St. Peter's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Cambridge, ON

Sunday November 2, 2025
All Saints Sunday
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
(Video not created yet)

Sermon for All Saints Sunday
Sunday, November 2, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

God Speaks to Elijah – 1 Kings 19:1-18
After a break last week due to Confirmation Sunday, we’re back this week in the narrative storyline of the Hebrew Scriptures. We left off two weeks ago hearing about how David was anointed by Samuel to be the next king of Israel. Young, inexperienced David – an unexpected choice – who lives to be remembered as the greatest king because he united the twelve tribes of Israel into one, cohesive and strong kingdom.

Today we’ve jumped ahead in the story a fair bit – some 200-300 years after King David’s time. The monarchy that the people had hoped would bring them security and stability has begun to break down. David’s united kingdom has divided into two – Israel in the north and Judah in the south. By the time the great prophet Elijah comes on the scene it’s the 9th century BCE and a king named Ahab sits on the throne of the northern kingdom. Ahab has been trying to re-establish the kingdom’s power by cementing relationships with their non-Israelite neighbours. He has married the Phoenician princess Jezebel, who, along with her power and influence, has brought to her new kingdom the worship of her gods.

One of the most well-known stories about Elijah is about a showdown he had with Jezebel’s priests. Each side builds an altar to see whose god is powerful enough to strike down fire upon it. Elijah wins and when Queen Jezebel hears what happened, she is so angry she wants to murder Elijah. Afraid for his life, Elijah runs away into the wilderness. As one preacher puts it – Elijah goes about as far as you can get from anywhere. Which is how Elijah, the great prophet, one of God’s saints, finds himself completely alone and so full of despair that he wishes he were dead.

Most of us can relate to Elijah’s cry of despair, his lament, his retreat into the wilderness because we’ve also experienced loss in our lives – we’ve lost loved ones, important relationships, our sense of purpose or direction. We know what it’s like to feel alone. We know what it’s like to feel sorry for ourselves. Like Elijah, we know what it’s like to just want to run away from it all.

And yet, even when Elijah runs as far as you can get from anywhere. Even when he is so broken down that he can’t see the way forward, God is right there holding him fast. And God isn’t finished with Elijah just yet. God’s holy messenger brings Elijah some food and water – because God knows that taking care of our bodies is essential for spiritual health too. And this boost gives Elijah enough to keep going. And as he continues to wander, Elijah ends up in a cave at Mount Horeb – which is another name in the Bible for Mount Sinai, the place where God appeared to Moses in smoke, fire, thunder, and earthquakes, and gave Moses the Ten Commandments.

Elijah arrives at this holy place, and from his cave on this holy mountain, like Moses, Elijah also witnesses great winds, earthquakes and fire. But unlike Moses’ experience, God isn’t in any of these glorious displays. For Elijah, God doesn’t appear in any of the jaw-dropping, boot quaking ways but God has not forsaken him. God just chooses in this moment to speak in a different way. In the calm after the storm, Elijah comes out of the cave and there, God is.

The Hebrew phrase that is used at this moment to describe how God shows up is not so easy to translate. Some versions describe is as: “the sound of sheer silence” (NRSVUE); or “a gentle and quiet whisper” (MSG); or “a still small voice” (NKJV). Or, in the translation we read in worship this morning, as “a sound. Thin. Quiet.” (CEB) I was so intrigued by the inclusion of the word “thin” to speak about this moment. I’m no Hebrew scholar but from my cursory research on one of the online Bible tools, this is a perfectly acceptable way to translate this word, which also can mean “small.”

It got me thinking about a concept that comes out of the Celtic Christian tradition called “thin places.”1 This is the belief that the God in whom we live and move and have our being is always around us, AND that there are places or moments when God’s presence is especially visible or apparent to us. There are places or moments where the veil is lifted momentarily and we behold God. Thin places where heaven and earth meet.

Thin places can be geographical locations – both human-made and natural. Great cathedrals, places of pilgrimage, unique or significant natural wonders. Places where the boundary between heaven and earth is mysteriously, naturally thin; or perhaps has grown thin as people return to these places again and again over the generations with hearts open to the holy. Certainly Mount Sinai seems to have been one of these thin places.

Thin places can also be moments in time. All Saints Day (and All Hallow’s Eve) are times when the church honours the spiritual connection between the living and the dead. Today at St Peter’s our celebration bridges this connection in a unique way as we both remember our departed loved ones and celebrate the sainthood to which we all belong by welcoming new members into our community. It’s a beautiful way of honouring that in God’s time and space, there is no separation between heaven and earth.

Bringing it closer to home, a thin place is anywhere or anytime we find “our hearts opened” to the presence of the holy. As individuals, we may encounter these thin places when our hearts are opened by the wilderness or when we enjoy music, poetry, literature, visual arts, dance, or worship.

Sometimes thin places appear in times of serious illness, suffering or grief. Not always, “but sometimes our hearts are broken open by such experiences.”2 When our human capacity for self-protection and self-preservation is diminished by illness, suffering or grief, there is room for the Spirit to make herself known to us in very deep ways.

