Don’t skip the verses!

Proper 11B, 21 July 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • 2 Samuel 7:1-14a. I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day.
  • Ephesians 2:11-22.  He came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.
  • Mark 6:30-34, 53-56. You give them something to eat.

O God of compassion, 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 hope you noticed that our Gospel portion for this morning is missing quite a few verses, nineteen to be exact; and then it acts like nothing happened. These verses, in my view, are essential to the story, so I’m chagrined that they never get read in church, not next week or any week. They are the Gospel of Mark’s particular version of Jesus telling the weary twelve, who were anticipating a needed rest, to use the five loaves and two fish that they had between them to feed to a crowd of 5,000. After dinner they got back in the boat without Jesus, who had gone up the mountain to pray. Then early the next morning, straining against an adverse wind, they saw Jesus walking on the water. Jesus intended to pass them by, Mark writes, but he saw their terror and told them not to be afraid. When he got in the boat with them, the wind ceased. They were astounded; indeed, they did not understand about the loaves, for their hearts were hardened. In other words, Jesus has just walked on water and calmed a storm, but the disciples are still grumbling about the loaves. Continue reading

Love is bigger than anything.

Lent 5B, 17 March 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Jeremiah 31: 31-34.  I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts.
  • Hebrews 5: 5-10.  Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears.
  • John 12: 20-33. We wish to see Jesus.

O God of our help, 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.


A year has passed in the Gospel of John since our reading from last Sunday. Suddenly, we are only a few days away from Jesus’ crucifixion. The context for our reading today is that, according to John, after spending the last few years darting in and out of hiding, Jesus has come into Jerusalem very publicly for the last time. This part of John is filled with references to the crowds who were in Jerusalem for Passover. Jesus has just ridden up to Jerusalem on a donkey, with huge crowds waving palm branches and shouting Hosanna (which is Hebrew for help us, please or save us, please). Some irritated and fearful colleagues of Jesus’ have muttered to one another about him: “You see, you can do nothing. Look the world has gone over to him.”  Continue reading

A Beautiful, Terrible Day

Epiphany 4B, 28 January 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Deuteronomy 18:15-20. This is what you requested.
  • 1 Corinthians 8:1-13. Love builds up.
  • Mark 1:21-28. A new teaching – with authority!

O God of compassion, 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.


This past week an angel of the Lord sent me a book about how to live in these terrible days and, at the same time, how to live in these beautiful days. The book is by theologian Kate Bowler:  Have a Beautiful Terrible Day: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs, & In-Betweens. She writes about living with an apocalyptic (that is, revelatory) awareness of the catastrophic — globally, nationally, communally, and personally. Many of us are living, she says, with a heightened sense of precarity, a state of dangerous uncertainty. Insisting that we can be both faithful and afraid at the same time, she maintains, “There is tremendous opportunity here, now, for us to develop language and foster community around empathy, courage, and hope in the midst of this fear of our own vulnerability.” [1] Continue reading

The story isn’t finished.

Christmas 1B, 31 December 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Isaiah 61:10-62:3. You shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give.
  • 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. No one has ever seen God.

O God of our sacred 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 Irish theologian Padraig O Tuama, called “Narrative Theology #1”.  [1]

And I said to him
Are there answers 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.
Continue reading

If You Want to Hear the Truth

Advent 1B, 3 December 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Isaiah 64:1-9. O that you would tear open the heavens and come down….We are your people.
  • 1 Corinthians 1:1-9. So that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
  • Mark 13:24-37. Keep awake.

O God of repentance, repair, and reconciliation, 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.


