Tag Archives: rabbis

Eternal Life

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Easter 7A, 21 May 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Acts 1:6-14. All of these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women.
  • 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 [but what about 4:16?]. If any of you suffers as a Christian, do not consider it a disgrace, but glorify God because you bear this name.
  • John 17:1-11. Protect them in your name that you have given me…so that they may be one as we are one.

O God our protector, 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.

Today in our Church calendar we mark the time between the Feast of the Ascension and the Feast of Pentecost. It’s a liturgical acknowledgement of a sort of limbo, in which Jesus has triumphed over death and but has yet to go to his heavenly reward; the comfort and the inspiration, the clarifying flame of the Holy Spirit, which he had promised to send, has not yet arrived. It’s a little bit like the in-between time at Emmanuel between the end of our cantata season and the beginning of chapel camp. Continue reading →

The Discipline of Love

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Easter 2C, 24 April 2022.  The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 5:27-32. Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
Revelation 1:4-8. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.
John 20:19-31. Peace be to you.…I send you….Receive the spirit of holiness.

O God of inspiration, 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 lectionary in Eastertide turns away from readings from the First Testament and toward the Acts of the Apostles, volume two of the Gospel of Luke. This makes a lot of sense because Acts of the Apostles contains the stories of what Jesus’ followers did after Jesus’ execution, how they were inspired with a spirit of holiness to carry on lives dedicated to Jesus’ ministry marked by justice and right-relationship, by compassion, mercy, and peace. Although the book is more romance than history (in the way we think of history), the stories show that experiences of the resurrection in the early church are not as much about theological or philosophical ideas, but about the consequential actions of being in relationship with the Divine in public practice. Jesus and then the apostles were teaching about calling people to make choices that would shape the well-being of the larger community by their living in greater fidelity with God and one another in the midst of the oppression of an occupying army.  Continue reading →