Author Archives: Elizabeth Richardson

Now is the time to know.

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Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (9B), July 8, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10 Thirty-three years.
2 Corinthians 12:2-10 My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.
Mark 6:1-13 And he began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority.

O God of grace, 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.

Sometimes Bible readings are so weird –even for a Bible geek like me! Second Corinthians definitely wins the prize this week. I love the story from the Gospel of Mark about when Jesus inaugurated the buddy system for his followers, to get out there to extend hearts and hands, to expect miracles, but not to carry the dirty residue of rejection with them as they went from one town to another. I love the idea that Jesus sent no-one out alone. They got sent out two by two to proclaim that everybody should turn around toward Love, and doing this, they were able to cast out many demons and heal many who were suffering. I love to preach about that, but I think I need to say something about the portion of Paul’s letter that we heard read to us this morning, because it sounds so weird that I can’t let it just sit there today.
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Love will make you brave.

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Sixth Sunday after Pentecost (8B), July 1, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 Greatly beloved were you to me. Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15 We want you to excel also in this generous undertaking…in order that there may be a fair balance…’the one who had much did not have too much and the one who had little did not have too little.’
Mark 5:21-43 And they laughed at him.

O God of healing and restoration, 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’ve got good news and bad news for you this morning. The bad news is I’m feeling very preachy this morning. The good news is that I’ve had laryngitis for the past 10 days, so I won’t be able to talk very long. Besides, it’s hot.
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Fulfillment of the Law

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Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (6B), June 17, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 The Lord looks on the heart.
2 Corinthians 5:6-17 If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.
Mark 4:26-34 With many such parables he spoke the word to them.

O God of Love, 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.

This morning we have lessons before us from 1 Samuel, 2 Corinthians, and the Gospel of Mark, but I want to start with a word about Paul’s letter to the Romans. Can you guess why?
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This Kind of Community

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Third Sunday after Pentecost (5B), June 10, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

1 Samuel 8:4-20; 11:14-15 We are determined to have a king over us.
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1 So we do not lose heart.
Mark 3:20-35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

O God of glory, 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.

Sometimes the lectionary just puts much too much on a preacher’s plate. This morning feels like something of a dog’s breakfast – a confused mash up of 1 Samuel, 2 Corinthians, and a peculiar section of the Gospel of Mark. (Well it confuses me, anyway.) The story in 1 Samuel of Samuel’s warning that the people’s desire to be like the other nations and have an autocrat is going to backfire (the more things change…). Then we hear the Apostle Paul’s encouragement that enduring affliction is going to be rewarded by God. According to the notes for this passage in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, Paul was articulating a Rabbinic Judaism idea that overcoming adversity reveals the presence of divine power, and Paul was taking it one step further asserting that affliction of those that God loves assures their greatest reward in the next life. [1] I’d say that idea has backfired too. It’s one thing to offer encouragement and comfort to not lose heart, which I think is what Paul was doing. It’s quite another to start glorifying suffering. Continue reading →

Sabbath Delight

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Second Sunday after Pentecost (4B), June 3, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

1 Samuel 3:1-20 The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
2 Corinthians 4:5-12 We have this treasure in clay jars…so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies…in our mortal flesh.
Mark 2:23-3:6 The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath.

O God of our delight, 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.

Today Emmanuel Church is celebrating an abundant harvest, the ordinations yesterday of Helen McKinney to the permanent diaconate and Tamra Tucker to the transitional diaconate. Helen and Tamra were both sponsored for ordination by Emmanuel Church and so we are blessed and thrilled that they’re both able to be here today to worship with us in their new roles in the Episcopal Church. Following our service and a bit of refreshment, I invite those of you who are able and interested, to join in a conversation about the ordination process. Helen and her sweetheart, Rebecca are going to have to dash to catch a plane back to Albuquerque, but Tamra will have time to stay and talk – she’s staying in Boston!
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Creative, Embodied, Inspired

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Trinity Sunday, Year B, May 27, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 6:1-8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
Romans 8:12-17 Children of God.
John 3:1-17 God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.

O God ‘increation,’ incarnation, inspiration, 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.

