First Sunday in Lent, February 14, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of hope, 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 began our worship service this morning with a doubly long musical prayer and we will end with a doubly long musical sermon, so as we make our way through the middle, I want to offer you some very brief reminders and suggestions about how you might begin this season of Lent. I have three reminders and four suggestions for you. First reminder: the word Lent comes from the Middle English word for Spring. It is a word that embodies hope. (Especially on a cold day like today!) For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting longer and lighter. In churchy terms, Lent is the season when we get ready for Easter. So in a religious sense, too, Lent is a word that embodies hope. It’s not hope in something that may happen – it’s hope in something that has already happened and keeps happening. One of the amazing and wonderful truths of the Easter story, though, is that resurrection doesn’t care whether people are ready or not. Just like gravity doesn’t care whether we are ready or not – or whether we like it or not – or even whether we believe it or not.
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Last Sunday after the Epiphany, February 7, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

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.

One of the benefits for me of sharing the pulpit of Emmanuel Church with a Rabbi is that it challenges and changes the way I encounter Holy Scripture. My sensitivity to the need for “corrective lenses” is heightened. My desire to preach against the ways that the Christian Church has promoted supersessionist theology gets stronger every year. Supersessionism is very much like racism – it’s systemic, it’s oppressive, it’s often internalized, unexamined, and always wrong. It distorts our vision and injures our souls. Continue reading →

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, January 31, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

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.

It’s come to my attention that Emmanuel Church’s efforts at radical welcome do not always succeed. I am not surprised. The idea of radical welcome is an eschatological hope (eschatological is a fancy word to describe talk about endings). Radical welcome is our eschatological vision, not a mission already and forever accomplished! Still, there are surely things that we can improve along our way to the end. What occurs to me is to talk about who is welcoming whom. We are claiming here at Emmanuel, that Jesus is welcoming everyone – we claim that at Emmanuel even without words when we worship in this sanctuary by virtue of our altar statue of Jesus, arms extended in a gesture of welcome that is carved in stone. [1] So first of all, we are boldly asserting the radical welcome of God in Jesus Christ. Beyond that wordless gesture, how do we enact radical welcome? Continue reading →

Third Sunday after the Epiphany (C), January 24, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of joy, 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 I want to begin by extending my own welcome to Bill Cruse, newly ordained priest, and I extend the congratulations and blessing from the Bishop of Massachusetts. And welcome to Kevin Neel, recently arrived from the west balcony! It’s always great to be in the same zip code as both of you! Thanks to Julian Bullitt who put in a huge amount of volunteer time this past week to work out wiring issues for the organ. Continue reading →

The Baptism of our Lord (C), January 10, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of wonder, 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 the day in the church when we remember Jesus’ baptism and have an opportunity to remember and renew baptismal vows. It’s not the usual way of remembering – because none of us (not even Luke) was around when Jesus was baptized, and those of us who were babies when we were baptized can’t recall what it was like. But we remember by telling the story again and in a few minutes we’ll remember by renewing baptismal promises. After church today, if you’re lucky enough to have someone around who was there for your baptism, ask them to tell you the stories of your baptism that they remember. And if you were old enough, when you were baptized, that you remember it, or if you know because you’ve been told, tell someone else the story of your baptism. If you’ve never gotten baptized, I invite you to take a moment and imagine getting baptized! Under what circumstances would you ever consider making a public commitment to cast your lot with the kind of Christians who baptize with water in the name of the Trinity and make promises to support one another? Are there any circumstances in which you would be willing to wade into this troubled water to witness to the power of redeeming love made manifest in Jesus? Continue reading →

Second Sunday after Christmas (C), January 3, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of hope, 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.

The readings for the Second Sunday after Christmas are as full of treasures as the caravan of the magi. There is the beautiful promise of return from exile, a picture of restoration and redemption – a prediction that the people of God will finally be satisfied with the bounty of God. The passage from Ephesians predicts that the eyes of the heart of the congregation in Ephesus will be enlightened so that they will know the hope to which they have been called, so that they will know the riches of their glorious inheritance (which is hope), and what is the immeasurable greatness of the power of God (or Love) for those who believe. I’d add that the power of Love is immeasurably great whether or not they believe! Continue reading →

Fourth Sunday of Advent (C), December 20, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of “she who believed,” 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 have always loved Mary, the mother of Jesus – the Godbearer, more than a good Protestant girl should. It is Mary who draws me to the catholicity of the Episcopal Church, but I’ve never understood Mary to be meek or mild or mindless, and I don’t know how anyone who reads Biblical accounts of her could understand her that way either. I don’t know how anyone who hears the words of the Magnificat, which are taken from the Song of Hannah in the Hebrew Bible book of Samuel, could hear anything but a religious and political manifesto. Earlier this month, the Rev. Nancy Rockwell, wrote an essay entitled, “No More Lying about Mary,” that captured in writing what I have always believed about Mary – that she was brave and strong. Continue reading →

Third Sunday of Advent (C), December 13, 2015, The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Zephaniah 3:14-20 I will change their shame into praise.
Philippians 4:4-7 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Luke 3:7-18 He proclaimed good news to the people.

O God of bountiful grace and mercy, 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.

On this third Sunday of Advent, our scripture lessons all contain great and prophetic dissonance. The dissonance is easy to hear in the Gospel reading from Luke. John the Baptist is yelling things at the people who came to be baptized by him, like “You brood of vipers!…Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees…He will baptize you with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” and then the writer of Luke adds in his best story-telling voice, “with many other exhortations John the Baptist proclaimed the good news to the people.” That always makes me think, “Boy, if that’s the good news, I’d hate to hear the bad news.” Continue reading →