Tag Archives: eternal life

In the Middle of Resurrected Life

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Easter B, 31 March 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Isaiah 25: 6-9.  Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of God’s people will be taken away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.
  • 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11.  Also you are being saved.
  • Mark 16: 1-8. So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. 

O God of 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.

Hello! If you love being at Emmanuel on Easter Sunday, whether in person or on livestream, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m also glad you’re here even if you’re not sure you made the right choice this morning. Of all the days to come to church, I think Easter Sunday might be the most likely day to convince you that church is really not for you:  the service is long; the stories are unbelievable. Maybe the resplendent flowers make your nose itch, our puppets seem strange and ridiculous, or the hymns are not light enough to lift your heavy hearts. I get it; I see you. You might love the cantata this morning; it has all the feels. Continue reading →

Eternal Life

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Easter 7A, 21 May 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Acts 1:6-14. All of these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women.
  • 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 [but what about 4:16?]. If any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name.
  • John 17:1-11. Protect them in your name that you have given me…so that they may be one as we are one.

O God our protector, 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 in our Church calendar we mark the time between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Pentecost. It’s a liturgical acknowledgement of a sort of limbo, in which Jesus has triumphed over death and but has yet to go to his heavenly reward; the comfort and the inspiration, the clarifying flame of the Holy Spirit, which he had promised to send, has not yet arrived. It’s a little bit like the in-between time at Emmanuel between the end of our cantata season and the beginning of chapel camp. Continue reading →

The Anxious Class

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Proper 21C, 25 September 2022.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15. Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
1 Timothy 6:11-19. As for those who…are rich, command them to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.
Luke 16:19-31. They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.

O God of peace, 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.

Partly by chance and partly by design, in the last two weeks, I’ve pondered and discussed our Gospel lesson for today with more than three dozen people, lay people and clergy. In the last two weeks, I’ve also deliberated with our Boston Harbor Deanery assembly about how to distribute some of what has fallen from the tables of the rich to people who lack adequate food, clothing, and shelter; and I’ve visited a dozen women in prison at South Bay, which requires driving through the encampments of destitute people at Melnea Cass and Mass. Ave..The story of the rich man and Lazarus has been very alive and present for me, right in my face. I’m aware that this is a story of great hope, of Good News, for anyone who is at the gates begging, but a story that sounds harsh and unforgiving, that it stirs up fear, shame, and defensiveness in many of us who have more-than-adequate food, clothing, and shelter. Continue reading →

Approach the throne of grace.

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Proper 23B.  10 October 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Job 1:1, 2:1-10. Do you still persist in your integrity?
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12. Someone has testified somewhere.
Mark 10:2-16.  Receive the kingdom of God as a little child.

O God of Possibility, 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.

Last week I shared a question that I often hear from my colleagues, that is: “What are you going to do with those readings?” That question has been rolling around in my head and lingering in my prayer. A startling idea occurred to me this week that maybe the better question is: “What are those readings going to do with me or you?” Because as we just heard in Hebrews: [1]

Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before God no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

In the passage we heard this morning, even while Job searches in vain for God, he knows that God sees him. Continue reading →

Become the bread of life!

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Proper 13B.  August 1, 2021

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a.  There were two men in a certain city, one rich, and the other.
Ephesians 4:1-16. Speaking the truth in love…promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
John 6:24-35.  I AM the bread of life.

O God of Continual 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.

Some of you will remember that last week I mentioned that I think the feeding narratives in the Gospels are the most important stories about the ministry of Jesus because of how often they are told. Whether memory or metaphor (both, I believe), they tell a powerful truth about Jesus’ ability to satisfy hunger for huge numbers of those who crowded around him. To further emphasize this, our lectionary assignments for today and the next three weeks are from the sixth chapter of John, which follows John’s version of the feeding of the multitudes. Beginning today we have four consecutive Gospel readings in which Jesus’ message is a variation of “I AM the bread.” “I am the bread. I am the bread that came down from heaven. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” 
Continue reading →

Mystery, Meaning, Risk & Relationship

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Third Sunday of Easter, Year B, April 19, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 3:12-19. You Israelites
1 John 3:1-7. We should be called children of God and that is what we are.
Luke 24:36b-48.  And the psalms must be fulfilled.

O God of Hope, 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.

You probably know that the Gospel of John, for all of its beautiful love poetry and prose, is notoriously anti-Jewish or anti-Judean in its rhetoric about the death and resurrection of Jesus, written as if it were Jews and not Romans who were the threat to Jesus. In the Gospel of John is codified one side of a late first century argument about ways to move forward socially, politically and theologically in the precarious time after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. The writer of John places anti-Jewish words anachronistically in the mouths of Jesus and his friends who were, of course, all Jewish. Continue reading →