Easter 2A, April 27, 2014; The Rev Pamela L. Werntz

O God of grace, 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.

We have a tradition in Christianity of congregations receiving pastoral letters, written by a bishop (in those variations of Christianity that have bishops). Some of the earliest pastoral letters came to be known as Holy Scripture in our Bible. When a bishop sends a pastoral letter, it customarily contains admonition, instruction, directions or consolation, and it is intended to be read out loud in parishes and missions on an appointed day.

In our Episcopal Church tradition, a bishop is not our boss, she or he is our chief pastor, elected through a most democratic process and then consecrated, or set apart, and charged with the gargantuan task of being our guardian. In our case that means watching over almost 200 congregations in eastern Massachusetts. When we refer to the Diocese of Massachusetts what we are talking about is not the bishop’s staff, but about 65,000 Episcopalians of all sorts and conditions! Our Diocesan Bishop, Tom Shaw, is about to retire after being our Bishop for 20 years. He has sent a pastoral letter to be read today. It’s not a letter of admonition, instruction, directions, or consolation. It’s a letter of gratitude – his gratitude for all of us – as he nears the end of his time as our bishop. I hope you will take the opportunity to respond to him with your own words of gratefulness in a book that will be available for that purpose in the parish hall after church today and for the next few weeks. Continue reading →

Easter A, April 20, 2014, The Rev. Pamela L. Wertz

O God of mystery and mischief, grant us the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

I love that children’s story of The Three Trees and I read it every Easter. One of my favorite Emmanuel Church Easter memories is from a few years ago when a young girl, urged by her mother to come forward for the story, plodded up the aisle scowling and saying, “I’ve already heard this story before!” Maybe some of you feel like that too sometimes! Continue reading →

Lent 4A, March 30, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

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.

We have just passed the half-way point on our journey through Lent – 22 out of 40 days. (Yes, the answer to “who’s counting?” is, “I am!”) How is it going for you? It’s time for a check-in. Have the first 22 days gone by quickly or slowly? Have you been taking the Church’s prescription for Lenten disciplines? Are you feeling that these disciplines are preparing you to be able to celebrate Easter? Have the been too hard? Too easy? Do you need to make adjustments in your Lenten exercises so that you are better prepared to celebrate the abundant glory of God in another 18 days (not counting Sundays)?

The words of the Proper Preface for Lent – that part at the beginning of the Eucharistic prayer that changes depending on the day or the season – comes to my mind: (we pray to God) “you bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you.” I’ll sing it in a little while – but I want to ask you to reflect with me now about your response to the bidding that you cleanse your hearts and prepare with joy for Easter – through prayer and works of mercy, through engaging scripture and sacramental worship – so that your experience of grace becomes fuller than ever. And I want you to check in with yourself about how it is going. Any surprises? I hope so. Continue reading →

Lent 2A, March 16, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

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.

There are two things I want you to know about the famous passage of the call of Avram or Abram from the Book of Genesis that we just heard. The first has to do with translating the pesky verb in the second verse. The Hebrew says, I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will cause your name to grow, and be a blessing – what’s not so clear in English is that the verb is imperative. Be a blessing. It’s a command, rather than a prediction of the future. Lech l’cha is the song we sometimes sing when Rabbi Berman preaches. Lech l’cha. Go, (also an imperative) go, for your own good, from everything and everyone you know to a land and people you do not know, and be a blessing. The second thing I want you to know is that, although our lectionary ends the reading in the first half of verse four, the second half seems really important to me. In the last part of verse four, the Torah tells us that Avram was 75 years old when he embarked on this journey. And I daresay that 75 was a lot older 3,000 years ago, when this story is set, than it is now. So in our time, for any of you who are under the age of 100, I think this story might apply to you. Be a blessing. Continue reading →

Epiphany 5A, February 2, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of salt and light, 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 don’t know about you, but from time to time someone tells me that they don’t believe in or that they don’t like “organized religion.” My knee-jerk response is to shake my head and say, “We’re really not that organized.” But if I can keep quiet a minute and ask what it is that the person doesn’t believe in or like, it’s usually hypocrisy. I can eagerly affirm that I share the feelings of disgust for hypocrisy. And then, if the person is willing to continue the conversation, I muse out loud that much of the Bible -– both the first and the second testaments -– is devoted to calling religious people to account for hypocrisy. The Bible may have been written for the people who need the most help. (I am one of them.) Continue reading →

Epiphany 3A, January 26, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Merciful and generous 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.

Today is the day that we hold our Annual Meeting at Emmanuel and celebrate 154 years in the City of Boston of subverting the dominant paradigm. Our subversive work has undoubtedly ebbed and flowed through the years, but as far as I can tell, it’s in the DNA of this place. (So we’re looking forward to more!) Our archives are replete with predictions that we would never survive (and we still might not), but look how far we’ve come! I will confess to you, that as your Rector, anticipating our Annual Meeting, I am especially drawn to Paul’s plea to the church in Corinth that the people all be in agreement and that there be no divisions or quarrelling among them – that they all be of the same mind and purpose. That sounds so appealing to me, but I’m sure Paul never got his wish, and I’m not even sure that lack of division or dissent is healthy. So please know that when we say that all are welcome, we include those with dissenting voices. I don’t like dissent or quarrelling, but I do like a healthy community, and I know that dissent is a necessary ingredient. Continue reading →

Epiphany 2A, January 19, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Merciful and generous 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.

We’ve been hearing readings from the Gospel of Matthew over the last eight weeks. We will return to Matthew next week. But this week it is as if the Lectionary announces, “We interrupt our serial reading of the Gospel of Matthew to bring you this Good News from the Gospel of John. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. John the Baptist has testified to it.”  But what on earth does that mean? You know, that’s a question that I get asked. “What does ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ mean?” And like a good pastoral listener, my response is, “What do you think?” Part of me is truly interested in what the questioner thinks. And part of me is dodging the question. Continue reading →