Due to the severe weather alerts for this Sunday, alternate plans are being arranged to cancel the in-person worship this Sunday (February 16) and replace it with a ZOOM service.
Pastor Bart will lead service by Zoom on Sunday, if the storm, that’s predicted, actually arrives!
More information (worship time and how to get the ZOOM link) will be posted on this website, as we get closer to Sunday morning, and we get more up-to-date information about the storm.
Dear friends in Christ:
The people of the ELCIC and the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, inside and outside the church, know too well how acts of homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia—including religious-induced discrimination— embolden public expressions of hate crimes and violence. Unfortunately, deliberate disinformation takes aim at care and safer spaces for transgender and gender non-conforming youth; hateful rhetoric, discriminatory legislation, and restrictions directly place their health, safety, and well-being at risk.
Recently, the 47th President of the United States of America (USA) issued “executive orders” declaring there are only two genders, male and female; banning Transgender people from military service; and ending gender affirming care for anyone under the age of 19.
The ELCIC considers these actions to be hostile to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. The ELCIC recognizes that there are more than two genders. These executive orders endanger the lives of Transgender, Non- binary, Genderqueer, Intersex, and Gender Nonconforming persons. While these actions have happened in the USA, we know that the lobby to remove and deny human rights does try to exert influence in Canada, and that some elected leaders in this country have enacted discriminatory laws and policies.
The ELCIC is committed to the acceptance, full participation, and liberation of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions within the Church. The ELCIC upholds and celebrates our uniqueness and diversity in God’s family. In 2019, the ELCIC established a task force to guide and encourage the church in addressing ongoing issues of homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. The task force has a mandate to build awareness of transphobia in church and in society. This work is intended to deepen commitments made by the ELCIC made in the 2011 Social Statement on Human Sexuality, including the call to uphold dignity of all people regardless of gender identity and to meet diverse people with a core sense of respect for the value of each person as a unique child of God.
Please join us in:
May the God of love and liberation hear our lament. May each of us be bold in our witness. May we all work to bring an end to this attack against people God has named beloved.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Susan Johnson
National Bishop, ELCIC
Rev. Kathy Martin
Bishop of the British Columbia Synod
Rev. Patricia Schmermund
Bishop of the Synod of Alberta and the Territories
Rev. Dr. Ali Tote
Bishop of the Saskatchewan Synod
Rev. Jason Zinko
Bishop of the Manitoba/Northwestern Ontario Synod
Rev. Carla Blakley
Bishop of the Eastern Synod
Recently, more email programs and internet providers are now labelling any posts, with hyperlinks, as Spam (suspicious email) and sending them directly to the email recipient’s SPAM (JUNK) folder.
Since all Sunday worship video posts contain several hyperlinks, this misdirect is happening frequently.
You can still view them from the SPAM (JUNK) box. You can also move them to the INBOX, or mark them as NOT SPAM.
Pre-recorded Worship Service courtesy of Trinity Lutheran’s Facebook Account
Click HERE, or the above image, to go to the Trinity Lutheran Church Facebook video
Today’s Worship Guide (PDF text format)
FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY February 9. 2025
The story of ‘the great catch’ of fish reveals Jesus’ divinity and it expresses God’s abundance. More than that, we get a glimpse of God’s liberating intentions for us all.
Prayer of the Day Most holy God, the earth is filled with your glory, and before you angels and saints stand in awe. Enlarge our vision to see your power at work in the world, and by your grace make us heralds of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
Gospel: Luke 5:1-11 1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
SERMON
The miraculous catch of fish is just for openers as Jesus reveals God’s intention to bless and rescue humanity. Here is where a closer translation makes all the difference…the phrase, “fish for people” actually connotes rescuing people FROM death-A universe away from netting us into captivity wild eyed, flopping and flailing and gasping for air.
So compelling is Jesus’ recruiting of these fisherfolk to carry out God’s agenda to rescue the world , that Simon, James and his brother John to leave everything…their jobs, their families, their network of emotional and social support —-everything—and they follow Jesus.
Now that I’ve given away the peak of the story and its conclusion, let’s start again from the beginning:. Crowds press upon him waiting to hear a word from the Lord. It’s not as if Jesus needs to drum up business. There’s a hint that fishing for people isn’t about drawing crowds just to draw crowds.
Jesus spots fishing boats and sort of charters one, figuring sound travels on open water so everybody will hear what he says. Luke doesn’t let us in on what Jesus spoke about that day. Instead, Luke tells us what Jesus does next.
