Monthly Archives: March 2024

Boston’s Reparations Efforts

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March 25, 2024

Last week, sixteen clergy and faith leaders gathered in Roxbury to hold a press conference about their open letter to several churches supporting reparations in our city. The event was hosted by a local activist group, the Boston People’s Reparations Commission.

Are you curious about Boston’s reparations efforts? You may have read that the City of Boston appointed two research teams to continue their work (begun in late 2022). One group brings together researchers of the African American Trail Project at Tufts University and historians at the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford; they will study the history of enslavement from 1620 to 1940. A second group of scholars from Northeastern University will research the history of inequality within the Boston Public Schools, Boston Police Department, Boston Fire Department, and Boston Housing Authority in the era after 1940.

We found the seven-episode podcast series hosted by the WGBH News Equity and Justice Unit to be an excellent introduction to how reparations were championed, and challenged, in our municipal and state government over the years. Entitled “What is Owed?” the broadcast covers the stories of important advocates of reparations, from freedwoman Belinda Sutton, who successfully petitioned the Massachusetts General Court in 1783, through the work of Senator Bill Owens, the first Black member of the Massachusetts Senate, and ends with the unfolding story of our current times.

–Mary Beth Clack, Cindy Coldren, Mary Blocher, Pat Krol, Liz Levin
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church March 27, 2024

Black History Month

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March 10, 2024

“African Americans and the Arts” is the theme of Black History Month 2024. Celebrations of Black History Month at the Washington National Cathedral included its Annual HBCU Welcome Sunday and a spoken word, dance, and music event.

In addition, the Cathedral is highlighting its “Now and Forever Windows” (those replacing the 1953 Lee-Jackson windows), which were dedicated and blessed this past fall. The public event was held on September 23, 2023. The windows, designed by artist Kerry James Marshall, depict the struggle for justice as a religious struggle. It was important for the windows to, in Marshall’s words, “capture both darkness and light, both the pain of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow, as well as the quiet and exemplary dignity of the African American struggle for justice and equality and the indelible and progressive impact it has had on American society.”

As noted by Cathedral staff, the windows project prompted a wider community discussion of “What exactly is sacred art?” For a closer look at the effort to broaden the understanding of history at our nation’s cathedral, and for more about the creation and symbolism of the windows, the following resources are online:

  • Now and Forever: A Story of Freedom on the Move (video, 22 minutes)
  • Smart History’s conversation with artist Kerry James Marshall and poet Elizabeth Alexander (video, 9 minutes)

—Mary Beth Clack, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin, Mary Blocher

–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church February 21, 28 & March 7, 2024

The Church of England and Reparations

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March 10, 2024

In this second week of Women’s History Month, we celebrate The Rev. Canon Kelly Brown Douglas, author, professor, and dedicated advocate of social justice. The Reverend Douglas, one of the first ten Black women to be ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church, was a speaker at Emmanuel’s 2022 Pauli Murray conference. Douglas is currently Canon Theologian at the National Cathedral and Interim President of the Episcopal Divinity School.

Douglas spent the fall of 2023 as Honorary Professor of Global Theology at Emmanuel Theological College, one of the newest Anglican seminaries in the UK. While there, she traveled, spoke at events, met students and faculty at other institutions, and discussed the Church of England’s reparations efforts. Douglas said it was an opportune time to be engaged in discussions about inclusion and reparative social justice with UK colleagues. As reported here in the Episcopal News Service’s Press Release (February 1, 2024), Douglas expressed her hope for the future: “We strive for justice and the full inclusion of the diversity of God’s creation, and then unity follows.” Continue reading →

Not Insurrection, but Resurrection

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Lent 3B, 3 March 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Exodus 20:1-17.  I AM
  • 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.  Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
  • John 2:13-22. They believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

O God of Love, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

Sometimes when I sit down to work on a sermon, I get tripped up by the first few words of a reading and fall into a deep exegetical hole! This week the words were “The passover of the Jews was near.” Why get stuck on that, you might wonder. Well, I’m going to tell you. It’s because Passover is probably not a good translation of the Hebrew word Pesach or the Greek word Pascha. There’s a long history of rabbis arguing about the etymology of Pesach, which can mean skipping over or hopping over or even limping over. There is, however, an even older meaning: to have compassion for or to make a sacrifice of mercy. [1] So we might understand that, according to the Gospel of John, very early in Jesus’ ministry, he made a pilgrimage up to Jerusalem to observe the festival celebrating God’s compassion or mercy, a Festival of Freedom from Oppression. In Jesus’ time, the Romans had taken the place of the Babylonians, who had taken the place of the Egyptians as the oppressors. Continue reading →

If not for love, what are you for?

