Author Archives: Elizabeth Richardson

Join the crowd!

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The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 11B, July 19, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

2 Samuel 7:1-14a I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day.
Ephesians 2:11-22 He came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near [to God].
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 You give them something to eat.

Loving God, 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 hope that some of you noticed that our Gospel portion for this morning leaves out nineteen verses and acts like nothing happened. Perhaps you recall that frequently, the writer of the Gospel of Mark interrupts one story to tell another. It’s a rough and tumble story-telling method and the lectionary often takes out the interruption from one Sunday and place the offending story in a subsequent week. German theologians have a fantastic word for the rhetorical device of interrupting a story to tell another story: “Ineinanderschachtelungern.” [1] I feel like I want to use that word in a sermon at least once every three years when we’re in Gospel of Mark year! But, the verses removed from today’s portion aren’t an interruption at all. They’re essential to the story and they never get read in church – not next week or any week. Next week we will begin a series of five readings from the 6th chapter of the Gospel of John! (It’s a long chapter.) Continue reading →

Getting Our Own Paragraph Right

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The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 10B, July 12, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 Michal…despised him in her heart.
Ephesians 1:3-14This is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of [God’s] glory.
Mark 6:14-29 What should I ask for?

O God of our future, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

This is one of those Sundays when “Praise to you, Lord Christ,” just doesn’t seem like the right response after a Gospel reading. Actually, all three of our readings this morning get my dander up. In 2nd Samuel, what gets me is almost a throw-away line about David’s wife Michal, the party-pooper of the story, who saw him leaping and dancing and despised him in her heart. What’s Michal’s problem, you might wonder (if you noticed her at all). Well, Michal has been used and abused by her father King Saul and his successor King David, but according to tradition, she loved David and did not think he should be recklessly prancing around, scantily clad, before the throne of the Holy One. (I’m with her.) Continue reading →

Expect miracles!

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The Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9B, July 5, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10King David made a covenant with them.
2 Corinthians 12:2-10 My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness…Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
Mark 6:1-13 Jesus left that place and came to his home…then he went among the villages teaching.

O God of love, 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 past week has changed the Episcopal Church. Of course, every week changes the Church because to be alive is to be changed, but sometimes change is more noticeable than others, right? This week the Church’s ideas about and practices of home, heart, and hands got stretched and I saw it happen. This past week I traveled to Salt Lake City to attend four days of the ten-day General Convention of the Episcopal Church. By a blessed coincidence, I arrived on Monday, the day that the House of Bishops prayed and deliberated, and at last voted, to extend the sacrament of holy matrimony to same-sex couples across the whole Episcopal Church in jurisdictions where such marriage is legal, and to extend the blessing rite in those places where same-sex marriage is still not legal; and included a requirement that all bishops, even bishops who disagree or disapprove, make provisions for same-sex couples seeking blessing and marriage. The next day the House of Deputies voted to concur. But it wasn’t just extending same-sex marriage. Continue reading →

And that’s not all.

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The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 8B, June 28, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27. Greatly beloved were you to me. Your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
2 Corinthians 8:7-15. In order that there may be a fair balance…’the one who had much did not have too much and the one who had little did not have too little.
Mark 5:21-43. Do not fear, only believe.

O God of Healing and 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.

What a week. What a week of so many tears. Tears of sorrow, of anger and despair, tears of amazement, tears of joy and relief, and tears of hope and brave determination. The people of Charleston, South Carolina are still burying the nine faith-filled people massacred in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church a week ago last Wednesday while they were praying together and studying the Bible. The families of the martyrs have declared forgiveness for the shooter. They are continuing to testify and demonstrate that love is stronger than hate, and more powerful than death. Wednesday Bible Study went on as scheduled this past week with about 100 people jammed into the room where so much blood had been spilled the week before. Pastor Pinckney’s lesson the week before had been about the parable of the sower. Pastor Goff’s lesson the week after was about the power of love – full of parables from both Hebrew and Christian Testaments that reportedly had the people in that gathering laughing and crying at the same time. What powerful seeds of love are being sown by Mother Emanuel. And that’s not all. Continue reading →

Homily

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Fourth Sunday after the Pentecost, June 21, 2015; The Rev. Susanne George

Mark 4:35-41 Let us go to the other side.

A few days ago, after I contacted a friend on the west coast by email, I received this message back: “Thank God you are OK! The news, and you being in the church has made us nervous here.”

I thought a minute and realized that my friend had put together the fact that I serve at Emmanuel Church Boston, and that I was also in Charleston, recently, where horrific events took place at another Emanuel Church. So I could see how my friend had been concerned.

