Gospel and Sermon 🔊 (audio only)
Transcript of Gospel and Sermon (PDF text format)
St. Matthews will worship with First Lutheran at their Port Colborne location on August 17 at 9:30 am. First Lutheran will provide lunch after the service. The two Councils will meet together as well. Please let a member of Council or Rona know how many will be attending from your family/household.
Prayer of the Day
Benevolent God, you are the source, the guide, and the goal of our lives. Teach us to love what is worth loving, to reject what is offensive to you, and to treasure what is precious in your sight, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
Luke 12:13-21
13 Someone in the crowd said to [Jesus,] “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL TEXT
Sometimes rabbis settled probate issues, so nothing odd here except Jesus once again doesn’t adjudicate or give easy answers. Once again he tells a story designed to knock us for a loop and send us reeling into new and more life giving directions.
Let’s think a minute about who tells the story….a man whose mother sang about the high and mighty being cast down and the poor being filled with good things while the rich are sent away empty.
Jesus knows the Wisdom tradition and is certainly familiar with the oft-repeated word from Ecclesiastes, “HE-bel” meaning…mist….futility… emptiness. The Teacher recounts a life of chasing after things which never really lead to fulfillment.
—Jesus would need no refresher course about the post-Red Sea life of the Israelites. Pastor Dan Erlander calls the forty year trek the wilderness school. The curriculum is love of God and neighbour. Manna is both daily bread and the object lesson meant form a community of people into living lives of Shalom-friendship with God, friendship with one another, friendship with creation and even friendship with ourselves.
Remember the drill? Collect only what you need for the day and you could collect a bit extra for the day of Sabbath rest. Manna teaches us that the earth provides and we can share. Many traditional indigenous teachings and hunting and fishing practices align with manna teaching. Take what you truly need and waste as little as possible.
Imagine God’s grief when we flunked Manna 101: Some would-be entrepreneurs decide to collect LOTS of manna so they can sell it. Pastor Daniel Erlander writes that the resulting rot and maggots taught the manna lesson that hoarding stinks!
All those interconnections break—-our friendships with others, creation, and God—we even become estranged from ourselves. The alternative to Shalom is alienation and isolation.
Back to “bigger barn boy”….One Commentator calls the fictive fool’s self talk a grave miscalculation: “I say to my self, self…..you have accumulated for yourself….let the good times roll.”
Nobody —not God, not neighbour— figures into the equation.
Due missed the memo about manna, and his full barns do nothing for an empty life.—no amount of stuff can protect his from any dark night of the soul or sudden catastrophe or sudden death…poof! over and done and what did it get you?
Maybe the guy could have thought about giving back or sharing the wealth. Nope. And he’s not the only one.
The CBC reports Statistics Canada says that in 2025 the wealth gap also increased as the top 20 per cent of the wealth distribution accounted for 64.7 per cent of Canadians’ total net worth in the first quarter.
The bottom 40 per cent of the wealth distribution accounted for 3.3 per cent of net worth.
Forbes Magazine reports that Global wealth is concentrated at the top. This is true for all countries to varying degrees. Yet—according to the World Inequality Database—in almost all nations, the richest 10% hold more than 50% of personal wealth, while the bottom 50% hold at most 10.4%.
It’s hard not to think about rot and ruin when we hear about people starving to death while bombs are dropping. We see the hoarding as obscene wealth is celebrated and while people are scrambling to replace lost health insurance and school lunches.
Jesus fed people and demanded fair and just distribution of goods. He told stories like the one about the “big miscalculation”because compassion even for those who had too much and yet were empty inside. Jesus would stake his life, risk it and even give it up for the sake of shalom for all of God’s children and all God has created.
Click HERE to view the July Messenger (PDF text format)
St. Matthews will worship with First Lutheran at their Port Colborne
location on August 17 at 9:30 am. First Lutheran will provide lunch after
the service. The two Councils will meet together as well. Please let a
member of Council or Rona know how many will be attending from your
family/household by July 31st.
Gospel and Sermon 🔈 (audio only)
“Bishop Susan emphasizes prayer as part of our calling as people of faith. I invite you to read her sermon about prayer and the Lord’s Prayer in particular. Imaging the church being “all about” the business of prayer!”
Bishop Susan Johnson’s sermon can be found HERE
Prayer of the Day
Almighty and ever-living God, you are always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and you gladly give more than we either desire or deserve. Pour upon us your abundant mercy. Forgive us those things that weigh on our conscience, and give us those good things that come only through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
The Gospel – Luke 11:1-13
1 [Jesus] was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”2 So he said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, may your name be revered as holy. May your kingdom come. 3 Give us each day our daily bread. 4 And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”
5 And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ 7 And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything out of friendship, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.
9 “So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for a fish, would give a snake instead of a fish? 12 Or if the child asked for an egg, would give a scorpion? 13 If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
REFLECTIONS
I invite you to look at the sermon Bishop Susan Johnson prepared for the Sunday Sermon series. She shares her personal experience with prayer and then a reminder that we as people of faith are in the ‘prayer business’. And topping that off, she offers a rich variety of ways we can pray. As Thomas Merton, a revered figure in prayer and contemplation circles liked to say, “In prayer, we are all beginners”.
