year we get another try.

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