My immediate reaction to this message was to think: I am not in any danger. I’m perfectly fine. No, that is untrue – I am an optimistic person, but right now I feel the danger around me. I feel sadness and I feel vulnerable.

But I am coming from a place of relative entitlement. I recognize that I need to listen to my neighbors of color describe living with an extreme lack of security, because some neighbors have been singled out as special targets. Racism fuels the violence, even as it makes others casually dismiss its severity. Continue reading →

Celebrating a Harvest

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The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 6B, June 14, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 The Lord looks on the heart.
2 Corinthians 5:6-17 If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.
Mark 4:26-34 With many such parables he spoke the word to them.

O startling God, 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 a harvest in the Church – the baptism of Marina Victoria Yeretsian, and the ordination of William Clayton Cruse! We are celebrating the spread of the realm of God, which is, as Jesus says, as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and wake up day after day, while the seed would sprout and grow, without the sower knowing how. Then one day the grain is ready to be harvested. This is such a day – a harvesting of growth from seeds that were planted – with Marina, some months ago, and with Bill, some years ago. This is a day to celebrate the growth that happened while we and they slept or didn’t sleep! None of us, not even the smartest scientist in the world, knows exactly how it happens. This is a day to celebrate the mystery of life and love that comes to fruition in the realm of God. Continue reading →

What Difference It Makes

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Trinity Sunday, Year B, May 31, 2015; 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 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
John 3:1-17 How can anyone be born after having grown old?

O God incarnate, 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.

Last week I told you that the Feast of Pentecost is my favorite church holiday. It’s always followed by Trinity Sunday – not my favorite. It’s the only Sunday in the church year entirely devoted to a doctrine – that’s the good news I guess (that there’s only one). Even though it is the most beautiful of doctrines, I doubt if it’s possible (for me) to preach on Trinity Sunday without accidentally tripping over some orthodoxy and falling headlong into heresy. One option, I guess, is to just choose the alternative lessons for the first Sunday after Pentecost, or focus on the Feast of the Visitation, which falls on May 31 (and is the twelfth anniversary of when the Church named me a priest). The thing is, though, I love the Trinity hymns. I love St. Patrick’s Breastplate – the name of our processional hymn this morning. It’s frequently playing in my head. I love the hymn we will sing at the offertory – Holy Holy Holy – called Nicaea. In the hymnal of my childhood, it was number one in the book and in my heart. I still remember the time about thirty years ago when I first heard someone read Isaiah 6:1-8 in Hebrew, demonstrating the power of the poetry and the mystery – Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh. Continue reading →

Getting Chased around the Lake

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Pentecost, Year B, May 24, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Ezekiel 37:1-14 Can these bones live?
Acts 2:1-21 I will pour out [from/of] my Spirit upon all flesh.
John 15:26-16:15 I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling.

O Holy Source of 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.

Happy Pentecost everyone! I am very glad that you’re here – amazed and delighted, really. I expect people on the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas) and the Feast of the Resurrection (Easter), but when the Feast of Pentecost falls on a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, well, I just never know. Pentecost is my favorite church holiday. I love our parades of puppets in procession at Emmanuel, bracketing the Great Fifty days of Easter. I love the Pentecost scripture readings: the rattling dry bones re-animated by the spirit of holiness, the breath of God. I love the sound like the rush of a violent wind of the Acts story – not a gentle breeze, not a still small voice, but a complete cacophony of the Good News of the powerful Love of God being told in at least 17 languages (we managed 10 languages this morning –wasn’t it perplexing and thrilling?) And I love the promise of the “one called alongside to help” – parakletos is the Greek word, champion, [1] here translated advocate. Perhaps, more than anything, I love baptisms and Pentecost is one of four days specially designated for baptisms. Continue reading →

So That

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Seventh Sunday of Easter, Year B, May 17, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 Become a witness with us to his resurrection.
1 John 5:9-13 So that you may know that you have eternal life.
John 17:6-19 So that that they may be one…so that the scripture might be fulfilled…so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves…so that they also may be sanctified in truth.


O God of holiness, 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.

If I asked you to think of an important holiday that always falls on a Thursday, what would you say? (Maybe you would think first of Thanksgiving.) What if I asked you to name two important holidays that always fall on Thursdays? (Thanksgiving and since we’re in church, maybe someone would think of Maundy Thursday in Holy Week.) Do you know where I’m going with this? I wonder how many of you would have thought of Ascension Day — always a Thursday forty days after Easter Sunday. Did any of you take the day off this past Thursday to observe Ascension Day with your friends and family?
Continue reading →

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 →