Tag Archives: goodness

Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Posted on by

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!
Continue reading →

We have work to do.

Posted on by

Second Sunday of Advent, Proper 2B, December 10, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Isaiah 40:1-11 Cry out!2 Peter 3:8-15a Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.

Mark 1:1-8 He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

O God of the prophets, 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.

Every year our branch of Christianity gives us a new year – a new advent –a new season for longing, to hear and respond to lessons of prophetic wisdom and calls for repentance writ large. These calls are not for personal repentance (that’s for the season of Lent). It’s fairly easy for people like us to understand our individual sins. (Not so easy to repent, but easy to identify.) It’s much harder in our culture for people like us to identify collective or institutional or structural sin, especially when so many of us benefit from it. Advent’s prophets are calling not for individual repentance, but for national repentance, for corporate repentance, and for ecclesiastical – that is Church — repentance. It seems to me that it doesn’t matter what your political perspective or affiliation is, we can probably agree that institutions – nations, corporations, and organizations are failing to care for people with dignity and respect. We are in a period of deep disintegration and the need for repentance, for turning around toward God, or Love, seems more pressing than ever.
Continue reading →

Abundant Life

Posted on by

Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, 22A, October 5, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Exodus 20:1-4,7-9, 12-20 Do not fear.
Philippians 2:1-13 But this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.
Matthew 21:33-46 Listen to another parable.

O God of grace, 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.

In our first lesson this morning we heard one of the most famous passages of scripture in the whole Bible. You don’t have to be Jewish or Christian to have heard of what are commonly known as “The Ten Commandments.” In our church tradition, this passage is called the Decalogue – literally “ten words” from God because of references in Deuteronomy to the ten words or ten things that were written in stone on Sinai – ten things that Moses reported hearing from the Source of all being on the Holy Mountain.

Here is the oldest example in our scripture of instructions for how to live long and well in community. The passage begins by telling us that God the Author spoke all these words, reminding the people first that it was God Who brought the people out of the house of slavery. It was God Who brought the people out of the narrow places – mitzrayim – between rocks and hard places – also called Egypt in the Hebrew Bible. This moment marks their new beginning – a fresh starting point for the community – another chance to live in an entirely new way. And God is expressing God’s will – God’s desire for God’s people. “Listen,” God is saying, “I have moved you out from a place of dishonor and disrespect. You are free. You are no longer trapped. You are not enslaved. I have redeemed you. You are valuable. You are precious to me. And here’s how you, my beloved, will behave when you have no other gods more important than me. Here’s how it will be when you know deep in your hearts that you are my people.” Continue reading →