And sometimes, these thin places are people. People whose presence seems to mediate the Spirit in a special way. People, who when you’re with them, you just feel God’s presence there too. Perhaps you can think of someone who is or was that kind of presence in your life.

I invite you this week to take some time to reflect on where those thin places have appeared in your own life. I wonder, where and when have you experienced that thin, quiet, presence of God that brought you comfort or direction? When have you experienced God’s closeness and care?

Today, as we remember Elijah and all the saints who’ve gone before us; as we honour the grief that accompanies these memories; may you remember, that in those moments when you can’t see the way forward, God is right there holding you fast. That as it was with Elijah, God is still speaking in your life too – a word of hope, a word of promise, a new beginning.

Gracious Spirit, be at work in our hearts, that we may be open and ready to listen in those moments when your thin, quiet, voice speaks; that we too might receive the encouragement and direction we need. Surround us always with your loving presence. Amen.

1 Marcus Borg. The Heart of Christianity. (HarperCollins: New York, 2003), 155.
2 Borg, 156.

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Sunday October 26, 2025
Reformation Sunday/Confirmation Sunday
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/IMbmQ0vCa3k

Sermon for Reformation and Confirmation Sunday
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

John 8:31-36
In our scripture reading today, Jesus talks about truth. He says, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teaching. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus talks about truth again later in the gospel when he’s arrested and brought before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate for his trial. Pilate asks a question that I think many of us perhaps also wonder: what is truth?

It’s a big question. A question that people in every generation have wrestled with. What is truth in this world filled with different and often competing beliefs about how we ought to live, about who God is, and what faith means?

As Lutherans, we celebrate the courage of Martin Luther and the other Reformers who gave ordinary people permission to think for themselves about God and faith. Who translated the Bible from Latin into languages people actually spoke so that ordinary people could read the Bible for themselves.

This was a transformative, Spirit-led movement. And it had some unintended consequences. More people reading the Bible led to more opinions, which led to the splintering of the one church into many different churches. Conflicts emerged (and continue to emerge) as people cling to their understanding of God as the right or best or only way. At it’s best, I think the Protestant Reformation invites us to both take faith seriously, and to hold our ideas about faith and God lightly.

In the Christian tradition, there is space for a diversity of ideas about faith, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing sure or certain for us to cling to. To the question, “what is truth?” the gospel writer John tells us that Jesus is the truth. Jesus who is, “the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) Jesus, whose name means “God saves,” is the truth that we can rely on. It’s not our ideas about God that will save us, but Jesus Christ – God in human form – who saves us. For we are promised that “God so loved the world that God gave their only Son, so that everyone who believes in Jesus may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

The one truth we can be certain of is this: God loves you and God loves this world. And we get to see what that love looks like through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus is God’s Love in human form. Faith is not certainty. Faith is trusting in that gift of love.

To our confirmands, if you only remember one thing from confirmation, remember this: God loves you. And God’s love is big enough to hold your questions, your doubts, your fears. God’s love is strong enough to hold you through the hardest times that will come your way. You don’t ever need to do anything to earn this love; you are enough, you are good, you are beautiful children of God (and the same goes for everyone single person here in this building today – and on zoom – and those reading this sermon at a later date)

As a community of Jesus followers here at St Peter’s, we are called to embody that love. To our confirmands, I’m so happy that this is a community where you have experienced God’s love for you. I pray this will continue to be true in the future. I will tell you right now, we are not perfect. I hope you will not experience hurt in this community, but if that happens, I hope you will find the courage to tell us when we’re not listening well or when the way we do things isn’t helpful or even hurtful. You have an important role to play in helping us reform/change, because that is what a life of faith looks like.

As followers of Jesus, as the church, we are always in the process of growing and changing – of being re-formed. Through all the changes that yet lay ahead, in your own life and in the life of this community, may we hold fast to the truth we know in Jesus. The promise of God’s love and presence with us every step of the way. May it be so. Amen.

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Sunday October 19, 2025
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/blANeTUFVxg

Sermon for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, October 19, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

David Anointed King - 1 Samuel 16:1-13
Whenever I hear this story, it always puzzles me a little why Jesse didn’t bring David in the first place, along with his other 7 sons.

I wonder, was it that the invitation from Samuel didn’t make it clear to bring all your sons? The story is short on details when it comes to this piece. We don’t know if Samuel had to send for Jesse and his sons to come from home, or whether they were already among those who were welcoming the great prophet Samuel to their town.

It certainly could have just a matter of practicality. Someone had to keep watch over the sheep – they couldn’t be left alone – so it made sense to leave the youngest for an important occasion like this.

It’s even possible there’s something going on here symbolically in terms of Jesse’s 8 sons because certain numbers carry special meaning in the Bible. 8 is not one of those numbers, but 7 is. The number 7 symbolizes completion or perfection because God rested on the 7th day after creation was complete. If 7 is the perfect number, it might be expected that God’s anointed would be among those 7, rather than 8.

