Tag Archives: forgiveness

Bear witness to the goodness of Love!

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Easter 3B, 14 April 2024. The Very 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.

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.

The Gospel of Luke is often viewed as kinder and gentler than the Gospel of John, when it comes to anti-Jewish or anti-Judean rhetoric about the life and death of Jesus. Written for Gentile audiences, Luke’s rhetoric seeks to prove Jesus as one who can stand up to and prevail against other Gentile deities or semi-deities, including Caesar. Luke insists that every claim made by Caesar was also true of Jesus, and even more so: miraculously born, son of God, Savior, God from God, Redeemer, Liberator, Prince of Peace.  Continue reading →

Extravagantly Kind

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Proper 10A, 16 July 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Genesis 25:19-34. If it is going to be this way, why do I live?
  • Romans 8:1-11. You are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you.
  • Matthew 13:1-9 [10-17] 18-23. Hear then the parable of the sower.

O God of grace, 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.

There is an old Jewish wisdom teaching that God created humans because God loves stories. Two of our three readings this morning are stories. We have the story of Rebekah bearing twins, Esau and Jacob, and of the most expensive bowl of red-lentil soup there ever was in the history of the world. Our Gospel portion includes a memorable story, parable. I often think that the Apostle Paul’s letters might have been more comprehensible and less objectionable, if they focused more on stories than high rhetoric, elegant as it is. Continue reading →

How Sorrow Turns to Joy

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Easter 3A, 23 April 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Acts 2:14a, 36-47. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away.
  • 1 Peter 1:17-23.  Love one another deeply (or constantly) from the heart.
  • Luke 24:13-35. Were not our hearts burning within us?

O God of our aching and burning hearts, 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.

In today’s Gospel portion, we heard the Easter story of two on the road to Emmaus – one named Cleopas and the other is unnamed, which allows me to understand that the other was a woman. It’s a beautiful account of the art of resurrection, about how, even when we doubt it, we don’t understand it, we can’t imagine it, and we certainly are not looking for it, we might come to recognize that the Risen Lord can be walking along with us when we are overcome with grief and deeply afraid. The Risen Lord can be right in front of us without our knowing it. The Risen Lord can be in the midst of us when we share our food. Before I go further down this Road to Emmaus, however, I must go back to our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Continue reading →

Love has the last word.

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Last Sunday after Pentecost,  Proper 29C: Christ the King.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Wentz.

Jeremiah 23:1-6. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them!
Colossians 1:11-20. May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power…prepared to endure everything with patience.
Luke 23:33-43. Today you will be with me in Paradise.

O God of 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 the last Sunday of our liturgical calendar, our lectionary brings us to the foot of the cross in Luke’s Gospel, lest anyone get too sentimental about what it means to follow Jesus. This Gospel lesson is appointed for today because we are celebrating the all-embracing authority of God’s Christ, that is, Love’s redeeming urge, and we sing hymns of gratefulness and praise. While we do that we can always use a reminder that our King of kings and Lord of lords was executed as a criminal with other criminals accused of crimes against the state. He was friends with criminals while he lived; and then he died with them, too. The word that Luke uses for criminal is literally evil doer. Our king, our highest earthly authority was executed for sedition, that is, for inciting resistance or disobedience to the government. Continue reading →

The Book of How

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Proper 22C. 2 October 2022.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Lamentations 1:1-6. Her priests groan, her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter.
2 Timothy 1:1-11.  Recalling your tears…I am reminded of…a faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice….Rekindle the gift of God that is within you.
Luke 17:5-10.  The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

O God of our weary years and silent tears, 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.

Our first reading this morning was taken from the book of Lamentations, and I want to linger there a while because we so seldom read anything from this book of the Bible. Only once every three years do we hear any passage from Lamentations during our Sunday worship. It doesn’t surprise me that we don’t read from this book more often, because it’s a collection of five dirges, five poems of deep pain and suffering, of outrage and grief, of complaint and protest, in response to political calamity, social and economic devastation, and utter theological collapse. The poetry of Lamentations challenges the notion that religious life should somehow be spiritual but not political. I often think that anyone who believes that hasn’t read very much of the Bible, but the lectionary colludes by not scheduling many overtly-political readings. Continue reading →

Forgiveness

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Easter 7C, 29 May 2022.  The Rev. John Golenski

John 20: 19-31. Jesus appeared and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.  Then the disciples rejoiced when they recognized the Lord.

