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

Third Sunday after Pentecost June 14, 2026

Prayer of the Day God of compassion, you have opened the way for us and brought us to yourself. Pour your love into our hearts, that, overflowing with joy, we may freely share the blessings of your realm and faithfully proclaim the good news of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 9:35—10:8 [9-23] 35 Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38 therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”
10:1 Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Cananaean and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. [9 Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, 10 no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff, for labourers deserve their food. 11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

16 “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you at that time, 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Sibling will betray sibling to death and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in this town, flee to the next, for truly I tell you, you will not have finished going through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”]

Attendance today -> 7 – last year -> 12

We’ve now got air conditioning in the sanctuary !!

Sermon 🔈 (audio only)

Transcript of the Gospel and Sermon

Worship Guide

Second Sunday after Pentecost-June 7, 2026

Prayer of the Day
O God, you are the source of life and the ground of our being. By the power of your Spirit bring healing to this wounded world, and raise us to the new life of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with Jesus and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

Sermon:
Bishop Larry’s sermon last week helpfully reminds us that this second half of our church year pivots to explorations of the life of the church as it’s informed by the life of Christ. This shift invites us to read this week’s Gospel through the lens of faith community. The faithful question that follows is, what might Matthew’s Gospel be saying to today’s church?

In just a few words, Matthew describes a seismic shift in one person’s life that goes far beyond a career change. Historians believe that Matthew’s specialty in a port town like Capernaum was to tax transported goods. If there were ever an opportunity to gouge somebody for money, this was it!. Tax collectors were equated with robbers, brothel owners, and corrupt officials. Matthew’s leaving his post leaves jaws dropping for two reasons. First he disrupts his own life built around exploitation and greed. Second, he ghosts more than an employer. Not much of a chance that there was cake in the break room as a farewell for Matthew when he left the tax collecting racket to follow Jesus. Even less chance that Roman management issued the blasé memo wishing Matthew the very best in his future endeavours “thank you for your attention in this matter.” Taxes fed the imperial beast’s insatiable appetite. Everyone was expected to feed the beast one way or another. Matthew stops playing along. Imagine the stand Matthew takes and the personal risk he assumes when he follows Jesus.

More questions: What about Jesus is so compelling that at a word, Matthew leaves his post? Just where is it that Jesus is going and wants Matthew to follow?

The disapproving muttering among the religiously respectable signals that where Matthew is going TO is even more revolutionary than what he has left behind. We’ve been clued in that tax collectors are outcasts. Jesus’ other dining companions are “sinners”…sort of a blanket term for outsiders and those judged to be too far gone for redemption.

And Jesus eats with these people? On purpose? Absolutely on purpose. In Jesus’ culture and in his day your dining companions were those you identified with and befriended—reputations were thought to rub off on each other. So where is Jesus going? To the margins of society! What’s he up to? He enacts and embodies the insistence that there is no such place as outside the scope of God’s love. This is the “new place” Jesus leads Matthew. And us.

This week I read work by the Rev. Dr. Danny Zacharias. Reading his biographical notes was a treat—He is Associate Dean and professor of New Testament Studies at Acadia Divinity school in Wolfville Nova Scotia. He’s originally from Winnipeg and is Cree-Anishanabe and Métis…so I was intrigued to hear what an indigenous person from Turtle Island might have to say about Matthew and his community.

Professor Zacharias speaks of indigenous ceremonies as being more about relationship that rubric. And indigenous ceremonies are carefully curated so the emphasis on relationships is truly inspiring. Through his cultural background Professor Zacharias sees what he calls God’s restorative mercy as communities are formed and nurtured. He goes on to say that such mercy isn’t pretty words; it’s tangible actings showing what the kin-dom of God ought to be like.

The professor also invites the church to put itself in Matthew’s place—as those profiting from present and past injustice to others and to the planet. When Jesus calls the church to follow we work to leave those ways behind and to join Jesus as he embodies the scandalous message that there is no such place or thing beyond the reach of the love of God. Amen.

The Heartland Forest Service is on June 28 @11:00 am, so register today by calling the office (Rona) and leaving a message!

Attendance today-> 12 – last year->15

Worship Guide

Sunday is the fortieth anniversary of the ELCIC’s founding. The national bishop has prepared a special sermon.

Transcript of Gospel and Sermon

Attendance today -> 12   last year -> 19

Sermon 🔊 (audio only)

Transcript of Gospel and Sermon

Worship Guide

More items added today to this table and a table in the Kottmeirer Room

PENTECOST SUNDAY May 24, 2026

Prayer of the Day
O God, on this day you open the hearts of your faithful people by sending into us your Holy Spirit. Direct us by the light of that Spirit, that we may have a right judgment in all things and rejoice at all times in your peace, through Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Gospel: John 20:19-23 19
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

SERMON
Maybe you like a little razzle dazzle with your Pentecost…gale force winds, flames, buzzing cacophony of voices that miraculously make sense no matter what language one speaks.

There is another Pentecost…commentators nickname the Gospel reading we heard as John’s Pentecost. True to form, John’s version is intensely intimate and human; just as is his witness that the inner life of God becomes enfleshed and lives among us. We can identify with people feeling dispirited and directionless.

We know about sitting with others in collective grief, when words fail or maybe they just fill the space we don’t know what else to do with.

We’ve been close enough to other humans to feel their warm and damp breath on our own skin.

Jesus appears among his followers when they are at their lowest and he stands with them. He shows them his wounds—death is still real yet here is Jesus, raised from the dead.

Jesus speaks peace to them…and he breathes his own warm moist breath upon his followers—-receive the Spirit; this advocate who will be with you forever to teach, guide and comfort—this Spirit who will gather and gift a faith. community to carry on Jesus’ work.

Dr. Karoline Lewis has devoted her academic career to the study of John’s Gospel and she observes something here…there is no sending us to do the work without first imparting the Spirit within and among us.

Dr. Lewis’s colleague Cody Sanders connects more dots for us by point out that the word used to describe Jesus’ breathing Spirit is the same one used when scripture speaks of God breathing life into the first humans.

Aren’t we a lot like those sequestered behind locked doors?
Dismayed by absurd cruelty in the world?
Appalled by co-religionists calling for violence and maligning the hungry instead of  feeding them?
Dispirited because the enormity of the work exhausts us?
Discouraged and harbouring dread that this just might be as good as it gets?

Aren’t we also a lot like those first followers because Jesus is present with us, showing us glimpses of resurrection even though wounds aren’t healed?
Because in baptism and it’s daily recollection we’re promised God’s Spirit among us all and within each of us
Because we also are called to proclaim Christ in Word and deed, to work for justice and peace and to care for the world God made and so loves?

Amen

Attendance today -> 12  –   last year -> 13

Sermon 🔉 (audio only)

Transcript of Gospel and Sermon

Worship Guide