Or, I wonder, was it assumptions about David’s appearance and stature that he was left behind. As teenager it might have been assumed that David wasn’t old enough – and hence worthy – to take part in this important religious ritual. It perhaps didn’t even cross Jesse’s mind that there would be a place for David here. Did Jesse, as Samuel first did, think that appearance and stature were a measure of worth in God’s eyes? And if so, perhaps he too made an assumption that David just didn’t measure up.

Not measuring up. Making assumptions about people based on appearance and stature. These are behaviours we too know something about.

Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century, once said that we should always read the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. It’s important, as people of faith, to be engaged in what’s happening in the world around us. And to look to God’s Word to help interpret and make meaning of world events. Not many of us get our news from newspapers anymore – we have TV and the internet. But if we take our proverbial newspaper in one hand, we don’t have to look too far to find examples of people being judged based on appearances – on physical traits or markers.

One of the most painful ways we see this happening at this moment in time, is the cruelty happening in the United States. Cruelty that is focused on singling out particular groups of people because of how they look, who they love, where they were born. Of course these are not new ideas. What is new is seeing these ideas officially endorsed by the state. What is new is the use of military force to intimidate, terrorize, and harm, with disregard for any kind of democratic process.

It’s a caution for us in Canada. These same beliefs – anti-immigrant, anti-trans – are also present here. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves that the same things could never happen here.

With our “newspaper” in hand, as people of faith it’s our task to then ask ourselves: what does the Bible have to say about putting people in categories of worthy/unworthy? About making decisions that place some people “in” and others “out”?

If we look first to what God does in our story, well God chooses David to be the next king. Young, vulnerable, David. The one no one would have thought would matter. And when we broaden our view to the rest of the Bible, we see pretty quickly that God has a habit of doing this. Of showing favour for those people that are looked down on by society.

Jesus, in his ministry, was always drawn to care for the least and the lost. Liberation theology – a theological movement that came out of Latin America in the 1970s – calls this “God’s preferential option for the poor.” This is the idea that pattern we see in the Bible is that God gives priority to the well-being of the poor and powerless.

Again and again and again, in the bible God shatters our human categories – our expectations – of who is worthy of honour, respect, dignity, and love. Again and again and again, God tells us that those whom society disregards matter deeply to God, because they too bear God’s image.

On October 8, many of the bishops of the ELCA – our sister Lutheran church in the US – wrote a powerful letter to the church, addressing the current state of things in their country. This letter was pointed in its denouncement of beliefs that privilege some over others and clear in its call for what this moment asks of people of faith. I want to share some of that letter with you. They write,

“We are living through a time when vulnerable communities are being scapegoated and attacked. Immigrants and refugees are vilified, though Scripture commands us to welcome the stranger. People of color continue to bear the devastating weight of racism woven into the fabric of our society. Transgender people, beloved by God, are being targeted with laws and rhetoric that deny their dignity and even their right to exist. These assaults on our siblings are not political abstractions — they are deep wounds in the body of Christ.

In this time of division and fear, we, as people grounded in our faith, insist on love. This commitment flows from our faith in Christ crucified and risen—the One whose love breaks down barriers, confronts hatred, and transforms hearts.

Our faith compels us to stand where Jesus stands—with and for those whom society often seeks to exclude, erase, or diminish.”

This letter is addressed to American Lutherans, but it’s a word for us ELCIC Lutherans too. To stand alongside our American siblings, and to be attuned to the ways these forces of fear and hate are also present here.

In our story today we encounter King David near the start of his life. He will grow from an unimportant shepherd boy to be King. He will be remembered as a great king; but not a perfect king. Even David’s good heart doesn’t protect him from sin. David will make mistakes and need God’s forgiveness. But what is remarkable about David as a leader, is that he recognizes his mistakes – something it seems most leaders in our time are unwilling or unable to do. David is credited with penning the words “create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

We don’t always get it right. In our humanness, there are times when we will pass judgement or make assumptions about others based on appearances, but God knows our hearts too. God’s love for us is so great that there is nothing we can do that God will not forgive when we are truly sorry. This gift of grace is ours, and God calls us to extend this same grace to one another. And in the world right now, this looks like “standing alongside Jesus—with and for those whom society seeks to exclude, erase, or diminish.”

May the Spirit of the Lord be upon us and give us the courage to do just that. Amen.

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Sunday October 12, 2025
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/YoCkCBrDXWs

Sermon for Thanksgiving Sunday
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

God Calls Samuel - 1 Samuel 3:1-15
I find it striking that our story begins by telling us that the word of the Lord was rare at that time. I can’t help but wonder, was it rare because God wasn’t as active? Or is it that those who were tasked with spiritual leadership – folks like Eli and his sons – had forgotten how to listen for God’s word?

Eli is the long-time priest at Shiloh, which is where the ark of the covenant was kept in those days (the box that held the ten commandments). This was an important spiritual place where the people would come to brings offerings to God.

By all accounts, Eli was a relatively decent priest, although he certainly wasn’t perfect. Like that one time when Samuel’s mother had come to the temple with an emotional plea to God for a child. She upset and crying as she prays, and Eli assumes she’s drunk and tells her to sober up. Not his finest moment. But thankfully he responds to Samuel’s mother with care once he realized his error.

