Sermons

We invite you to enjoy sermons of our rector The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz and others., which are collected by year with links in the column on the right. Our earliest sermons are posted in an archive covering the years 2000-09 include sermons by the late Rabbi Howard Berman, The Rev. William Blaine-Wallace, The Rev. Dr. Maureen D. Kemeza, The Rev. Dr. James M. Weiss, The Rev. Christiaan A. Beukman, and others.

In 2022 we began to broadcast her sermons in our livestreamed services.  Please listen to her dynamic preaching about 20 minutes into our broadcasts on our YouTube Channel.  Her sermons preached in Lindsey Chapel are not available in video.  We apologize for our delay in posting the remainder of her 2024 sermons and hope to catch up with 2026 soon.

We are all one.

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Proper 5C, May 18, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 11:1-18. The spirit told me…not to make a distinction between them and us.
Revelation 21:1-6. I am making all things new…to the thirsty I will give water as a gift.
John 13:31-35. I give you a new commandment, [in order] that you love one another.

O God of all, 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 are celebrating the baptism of Bodie Richard Coulon this morning, so we’ll all be invited to review what our Church teaches about baptism and we’ll be invited to renew our own baptismal vows. Today is a great day for a baptism because our scripture lessons describe beautiful visions of well-being.  Continue reading →

Wake up! Rise up!

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Easter 4C, May 11, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 9:36-43. He gave her his hand and helped her up.
Revelation 7:9-17. He will guide them to springs of the water of life.
John 10:22-30. It was winter.

O God of life, 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.

During Eastertide, our lectionary offers no lessons from the First Testament. The effect, I think, is to overemphasize a break between Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ religious heritage. Instead, we have passages from the Acts of the Apostles’ romantic accounts of the beginnings of Christianity, written toward the end of the first century about “the good old days.” Today it’s Peter raising Dorcas from the dead with a line that is almost exactly the same as what Jesus said to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead: arise or wake up, come alive! In other words, Peter was ministering just like Jesus. I love line, “he gave her his hand and helped her up.” Continue reading →

Behave as if it were true!

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Easter 3C, May 4, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 9:1-6(7-20). “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen.”
Revelation 5:11-14. And the four living creatures said, “Amen!”
John 21:1-19 . Come and have breakfast.

O God of resurrection, 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 are well on our way into the Great Fifty Days of Easter, the extended Feast of the Resurrection. I love that the Church calendar gives 40 days for Lent, but 50 days for Easter because Easter is harder. Lent is easier for many of us – we know our need for increased focus on penitence, discipline, prayer, study, and our need for mercy. Many of you tell me that Lent is your favorite church season. On the other hand, a season of increased focus on resurrection (on rising from the dead) trips people up, especially when the news of what’s going on in the world is so bad. (I’ll tell you something; it was bad for the earliest Jesus followers, too.) Continue reading →

Risen

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Easter 2C, April 27, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 5:27-32. Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Revelation 1:4-8. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.
John 20:19-31. Peace to you…peace to you…peace to you.

O God of love, 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.

Blessed are you who come to church on the Sunday after Easter, in spite of a trifecta of truly terrible theological ideas that get repeated every single year on this day, no matter what.  The first is from Luke the Evangelist in the Acts of the Apostles, where Peter accuses the high priests of having Jesus executed.  The second is from John the Divine in Revelation, the idea that Jesus’ death was a blood sacrifice required for atonement with God.  The third is the disparagement of doubt from John the Evangelist. We will hear some good and comforting news today from the prophet Isaiah, but you’ll have to wait to hear it until after communion. These four texts (the first three from the New or Second Testament, and then the text from Isaiah in the Old or First Testament) do not support the fallacious idea that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and the God of the New Testament is a God of love. I cannot say often enough that the God of Jesus is the God of Israel. There is plenty of love from God in the First Testament and plenty of wrath in the Second Testament, but Christians tend not to hear or read scriptures in a way that facilitates our comprehension. Continue reading →

Feast of Love

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Lent 4C, March 30, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Joshua 5:9-12. The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.”
2 Corinthians 5:16-21. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his [sic] appeal through us.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32. Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling.

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.

