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.

When a Commandment is not a Command

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Preached on May 29, 2011.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O God of our new songs, 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. Amen.

Chronological time comes nearly to a stop in the four chapters of the Gospel of John that get called “The Farewell Discourse.” One-fifth of the whole Gospel of John takes place in the evening time before Jesus’ arrest. Jesus’ parting words remind me of the instruction list that my mother used to leave before my parents went away for a trip (and I always feared that they would leave us orphaned). The long list was accompanied by their admonition for me to use my best judgment. Okay, fine, I would think, but do you know my brothers and my sister? Continue reading →

Baptizing in the Strong Name of the Trinity

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Preached on June 19, 2011

Creating 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.

I hope you liked the reading of the beginning of Genesis. We don’t hear it very often in our liturgy – scheduled, as it is, for a summer Sunday every three years. I wonder if you noticed how many times God beheld the goodness of creation – six times God saw what was good. And when it came to humankind, God saw that humankind was very good. (Not perfect, but very good!) Continue reading →

Hard Learning

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Proper 28A
November 15, 2020

Judges 4:1-7. And the Israelites came to Deborah for judgmentor God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ . . . therefore encourage one another and build up each other
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ . . . therefore encourage one another and build up each other.
Matthew 25:14-15, 19-29 Weeping and gnashing of teeth

O God of our learning, 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.

Our Collect for today is one of my favorites and maybe yours too – a prayer in which we assert that all holy scriptures were caused to be written for our learning – the ones we love and the ones, well, not so much. We pray that we not just hear them, but that we read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them – for the purpose of holding fast to hope of union with the Holy One, which is another way of saying everlasting life. With some readings from scripture, I think, we need digestive aids – some spiritual bi-carb perhaps while we are learning.
Continue reading →