After the sermon, Jesus directs Simon Peter to chart a course into deep water and start fishing. What does a carpenter know about fishing? Simon’s crew and those in Zebedee’s boat had come up snake-eyes from their last outing and that meant no meal for the day. Nevertheless…..
When Simon waves another boat over to help haul up all of those fish he must have felt like the widow at Zaraphath who hosted the prophet Elijah—God just keeps providing! Maybe Simon identifies more closely with Isaiah when the Holy presence of God overwhelms him and the foundations of the Temple were shaken. Simon Peter is undone…so painfully aware of his frailty in the face of the Divine, he says he is a sinful person. Jesus doesn’t even seem to hear Simon’s confession! Instead he says to him and to James and John, “fear not”.
I pause here to relay what my mentor Dr. Anna Madsen says about “Fear Not”——it always comes when there is legitimate reason to fear. “Fear not. I am calling you into God’s Holy work of rescuing humanity from death”. I’m not sure which would freak me out more—a miraculous catch of fish, an encounter with the Holy, or a call to a whole different life dedicated to God’s agenda to bless and save the world.
What does the church need and what do we need right now to carry on the work Christ has called us to do? Do we need a Word from the Lord? An encounter with the Divine? An experience of God’s abundance? Assurance that despite every good reason to fear, God can lead us ahead anyway? A reminder that of the stakes of God’s mission is the healing and rescuing of humanity and even of creation itself? May God grant us what we need so that we may follow Jesus in proclaiming and being the Good News for the world God so loves —a world God intends to restore. Amen.
Our Benelovence Story (PDF text format pamphlet)
*Click any picture below to start a slideshow, or use the link above to read a larger text version
FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER the EPIPHANY February 2, 2025
Prayer of the Day Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
Gospel: Luke 4:21-30 21 Then [Jesus] began to say to [all in the synagogue in Nazareth,] “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” 23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land, 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
SERMON
In the afterglow of praise for Jesus’ liberating words, Jesus sniffs out the stink of what Professor Abraham Smith calls the “preoccupation with a provincial perspective”. Jesus doesn’t begrudge folk for yearning for Good News for themselves; it’s that they clearly want Good News ONLY for themselves! So, Jesus re-invokes stories about prophets ministering to the marginalized thereby debunking the assumption that in God’s economy the size of the pie is finite and that we “deserve” the first and biggest slice. Had a bus passed by, the now irate crowd would have chucked Jesus underneath. As it was, they chase him to a cliff intending to pitch him over.
Jesus has spoken as a prophet; a word that literally means forth telling—- occasionally a prophet had the ability to foretell, but mostly prophets did forth-telling. On a regular basis Elijah ducked death threats and violence. Then there’s Jeremiah, whose words we heard this morning. As you hear the story, I invite you to think about the response to the sermon that the Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde preached at the US National Cathedral on January 20.
Once upon a time, Jeremiah calls out a very self important above the law king named Jehoiakim . He writes a scroll and has his scribe Baruch deliver it. The king bids one of his minions read the Jeremiah’s words. The lackey reads a line or two. The king takes a the pointer knife used when reading scrolls, and slices Jeremiah’s words into strips. As the story goes, it’s winter so a fire is set in the brazier to keep the king warm. Jehoiakim chucks the strips of Jeremiah’s scroll into the brazier. The book of Jeremiah emphasizes that: Nobody protests. Nobody objects. P.S. news of the effrontery reaches Jeremiah, who seeks divine council and puts quill to parchment and writes another scroll.
On January 20, at the Inaugural worship service, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde appealed to the President to show mercy to those fearing for their lives and their future. Late that night, the U.S. President questioned the legitimacy of both the bishop’s ordination and of her church. Some minions in congress called for the bishop’s deportation—She was born in New Jersey.
Fear mongers are correct that borders are porous; ignorance and mean spiritedness flow freely back and forth blowing through checkpoints and border crossings virtually undetected.
Against such a backdrop, the church—not only the preachers—has been called to a prophetic task. As Professor Walter Brueggemann writes in his book “Prophetic Imagination”, Church’s task is tell the truth in a society that lives in an illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair
The prophet’s task arises from our common baptismal calling: to proclaim Christ in Word and deed, to care for the world that God made and to work for justice and peace. It is our call to insist that Good News of liberation and God’s favour is Good News for everyone. All really does mean all.
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,