Tag Archives: miracles

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 →

Depth Perception

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Lent 4A, 19 March 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • 1 Samuel 16:1-13. The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul?”
  • Ephesians 5:8-14.Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
  • John 9:1-13, 28-38.  So that God’s works might be revealed in him, we must work the works of [the One] who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.

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.

Today’s lessons hold special power for me; they were the appointed readings for a pivotal moment in seminary, when I was learning to grapple with difficult Biblical texts (as it turns out, most Biblical texts are difficult if we’re taking them seriously). They were the appointed readings for my first Sunday as your priest, 15 years ago, when I asked our head usher Steve Babcock to pass out red pencils with the bulletins. I’ll get back to that in a moment. Then three years ago, these were the readings on the first Sunday of the pandemic shutdown, when my wife Joy live-streamed the service on Facebook using her phone. And here they are again, in this strange time being called post-pandemic, but certainly not post-COVID. Continue reading →

Signs

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Proper 12B.  July 25, 2021

2 Samuel 11:1-15.  As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.
Ephesians 3:14-21.  That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
John 6:1-21. Ego eimi mey phobeisthe.

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.

 This morning we are observing the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene, transferred from July 22, thanks to our deacon, Bob Greiner’s initiative. Our observation is a little bit of a mash-up (this is Emmanuel Church, after all): the collect of the day, proper preface, and the color of our vestments reflect Mary Magdalene’s feast day, and our lectionary readings and music are for ordinary time because I didn’t want you to miss them. Besides, as Jane Redmont says, “Mary Magdalene challenges us to live in resurrection mode all the time.” So instead of hearing the Easter Day proclamation from Mary Magdalene, Apostle to the Apostles: “I have seen the Lord,” we just heard Bob read the Gospel of John’s version of the feeding of 5,000. It’s a demonstration of seeing the Lord.
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Jesus is faithful.

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Proper 11B.  July 18, 2021

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.

Precious Lord, 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 that some of you noticed that our Gospel portion for this morning is quite long for a reading from Mark. Our lectionary assignment leaves out nineteen verses and acts like nothing happened, but I’ve added them back in. 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. Next week we will begin a series of five readings from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John and hear a different version of a feeding story! 
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A sign is not the thing.

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Lent 5A
March 29, 2020

 

Ezekiel 37:1-14 O my people.
Psalms 130 Out of the depths have I called to you.
Romans 8:6-11 To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
John 11:1-45 Jesus began to weep…. he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’….Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

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.

 

The past two weeks I have wrestled with whether to livestream a service of Holy Eucharist, keeping as much of our customary service in tact as possible, or move to leading a service of Morning Prayer, wholly unfamiliar as a Sunday worship service at Emmanuel Church, although many Emmanuelites pray Morning Prayer as a daily practice, and have practiced Morning Prayer in other places. Continuing with the rite of Holy Eucharist is both comforting for some and painful for others, but for many of us, it is both comforting and painful at the same time: comforting to recognize the rhythm and the shape of the service, and painful to face what we are missing by not being able to be physically present with one another and with the elements of our sacrament. But then I think Eucharist means thanksgiving, and while bread and wine are signs of our thanks, they are not our thanks. While physical presence is a sign of being Church, it is not the Church.
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Tell how much God has done for you!

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Proper 7C
June 23, 2019

1 Kings 19:1-15a What are you doing here Elijah?
Psalm 42 Deep calls to deep.
Galatians 3:23-29 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female for all of you are one.
Luke 8:26-39 Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.

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.

Those of you who have heard me preach know I often have scripture readings to complain about. (Think the late Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes.) Today I want to say that there should be a lectionary rule about not having too many good readings from scripture on the same day. The story of Elijah, Psalm 42, Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and the Gerasene demoniac story – I mean, come on. It’s just too much. I love these scriptures – they are touchstones for me in my own life of faith. Very often, they are at the top of my head and the tip of my tongue. Today there’s too much to say about what I love.

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Always a Catch

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Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany (C)
February 10, 2019

Isaiah 6:1-8[9-13]  Keep listening but do not comprehend.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Luke 5:1-11  Put out into the deep water.