Despite his faults, Eli does seem to take his duties as a priest seriously. His sons, on the other hand, are another matter. Hophni and Phinehas, who were also priests at Shiloh, were widely known to abuse their power. There were repeated incidents of them mishandling offerings and sexual misconduct. To his credit, Eli confronts them. But they don’t change their ways, and after a while, Eli just lets it go.

No one can say that Eli was the best priest; or perhaps even a good priest. And yet, it’s only because of Eli’s guidance that Samuel hears a word from God that night in the temple at Shiloh. Of course it does take Eli a minute. But by the third waking, Eli finally understands, or at least suspects, what is going on. And he gives some wise and clear instructions to Samuel. That when Samuel hears this voice again he’s to stay put and say “Speak Lord. Your servant is listening.” And it’s this guidance from Eli that sets in motion Samuel’s spiritual leadership.

It’s interesting to sit with Samuel’s story at this moment in the life of the church. Because I think this is a time when many of us might also feel that “The word of the Lord is rare.” When we look around this morning at our smallish gathering in this grand building; it’s not necessarily what we expected or want it to be. It’s a struggle to find a vision of what it means to be church in this moment in history. And it’s not just us here at St Peter’s. Our ELCIC Lutheran congregations are all experiencing similar challenges. We recognize the need to think differently about how we structure ourselves, and yet it’s not yet clear what are the changes we need to make. The ministry area event that was held at St Luke’s last week was about exactly this matter. A time to come together as ELCIC Lutherans in Waterloo region to wrestle with the question of what God is calling us to be and do.

I intentionally put the word “do” second because this is the part we often try to rush to. I think a lot of the time our instinct is to do what Samuel does first. We hear God’s call, but don’t sit still long enough to discern its’ fullness. Often from a place of fear or anxiety we think that if we just try this new program, or do whatever new thing “St So-and-so’s” up the road is doing, that that will be the thing to save our church. We jump into action; to solutions, because sitting with the unknown is uncomfortable. And if we don’t save the church, who will?

And yet, it’s not until Samuel stays and listens; until he pauses in stillness and opens himself to encounter God, that God’s Word is revealed to him. Speak Lord. Your servant is listening.

I wonder how our approach to church might change if we followed Samuel’s stance of sacred listening? Not jumping right to action. Not trying to do all the same things we used to do (as well as new and different things too) but with fewer people. But taking time to listen with open hearts. To listen to scripture. To our community. To creation. To the stirring of our own hearts.

To listen to our neighbours and our family members, especially those who are from different generations than our own (and for those of us who are millennials and older, especially listening to the youngest generations – what are their concerns, their hopes, their dreams?). To listen to the young people who are here.

Mennonite pastor David Augsburger once said, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”1 Sacred listening means listening with no agenda other than curiosity and genuine interest. In this way, listening itself is how we show love to our neighbour.

And I’m confident that if we spend time listening, we will eventually notice the patterns and make the connections that God wants us to recognize. We will receive the word the Lord has for us; we will discern what it is that God is calling us to do, even if, metaphorically speaking, it takes us three times to wake up and recognize it!

As I think about the church as it relates to this story, we’re a lot like Eli. We’ve been doing our best to be faithful, but the world around is changing. Like Eli, we’ve maybe gotten too comfortable with the way things are, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have gifts to help equip those who come after us. It doesn’t mean we can’t also step into Samuel’s shoes if we have the courage to listen for how God’s word might be calling us to adapt to our new surroundings.

As I consider this word from God about the transition in leadership from Eli to Samuel; as I think about our place in this story of faith, the hymn lyrics that kept popping into my head was this: “the church of Christ in every age, beset by change but Spirit led, must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead.”

Like Samuel and Eli, we are living through a time of great change. A time that to us feels like decline. The church of the future will not look like the church of the past, but God isn’t finished with us yet! God is just reminding us that this is God’s church and not ours. If anyone’s going to save the church, it will be God. Our task is to focus on listening and loving, because even though human structures rise and fall, God’s love endures forever.

On this thanksgiving weekend,
may Samuel and Eli’s story be an invitation to give thanks for the gift of faith.

• To remember the imperfect saints who went before us and taught us about God’s love.
• To remember that faith has always been expressed differently from one generation to the next.
• To remember and give thanks for those who come after us.
• And to trust that God is still speaking, even when it feels rare.

And so we say, “Speak Lord, that your church may hear your word and listen.” Amen.

1 https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/288161-being-heard-is-so-close-to-being-loved-that-for

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Sunday October 5, 2025
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/Zy6r11I4t84

Pastor Laura’s reflection was preached from notes, so there is no prepared sermon to upload this week. You can watch it on the YouTube link above.

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Sunday September 28, 2025
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/h9IsIJjt46Y

Sermon for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, September 28, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

God’s Name Revealed - Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15
I love the story of Moses’ call in the wilderness, and there are parts of this story that make me deeply uncomfortable, especially on a day when we are recognizing the legacy of residential schools in Canada.

