2017 Sermons

Unless noted otherwise these sermons were preached by Emmanuel’s Rector, the Reverend Pamela L. Werntz.  For other years, please see the links on Sermons.

And the story isn’t finished.

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First Sunday after Christmas, Proper 1B, December 31, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz.

Isaiah 61:10-62:3. For the sake of Zion I will not be silent. For the sake of Jerusalem I will not rest.
Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7. So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
John 1:1-18. And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

O God of our story, 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.

First, a poem by Padraig O Tuama, called “Narrative Theology”.  [1]

And I said to him

Are there questions to all of this?

And he said

The answer is in a story

and the story is being told.

 

And I said

But there is so much pain

And she answered, plainly,

Pain will happen.

 

Then I said

Will I ever find meaning?

And they said

You will find meaning

Where you give meaning.

 

The answer is in the story

And the story isn’t finished.

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Angels, Virgins & Cousins

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Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 24, 2017, The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16 I will not take my steadfast love from him.
Romans 16:25-27 Amen.
Luke 1:26-38 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

O God in whom is heaven, 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.

Today our liturgical calendar is giving us the Fourth Sunday of Advent in the morning and Christmas Eve in the evening. Buckle up! For the past three weeks, our scripture readings have been full of prophetic calls to vast numbers of people for large scale civil engineering projects, leveling mountains, filling in valleys, and making travel easier for God. Today, in a dramatic downshift, we are invited into intensely intimate scenes between David and Nathan, between Mary and Gabriel. You can almost hear our theological engine revving as we slow down to make this big turn.
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Ready or Not (with audio)

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Third Sunday of Advent, Year B, December 17, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Jonah 3:1-5, 10 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
1 Corinthians 7:29-31 The present form of this world is passing away.
Mark 1:14-20 And immediately…

O God of good news, 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.

Our readings this morning, from Jonah’s advice to the great city of Ninevah, to Paul’s advice to the Jesus followers in the city of Corinth, to the Gospel of Mark’s breathless account of Jesus’ move back to Galilee, all convey a sense of urgency and risk. Ninevah has only 40 days to clean up its act (which seems like a very short time). Paul says that time has grown short, that the present form of this world is passing away. Jesus has come out of the wilderness where he was being tempted by Satan for 40 days (which seems like a very long time) to learn that John has been arrested, and has headed to Galilee quoting John directly: repent, that is, change your hearts toward God. A complete re-orientation is what John and Jesus were calling for. Jesus began to teach that the present form of this world is passing away. Continue reading →

We have work to do.

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Second Sunday of Advent, Proper 2B, December 10, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 40:1-11 Cry out!2 Peter 3:8-15a Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

Mark 1:1-8 He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

O God of the prophets, 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.

Every year our branch of Christianity gives us a new year – a new advent –a new season for longing, to hear and respond to lessons of prophetic wisdom and calls for repentance writ large. These calls are not for personal repentance (that’s for the season of Lent). It’s fairly easy for people like us to understand our individual sins. (Not so easy to repent, but easy to identify.) It’s much harder in our culture for people like us to identify collective or institutional or structural sin, especially when so many of us benefit from it. Advent’s prophets are calling not for individual repentance, but for national repentance, for corporate repentance, and for ecclesiastical – that is Church — repentance. It seems to me that it doesn’t matter what your political perspective or affiliation is, we can probably agree that institutions – nations, corporations, and organizations are failing to care for people with dignity and respect. We are in a period of deep disintegration and the need for repentance, for turning around toward God, or Love, seems more pressing than ever.
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Take my hand!

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First Sunday of Advent, Proper 1B, December 3, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 64:1-9a O that you would tear open the heavens and come down… .1 Corinthians 1:1-9 As you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ… .

Mark 13:24-37 In those days.

O God of grace, 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.

As you may have already gathered, today is the first Sunday of Advent. In much of the Western church, Advent marks the beginning of the new liturgical year, and focuses on the second coming. (Not so in the Eastern church, where the focus of Advent is on fasting in preparation for the Christmas feast without reference to “The Last Day.”) It’s odd and charming that each year, in the Western church, we prepare for the Second Coming for four weeks, and then we get a celebration of the first coming, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. It can feel to me a little bit like the football gag in the Peanuts cartoon series, in which Charlie Brown is ever anticipating that this time, Lucy will not move the football that he is preparing to kick. But our Divine sovereign is not like Lucy Van Pelt. Our Holy One is Love.
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My liberation is bound with yours.

