Tag Archives: Samaritans

Proportional Thanksgiving

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Proper 23C. 9 October 2022.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
2 Timothy 2:8-15. The word of God is not chained.
Luke 17:11-19. Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?”

O God of 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.

This morning at Emmanuel Church we are giving thanks for the life and love of Joan Nordell, who was the President of the Board of Emmanuel Music when I arrived at Emmanuel almost 15 years ago. Her steady and generous leadership made a world of difference during a time of instability and uncertainty. Her commitment to Emmanuel Church was remarkable and continued to grow even after she completed her service on the board. I hope my sermon would delight her, because it’s inspired by her. I should let you know that this sermon is going to include a list-making exercise. I want you to have a pen ready or take notes on your phone. (Yes, I’m a priest who tells people to use their phones during the liturgy.) Or you could just make a mental list when the time comes.  Continue reading →

Go together!

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God, help us love our neighbor, or at least help us to act like we do, and let acting those acts of love continue to transform and sustain us.  Amen.

If pulpit pitches were a competitive sport, no entirely sane person would agree to follow Karen King and Carolyn Roosevelt. Not unless they were willing to do a swan dive off the pulpit as a finale, to up the game. Fortunately for me and for you and any EMT’s here today, this is not competitive.  We are in this together, in lock-step, to call on you to commit what you can to support Emmanuel’s continued well-being, its mission of radical hospitality, and its acts of Love.  Continue reading →

Inn on the Road to Jericho

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Good morning! Last week we heard Karen King commend to us the story of the Good Samaritan.  We heard how two people–separated by birth, geography, and circumstance–became neighbors because one of them saw the other in need and showed him Love by binding his wounds and transporting him to a safe place. Maybe the merciful Samaritan knew in his heart that the robbers might have set upon him, if the coin-flip of fortune had turned up differently. Maybe his very status as a traveller, and (from Jesus’ point of view) a foreigner, kept that possibility alive in his mind.

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Good Samaritans

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Good morning! I am so glad to be here and to be with you on this beautiful day. I started coming to Emmanuel during the Pandemic, so I am just getting to know many of you who have been here much longer, as well as those of you who are relatively new like me. I initially came in large part simply because Emmanuel was open; worship was in person, and I needed that. I stayed because the love of God is taught, preached, sung, and practiced here.
Our theme this year is “Love our neighbor.” Versions of this command occur, of course, in many places in the Bible: in Leviticus (19:18), in the Gospels, in Paul’s letters. My favorite is in the Gospel of Luke, when a religious expert asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Continue reading →

Unbounded Mercy

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Proper 10C.  10 July 2022, The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz.

Amos 7:7-17. The Lord said to me, “Go prophesy to my people Israel.”
Colossians 1:1-14. Grace to you and peace from God.
Luke 10:25-37. But wanting to justify himself…

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 parable called The Good Samaritan, found only in Luke, might be the most famous parable of them all. One doesn’t have to be a church goer to have heard of it and understand something about it. Hospitals, emergency services, counseling services, laws about liability limits, and award programs, all get called Good Samaritan. With its fame comes the enormous, sometimes crushing, weight of Protestant moral theology and Sunday-school lessons, both with a hefty dose of Christian anti-Jewish bias. The preaching challenge for me seems formidable because of what we all think we already know about this story and the guilt that has been wired into most of us about seeing people who have been beaten and robbed, lying in life’s various ditches, and not doing enough, or anything at all, to help. In my time as a priest, this story has provoked more confessions and more attempts at self-justification than any other I know. It reminds me of something bell hooks said, which feels like the essence of my vocation: [1]

I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community.

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The Place

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Lent 3A
March 15, 2020

Exodus 17:1-7 The people thirsted there.
Romans 5:1-11 God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
John 4:5-42 Give me a drink.

Good morning. I hope that our attempt to live-stream our service this morning is adding to your sense of connectedness with a community that loves you and is not adding to your sense of isolation and frustration. Technology can and does work both ways. Please know that, wherever you are on your spiritual journey, the power of prayer transcends walls and web connectivity. I am grateful for your prayers and I am keeping you in mine.

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Thirst

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Lent 3A, March 19, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Exodus 17:1-7 The people thirsted there.
Romans 5:1-11 God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
John 4:5-42 Give me a drink.

O God of water and thirst, 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 just want to note that in our first reading this morning, I added the translation for the place names because to transliterate the Hebrew word “seen” as Sin just seems wrong. I should have added that the word Nile doesn’t appear in the Hebrew text – it’s just the river, and Horeb means “desert.” Perhaps the place names are not important to translate, but I couldn’t get past the distraction of calling the place in the Sinai, “Sin,” and I didn’t want you to either, particularly because our cantata text is all about sin. When you hear it, listen remembering that sin, according to the Bible, is separation from Love from neighbor. Sin is what we do or fail to do that keeps us apart from Love of neighbor and of God who is Love. Our scripture readings for today are not directly addressing sin, but are reflections on thirst, the physical and spiritual desire for wellsprings. Continue reading →