The story of the Exodus – of God’s liberation of the people from slavery – is such a foundational story for both Judaism and Christianity. And – as we heard in our reading – the Promised Land that God tells Moses to lead the people to was not an empty land.

Our whole human history is filled with conflicts over land – who has the right to live where; who controls access to land. Often these conflicts are even justified in God’s name. This is painfully the history of the land on which we gather today – and our present reality as we grapple with what it means to be Treaty people. This is the present reality in Palestine and Israel, as a genocide unfolds before our eyes in this same “Promised Land.” This conflict is a reality for the millions of people who depend on Lake Chad for their water – as people compete for access to a depleting, necessary, resource.

The sacred stories that we’ve inherited hold both beautiful truths and challenging truths. As we spend time today with Moses in the wilderness, I pray that the Spirit will help deepen our sense of how to faithfully navigate these realities. So, on to Moses…

Moses wasn’t always a shepherd. In fact, I’m sure many times Moses wondered how it was that he ended up here. Moses once led a very different life; a very privileged life; a rather complicated life.

Moses was born to an Israelite mother under slavery in Egypt, at a time when to be an Israelite baby was a death sentence, because the pharaoh who feared the growing Israelite population

had ordered all Hebrew babies to be killed.

Moses only survives because his family takes a chance. They put him in a basket in the river, where he’s found by the pharaoh’s daughter who takes pity on him. She takes him home and raises him as her own. And so Moses grows up between two worlds – a Hebrew boy in the Egyptian royal palace.

As he grows up, and comes to better understand the dynamics and politics of the world in which he lives, Moses struggles with the injustices he sees around him. He observes the forced labour of his people, and when he sees an Egyptian soldier beating an Israelite, his anger flares up, and he kills the Egyptian. When news of this gets back to the pharaoh, Moses flees for his life.

Which is how we get to this hillside in Midian. Moses makes his way to this new-to-him land where he makes a family of his own and settles down to the quiet life of a shepherd: a peaceful and content life. The kind of life his ancestors lived before they settled in Egypt all those generations ago. A life where he possibly convinced himself that he could just leave all his troubles behind in Egypt.

That sounds nice doesn’t it; to leave all our troubles behind. Not something that’s easy to do these days, it seems. In the face of climate change, the seeming lack of concern for how human action is harming this planet, I know I find it hard some days not to despair. When I’m in this place of overwhelm, I find myself looking at Moses shepherding his sheep in the wilderness with envy. And while I recognize that I am totally romanticising this shepherding way of life, I think what it evokes within me is that longing for wonder and connection and peace that I have only ever found while being out in nature.

This longing is what led me last year to pursue a certificate program in Eco-Spirituality. I knew I needed some resources to help me navigate my own eco-grief and climate anxiety. Which is how I ended up spending the last year talking to the trees and insects and animals – or what I have now learned to call, the “more than human” others around us. Learning not to walk, but to saunter through the small patch of woods near my home – wandering slowly enough to notice, savour, and simply be present.

In the Jewish tradition, there is an ancient practice called midrash where rabbis will seek to understand the Bible by asking imaginative questions, filling in narrative gaps, and even creating backstories for characters.

In the spirit of Jewish midrash, the backstory I like to imagine for Moses is that this wasn’t the first time he had wandered in this place. In fact, he had wandered these same hills many times with his sheep over the years. And Moses liked to wander slowly – to saunter – because it was good time to think and Moses had a lot of big feelings to work through. Grief for the life he left behind. Guilt for the life he took. Anger about the oppression of his people.

There was so much he didn’t feel he could share with anyone but God. And so he wandered with his sheep. He knew these hills. He knew the trails. He knew each turn, each dip, each steep incline. He even knew each patch of shrubs. He found that paying attention to all of the beings around him – their shifts and changes – helped his problems not feel so big.

And so, when Moses sees that bush on fire – the one he’d noticed just last week because its’ berries were almost ready to harvest – he has to get a closer look. And because he pauses. Because he pays attention. Moses hears a word from God. A call to go back and liberate the people. To take the gift and wisdom and memory of this encounter in the wild, and return to the world he had left behind, where in this moment, his leadership is needed.

In the Christian tradition, the burning bush has become a metaphor for those big, wake-up call moments in life. And the forest fires raging across the land these last summers are certainly calling us to wake up and listen! Creation is crying out in all sorts of devastating ways, begging us humans to change our patterns of behaviour.

For me, the burning bush also speaks to the indwelling presence of the Sacred in all of creation. When I spend time in “the wild,” – which for me these days is that small patch of woods in my neighbourhood in South Kitchener – I’m spending time with the holy. Because all of it is holy ground. The woods, the mountains, the meadows, the fields, the city parks, your backyard, the dandelions pushing up through the cracks in the sidewalk. All of it is wild and holy ground.

The theme for this year’s Season of Creation is “Peace with Creation,” and I’ve been pondering what this means for me. One of the biggest gifts from this past year has been embodying the story that says: I have a place to belong in this communion of beings, and it’s not all about me either. I am just one being in this interconnected web of life with all the more-than-human others.

