Tag Archives: justice

Abundant Life

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Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost, 22A, October 5, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Exodus 20:1-4,7-9, 12-20 Do not fear.
Philippians 2:1-13 But this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.
Matthew 21:33-46 Listen to another parable.

O God of grace, 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.

In our first lesson this morning we heard one of the most famous passages of scripture in the whole Bible. You don’t have to be Jewish or Christian to have heard of what are commonly known as “The Ten Commandments.” In our church tradition, this passage is called the Decalogue – literally “ten words” from God because of references in Deuteronomy to the ten words or ten things that were written in stone on Sinai – ten things that Moses reported hearing from the Source of all being on the Holy Mountain.

Here is the oldest example in our scripture of instructions for how to live long and well in community. The passage begins by telling us that God the Author spoke all these words, reminding the people first that it was God Who brought the people out of the house of slavery. It was God Who brought the people out of the narrow places – mitzrayim – between rocks and hard places – also called Egypt in the Hebrew Bible. This moment marks their new beginning – a fresh starting point for the community – another chance to live in an entirely new way. And God is expressing God’s will – God’s desire for God’s people. “Listen,” God is saying, “I have moved you out from a place of dishonor and disrespect. You are free. You are no longer trapped. You are not enslaved. I have redeemed you. You are valuable. You are precious to me. And here’s how you, my beloved, will behave when you have no other gods more important than me. Here’s how it will be when you know deep in your hearts that you are my people.” Continue reading →

1988

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  • June.  Organist Michael Beattie joined Emmanuel Music for rehearsals in our Music Room of Peter Sellars‘ version of Mozart’s opera Le Nozze di Figaro, which played that summer in the PepsiCo Theater in Purchase NY.  Craig Smith conducted; Frank Kelley sang the part of Basilio; Jayne West, the Countess; and Susan Larson, Cherubino.
  • In her “Peace Pentecost” sermon at our Cathedral Church of St. Paul, poet Denise Levertov (1923-97) emphasized the connection between contemplation and action:  “If we neglect our inner lives, we destroy the sources of fruitful outer action.

    Thanks to U. of California Press for this image.

    But if we do not act, our inner lives become mere monuments to egotism.” At Emmanuel she founded a Peace Group to foster the links between spiritual thought and action among her fellow parishioners.

Earlier in the decade she had been attracted to Emmanuel by our social-justice activities, beautiful music and liturgy, and rector Al Kershaw, who counseled her.  “He assured her that doubt was part of spiritual growth and the darkness she encountered might increase her sense of dependence and lead her to God,” says her biographer Dana Greene citing Denise’s diary entry for June 13, 1988.

Denise’s father, Paul Philip Levertoff (1878–1954), born in Belarus, an early proponent of Messianic Judaism, took holy orders in the Anglican Church and preached wearing an alb with a tallit and kippa.

The Rev. Paul Philip Levertoff

In 1922 he had become director of what is now the London Diocesan Council for Work among the Jews and edited its quarterly journal, The Church and the Jews. He was a prolific writer on theological subjects in Hebrew, German, and English and translated into English the Midrash Sifre on Numbers (1926) and the Zohar  (1933).

See also:

  1. Dana Greene.  Denise Levertov:  A Poet’s Life.  Urbana IL:  U. of Illinois Press, 2012.
  2. Denise Levertov.  Making Peace.  Breathing the Water.  NY:  New Directions, 1987.
  3. Donna Hollenberg.  A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov. Berkeley: U of California Press, 2013.
  4. Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, eds.  The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov.  NY: New Directions, 2013.
  5. Paul Philip Levertoff. Love and the Messianic Age.
  6. Timeline: 1994

 

1951

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Pauli Murray, whom Emmanuel would eventually sponsor for the priesthood, compiled and edited a seminal work for the civil rights cases:  States‘ laws on race and color: and appendices containing international documents, federal laws and regulations, local ordinances and charts (Cincinnati: Women’s Division of Christian Service, Board of Missions and Church Extension, Methodist Church, 1951).  Her fight for civil rights had begun in 1938, when the NAACP unsuccessfully sponsored her for admission to the University of NC.  In 1940 she was arrested in Virginia for refusing to sit in back of a bus.  For a timeline of her struggles and achievements, see Duke Human Rights Center’s Pauli Murray Project.

See also our guide to her legacy and Timeline entries about her: 1970, 1973, 1974, 1977, 1985, 1987, 2012 & 2015.

 

1944

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Pauli Murray Roots & Soul Mural, Durham NC
credit: Brett Cook & Pauli Murray Project

Pauli Murray, first African American woman to attend Howard U. School of Law and later a vestry member of Emmanuel, received her J.D..  For its sesquicentennial Howard is hosting a TEDx conference on 9/15/1917: Singing of a New American”: Pauli Murray’s Legacy and Justice in the 21st Century.

See also:

1868

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This snapshot of a postwar vestry includes prominent Bostonians.

E.R. Mudge (1812-1881)

E.P. Dutton (1831-1923) Credit: WikiCommons

  • Sr. Warden:  Benjamin

    Geo. P. Denny (1826-85)

    Tyler Reed, Jr. (1864-72)

  • Jr. Warden:  Enoch Redington Mudge, (1865-72)
  • Treasurer: George Parkman Denny (1865-72)
  • Clerk: Robert Codman, Sr. (1865-70); father of Robert. Codman, Bishop of Maine
  • Vestrymen
    • Samuel Turner Dana (1868-71); merchant
    • E.P. Dutton (1862-63,1868-69); publisher
    • Jonathan French (1863-74)
    • Horace Gray, Jr. (1868-69), judge

      Horace Gray, Jr., Associate (1864-73) & Chief (1873-82) of the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court; U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1882-1902). Credit: WikiCommons

    • S.J.M. Homer (1868-71); hardware merchant
    • B.F. Nourse (1865-68); author (with Mudge) of a report on cotton cultivation for the Paris International Exhibition
    • Thomas D. Townsend (1865-70)