Tag Archives: prophecy

Martin Luther King and Prophecy

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“As a young man, with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give myself to something eternal and absolute. Not to those little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow. But to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
–Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., chapter 4

As commemorations for Martin Luther King, Jr. take place in various venues this month, we reflect on his prophetic voice, prompted by Pam’s sermon on the Second Sunday after the Epiphany. Pam spoke about the work of “connecting the dots” in scripture and sacred stories. By listening closely to the messengers of God who link the human and the divine, we deepen our understanding of these narratives–these “pieces of the fabric of community.” Continue reading →

Compassion is the ordering principle.

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Epiphany 4B, January 31, 2021, The 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. They were astounded by his teaching.

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.

This past week I was reminded in our scripture readings for today of a poem from Howard Thurman’s Meditations of the Heart, entitled “Life Goes On.” He wrote it in 1953. Like our scripture readings, it seems to have been written for 2021. [1] It begins:

During these turbulent times we must remind ourselves repeatedly that life goes on.
This we are apt to forget. The wisdom of life transcends our wisdoms; the purpose of life outlasts our purposes; the process of life cushions our processes. The mass attack of disillusion and despair, distilled out of the collapse of hope, has so invaded our thoughts that what we know to be true and valid seems unreal and ephemeral. There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility. This is the great deception. By it whole peoples have gone down to oblivion without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength of the clean and the commonplace. Let us not be deceived.

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Fantastic News!

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Advent 3B, December 13, 2020. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 66:1-4, 8-11. To give them a garland instead of ashes.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24. May the God of peace sanctify you entirely.
John 1:6-8, 19-28. There was a man sent from God….He came to testify to the light….The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

O God of grace and mercy, 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.

This Advent, I’ve been paying particularly close attention to our opening prayers, our collect for each Sunday. Our collect for this third Sunday in Advent pleads with the Holy One to stir up power and with great might come among us with bountiful grace and mercy because our sins are sorely hindering us. I love this prayer, and it also scares me. It’s not that I disagree with the idea that our sins are sorely hindering us; it’s just that I’d rather be praying, “Settle down, O God, so that we can have a peaceful and happy holiday season. Settle us down, O Desire of Nations, so that we can read or listen to the news without anxiety, fear, rage, or despair. Dear Jesse’s Branch, please don’t stir us up too much, because we’ve already been through it this year, between the ravages of COVID, the ravages of racism, and the ravages of weather-related disasters.” Here, however, is John the Baptist bearing witness to the powerful brightness of the coming Christ.

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The Ordering Principle

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Fourth Sunday after Epipany, Year B, January 28, 2018; The 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 They were astounded by his teaching.

O God of peace, 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.

In our reading from Deuteronomy this morning, we hear a portion of Torah teaching about maintaining the welfare of the community. It comes after this instruction, “If there is among you anyone in need within the land that you inhabit, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand…give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so…open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor.” It’s worth remembering that compassion is one of the hallmark values of Deuteronomy. [1] Compassion is an ordering principle for Torah. Continue reading →

1974

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  • The Rev. Mark Harvey began his jazz ministry and founded the Jazz Coalition (later the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra), which sponsored concerts, liturgies, and festivals here over the next four decades.
  • March 3.  As our sponsored seminarian, Pauli Murray preached from our pulpit her inaugural sermon on a passage she had selected (Isaiah 61: 1-4), entitled ” Women Seeking Admission to Holy Orders: As Crucifers Carrying the Cross”.* Saying that Emmanuel “sent me forth as a member of your congregation with your blessings and prayers to begin my training for the Sacred Ministry”, she asked:

Why in the face of the devastating rejection at the Louisville General Convention of last October, 1973–a rejection which Bishop Paul Moore of NY has called the violation of the very core of their personhood–[have the women seeking ordination to the priesthood] only increased their determination to enter the higher levels of the clergy?

Then paraphrasing Isaiah 53:3, she prophesied:

I believe that these women are in truth the Suffering Servants of Christ, despised and rejected, women of sorrows and acquainted with grief.  They are answering to a higher authority than that of the political structures of our Church, and in the fullness of time God will sweep away those barriers and free the Church to carry forward its mission of renewal as a living force and God’s witness in our society.

* Reprinted in Daughters of Thunder:  Black women preachers and their sermons, 1850-1979, Bettye Collier-Thomas (NY: Jossey Bass, 1998),  pp. 240-44.  Please see also About Pauli Murray and our Timeline entries about her:  1951,1970, 1973, 1977, 1985, 1987, 2012 & 2015.