When I go for a saunter, I will talk to the trees and the flowers and the birds and the insects and the water. I will name my intentions and ask permission before entering a new space or touching a tree. I make offerings – of gratitude, of sacrifice. I offer prayers of lament for my complicity in this extractive economic system. I approach the wild with a spirit of reverence and try to listen with all my senses to what the holy wild has to say.

It’s important to be clear that I’m not worshiping creation. Rather, I’m approaching the wild with the belief that God is already there – the life of the Spirit flowing through all parts of God’s good creation as surely as its flowing through you and me.

I will tell you, I no longer find it shocking that a bush talks to Moses. Unlike Moses, I have yet to hear an audible voice speak to me, but when I bring my prayers to the wild – my longings, my fears, my questions – I’m regularly surprised by who shows up with a message of wisdom and guidance. Like Moses’ ancestor Jacob who also spent time in the wilderness – whose story we heard last week – I find myself saying, “surely God was in this place.”

It could be that these kinds of practices are already a part of your spiritual practice. Because none of this is new. These are ancient ways of being in relationship with creation. But if you’re looking for a place to start or something new, I invite you to try going on a “praise saunter.”

Find a place outside where you can move slowly (this can also be done seated). In a posture of wonder and curiosity and awe, notice the particular / individual / beings around and with you. Birds, clouds, grasses, rocks, trees, bugs, / all beings. Acknowledge them as kin and praise them for their particular / inherent / sacred / aliveness. Take some time to simply delight in each one and offer them your gratitude.

For me, this is what practicing peace with creation looks like. It’s not an escape from the world,

but a time of deepening relationship with creation so that I can show up in the world grounded in the story of connection rather than disconnection. Because that story of connection and inter-dependence is the story that is needed right now.

And I guess my hope, my dream, is that these kinds of creation honouring practices can be a path toward peace with one another too. That these kinds of practices can, and will, shape and sustain the liberating work God calls us to do for the sake of all beings – both the human ones and the more-than-human ones. May it be so. AMEN.

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Sunday September 21, 2025
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/FRhy1qDl3sg

Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Jacob’s Dream – Genesis 27: 1-4, 15-23; 28:10-17

Jacob and Esau are twins, so when Esau is called the “older” brother it’s only by a matter of minutes. Scripture says that Jacob came out of the womb gripping his brother’s heel – a sign that Jacob would always be just behind his brother, struggling to match up, trying to pull himself up and his brother down.

Twin brothers – and yet they couldn’t have been more different. Esau grew up to be a skillful hunter – a “man of the field” the Bible tells us. Brave and outdoorsy and strong, Esau excels at all the things men are supposed to excel at in those days. Jacob, on the other hand is a quiet man, “living in tents” the Bible tells us. The tents are where the women hung out and not where you would expect men to spend their time.

To add to it all, in this family, each parent also has a favourite son. Isaac loves Esau while Rebekah loves Jacob. It’s never a good family dynamic when parents play favourites, and so it’s no wonder that a rift develops in this family.

I can’t help but feel sorry for Jacob. He’s someone who just doesn’t quite fit in; who can’t measure up to his father’s standards. But Jacob is no innocent either. Jacob may be quiet and passive, but he soon learns from his mother that he just needs to be a little craftier to get what he wants in life. We see a shining example of this when Jacob, with help and guidance of his mom, tricks his elderly blind father into giving him Esau’s birthright and his blessing.

In a story that sounds a lot like “Little Red Riding Hood,” Jacob passes himself off as his brother – even lying to his dad’s face when his dad suspects he’s being played. But Jacob is convincing enough that Isaac gives him the blessing that was intended for Esau.

We may wonder why Isaac couldn’t just take it all back when he realizes he’s been tricked, but this was a different time. For the Israelites, words held power. When they were spoken, they effected change that couldn’t be reversed. In this world of no police forces or court systems to enforce a contract, a person’s word was their bond. So once the blessing is given and the birthright taken, there's no undoing it, and it’s no wonder Esau wants to kill his brother. Hoping that some time and distance will help cool things down, Rebekah sends Jacob to stay with his uncle for a while.

Families, am I right? For better and for worse, our families shape us. The negative impact of family is probably most obvious for those who have grown up in homes where there was abuse or violence. But even those who grow up in loving and caring homes often also have work to do because even the very best parents are only human, and they make mistakes (and some of those mistakes will hurt us).

We first learn about relationships by watching how our parents relate to each other and to us. So if, like Jacob, we have parents who are at odds with each other, or who don’t communicate openly and honestly – it’s hard to know what healthy relationships look like. Jacob sees him mom using trickery and deceit to get what she wants – it’s no surprise he picks up those behaviours.

Or what if, like Jacob, we grew up in a home where our parents played favourites? If we were the favourite, we might develop an inflated sense of self. Or grow up believing that we should always get our way. If we weren’t the favourite, we might always be seeking approval from others. We might struggle with self-confidence, feeling that we’re never quite good enough or just don’t measure up.