Hello! Happy Advent! Happy Churchy New Year! I’m so glad to be back with you after four months of time away.  I’m eager to hear about how you’ve changed and grown while we’ve been apart.  I hope you’ll find a time to talk with me so we can catch up; or if you’re new to Emmanuel, so that we can get to know one another. I have stories to tell you about my adventures learning about my Maryland ancestors and my Civil Rights pilgrimage with my wife Joy across the deep South – from Louisiana to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. I’ve been learning about and reflecting more deeply on my family’s relationship with racial oppression, my Church’s (big C) relationship with racial oppression, and my government’s relationship with racial oppression. Along the way, I’ve been building new relationships with folks who are engaging in racial reckoning by learning and practicing restorative and reparative justice in meaningful and sustainable ways. My heart is full of gratitude for Emmanuel Church’s gift to me of time away for rest and restoration, and for education and inspiration. Continue reading

Embracing the Teachings of Jesus

Proper 11A, 30 July 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Genesis 29:15-28. When morning came, it was Leah!
  • Romans 8:26-39.  We do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
  • Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52. Have you understood all this? They answered, “Yes.”

O God of mercy, 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.


Whenever the story of Jacob’s procurement of Leah and Rachel gets told in our appointed lessons, I’m tempted to preach about the biblical model of marriage illustrated in the book of Genesis, just so we’re all clear what “Biblical marriage” is. It’s especially true this year in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in the bigoted-website case. Instead, I’m going to trust that the Spirit is interceding with sighs too deep for words. Continue reading

You are set free from your ailment.

11th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 17C, August 21, 2022; The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski

Luke 13:12.  When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.”


In our Gospel portion today, the authors of Luke describe an encounter between a woman living with long-term consequences of something like Guillain–Barré Syndrome, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease, or tuberculosis of the spine.  As so often happens in the Gospel stories, when a diseased, wounded, or psychically-damaged person encounters Jesus, a profound healing results.  These accounts of Jesus’s cures, however, are not selectively recounted in the Gospel just to convince us that Jesus is divine.  Usually, there is a message or lesson embedded in the account of the healing. Continue reading

Do you not know how to interpret the present time?

The 10th Sunday after Pentecost, August 14, 2022; The Rev. Dr. John D. Golenski

Luke 12:56. Do you not know how to interpret the present time?


Believe me when I tell you that clergy in Christian churches using the Revised Common Lectionary dread August.  That’s when we have to deal in our preaching with the apocalyptic passages in the Synoptic Gospels.  When last we shared a meal, I joked with Pam that she always takes her vacation during this month so she can escape all these “doom and gloom” passages.  Seriously, there is a lot of gloom in the portions from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that are assigned for August’s Sundays.  Suffused with what we could call an apocalyptic vision, they focus on the inevitability of divine judgment and the imminence of the end of time.

Continue reading

The Discipline of Love

Easter 2C, 24 April 2022.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 5:27-32. Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Revelation 1:4-8. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.
John 20:19-31. Peace be to you.…I send you….Receive the spirit of holiness.

O God of inspiration, 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 lectionary in Eastertide turns away from readings from the First Testament and toward the Acts of the Apostles, volume two of the Gospel of Luke. This makes a lot of sense because Acts of the Apostles contains the stories of what Jesus’ followers did after Jesus’ execution, how they were inspired with a spirit of holiness to carry on lives dedicated to Jesus’ ministry marked by justice and right-relationship, by compassion, mercy, and peace. Although the book is more romance than history (in the way we think of history), the stories show that experiences of the resurrection in the early church are not as much about theological or philosophical ideas, but about the consequential actions of being in relationship with the Divine in public practice. Jesus and then the apostles were teaching about calling people to make choices that would shape the well-being of the larger community by their living in greater fidelity with God and one another in the midst of the oppression of an occupying army.  Continue reading

Entering the Gates of Holy Week

Palm Sunday C, 10 April 2022.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 50:4-9a. It is the Lord God who helps me.
Philippians 2:5-11. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
Luke 23:1-49. Watching these things.


1.  They had been enemies.  
You know, each of our four canonical Gospels tells its own story of the Good News of Jesus as the Christ. Each has its own voice, its own intended audience, its own character. I believe that we hear and understand best when we hear the distinctive voices telling different stories, when we do not try to make a puree by blending all of the ingredients of the four Gospels, seasoned with church traditions. Continue reading