This morning our Gospel lesson contains one of the most misappropriated and misunderstood passages of scripture in the whole Bible, in my view. “For God so loved the world that God gave the only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” John 3:16 has fueled some of the most damaging and unloving impulses of those who have taken the name Christian, from the Crusades to the destruction of conquered indigenous peoples, to the Holocaust, and to our present day, where the idea of the common good is endangered. If folks would just focus on what comes next, multitudes might have been spared. Verse 17 says: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (or by him or because of him or for the sake of him. Being saved here means healing, integrity, and dignity. Being saved means being rescued from danger, liberated from oppression, being restored to right-relationship.
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Daydream Believers

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Seventh Sunday after Easter, Year B, May 13, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26. ‘Lord, you know everyone’s heart.’
1 John 5:9-13. So that you may know that you have eternal life.”
John 17:6-19. So that they may have my joy made complete in themselves…Sanctify them in the truth.

O God of love, 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.

Today is a threshold Sunday, and I don’t just mean between the Sanctuary and the Chapel. Today is a threshold Sunday between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Pentecost. Our readings this morning have something to say about standing on the cusp, standing in between the feelings of abandonment and feelings of inspiration. The curious story of the selection of a replacement apostle for Judas Iscariot comes right after the list of the eleven remaining, praying and waiting in Jerusalem along with “certain women,” including the mother of Jesus. Peter addresses an assembly of 120 and explains that the way he understood scripture, Judas’ betrayal and what happened afterwards was just like Psalms 69 and 109. (Incidentally, he doesn’t mention his own three denials of Jesus, or his remorse.)
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Enlarging the Circle

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Sixth Sunday after Easter, Year B, May 6, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 10:44-48 Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?
1 John 5:1-6 And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is truth.
John 15:9-17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

O God of love, 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.

This morning we are celebrating the baptism of a little boy with a big name. Samuel Dennis Warren, VII, also known as Micah. Maybe you recall that Micah is the name of the Biblical prophet, who famously reminded the people that what is required of us is only to do justice and to love kindness and to walk modestly or humbly with the Holy One. That might be the best description of what it looks like to love one another and love God in all of scripture.
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Let Love become us!

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Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 29, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L.Werntz

Acts 8:26-40 (This is a wilderness road.)
1 John 4:7-21 God is love.
John 15:1-8 Abide in me.

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

During the Great Fifty Days of Easter, our schedule of scripture readings, called “The Revised Common Lectionary,” eschews readings from the First Testament of our Bible in favor of stories from the Book of Acts, which is the sequel or companion volume to the Gospel of Luke. Many of you know that I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I appreciate that readings from Hebrew Scripture are not explicitly being employed to prop up resurrection narratives (the way I think they get used to prop up Jesus’ birth narratives during Advent). And I love the portions of the fantastic stories from the Book of Acts of people who were completely carried away by the inspiration of spreading the Good News that even the most horrific death had not destroyed the mighty Love of Jesus in God. However, without reading the wisdom of the Tanakh – that is, the Torah or the Prophets or the Writings of Hebrew scripture – we risk not understanding the content and context of this Good News.
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Looking More Resurrected

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Second Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 8, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 4:32-35 There was not a needy person among them.
1 John 1:1-2:2 If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves.
John 20:19-31 Peace be with you.

O God of our wildest dreams, 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.

Today is the eighth day of Easter. Eight out of fifty of Easter – so it’s still early. The puppets from our grand first-day procession last week have been returned to their storage places, but the flowers are still pretty fresh, and there are still good Easter hymns left to be sung. We have a baptism to celebrate today. Emilia Julu Hudson Houge has brought together family and friends from near and far to join her Emmanuel Church peeps for a ceremony of Christian belonging. Thank you all for being here today. Almost any day in the church year is a good day for a baptism, as far as I’m concerned, and today is especially rich because the theological message for the second Sunday in Easter is always: “you should believe it whether or not you’ve seen it.” Because of Emi’s baptism, I’m reminded of what one of my seminary professors was fond of saying: “I believe in infant baptism, heck, I’ve seen it!” I want to make sure you know that you don’t have to have a baptism ceremony to belong here at Emmanuel Church, but why not give the community another reason to rejoice?
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