St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Welland, Ontario, Canada

All Saints Sunday November 2, 2025

Prayer of the Day Almighty God, you have knit your people together in one communion in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant us grace to follow your blessed saints in lives of faith and commitment, and to know the inexpressible joys you have prepared for those who love you, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 6:20-31 20 Then [Jesus] looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets. 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

27 “But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; 28 bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Reflections: Who could imagine living in a world where a government defines an act of terrorism as peaceful protesting wearing an inflatable frog costume? Wha if such “shenanigans” were a way of loving one’s enemies?

I would say this next bit in “all caps” or shouting- When Jesus commands, yes commands, that everyone within earshot to love their enemies he is not condoning abuse. He is most certainly NOT telling those abused to endure because they will find relief in the afterlife. What is Jesus saying to the powerless and poor?

What is Jesus saying about a system where it is legal for soldiers to confiscate your coat or to slap you just because they feel like it?

Turning the other cheek is the moral equivalent to the peaceful protest wearing an inflatable frog costume. Imagine the shame, if folk even have that capacity anymore, a thug would feel for picking on a puffy little t rex or a frog or for that matter an 85 year old grandmother or a pastor wearing her clergy collar?

Loving one’s enemy is not the same as liking them. Love is known for seeking what is best for the sake of the beloved—maybe that means lampooning boorish brutality and abusive in hopes the abuser might come to their senses. Maybe objecting to injustice could simultaneously bring some sort of redemption for the oppressor and relief for the oppressed. And there, dear siblings is the very heart of what some call liberation theology —where EVERYONE is liberated because Jesus overcomes death and the grave and opens for everyone the possibility of liberation.

Our world lives by a garishly tarnished Golden Rule: Them with the gold make the rules. Such rule enshrines abuse, oppression, retaliation and revenge. Jesus confronts all of that and calls us to do the same…without vitriol or violence or retribution campaigns.

Jesus calls us to be different. Fun fact: the word saint connotes a sense of being set apart as a people of contrast— the world needs quiet saints offering kindness in the most everyday ways, the world needs saintly wagers of peace and maybe even a few people among us daring enough to put on that inflatable frog costume.

Sunday attendance today -> 14  –  last year -> 18

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Sunday attendance today 13 – last year 14

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Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.

October 19, 2025 Prayer of the Day
O Lord God, tireless guardian of your people, you are always ready to hear our cries. Teach us to rely day and night on your care. Inspire us to seek your enduring justice for all this suffering world, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 18:1-8
1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ 4 For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Reflections: Exhortations to pray might feel too burdensome when the prayers just don’t come. Retired U.S. Bishop H. George Anderson recalls his experience of being widowed and sitting in the congregation, too sad and worn down to pray. He told editors of the Lutheran Magazine that he drew strength from the prayers of others and for a long while he found solace sitting among people praying when he could not.

For millennia monastic communities would pray into the night and in the early hours believing these prayers supported the world. Those praying trusted that their prayers sustained nursing mothers comforting fussy babies, calmed anxious souls for whom sleep would not come, comforted those who were dying and protected night workers seeing to public safety and the common good.

Sometimes just knowing others are praying does a weary soul good. Studies like one conducted decades ago by the journal of Spirituality and Health suggest that patients who knew someone was praying for them fared better during hospitalizations and surgeries.

So if you’re praying, remember others who simply can’t. If you feel you’ve lost heart and can’t pray, may you find comfort knowing others are praying in your stead and for your sake—the scripture says God’s Spirit prays for us when our words fail.

Long ago, I asked a devout person about the pattern she followed praying especially because she was homebound. Gwen prayed the Lord’s Prayer every morning again at noon and finally as she prepared to sleep. I can’t imagine gentle Gwendolyn being vexing in her consistent prayers like the woman in the parable… who if you read the literal translation…. was giving the unrighteous judge a black eye with all of her appeals for justice.

What would happen if faith communities prayed the Lord’s Prayer with Gwen’s consistency and the widow’s urgency? Might we be the ones changed somehow? What might happen to us as we discover the Lord’s Prayer is truly anti-empire?

How might our worldview shift when we pray with the widow’s insistence that God enables us to live under God’s governance, that God for provides daily bread and helps in our relationships and that God alone can truly deliver us from evil?

To lose heart is to lose hope; we pray the loss isn’t permanent! May prayer kindle hope…hope that is said to have two daughters; anger at injustice and inhumanity and courage to be just and humane. May communities that embody and share hope continue to be the answered prayer for the rest of us. Amen.

Sunday Attendance  today 16 – last year 21

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Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost October 12, 2025

Prayer of the Day Almighty and most merciful God, your bountiful goodness fills all creation. Keep us safe from all that may hurt us, that, whole and well in body and spirit, we may with grateful hearts accomplish all that you would have us do, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 17:11-19 11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he entered a village, ten men with a skin disease approached him. Keeping their distance, 13 they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’s feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? So where are the other nine? 18 Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.

Reflections: ” If Jesus’ words never strike me as strange, if Jesus’ words never cause me some sense of unrest, if Jesus’ words never trouble me, then I can be sure of one thing: I can be sure that I am missing something important. Professor Eric Baretto, Princeton Theological Seminary, NJ, US

True as these words are for me, I am merely repeating a more eloquent statement of my experience offered by Professor Eric Baretto from Princeton Seminary in the U.S. Words that churn up things for us include…

a region between, as in the margins or a border land

lepers—-even St. Francis was creeped out by leprosy before his spiritual awakening

Samaritan—-

and finally, Did none of them return to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

We find Jesus walking among people exiled because of a skin condition thought to be contagious—they have been deported to a border place neither here nor there and consigned to a life belonging nowhere. In this land for nobody, God shows up and heals everyone—including a Samaritan which means this one is doubly outcast. And Jesus marvels at his faith even calling him a foreigner. Takes one to know one.

Jesus’ history was as a refugee fleeing Herod’s infanticide. Jesus’ ancestral tradition harks to prophets reminding the returned exiles to extend hospitality to those now displaced. Jesus’s heritage to the time of Moses insists we remember our own wilderness wandering and displacement and that we exercise empathy toward the outsider.

On a Thanksgiving weekend, if you’re looking for things to be thankful for, consider rejoicing that God shows up in the no-where places and brings healing to those living on the margins. Rejoice that God’s table, as Jesus demonstrates in this nowhere land is one that extends both in size and in breadth of those invited to it.

If you’re looking for a grateful response, consider committing what some purported Christians denounce as sinful; lean into empathy for those who are displaced, shut out or marginalized for any reason. Yes, exercise that sinful empathy and if I might riff on Luther’s words, when you do, ‘sin boldly’ and believe more boldly still in God’s scandalous forays into the margins where God heals and embraces indiscriminately and lavishly. Thanks be to God.