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Last Sunday after Pentecost, Christ the King, Proper 29A, November 26, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will [safeguard].
Ephesians 1:15-23 So that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.
Matthew 25:31-46 Just as you did it to the least of these…you did it to me.

O God of endings and new beginnings, 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 we mark the end of the liturgical calendar year for Christians. This is our New Year’s Eve day – a time for reflection and review, for celebration, and for renewed hope for the future.  Our year end coincides this year with Thanksgiving weekend, and I hope you’ve all found reasons to be thankful. But if this week has been particularly hard, and you haven’t found a reason yet, I hope you will find it this morning in this place!  I am so thankful that you are here.
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The Mystery of God’s Justice (with audio)

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Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 28, November 19, 2017; The Rev. Dr. Cameron E. Partridge

It’s a privilege to be with you here at Emmanuel Church. Thank you very much, Pam, for the invitation to preach and to all of you for welcoming me this morning. I enjoyed getting to collaborate with you on the Boston-Cambridge Mission Hub when I served as Campus Minister for Episcopal students at Boston University, and I’m glad that being in town for the American Academy of Religion / Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting has finally given me the opportunity to worship with you on a Sunday morning. Continue reading →

It’s a miracle!

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Sunday in the Octave of the Feast of All Saints’, November 5, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L Werntz

Revelation 7:9-17. These are they who have come out of the great ordeal.
1 John 3:1-3. See what love [God] has given us.
Matthew 5:1-12.  Blessed… .blessed… .blessed.

O God of All Saints, 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.

From time to time I feel the need to confess things to you, that you probably already know, but I still want to say them. Today I have two such confessions. First, I am a Church geek. I love the Bible, warts and all. I especially love Jesus, although I don’t always understand him, and he often takes me where I do not wish to go. I love the feasts and fasts of our liturgical calendar, especially All Saints’ Day. I love singing hymns and sharing bread and wine when we gather for worship. I also love vestry meetings and annual parish meetings, and overly full Diocesan Conventions like the one we had yesterday at our Cathedral on Tremont Street. In spite of the energy it exacts from this introvert, I love the wide and wild assortment of folks that come together to lead the church in the most crazy, messy, democratic way. I love budget deliberations. I love raising money for and spending money on things that matter, things that promote the well-being of our common life. I love resolution debates about our affirmations of and aspirations for the common good. I love people who express their incredulity, saying to me, “budget and resolution debates? Really, Pam?” Really.
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The Great Emergence

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Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 25A, 500th Anniversary of Protestant Reformation, October 29, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Deuteronomy 34:1-12 I have let you see it with your eyes.1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 Entrusted with the message of the Gospel.

Matthew 22:34-46 No one was able to give him an answer…nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

O God of our Holy Scripture, 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.

About a month ago, toward the end of my sermon, I said something that made the head of one of our beloved young children snap to attention. It’s not what I intended – I did want that response from the rest of you. So I’m going to start today with what I said last month, and if you’re near a young child, cover their ears, but the rest of you, listen up. “The truth is that the world is ending,” We can see that in the deterioration of the Church, social and economic systems stressed beyond the breaking point, financial corruption and abuses of power increasing the already yawning gap between rich and poor, widespread dissatisfaction and discontent resulting in violence. Nationalism on the rise; war and health crises threaten the well-being of the people. Improvements in communication and access to information just amplify and accelerate the process of disintegration because it’s impossible to control messages and figure out what is true.
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The Temple in a Church

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Celebrating 13 Years of Love & Friendship

Sunday, October 15, 2017; Rabbi Howard A. Berman

 

This morning, in my first sermon of both this new church program season, as well as our Jewish New Year,  5778,  I want to share some reflections on a very special shared milestone for all of us — of both Central Reform Temple and Emmanuel Church. The New Year, that we have just celebrated, is indeed a momentous one for all of us of the Temple, as we mark the 13th Anniversary of the Founding of our Congregation!   Just three weeks ago,  our celebration of Rosh Hashanah inaugurated what we are calling our Kehilat Mitzvah Year– an egalitarian Hebrew variant on the Bar and Bat Mitzvah 13th birthday tradition, which means “ A Community of the Commandments.” In this very symbolic way, we seek to frame and reaffirm many of our Temple’s core values as we celebrate this milestone. Continue reading →