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Lent 2B, 25 February 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16. Then Abram fell on his face.
  • Romans 4:13-25. Hoping against hope.
  • Mark 8:31-38. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

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

Last week, on the first Sunday in Lent, we learned that the spirit of holiness can drive a very hard bargain. Jesus, perhaps, in order to understand his mission, was pushed hard into the wild for a quarantine. Then, upon hearing of John the Baptist’s imprisonment and picking up where John had left off, Jesus proclaimed the good news of the realm of the Holy One and taught  that the time is now to turn around (or, to change your channel to see and understand that love is the only way). This week we get a glimpse of why the good news was so dangerous. Continue reading →

Blessing for the Brokenhearted

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Lent 1B, 18 February 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Genesis 9:8-17. I will remember my covenant.
  • 1 Peter 3:18-22. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
  • Mark 1:9-15. And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

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

We have entered the season of Lent in our liturgical year. For those of you who are newish to Emmanuel, I want you to know that, in my view, this is the season that most closely aligns with the spirituality and the ethos of Emmanuel Church. We see the sin in the world; that is, we see so many ways in which the mark of Love is missed. (The Biblical definition of sin is missing the mark.) We know our need for mercy. “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we [and others] have from time to time most grievously have committed,” as the Rite 1 Confession goes. The season of Lent, a time for self-examination and repentance, feels made for us. And you know that’s good, because it’s not fair for extroverts to get all of the holidays! Continue reading →

Drive like it!

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Last Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, 11 February 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • 2 Kings 2:1-12. “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”
  • 1 Corinthians 4:3-6. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
  • Mark 9:2-10. He did not know what to say for they were terrified.

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

This past week I had an unusually high number of harrowing experiences as I was navigating the streets in and around Boston. Last Tuesday, two cars crashed right in front of me on the Mass Pike; and on Thursday a car I was riding in nearly got T-boned by a distracted driver. I witnessed pedestrians nearly getting hit in crosswalks by drivers running red lights, bicyclists riding against traffic and traffic signs, aggressive tailgating, erratic lane changing, and gridlocked intersections. It seems to me that drivers have gotten so much worse in the last few years. I googled the worst drivers in the country and was shocked by the results; it’s very bad news. Boston is not even in the top-twenty cities with the worst drivers; we are not even close; we’re not even competitive! Continue reading →

G-AWE-D

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Epiphany 5B, 4 February 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Isaiah 40:21-31. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? [Yes!]
  • 1 Corinthians 9:16-23. In my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge.
  • Mark 1:29-39. So that I may proclaim the message.

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

I’m going to interrupt my preaching on the Gospel of Mark this week to spend a few moments to talk with you about our Hebrew Bible lesson from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, because it’s one of my favorites. Actually it’s Second Isaiah, which is what Chapters 40 through 55 get called, because they were so clearly written at a different time by a different author than the first thirty-nine chapters or the last eleven. The writer of Second Isaiah might be considered the great poet, rather than the great prophet. This writer never once refers to herself as a prophet. I imagine her words might have come to Jesus’ mind sometimes, especially when he was able to find a deserted place to pray while it was still very dark. Continue reading →

A Beautiful, Terrible Day

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Epiphany 4B, 28 January 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Deuteronomy 18:15-20. This is what you requested.
  • 1 Corinthians 8:1-13. Love builds up.
  • Mark 1:21-28. A new teaching – with authority!

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

This past week an angel of the Lord sent me a book about how to live in these terrible days and, at the same time, how to live in these beautiful days. The book is by theologian Kate Bowler:  Have a Beautiful Terrible Day: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs, & In-Betweens. She writes about living with an apocalyptic (that is, revelatory) awareness of the catastrophic — globally, nationally, communally, and personally. Many of us are living, she says, with a heightened sense of precarity, a state of dangerous uncertainty. Insisting that we can be both faithful and afraid at the same time, she maintains, “There is tremendous opportunity here, now, for us to develop language and foster community around empathy, courage, and hope in the midst of this fear of our own vulnerability.” [1] Continue reading →

The Good News Now

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Epiphany 3B, 21 January 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Jonah 3:1-5, 10. God changed [God’s] mind.
  • 1 Corinthians 7:29-31. The present form of this world is passing away.
  • Mark 1:16-20. And immediately.

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

This morning we heard a short passage from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth. It sounds as if he were saying, “The end is near, so shelter in place.” If he did think the very, literal end was near, he was wrong; so why read his teachings 2000 years later as scripture? Here’s one reason: I think that Paul was using rhetorical language to communicate a sense of urgency about behaving as if we were free from the slavery of mistreatment and of mistreating others, so that the present form of this world does pass away, can pass away, and will pass away. In the very next verse after our short passage he writes, “I want you to be free from anxieties or worries.” (It seems as if that would have been a nice verse for the lectionary to include.) Continue reading →