Lord’s Prayer… The Lord’s Prayer: Talk about taking a swipe at ‘the powers that be’! In a meeting this week I repeated a bit of writing I had seen about the
Praying in ‘we/us’ language repudiates our present cult of the individual ego.
Praying for God’s will and realm is a rejection of Caesar’s agenda.
Daily bread and wellbeing is God’s provision…temporal rulers don’t create anything (or even wealth) they merely distribute—some more fairly than others
Forgiveness is divine and contrasts a world celebrating vengeance and quid-pro-quo relationships. Finally, God alone spares us from the ultimate trial of despair and hopelessness.
The disciples’ request to learn a prayer reflected the relationship between rabbi and follower. The followers patterned their lives after the rabbi they followed—knowing the prayer and living the life identify followers of a certain way (or teacher).
“Knocking late at Night”
Our world is all about learning how to get what we want. Jesus’ points us to God’s giving nature and de-emphasizes our skill as ‘petitioner’. Imagine someone willing disturbs one’s own household to provides bread to someone in immediate need.
“Ask, seek and knock”
Again we’re speaking of the quality of relationship Jesus says we have with him and with God. And if people we know and love give appropriate and needed gifts, imagine how much more God gives!
The Pietist writer O. Hallesby says that when we think we ‘should’ pray or want to pray that’s God knocking at OUR door.
Is God interested in the quality of our prayers (Luther says the shorter the better)?
There is a story hasidic folk tell that your pastor loves to repeat (in paraphrase). Once a woodcutter made it a practice to go deep into the forest, light a fire and recite treasured prayers. As he aged and life wore him down, this ritual became complicated. Once he walks into a clearing and says to God….”I am a foolish woodcutter” I no longer remember the path to the sacred site. Today, I have forgotten kindling to start a fire. And this foolish old woodcutter can no longer remember the words to the special prayers. So today, I am going to speak and trust in your Divine wisdom to arrange the prayer in the right order—and the woodcutter prayed aleph, bet, gimmel, dahlet (a, b, c, and so on). The tale concludes by saying of all the prayers the Lord heard that day, the wood cutter’s prayer was the Almighty’s favourite.
Finally, a true story from nearly 40 years ago: A young man visited a monastery and one day at lunch prattled on about all he thought he knew about prayer. One of the brothers, reddened with indignation, fired back at the gobsmacked youth “I am tired of people like you coming here and talking about prayer. I wish you would just do it!”
So church, getting down to the business of prayer becomes the thing we do because the God who created us yearns to live in relationship WITH us.
Link to Black Anglicans of Canada for more info
SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST July 20, 2025
Prayer of the Day Eternal God, you draw near to us in Christ, and you make yourself our guest. Amid the cares of our lives, make us attentive to your presence, that we may treasure your word above all else, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
Gospel Reading: Luke 10:38-42 38Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Reflections on the Gospel Text: It’s now passé, but long ago the journalistic credo was “don’t bury the lede”. Jesus tells Martha it’s possible that doing what’s good and right can sometimes distract you from some of the most important things in life. Martha isn’t experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out) she doesn’t know what she’s missing because she’s fixated on what Mary is not doing—serving their guests.
The Rev. Dr. Jennifer Wyant from the Candler School in Atlanta Georgia wrote the book (OK one book) on Mary and Martha. Dr. Wyant says that following Jesus is both doing and quiet contemplation. She recounts a legend popular in churches during the Middle Ages in which Martha goes out to slay dragons and Mary founds monasteries. Beyond Mary or Martha: Reclaiming Ancient Models of Discipleship (Emory Studies in Early Christianity):2019. Dr. Wyant reminds Working Preachers that Martha isn’t wrong; she’s distracted by either or she doesn’t see how learning and serving go together. It’s noteworthy that many Christian denominations have deacons and in our own denomination we phrase their ministry as a call to Word and Service while pastors are called to a ministry of Word and Sacrament.
Let’s rotate the interpretive lens a little so we can appreciate how distraction causes us to miss out. Sir Kenneth Robinson interviewed Paul McCartney about his years in music school when he was a youth in Liverpool. Sir Kenneth asked Paul whether the music teacher thought he had any talent. Paul answered ‘no’, he wasn’t considered especially talented or expected to show much promise. “What about George Harrison?”, Sir Kenneth asked. The music teacher didn’t think George was particularly talented and didn’t expect him to have much of a career in music. Sir Kenneth concludes, “Imagine…having two of the four Beatles in your music school and you miss their talent!” The teachers weren’t bad. They just missed what was in front of them. We all fall prey to being oblivious to what’s right in front of us.
Now let’s reflect on what churches miss when they get distracted. Tons of trees have been felled to produce the paper on which critiques of churches becoming fixated on budgets, buildings and church attendance. Meanwhile such fixation blinds us to our neighbours in need. We stop listening for what God might want to teach us because we are so keen on issues of sustaining our church buildings and programs.
Someone once likened the cycle of the church’s gathering to worship and learn and its scattering to serve to breathing. Imaging inhaling and never exhaling or only exhaling and never taking in a breath! The trick in following Jesus isn’t choosing between Mary’s way and Martha’s (though its just such a choice Martha asks Jesus to make) it is in integrating doing and being—learning and serving—-action and contemplation.
St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Welland, Ontario, Canada 
Love it Rona. Thanks On Sat, Mar 7, 2026, 11:20 a.m. St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran Church,