I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but I wonder how many of you ever complained about someone else’s bad behavior? (I have, too.)  I wonder when you complained, did you want an answer? (I have, too.) I think it’s important to know that Jesus tells this story of the man who had two sons in response to the complaint that Jesus welcomes sinners. The story is part of Jesus’ answer to others complaining about his habit (or practice) of hanging out with people who behave badly. The complainers, according to Luke, were some of Jesus’ colleagues. And the complaint was that Jesus welcomed sinners, people who were dangerously out of step with the well-being of the community, people who were unclean, unethical, unlawful, just plain gross.  Not only did Jesus welcome them, he even ate with them. Simply put, the complaint was, that’s foolish, that’s not right, and, for those who were jealous, that’s not fair. Continue reading →

Show what love looks like!

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Lent 2C, March 16, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18. I am your shield.
Philippians 3:17-4:1.  He will transform the body of our humiliation.
Luke 13:31-35.  How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.

O God whose glory is always 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.

Today’s choice of a Gospel text for the second Sunday in Lent always strikes me as a little jarring. It’s jarring to begin the first week of Lent with Luke’s account of Jesus resisting temptations in the wilderness before his ministry began and then to skip, over his teaching and healing all around the Galilee and beyond, to the end of Chapter 13 at the middle of the Gospel of Luke.  (Next week the scheduled portion is back at the beginning of that chapter.) The slow, almost leisurely pace of Jesus’ ministry in Luke with magnificent story-telling, prayer, and Sabbath meals is completely eclipsed in our Lenten readings from Luke’s Gospel. Our lectionary saves all those stories for the summer. Continue reading →

Preparing for Easter

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Lent 1C, March 9, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Deuteronomy 26:1-11. Now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.
Romans 10:8b-13. The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.
Luke 4:1-13. It is written…it is written…it is said.

O God of hope, 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’m feeling relieved that it’s finally Lent. We’ve had a longer wait than usual because this year Easter is almost as late as it can ever be, but the calendar hasn’t been the only thing making these last weeks feel unbearably long. While I’ve waited, I’ve felt keenly aware of our need for penitence and healing, for a quarantine of almsgiving, prayer, fasting, and meditating on Holy Scripture. I’ve felt our need to get right with God, in the midst of the socio-economic collapse and exiles of all kinds that are happening in our world.

Continue reading →

Handle with prayer!

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Christmas 1C, 29 December 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Isaiah 61:10 – 62:3. I will greatly rejoice in the LORD.
  • Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7. So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
  • John 1:1-18. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

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.

Our lectionary, which assigns the prologue to the Gospel of John for the first Sunday in Christmas, baffles me. Since we’re in a Gospel of Luke year, why not the story of the presentation of Jesus as an infant in the Temple eight days after he was born? The answer, I guess, is that story will be read on February 2, which is the Feast of the Presentation. Continue reading →

The blessing is in the sharing.

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Proper 18B, September 8, 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23. Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.
  • James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17. Mercy triumphs over judgement.
  • Mark 7:24-37. They were astounded beyond measure.

O astonishing 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.

In my first semester of seminary, I was accepted into a senior seminar taught by Professor Alison Cheek, who was one of the Philadelphia 11. [1] The course had the longest title: “Learning to Teach Small Group Bible Study from a Feminist Perspective.” LTSGBSFP doesn’t make a good acronym, but it sure did help me engage scripture with an unapologetic feminist consciousness. Professor Cheek helped unstop my ears and loosen my tongue! I give thanks to God for her whenever I encounter lessons like the ones we have before us today. Continue reading →

Becoming

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Proper 13B, 4 August 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • 2 Samuel 11:26 -12:13a.  There were two men in a certain city, one rich, and the other poor.
  • Ephesians 4:1-16.  Speaking the truth in love…promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
  • John 6:24-35. I AM the bread of life..

O God of continual mercy, 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.

I will confess to you that when I looked at the Gospel lesson for this Sunday, I wondered if I’d made a mistake starting my vacation tomorrow instead of last Thursday. John’s emphasis on believing and his assertion that whoever comes to Jesus will never be hungry or thirsty are teachings that are complicated for me. I don’t think they were intended to be stumbling blocks, but I find that they often are. So here goes! I’m stumbling forward. Continue reading →