It’s hard not to have some sympathy for Jacob. You almost wonder what hope he had, growing up in a dysfunctional family where deceit and favouritism are part of the family fabric. But there comes a point when Jacob must bear some responsibility for his role in all of this. Jacob wasn’t a child when he tricked his father – he was already a grown man. Jacob wasn’t blameless in all this.

And for us too, there comes a time when we have to own our family inheritance. Give thanks for what was good, try to let go of what wasn’t, and work on changing those behaviours and patterns that aren’t serving us well anymore.

Part of the hope of Jacob’s story is that people can and do change. And this hope is grounded in the promise that God helps this healing and this change to happen: we see this promise revealed in what happens next for Jacob. When Jacob runs away, he finds himself in the middle of nowhere as night falls. With only a stone for a pillow, he falls into what was probably a fitful sleep. I imagine him half-sleeping; waking up at the sound of every strange or suspicious noise. And it’s not surprising that he has this wild dream (the way you do when you’re in that half-asleep state). Jacob sees angels going up and down a ladder, and God standing beside him and speaking: “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Incredibly, in spite of Jacob’s bad behaviour, God doesn’t give up on him. God still comes to him and blesses him. God is faithful, and God keeps their word because God’s love is never dependent on what we do or do not do. God blesses Jacob because God has plans to use him to be a blessing to others. Even though Jacob will make more mistakes, God doesn’t give up on him because as we see again and again in the Bible, God does their best work through humans who mess up.

Despite what some might say, the Bible isn’t irrelevant to our time. It’s an ancient story but it still speaks to us today because it tells a universal story. So much truth is found in these stories – in what they teach us about ourselves and about God. And Jacob’s story is no exception. Jacob’s story tells us that no matter how badly we mess up, God can and does offer forgiveness. God is faithful and is with us through every hard time, patiently waiting for that moment when our hearts are broken open enough to receive and embrace God’s gift of forgiveness and love.

There is nothing in this world we can do that will make God not love us or not forgive us. We may have to work at loving and forgiving ourselves – that’s always the hardest part – but we don’t have to wonder about God – God forgives.

Jacob’s story also reminds us that even when it feels like it’s not true – God is with us in those moments of self-doubt and self-pity; in those moments of grief and sadness. As Jacob said, after God came to him in his dream “surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.” God was with him in that lonely, dark, and desolate place even though he didn’t realize it until after the fact.

Life is messy. We are complicated and imperfect people. Which is why our families are also complicated and imperfect. And yet, God is always faithful to us. Even in all of our mess and complications and imperfections, the Spirit is at work shaping our hearts in the way of love and truth that we might share God’s blessing. May it be so. AMEN

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Sunday September 14, 2025
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/mNf1ZfOFkGw

Sermon for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

The Binding of Isaac - Genesis 21:1-3; 22:1-14
I don’t like this story. I would even go so far as to say, I would be perfectly fine if this story wasn’t even in the Bible. I mean, what kind of God asks someone to sacrifice their child? And what kind of person goes along with it without even pushing back?

I don’t like this story. But I’m also grateful that the Bible includes stories that I don’t like. In an age of curated news feeds. With algorithms that are designed to keep showing us “more of the same.” In a culture where we are so quick to write off those whose beliefs go against our own. It’s a gift to have a book like the Bible. This holy book holds within its pages such a diversity of views (sometimes contradictory) about God and faith. Stories that comfort us; stories that challenge us; and yes, even stories that offend us. Because even the stories we don’t like, have valuable things to teach us.

A lot has happened in the story from where we left off last week with the story of God creating this world in 7 days; a world in which God delights and calls supremely good. Things fall apart when the humans can’t follow God’s rules and are forced to leave the garden. Sin and death enter the picture. God tries to wipe the slate clean and start over by sending a flood to destroy it all (except for Noah, his family, and two of every animal). God promises to never do that again,

and then decides to see if working with just one person might be the better option. Which is where Abraham enters the picture (or Abram as he was first called).

God calls Abram to take his wife Sarah and leave their home to travel to a land God will show them. God promises Abram that they will have many descendants, a land of their own, and that their family will be a blessing to the world. God even gives him a new name – Abraham – which means, ‘father of many.’ A daily reminder of the promise God has made.

So Abraham goes. And well, God takes their sweet time making good on those promises. For years Abraham and Sarah try to get pregnant with no luck. How can Abraham be ‘father of many’ when he’s not even father of one? They even try taking matters into their own hands. Abraham has a child with their slave Hagar – a son named Ishmael. And finally, at a point beyond when it should have even been possible anymore, Sarah becomes pregnant and gives birth to Isaac. A son that God then asks Abraham to sacrifice.

While even the thought of child sacrifice is appalling to us, it’s important to know that in the surrounding cultures of the day, sacrifices to the gods were common. And even child sacrifice was something that happened. This fact is about the only reason I can think of as to why Abraham doesn’t question this request from God.

And I still really struggle to come up with any good reason for God to ask this of Abraham at all. Even if God never intended for Abraham to go through with it, what trauma to put them all through, especially Isaac. But frustratingly, the story doesn’t give us any insight into what any of the characters (including God) and thinking throughout this ordeal.