Like so many of us, I had plans this week.  My plans included the better part of a day preparing this sermon.  Then May 24th in Uvalde, Texas happened.  Sometimes, in spite of everything we intend, Life intrudes with undeniable demands.  No matter how much effort I put into focusing on the Scripture, Uvalde intruded.  So, this is the unintended, unplanned reflection on God’s Word speaking to what is happening now in our country. Continue reading →

The Harvest of Righteousness

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Advent 2C.  19 December 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Baruch 5:1-9 Take off the garment of sorrow and affliction and put on the robe of righteousness.
Phillipians 1:31-11. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God
Luke 3:1-6 All flesh shall see the salvation of God.

God all merciful and all compassionate, 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.

As I said last week, Advent is a season for communal and institutional reflection and repentance, for collective atonement and reparations. Our readings for this second Sunday in Advent are so full and big with calls for repentance and reparations; it is almost as if they are pregnant with possibility. The prophet Baruch and the evangelist Luke are both reminding their hearers about the words of the prophet Isaiah. And Luke draws a picture of John the Baptist that is just like the prophet Jeremiah, consecrated before he was born, and just like Elijah by the Jordan in the wilderness. Luke also has already explained that John’s work was so closely related to Jesus’s work, their purposes were so akin to one another, that it was as if they must have known one another before they were even born. Continue reading →

Turn around and run for it!

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Proper 21A
September 27, 2020

Exodus 17:1-7. So that the people may drink
Philippians 2:1-13. For it is God who is at work in you
Matthew 21:23-32. Even after you saw it you did not change your minds.

O God of of mercy and pity, 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.

In today’s appointed collect, or gathering prayer, I’m struck by the idea that God declares almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity: mercy being forgiveness, and pity being sympathy for another’s suffering. It might not be the kind of almighty power we want, but I think it is what we need. Whenever we are invoking the mighty power of God, it behooves us to look for forgiveness and sympathy first, as evidence of God’s response. It is God’s forgiveness for our sins and sympathy for our suffering and for the suffering of others that we are running to obtain, so that we can be partakers of that treasure.

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A Giant Squander

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Proper 20C
September 22, 2019

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 The summer is ended and we are not saved.
1 Timothy 2:1-7 First of all, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone.
Luke 16:1-13 You cannot serve God and wealth.

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.

Well, Happy Unjust Steward Day everyone! I am so glad that you are here to help us celebrate! Is it possible that Jesus was really telling a story encouraging dishonesty and injustice? Did anyone hear the Gospel reading this morning and think, “wait a minute, what?” Or are any of us who could be considered wealthy thinking, “uh-oh”? Are any of you hoping that I will pull a Greek translation trick out of this boxy pulpit? Alas, not today. As Jeremiah tells us, the summer is ended and we are not saved. Vulnerable people are not being properly cared for. As our planet continues to heat up, it’s the people who are the poorest who suffer the most. Is there no balm in Gilead? This anguished question in Jeremiah is the voice of God. God knows there is balm and God does not have enough tears for the disaster that is looming because the people with resources are spreading dis-ease instead of balm.
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Come to the party!

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Proper 19C
September 15, 2019

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 Skilled in doing evil but do not know how to do good.
1 Timothy 1:12-17 But I received mercy.
Luke 15:1-10 This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.

O God of 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.

Oh I have so much I want to say to you this morning about the ancient scriptures we’ve heard just now: Jeremiah, Psalm 14, 1 Timothy, the Gospel of Luke, and we haven’t even heard Psalm 42 yet – that will come after communion. Our oldest reading today is about 3000 years old, and the newest is about 1900 years old, give or take. Old. They tell us that in ancient times there were foolish people who said in their hearts, “There is no God.” By the way, this is not a critique of individual philosophical or theoretical atheism; this is an ethical critique of a people who did not think it mattered how the most vulnerable in society were treated: widows, orphans, and aliens. In ancient times people thought that prosperity and power and security and status were all that mattered; they were corrupt and committed abominable acts. In ancient times, there were people who profaned what was sacred, who pursued others in order to oppress them, who engaged in violence, who cheated and mistreated people, who were serving wealth instead of fidelity to love. In ancient times, people who believed that doing justice and loving kindness and walking with humility were not the ones in power very often. Maybe not ever. The staying power that these ancient texts have, the wisdom that they contain, is staggering to me.

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