Tag Archives: redemption

Meditation on Gaudete Sunday

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In this week’s sermon on the meaning of Gaudete (rejoice) Sunday, Pam encouraged us to eschew despair in times when our hearts are understandably heavy. As we enter into the week before Christmas, she suggested that we look for small instances of joy, in which we find evidence love’s power to redeem.

Howard Thurman, author, minister, civil-rights leader, and educator, inspired many civil-rights advocates in his time and ours. It is said that his well-known work Jesus and the Disinherited was deeply influential on Martin Luther King’s thought and preaching, and that MLK carried a well-worn copy of it during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas invokes Thurman when she speaks about going beyond charity to engage in changing the conditions that allow inequality and injustice to prevail. 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 →

Raise your heads!

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Advent 1C.  28 November 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Jeremiah 33:14-16 [Jerusalem] will be called [the Holy One] is our righteousness.
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13. Someone has testified somewhere.
Luke 21:25-36 Raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near.

O startling God, 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.

Good morning! Happy Advent! It’s the Church’s New Year and the beginning of a season characterized by re-awakening, of waking up to re-examine our collective systems, our institutions. Advent calls for corporate, collective reflection, and repentance. It’s like an annual check-up for our communal systems. It’s a season of waking up even more to reports of sin, chaos, and devastation among the nations confused and disturbed by the roaring sea, the waves, and the shaking, agitated heavens. Fortunately, that’s just what our Gospel reading addresses this morning. Continue reading →

Respond, repair, rebuild!

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Proper 26B.  31 October 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Ruth 1:1-18. Do not beg me to leave you anymore, woman.
Hebrews 9:11-14. Purify our conscience from dead observances for worship of the living God.
Mark 12:28-34.  You are not far from the Realm of God.

O God of our redemption, 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.

Many of you know that the formal name of our educational and artistic collaboration program with Central Reform Temple is Emmanuel Center. You’ll see our statement of purpose in the back of your bulletins. Essentially it says that faithfully rooted in our distinct religious traditions and shared spiritual heritage, we model compassionate encounters between Judaism and Christianity that affirm the difficult challenges of history and aspire to new levels of understanding. The Emmanuel Center Board comprises leaders from the parish and the synagogue to plan activities that explore spiritual and ethical perspectives on our shared human experience. When the board met this past Tuesday, we spent considerable time talking about the history being made right now with regard to the tens of thousands of refugees of rapacious militarism coming into the US from Afghanistan to be resettled here. Afghani people are living in refugee camps on five military bases in this country; the pictures of Fort Bliss (a highly ironic name) in New Mexico show about 100 huge tents holding 6,000 people. Our conversation on the board had to do with our moral obligation to respond with welcome and assistance, and the process of figuring out how. Where to begin? Continue reading →

Covenantal Connectedness

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Last Sunday after the Epiphany, B, February 14, 2021, The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz.

2 Kings 2:1-12. “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elisha said, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”
2 Corinthians 4:3-6. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Mark 9:2-10. He did not know what to say for they were terrified.

O God of Revelation, 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.

We have come to the end of the season of Epiphany, the season of celebrating sacred gifts and divine disclosures. In our Hebrew Bible lesson this morning we have the wonderful story from 2 Kings about how Elisha got the power and the authority to carry on Elijah’s work after Elijah was gone, after he was “taken up.” Elisha had been travelling with and learning from Elijah for many years. He had burned his farming equipment and slaughtered his oxen, thus destroying his means of income, his livelihood;  he had left his home so that he could travel with the prophet Elijah (much more dramatic than leaving the boats and nets with Zebedee and his hired hands to follow Jesus).

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Our Obligation and Opportunity to Shine

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Presentation in the Temple
February 2, 2020 – Annual Meeting

Malachi 3:1-4 Who can stand when he appears? (Anna can.)
Hebrews 2:14-18 Free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
Luke 2:22-40 There was also a prophet, Anna.

O God of the prophets, 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 year, Emmanuel’s 160th Annual Meeting falls on the fortieth day after Christmas, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, which the Gospel of Luke tells us occurred, as required, when Mary and Joseph took their infant into the Temple in Jerusalem to dedicate him to God and to celebrate the return to purity of his mother. This is a little bit odd because there actually is no known requirement or even custom of presenting an infant in the temple, but there was a rite of purification for a mother after delivering a baby.

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Come clean!

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Proper 26C
November 3, 2019

Habakkuk 1:1-2:4 Write the vision; make it plain so that a runner can see it.
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4,11-12 The love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.
Luke 19:1-10 The Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.

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.

This morning we are celebrating the Feasts of All Saints’ Day, which was Friday, and All Souls’ Day, which was yesterday, with our music. However, we are observing the 24th Sunday after Pentecost with our readings, because I just couldn’t skip over the readings from Habakkuk and second Thessalonians, or the story of Zacchaeus from the Gospel of Luke.

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Please do something!

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First Sunday in Advent,
December 2, 2018.

Jeremiah 33:14-16 [Jerusalem] will be called [the Holy One] is our righteousness.
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all.
Luke 21:25-36 Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads because your redemption is drawing near.

O God, our righteousness: 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.

Good morning! Happy Advent! Happy Churchy New Year! Und fröhliche Leipzigerwoche! I’m so happy 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 here, so that we can get to know one another. I have a lot to tell you about my adventures learning Quranic Arabic and learning grandmothering of a new granddaughter and a newer grandson. and my adventures in Queens, NY, Annapolis, MD, Roslindale, MA, as well as Istanbul, Vienna, southern Spain and Lisbon. I also have a lot to say about Advent and ways we might approach this season before Christmas.  I have at least a dozen sermons that I want to deliver this morning, so I’m going to keep my time in this pulpit short because there really is too much to say!

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Creative, Embodied, Inspired

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Trinity Sunday, Year B, May 27, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 6:1-8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
Romans 8:12-17 Children of God.
John 3:1-17 God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.

O God ‘increation,’ incarnation, inspiration, 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 our Gospel lesson contains one of the most misappropriated and misunderstood passages of scripture in the whole Bible, in my view. “For God so loved the world that God gave the only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” John 3:16 has fueled some of the most damaging and unloving impulses of those who have taken the name Christian, from the Crusades to the destruction of conquered indigenous peoples, to the Holocaust, and to our present day, where the idea of the common good is endangered. If folks would just focus on what comes next, multitudes might have been spared. Verse 17 says: “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (or by him or because of him or for the sake of him. Being saved here means healing, integrity, and dignity. Being saved means being rescued from danger, liberated from oppression, being restored to right-relationship.
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The Marks of Love

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Third Sunday in Lent, Year B, March 4, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Exodus 20:1-17 Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.
John 2:13-22 He was speaking of the temple of his body.

O mysterious God, 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.

Many of you know that one of my life projects is increasing Biblical literacy, so I’m always on the lookout for books and articles that are accessible to people who are interested in learning about our sacred texts. Episcopal priest Lauren Winner has recently written a slim volume in the new Episcopal Church teaching series, called A Word to Live By, about engaging scripture with curiosity and confidence. It’s less than a hundred pages, less than $10, and it’s fantastic. In her introduction Winner invites readers of Biblical literature to “expect to be delighted. Expect to be discomfited… .[and] expect to be puzzled… .because the Bible is opaque, and puzzlement means you’re paying attention to, rather than filtering out, the opaque bits.” [1]
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