Tag Archives: Greek

A Beautiful, Terrible Day

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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.

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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

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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 →