Tag Archives: Torah

Keeping Commandments

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Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 17, 2020

Acts 17:22-31 For we too are [God’s] offspring.
Psalm 66:7-18 Blessed be God who has not rejected my prayer, nor withheld steadfast love from me.
1 Peter 3:13-22 Always be ready to make… an accounting for the hope that is in you.
John 14:15-21 If you love me you will keep my commandments.

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.

One of the things that has happened in this terrible time of pandemic is that our scripture stories of courage in the midst of devastation have become so much more real to me. As I said last week, the world-wide disruption caused by the covid-19 pandemic is deeply revealing, disclosing, exposing, clarifying – an apocalypse of biblical proportion. For many of us, our sense of time is all messed up, and I’m starting to think about recent chronological time as “before the pandemic era” and “after the pandemic era.” In these last eight weeks, it has seemed like time has been folding, very much like our Gospel reading for this morning – past, present and future feel particularly distorted and layered in this continuation of Jesus’ very long valedictory speech that is set in the evening before his nighttime arrest. This portion of Jesus’ parting words always reminds me of the instructions that my mother used to leave when I was in high school before my parents went away for a trip (and I always feared that they would leave us orphaned). I am the oldest child, so the list of instructions was accompanied by my mom’s admonition for me to use my best judgment. Okay, I would think, I will, but have you met my brothers and my sister?

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Subversive Alleluias

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Last Sunday after the Epiphany,
March 3, 2019

Exodus 34:29-35. Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone.
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:12. Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry we do not lose heart.
Luke 9:28-43a. And all were astounded by the greatness of God.

O God of glory, 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.

Those of you who have heard me preach before will know that my desire to preach against the ways that the Christian Church has promoted supersessionist theology (that is, the idea that Christianity supercedes Judaism) gets stronger every year. Supersessionism is very much like racism – it’s systemic, it’s oppressive, it’s insidious, it’s often internalized, unexamined, and always wrong. It distorts our vision and injures our souls.
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Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

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Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost (17B), September 2, 2018; The Rev. Susan Ackley

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9 So now, Israel, give heed to the statutes and ordinances that I am teaching you to observe…
James 1:17-27 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him…

Here we are, you and I, at the official beginning of Pam’s sabbatical.

Pam left us with a particular intention for this three months so that it might be a time for her and Emmanuel to walk paths, not precisely parallel, but definitely meandering under the same stars.

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And the story isn’t finished.

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First Sunday after Christmas, Proper 1B, December 31, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz.

Isaiah 61:10-62:3. For the sake of Zion I will not be silent. For the sake of Jerusalem I will not rest.
Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7. So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
John 1:1-18. And the Word became flesh and lived among us.

O God of our story, 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.

First, a poem by Padraig O Tuama, called “Narrative Theology”.  [1]

And I said to him

Are there questions to all of this?

And he said

The answer is in a story

and the story is being told.

 

And I said

But there is so much pain

And she answered, plainly,

Pain will happen.

 

Then I said

Will I ever find meaning?

And they said

You will find meaning

Where you give meaning.

 

The answer is in the story

And the story isn’t finished.

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Singing Love Songs

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Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18A, September 10, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L.Werntz

Exodus 12:1-14 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor.
Romans 13:8-14 Love is the fulfilling of the law.
Matthew 18:15-20 If two of you agree…about anything you ask, it will be done for you.

O God of love, 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.

Those of you who have heard me preach, know that I frequently offer alternative translations of Biblical passages as a way of helping us get out from under the heavy rubble of Christian doctrine, burdensome dogma, that can be the weights around God’s ankles. I never want us to be putting on weights around God’s ankles. If Theresa of Avila is right that, “Christ has no hands but our hands,” I’d add that God has no ankles but our ankles, and we must not be weighing one another down, but encouraging one another to be light on our feet, ready to move, able to be swift to love. That seems especially critical in a time of wildfires, floods, high winds, hurricanes, and earthquakes, of devastation and suffering around our country and around the world. It seems especially critical in a culture where what passes for Christianity can have so little to do with the life and love of Jesus. Continue reading →

Hospitality

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Second Sunday after Pentecost Proper 6A, June 18, 2017; The 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 Lord 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.

Sometimes we have readings from scripture that are difficult to imagine – obscure references, ancient ideas that are hard for our post-modern ears to understand, but not today. Today we have a vivid scene from the Torah of three men who visited Abraham and Sarah; we have an assurance that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through a spirit of holiness in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome; and we have the Gospel of Matthew’s account of when twelve disciples became twelve apostles, and the traveling instructions Jesus gave to them.
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Coming Clean (with audio)

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Epiphany 7A, February 19, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18 You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.
1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23 Do you not know that you are God’s temple?
Matthew 5:38-48 Give to everyone who begs from you.

O Holy 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.

Today seems like a good day to make sure you know some things about the Book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah, because we just heard the only passage that ever gets read in our three-year lectionary cycle. Chapter 19 of Leviticus is sometimes called the mini-Torah because of how comprehensive it is in its summary of what it will look like to be the people of God. In a three-year cycle of readings, this lesson gets read on the 7th Sunday of Epiphany in Year A, when the calendar permits seven Sundays in Epiphany, which is to say almost never.
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Saved for a New Year

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Feast of the Holy Name, January 1, 2017; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Numbers 6:22-27 I will bless them.
Philippians 2:5-11 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.
Luke 2:15-21 Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.

O God of our hearts, 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.

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Spiritual Infrastructure

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All Saints’ Day (with alt second reading), November 1, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God
Revelation 7:9-17 Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!
John 11:32-44 Come out!…Unbind him and let him go.

O God of all, 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 on the church calendar are really big – Christmas Eve, Easter Day, Pentecost and All Saints are generally the four biggest for us. Today is the great Feast of All Saints; it’s a day to celebrate the saints, known and unknown. Tomorrow is All Souls’ Day – the day set aside in the church calendar for commemoration of all those who have departed this life, whether they were saints or sinners or both. So this is a Sunday to remember the present as well as the past – to honor all those who go and have gone before us – all saints and all souls. Continue reading →

Getting Chased around the Lake

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Pentecost, Year B, May 24, 2015; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Ezekiel 37:1-14 Can these bones live?
Acts 2:1-21 I will pour out [from/of] my Spirit upon all flesh.
John 15:26-16:15 I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling.

O Holy Source of inspiration, 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.

Happy Pentecost everyone! I am very glad that you’re here – amazed and delighted, really. I expect people on the Feast of the Nativity (Christmas) and the Feast of the Resurrection (Easter), but when the Feast of Pentecost falls on a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, well, I just never know. Pentecost is my favorite church holiday. I love our parades of puppets in procession at Emmanuel, bracketing the Great Fifty days of Easter. I love the Pentecost scripture readings: the rattling dry bones re-animated by the spirit of holiness, the breath of God. I love the sound like the rush of a violent wind of the Acts story – not a gentle breeze, not a still small voice, but a complete cacophony of the Good News of the powerful Love of God being told in at least 17 languages (we managed 10 languages this morning –wasn’t it perplexing and thrilling?) And I love the promise of the “one called alongside to help” – parakletos is the Greek word, champion, [1] here translated advocate. Perhaps, more than anything, I love baptisms and Pentecost is one of four days specially designated for baptisms. Continue reading →