O God of the deep, 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 we heard a part of Isaiah that I bet most of you are not familiar with. The verses that follow the famous call story of Isaiah, explain just exactly what Isaiah is being called to do: say to the people “listen but don’t comprehend, look but don’t understand,” so they will not turn and be healed. “How long, O Lord?” Isaiah asks. Until the desolation is complete, says the Holy One. Until there’s nothing left. If Isaiah agrees to be sent, this is what he can expect if he does his job: God’s Word will not be comprehended. People will not repent. I hear echoes of this story in Luke and in our own time. Is this prescriptive or descriptive? I don’t know – but I find it true.

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Vision & Compassion

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Second Sunday after the Epiphany (C),
January 20, 2019

 

Isaiah 62:1-5 Your land married for the Lord delights in you and your land shall be married.
1 Corinthians 12:1-11 Varieties of gifts…of services…of activities…for the common good.
John 2:1-11 (Though the servants who had drawn the water knew)

 

O God of the servants, 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 we have before us a scripture passage from the first testament, that lies at the very heart of the part of Isaiah that gets called “third Isaiah.” Your land shall be married – so shall your God rejoice in you. The land shall be called Beulah – the Hebrew word for “married to” means “properly governed” or “valued and cared about” (they all mean the same – here is a Biblical definition of marriage for you to cite if that ever comes up in your conversations about heteronormative monogamy! Or does that only come up in my conversations?) Beulah Land or properly governed land, or valued and cared about land, here, is about encouraging people to rebuild what has been utterly devastated – in this case, the devastated city of Jerusalem, the city of peace. The people are crying out in fear and pain, feeling utterly forsaken. Isaiah’s message to them is about rebuilding hope and about creating signs or signals of hope for others. And it lies at the very heart of a part of scripture that contains radical proposals for an inclusive community – it’s a treatise written to defend an inclusive and expansive group against the actions of those who wanted to strictly limit the access and benefits of the community. Every three years, when this passage gets read in church, I think, “oh we need to hear this now more than ever.”

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Gather up the fragments!

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Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (12B), July 29, 2018

2 Samuel 11:1-15 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle…David [stayed home].
Ephesians 3:14-21 The power to comprehend…what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ.
John 6:1-21 ’Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So the gathered them up.

O God of wondrous 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.

Those of you who know me will imagine that I have a head of steam built up about the story of King David’s misuse of power when it came to Bathsheba and Uriah. That might be why it is so hot in this chapel. But I’m not going to preach about that today. Rather, I want to focus on our Gospel lesson. Last week I extended our Gospel reading to include Mark’s first story of the disciples feeding the multitudes with five loaves and two fish, and of a frightening storm on the sea of Galilee. This week we hear the Gospel of John’s version, which is quite different. It’s very hard not to conflate the various versions of these famous stories, but, as usual, I want to discourage the summer gazpacho soup treatment that blends distinct ingredients. The early church embraced many incompatible narratives and meanings about the life and ministry of Jesus, and I think we should too! Different versions of the same event, making differing meanings, gives us all more theological elbow room.
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It’s a miracle!

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Sunday in the Octave of the Feast of All Saints’, November 5, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L Werntz

Revelation 7:9-17. These are they who have come out of the great ordeal.
1 John 3:1-3. See what love [God] has given us.
Matthew 5:1-12.  Blessed… .blessed… .blessed.

O God of All Saints, 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.

From time to time I feel the need to confess things to you, that you probably already know, but I still want to say them. Today I have two such confessions. First, I am a Church geek. I love the Bible, warts and all. I especially love Jesus, although I don’t always understand him, and he often takes me where I do not wish to go. I love the feasts and fasts of our liturgical calendar, especially All Saints’ Day. I love singing hymns and sharing bread and wine when we gather for worship. I also love vestry meetings and annual parish meetings, and overly full Diocesan Conventions like the one we had yesterday at our Cathedral on Tremont Street. In spite of the energy it exacts from this introvert, I love the wide and wild assortment of folks that come together to lead the church in the most crazy, messy, democratic way. I love budget deliberations. I love raising money for and spending money on things that matter, things that promote the well-being of our common life. I love resolution debates about our affirmations of and aspirations for the common good. I love people who express their incredulity, saying to me, “budget and resolution debates? Really, Pam?” Really.
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