Proper 27B, November 11, 2012; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of vision, 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 that we have been steeping in Jewish commentary on the New Testament now for more than six years at Emmanuel Church. Having a Rabbi in Residence should and does change the way we sing our songs, say our prayers, and read our scripture. So when a Gospel portion like this one today comes along, we are challenged to put on our “corrective lenses” to see Jesus in his Jewish context, which is not the way most of our eyes were trained to see Jesus in Sunday School or in adult education or in our Christo-centric popular culture. Continue reading →

All Saints, Proper 26B, November 4, 2012; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of all things new, 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.

Some days in the life of the church are really big – Christmas Eve, Easter Day, Pentecost and All Saints are generally the four biggest for us. Today is the Sunday in the octave (or eight days) of the great feast day of All Saints, a day on the Christian calendar to celebrate the saints, known and unknown. This past Friday was All Souls’ Day – the day set aside in the church calendar for commemoration of those who have departed this life. So this is a Sunday to remember the past – to honor all those who have gone before us – all saints and all souls. Continue reading →

Proper 24B, October 21, 2012; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O 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.

 The Jesus I love was a master at asking questions, and perhaps the best one of all is: “What is it you want me to do for you?” In the Gospel passage from Mark that Susanne just read, James and John say, “teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus doesn’t say, “okay, sure!” or “you know I can’t agree to that,” or “are you kidding me?” or any number of things he might have said in response. He doesn’t answer with a statement. Rather, he asks, smiling I imagine, “What is it you want me to do for you?” “What is it you want me to do for you?” Continue reading →

Proper 20B, September 23, 2012; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of radical welcome, 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.

“A capable wife who can find?” Well I certainly found one! And if you’ve been reading religious news headlines this week, it’s feasible that Jesus did as well! Intriguing as the possibility is, though, that’s not where I am feeling called to go with you this morning in my sermon! Continue reading →

Proper 19B, September 16, 2012; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of compassion, 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 this morning finds Jesus and his disciples on their way into what we might call Caesarville. Caesarea Philippi was a seat of political, military and economic power: oppressive, corrupt, and idolatrous. In other words, they were right in the thick of it, on their way.  They were, you may remember, called people of The Way. And this episode lies at the exact center of Mark’s gospel – it is Mark’s centerpiece. In ancient literature, this means that it is a very important passage. It is the heart – the core [1] message – the crux, a turning point when Jesus moves from the ministry of healing and feeding into an articulation of the ministry of suffering with – the ministry of compassion – a ministry which will cost everything. This is also a story of how Peter almost didn’t make the turn on the way! Continue reading →

Proper 18B, September 9, 2012; 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.

Our lessons from Proverbs and James today kind of preach themselves. They make it very clear – abundantly clear – about the blessing upon those who are generous, who share their bread with people who are poor. The evidence of blessing is not simply prosperity, according to Proverbs; but it’s the sharing or distribution of abundance so that everyone gets enough to eat. The evidence of blessing is the sharing. And James says that mercy triumphs over judgment – mercy trumps judgment — every time in the realm of God. (Here are two texts I want Biblical literalists to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.) Continue reading →

Proper 17B, September 12, 2013; 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.

Today we mark the end of the liturgical (or church) year – the last Sunday in Pentecost. This day has come to be known as The Feast of Christ the King – or The Reign of Christ Sunday for folks moving away from patriarchal language. It’s a fairly new church holiday — first declared by Pius the 11^th in 1925. It was a Roman Catholic feast day; then it caught on with the Lutherans. As recently as a dozen years ago, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church described it as “kept unofficially in some Anglican churches.” As we Episcopalians have lived into our commitment to use the Revised Common Lectionary (shared with other major Christian denominations), Christ the King Sunday has become a part of our common practice, printed on our calendars (so you know it’s legit), but I’m a bit slow in my own conversion. Continue reading →

Proper 12B, July 29, 2012; 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.

Today we hear the two stories that were left out of last week’s Gospel lesson from Mark. For some reason, the lectionary assigns the Gospel reading for today from John’s version. Your homework assignment this week is to read all six feeding stories side by side! Given how very different the four Gospels are, the versions of these stories are remarkably similar. Mark’s version is characteristically a little rougher, John’s is more polished. Mark’s Jesus is in the thick of conflict and confusion all along; for John, Jesus’ feet never really touched the ground. The story of Jesus feeding a huge hungry crowd is one of the most significant stories about Jesus. It’s rare that a miracle story appears in all four Gospels. I still think that the lectionary should have stuck with Mark this week, though, because it’s tricky to mix and match Gospel stories. It means shifting gears rather wildly from one literary world to another, each with different assumptions, purposes, and strategies. [1] Some may wonder whether the repetition and similarities of the feeding stories make them more likely memory and less likely metaphor. I don’t know. For me, the stories are equally powerful either as memory or metaphor. Continue reading →

Proper 11B, July 22, 2012

O God of compassion, 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 know it’s summertime, but I’ve got homework for you both this week and next. This week’s assignment is to take the Mark 6:30-56 sheet, which you got with your bulletin and announcement sheet this morning and study the middle part when you get home. Read it out loud. See what jumps out at you. Listen to what speaks to you. Wonder what difference it might make.

Our lectionary selection for the Gospel this morning is Mark 6:30-34 and 53-36. There’s a big chunk taken out of the middle that seems pretty critical to me. We’re reading through the Gospel of Mark, fairly sequentially, so you might think maybe this missing part was read last week or maybe it will be read next week. But no. Next week there will be a feeding story, but it will be the version told in the Gospel of John. That’s completely baffling to me because Mark has not one but two perfectly good stories about huge hungry crowds being fed by Jesus’ disciples at his direction – one in Jewish territory and one in Gentile territory. But more about the loaves and fishes next week. Continue reading →

Proper 10B, July 15, 2012

O God of our dreaming, 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 summer lectionary has handed us some truly terrible readings for us this morning. First, the story of how the ark of the covenant came to reside in Jerusalem, which is not a nice story. Although the lectionary calls for the most troubling parts of the story to be removed, I elected to leave them in rather than to tell you about them. Then we have the story of the beheading of John the Baptist with a passage from Ephesians in the middle insisting that somehow everything is going to be alright.

It seems to me that scenes like the one from Samuel or the one from the Gospel of Mark are harder to relate to than your average Bible story for polite folks in an Episcopal Church on a midsummer day. What might they have to say to us? I mean, I’d be very surprised if, when Susanne read the Gospel just now, any of you thought to yourself, “oh yeah, that reminds me of a dinner party I went to one time when a guy got beheaded.” Continue reading →