Tag Archives: caring

Restoration

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Last Sunday after Pentecost, November 22, 2020.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will guard!
Ephesians 1:15-23. So that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you
Matthew 25:31-46. Just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

O God of Restoration, 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 marks the end of our liturgical year in terms of Sundays, and the end of our year of readings from the Gospel of Matthew. We have reached the end of the teachings of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel narrative. This passage is the conclusive teaching before the Passion. It’s combined in our lectionary with another great sorting description from the prophet Ezekiel, and an interlude from the letter to the Ephesians. In each of our readings for the day we have bad news and good news. In my family, we always wanted (and usually got) the bad news first.
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Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (20B), September 23, 2018; The Rev. Susan Ackley

Proverb 31:10-31 A capable wife who can find?
James 3:13-3;3, 7-8A Who is wise and understanding among you?
Mark 9:30-37 Jesus and his disciples pass through Galilee.

You might know that Emmanuel Church has started a Recovery Eucharist.

I initiated it when I came here because I’ve celebrated — and “celebrated” is a good word — a weekly Recovery Eucharist for seven years at a drug and alcohol rehab in NH.

I emphasized “celebrated” because I’m an alcoholic and I live in perpetual wonder that God lets me do this priest thing!
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Weeds or No Weeds

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Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9A, July 9, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49; 58-67. Please give me a little water from your jar to drink.
Romans 7:15-25a. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

O God with us, 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.

Some of the earliest Sunday School lessons I remember learning were from a class taught sitting in the weeds when I was about six years old. (When we sat down in a little circle, the weeds were over our heads.) The first scripture verse I learned was Psalm 122: “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord,” and my teacher told us that we were sitting in the house of the Lord. My dad was the pastor of a congregation that worshipped outdoors at a farm in the summer, which was a welcome respite from the gritty urban ministry that characterized the rest of the year. I remember the weather being steamy and hot and I remember being struck by how many bugs there were in the house of the Lord. That’s what came to me as I reflected on our Gospel lesson for this morning. It’s summertime and we’re in the weeds, and I’m still struck by how many things bug us in the house of the Lord. Continue reading →

Hospitality

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Second Sunday after Pentecost Proper 6A, June 18, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7). When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them.
Romans 5:1-8. Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.
Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23). When he saw the crowds he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless…the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

O Lord of the harvest, 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.

Sometimes we have readings from scripture that are difficult to imagine – obscure references, ancient ideas that are hard for our post-modern ears to understand, but not today. Today we have a vivid scene from the Torah of three men who visited Abraham and Sarah; we have an assurance that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through a spirit of holiness in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome; and we have the Gospel of Matthew’s account of when twelve disciples became twelve apostles, and the traveling instructions Jesus gave to them.
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Witnessing

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One of the greatest challenges that I have faced at my internship this year at Emmanuel is of an interpersonal nature and relates to a challenge that I am working with outside of the internship realm. It has to do with my tendency toward leadership, my need for being seen, and my addiction to creating intended results. I am someone who likes to enter a space and influence an outcome that I can imagine being positive in nature. I am a change agent and have been identified as someone who possesses leadership abilities for as far back as I can remember. (My first dream when I was a child was to be the president.) At Emmanuel this year one of the main things that I have gotten to practice is putting my tendency toward leadership on the shelf and, instead, showing up as just another member of the group or simply as a witness to what is happening to those around me. It has been through these experiences that I have been able to practice the dance of therapeutic presence. Continue reading →