Fifth Sunday in Lent (C), March 13, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of our heavenly calling, 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.

Many of you know how endlessly fascinated I am by our assigned lectionary readings and by the narrative differences across our four canonical gospels. This being Lectionary Year C, we have been going along just fine, hearing about Jesus’ journey toward Jerusalem according to the Gospel of Luke. Suddenly our assigned Gospel reading lurched off into the Gospel of John for this story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet, set in the very few weeks between when Lazarus and Jesus were raised from the dead. It’s a fine story, and I guess Luke thought so too, but he used it in an entirely different way: different woman, different place and a different time. The differences between the stories of a particular woman wiping feet with her hair are not reconcilable in my opinion, and the variations and diversity of Gospel “truth” give us all kinds of elbow room, which is something for which I am always looking — for all of our sake.
Continue reading →

Fourth Sunday in Lent (C), March 6, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O reconciling 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.

Earlier this week, I briefly entertained the notion that I would preach about our First Testament Bible lesson from Joshua or our Second Testament lesson from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians – you know, something different. Then I experienced our Tuesday early morning Bible study, which was so lively that folks were late to work because they were so stirred up that they didn’t want to stop talking. The parable that gets called, “The Prodigal Son” is a narrative that provokes strong and animated responses. I cannot say the same about either of our other two passages of scripture this morning, although their themes of Passover in Joshua, and being ambassadors for Christ in 2^nd Corinthians are certainly appealing. I decided that I shouldn’t attempt to steer around our Gospel story. So we’re going in! Continue reading →

Second Sunday in Lent (C), February 24, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God whose glory is 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 strikes me as a little strange. It’s strange to be catapulted from the first week of Lent, from Luke’s account of Jesus before his ministry began, resisting all sorts of temptations in the wilderness, past miles of travel, teaching and healing all around the Galilee and beyond, to the middle of the Gospel of Luke, at the end of chapter thirteen. (Next week the scheduled portion is back at the beginning of chapter 13.) The slow, almost leisurely pace of Jesus’ ministry in Luke which includes magnificent story-telling, prayer and Sabbath meals gets completely eclipsed in our Lenten readings from Luke’s Gospel. Our lectionary saves all that for the summer. Continue reading →

First Sunday in Lent, February 14, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

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.

We began our worship service this morning with a doubly long musical prayer and we will end with a doubly long musical sermon, so as we make our way through the middle, I want to offer you some very brief reminders and suggestions about how you might begin this season of Lent. I have three reminders and four suggestions for you. First reminder: the word Lent comes from the Middle English word for Spring. It is a word that embodies hope. (Especially on a cold day like today!) For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the days are getting longer and lighter. In churchy terms, Lent is the season when we get ready for Easter. So in a religious sense, too, Lent is a word that embodies hope. It’s not hope in something that may happen – it’s hope in something that has already happened and keeps happening. One of the amazing and wonderful truths of the Easter story, though, is that resurrection doesn’t care whether people are ready or not. Just like gravity doesn’t care whether we are ready or not – or whether we like it or not – or even whether we believe it or not.
Continue reading →

Last Sunday after the Epiphany, February 7, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of glory, 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.

One of the benefits for me of sharing the pulpit of Emmanuel Church with a Rabbi is that it challenges and changes the way I encounter Holy Scripture. My sensitivity to the need for “corrective lenses” is heightened. My desire to preach against the ways that the Christian Church has promoted supersessionist theology gets stronger every year. Supersessionism is very much like racism – it’s systemic, it’s oppressive, it’s often internalized, unexamined, and always wrong. It distorts our vision and injures our souls. Continue reading →

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, January 31, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of all, 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.

It’s come to my attention that Emmanuel Church’s efforts at radical welcome do not always succeed. I am not surprised. The idea of radical welcome is an eschatological hope (eschatological is a fancy word to describe talk about endings). Radical welcome is our eschatological vision, not a mission already and forever accomplished! Still, there are surely things that we can improve along our way to the end. What occurs to me is to talk about who is welcoming whom. We are claiming here at Emmanuel, that Jesus is welcoming everyone – we claim that at Emmanuel even without words when we worship in this sanctuary by virtue of our altar statue of Jesus, arms extended in a gesture of welcome that is carved in stone. [1] So first of all, we are boldly asserting the radical welcome of God in Jesus Christ. Beyond that wordless gesture, how do we enact radical welcome? Continue reading →

Third Sunday after the Epiphany (C), January 24, 2016; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of joy, 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 I want to begin by extending my own welcome to Bill Cruse, newly ordained priest, and I extend the congratulations and blessing from the Bishop of Massachusetts. And welcome to Kevin Neel, recently arrived from the west balcony! It’s always great to be in the same zip code as both of you! Thanks to Julian Bullitt who put in a huge amount of volunteer time this past week to work out wiring issues for the organ. Continue reading →