Tag Archives: foreigners

Both Host & Guest

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Proper 6A, 18 June 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Genesis 18:1-15 (21:1-7). When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them.
  • Romans 5:1-8. Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts.
  • Matthew 9:35-10:8 (9-23). When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless….The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.

O God of the harvest, 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.

It’s rare that I can resist the urge to speak about all three of our appointed scripture lessons, and today is no exception! Today we have a vivid scene from the Torah of three men who visited Abraham and Sarah and conveyed a divine message that made Sarah laugh to herself, and not quietly. Today in Paul’s writing to Jesus’ followers in Rome, we hear his confidence that suffering can produce endurance, endurance can produce character, character can produce hope, and hope does not make us ashamed, because God’s love has been poured into the hearts of Jesus’ followers through the gift of a spirit of holiness. It’s not that we don’t get disappointed. It’s that we need not be ashamed because God’s spirit is with us. It’s really not about disappointment. Paul is saying don’t be ashamed to hope when you have love in your heart. Today we have the Gospel of Matthew’s account of when twelve disciples became twelve apostles, and the traveling instructions Jesus gave to them. How can I not mention all of these lessons? I mean, really. Continue reading →

Unbounded Mercy

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Proper 10C.  10 July 2022, The 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.

This parable called The Good Samaritan, found only in Luke, might be the most famous parable of them all. One doesn’t have to be a church goer to have heard of it and understand something about it. Hospitals, emergency services, counseling services, laws about liability limits, and award programs, all get called Good Samaritan. With its fame comes the enormous, sometimes crushing, weight of Protestant moral theology and Sunday-school lessons, both with a hefty dose of Christian anti-Jewish bias. The preaching challenge for me seems formidable because of what we all think we already know about this story and the guilt that has been wired into most of us about seeing people who have been beaten and robbed, lying in life’s various ditches, and not doing enough, or anything at all, to help. In my time as a priest, this story has provoked more confessions and more attempts at self-justification than any other I know. It reminds me of something bell hooks said, which feels like the essence of my vocation: [1]

I am often struck by the dangerous narcissism fostered by spiritual rhetoric that pays so much attention to individual self-improvement and so little to the practice of love within the context of community.

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