Monthly Archives: January 2024

A Beautiful, Terrible Day

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Epiphany 4B, 28 January 2024. 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. A new teaching – with authority!

O God of compassion, 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.

This past week an angel of the Lord sent me a book about how to live in these terrible days and, at the same time, how to live in these beautiful days. The book is by theologian Kate Bowler:  Have a Beautiful Terrible Day: Daily Meditations for the Ups, Downs, & In-Betweens. She writes about living with an apocalyptic (that is, revelatory) awareness of the catastrophic — globally, nationally, communally, and personally. Many of us are living, she says, with a heightened sense of precarity, a state of dangerous uncertainty. Insisting that we can be both faithful and afraid at the same time, she maintains, “There is tremendous opportunity here, now, for us to develop language and foster community around empathy, courage, and hope in the midst of this fear of our own vulnerability.” [1] Continue reading →

Interview with Rev. Jarrett-Schell on Church Reparations

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The text used by our vestry for an introduction to church reparations was written by the Reverend Peter Jarrett-Schell, Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, Washington, DC. Entitled Reparations: A Plan for Churches, the book draws upon Jarrett-Schell’s experience with draws on his experience as a member of the Reparations Committee in the Diocese of Washington, DC and as Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, a historically Black church in the diocese.

We discovered an interview with Reverend Jarrett-Schell that was hosted by the Union of Black Episcopalians (UBE) in their series of monthly virtual talks (scroll down to the last talk): We’re Talking Now: Reparations: A Plan for Churches (November 19, 2023). In it, Jarrett-Schell explains his recommendations for church reparations processes. He tells us that while reluctant to write the book on his own, he decided to do so only with the advice and counsel of prominent Black leaders and in dialogue with them. In this talk, he gives two examples of churches who are moving along in very different approaches to repair and reparations. Continue reading →

The Good News Now

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Epiphany 3B, 21 January 2024. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Jonah 3:1-5, 10. God changed [God’s] mind.
  • 1 Corinthians 7:29-31. The present form of this world is passing away.
  • Mark 1:16-20. And immediately.

O God of many callings, 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.

This morning we heard a short passage from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth. It sounds as if he were saying, “The end is near, so shelter in place.” If he did think the very, literal end was near, he was wrong; so why read his teachings 2000 years later as scripture? Here’s one reason: I think that Paul was using rhetorical language to communicate a sense of urgency about behaving as if we were free from the slavery of mistreatment and of mistreating others, so that the present form of this world does pass away, can pass away, and will pass away. In the very next verse after our short passage he writes, “I want you to be free from anxieties or worries.” (It seems as if that would have been a nice verse for the lectionary to include.) Continue reading →

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 →

You all belong to God.

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Epiphany 2B, 14 January 2024. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • 1 Samuel 3:1-20. Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.
  • 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God and that you are not your own?
  • John 1:43-51. You [all] will see greater things than these.

O God of calling and questing, 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 the midst of sequential Gospel of Mark readings during the season of Epiphany, today we hear a passage from the Gospel of John. I don’t have the foggiest idea why. The answer often given is that the Gospel of Mark is just too short – it moves too fast. (I’ve parroted that answer myself.) But when I stop to think about it, I realize that I’ve never heard anyone in church complain that a Gospel reading (or a sermon, for that matter) was too short!  Continue reading →

“The Cost of Inheritance”

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“The Cost of Inheritance,” a documentary that explores reparations in America, was aired this week on PBS. It is now available for viewing via PBS’s YouTube channel. Part of the series, America Reframed, the film adopts “a thoughtful approach to History, historical injustices, systemic inequities, and critical dialog on racial conciliation.”

Viewers hear the thoughts and feelings of individuals and members of groups who are seeking to heal racial wounds. The dilemmas of inheritance are explored and reimagined as people develop relationships, share family stories, memories, and documentation, and make amends that are mutually agreed upon. A range of efforts are described. We meet the founders of Reparations4slavery.com and members of Coming to the Table, a network of groups of descendants of enslavers and enslaved who are seeking to repair racial disparities.

There is also coverage of more sweeping efforts including Georgetown University’s reparations work, the National Black Farmers Association/USDA settlement, and the Quarterman and Keller Social Justice Scholarships at Spelman College.

—Mary Beth Clack, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church Jan. 11, 2024

Say I love you, too.

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Epiphany 1B, 7 January 2024. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Genesis 1:1-5. Beginning.
  • Acts 19:1-7. We have not even heard that there is a holy spirit.
  • Mark 1:4-11. He will baptize you with the [sic] holy spirit.

O God of beginning again, 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.

Today is the day that the Church celebrates the Baptism of Our Lord. Jesus’ baptism is considered the beginning of his ministry; and so we have three scripture readings before us today that speak of new beginnings. “In the beginning,” goes our first reading from the first book of the Bible. “In the beginning God created” are the first words of Genesis, the first words of the Torah.  Actually in Hebrew they say something more like, “When God began shaping.” There is no completed action. Rather, there is a strong sense of ongoing, incomplete shaping. Continue reading →

Pauli Murray’s Legacy

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Following Emmanuel’s July 2023 dedication of the Pauli Murray statue that graces our pulpit, we have some related news from her niece, Rosita Stevens-Holsey, and officially, from the U.S. Mint. The Reverend Dr, Pauli Murray Quarter was released on January 2, 2024 as one of the new set of American Women Quarters. The design and significance of the coin are described here.

Another of our pulpit statues is dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Suzanne Hiatt, who was greatly influenced by Murray.

We have also learned that a Pauli Murray scholarship is continuing apace. A recent collection has been published, To Speak a Defiant Word: Sermons and Speeches on Justice and Transformation. Edited by Anthony B. Pinn, this work builds on Pinn’s previous research and includes sermons, lectures, and speeches.

Lastly, of interest to us is the growing list of recipients of the annual Pauli Murray Book Prize for the best book in Black intellectual history. Sponsored by the African American Intellectual History Society, and first awarded in 2018, the list of recipients includes authors writing on Black history, Black internationalism and environmental Justice, and Black politics and activism. The winners also write a series of posts on the Society’s blog, Black Perspectives which is a global forum for news and public scholarship.

–Mary Beth Clack, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol
–Published in This Week @Emmanuel Church Jan. 3, 2024