Author Archives: Maureen Driscoll

It’s already in you.

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Proper 12C, July 27, 2025.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Hosea 1:2-10.  In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ it shall be said to them, ‘Children of the Living God.’,
  • Colossians 2:6-19. Do not let anyone disqualify you.
  • Luke 11:1-13. Everyone who ask . . . everyone who searches . . . everyone who knocks.

O God of Everyone, 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 want to preach about the Gospel lesson from Luke, but I cannot leave the reading from Hosea just hanging there! Hosea, a prophet of Israel, was crying out against his people for breaking the covenant by not worshipping The Holy One alone. Idolatry and whoredom, in ancient Hebrew, are the same word – the very same thing. [1]  The people had promised fidelity to the Holy One of Israel, but they had been seeing other gods. They had been engaged in moral defection, fraud and cheating, improper intercourse with other deities. They have been putting their faith in wealth and other forms of power, engaging in dishonorable and undignified behavior, rather than acting in compassion and with high regard for both neighbors and aliens. (This could be ripped from today’s headlines.) Hosea charged that economic resources were being misused to wage war, and the government was exploiting poor people. When the Lord first spoke within Hosea, Hosea heard, ‘find a wife who is seeing other gods, because you’ll not be able to find one who is not seeing other gods – everyone in the land is doing it…and name your children after a place of a brutal massacre; “no compassion;” and “not my people.” Hosea heard God saying, “because I am not your becoming; I am not your being; I am not your will be.”

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What God Has Joined Together

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Proper 11C, July 21, 2025. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Amos 8:1-12. The end has come upon my people Israel.
  • Colossians 1:15-28. Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
  • Luke 10:38-42. She had a sister named Mary, who [ALSO] sat at the Lord’s feet.

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.

Here we go again with another set of lectionary readings that have been used to advance truly regrettable theologies about women, work, contemplation versus action, and divine judgment. What a combination: the apocalyptic vision of Amos, the cosmic Christ of Colossians, and two sisters whose story has been weaponized for centuries to pit so-called “spiritual” people against those who engage in the messy work of hospitality and care. However, I see glimmers of hope in this collision of texts that seem to speak past each other at first glance. I invite you to hear these passages not as separate little moral lessons, but as a unified testimony written over the course of more than 800 years about divine priorities and what it means to lean into God’s realm. Continue reading →

Clarity comes from merciful action.

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Proper 10C, July 13, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Amos 7:7-17.  The Lord said to me, Go prophesy to my people Israel.,
  • Colossians 1:1-14.  Grace to you and peace from God.
  • Luke 10:25-37.  But wanting to justify himself.

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.

The story called “the good Samaritan” is such an iconic story that one doesn’t have to be a church goer to know it. You don’t have to be a Christian to have heard of it or understand something about it. Hospitals, emergency services, counseling services, hotlines, rules of law about limits of liability, award programs, all get called Good Samaritan. This parable, found only in Luke, might be the most famous parable of them all. And with its fame comes the enormous and crushing weight of Protestant Moral Theology, Sunday School lessons, and a hefty dose of Christian anti-Jewish bias. The preaching challenge for me seems formidable because of what we think we already know about this story, and the guilt that has been wired into most of us about seeing people in life’s various ditches and not doing enough or not doing anything at all to help. In my time as a priest, this bible story has provoked in me more confessions and more defensive attempts at self-justification than any other I can think of.

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Fullness of Joy

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Proper 9C, July 6, 2025.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • 2 Kings 5:1-14.  Had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel and she served Naaman’s wife.
  • Galatians 6:1-16.  If anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a Spirit of gentleness….Bear one another’s burdens.
  • Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.  Do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

O God of the plentiful harvest, 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.

Our Gospel lesson for this morning picks up right after Jesus has told four people who wanted to follow him that they couldn’t. Then Jesus has appointed 70 others to be sent out – meaning Jesus has appointed apostles. Apostle means one sent – as in an agent or ambassador. (According to Luke there were 70 apostles, not 12). The number 70 in the Bible symbolizes comprehensive universality. Jesus appointed the number of all the nations, according to the Torah. In the 10th chapter of Genesis, the ancient “verbal map” of the whole world describes a network of human relatedness, of cousins, if you will, and belonging, an ecumenical vision of belonging that is remarkably, radically inclusive. [1]  The number 70 is also reminiscent of the number of elders appointed by God to help Moses when Moses told God “I alone am not able to bear all this people because it is too heavy for me.”

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