Now I’m not happy with God for asking this terrible thing of Abraham. But I’m not God, and I won’t pretend to know how God’s mind works. I am, however, a parent. And as a parent – as a human – I cannot understand why Abraham doesn’t push back in this moment. It’s not like he hasn’t questioned or argued with God before.

I want to be mad at Abraham. I am mad at him. And yet, when I pause and step back, and take an honest look at myself and this world, I also have to confess that we may not be as different from Abraham as we might wish.

I think of the small and big ways parents try to live their own unfulfilled dreams through their children. Often sacrificing their children’s happiness and desires for their own.

I think of our refusal to take serious action against climate change. Sacrificing our children’s future for the sake of present comfort and greed.

I think of all those who are sent off to fight in wars (all of them somebody’s child). There’s a poem called “The Parable of the Old Man and the Young,” in which the author Wilfred Owen reflects on the horrors of WWI by retelling this story of Abraham and Isaac, but with a different ending – one that evokes his own experience of that war. In the moment when Abraham’s knife is raised and the angel calls out for him to stop, instead, Owen writes, “the old man would not so, but slew his son, And half the seed of Europe, one by one.”1 Wilfred Owen was 25 when he was killed in action on November 4, 1918 – one week before the armistice was signed.2

I will never not struggle with the fact that God asks Abraham to do this horrible thing. I will never not struggle with the fact that Abraham just goes along with it. AND, I am so thankful that in the end God steps in and doesn’t let Abraham go through with it. Whether God never intended for it to go so far or whether God learned in the process that this sacrifice was in fact not something they wanted. Either way, it’s the last time God ever “tests” someone in this way. In fact, the next time in Scripture a son of Abraham is sacrificed – it is God too who is sacrificed on that altar.

As a Christian it’s hard to read this story and not see the parallels with Jesus’ death. As Isaac carries the wood up Mount Moriah for his own sacrificial altar; Jesus – God in human flesh – carries his own cross up Golgotha to be crucified. The difference is that in the second story, a self-sacrifice for the sake of all creation that ends in resurrection. A story that ends in life conquering death and sin once and for all. And as the Biblical narrative unfolds, we can trust that death never gets the last word.

I would love to end this sermon on a super positive note. The story does give us some nuggets at the very end – God says no to death and yes to life. God provides a ram for the sacrifice;
a promise to us that God is a God who provides what is needed. But these nuggets don’t cancel out all the difficult things that come before.

All I can say is that this unease; this discomfort; is honest, it’s real. The Biblical narrative is complex. The world we live in is complex. It is both beautiful and terrible all at once. And sometimes all we can do is sit in the tension and choose again to lean into the promise. And so I invite us to do just that. To take a moment to breathe in deeply, and out. And to come before God in prayer…

Gracious God, it’s not always easy to know what is the right thing and what is the wrong thing in a given situation; or how our actions will ripple out and impact others. And so we simply ask for you to forgive us for the times when our actions cause harm. Forgive us for those times when others become the casualties of our blind obedience, apathy, or fear. Help us to trust in your promise of life. Call us again this day into closer connection and make us true covenant partners, invested in abundant life with you. Amen.

1 https://poets.org/poem/parable-old-man-and-young
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen

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Sunday September 7, 2025
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/xMne_SJo5to

Sermon for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Creation by the Word – Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Today we start at the very beginning with the story of creation. And I always feel it’s important to be clear that this is a story; it’s not science. The 6-day story of creation predates the scientific revolution by several millennia. This story is not science, which means it’s not a story we should take literally, but it is a story we should take seriously. This may not be story we look to, to explain “how” the world came to be (which is what science asks, and why faithful Christians can both believe in things like evolution and God). But it is a story that helps us think about some other really big and important questions. Questions like:

- what is God like?
- why is there both beauty and chaos in the world?
- what is our part in all of it?

Now I could preach a whole month of sermons on this one story. There is so much here. So for today, let’s just begin with that first question, “what is God like?”, and see where it leads us…

I love how even with these familiar stories, every time we come to them, we can still discover new things. For me this week, one of those details is the way God chooses to bring creation into being.

I wonder, have you ever noticed who does the creating in this story? I mean God does, of course. But have you ever noticed that God doesn’t do the creating alone. God creates by inviting creation to take part. God calls the earth to grow plant life – and the earth produces the abundance of plants, trees, fruits, and seeds that fill the various ecosystems. God calls, and the earth responds.

And this pattern of creating by invitation continues throughout the days. God invites the water to swarm with living things, and it does. God invites flying ones to fill the sky, and they do. God invites the earth to produce every kind of living thing, and again the earth brings forth this incredible diversity of weird and wonderful and wild creatures.

God does not seem to create in some carefully planned out, orchestrated way. Instead, God creates, well, kind of like an improv actor.

Last week at confirmation camp, our theme was “Fake it ‘til you make it,” and to help the youth live into that theme we introduced them to improv. That type of theatre that is unplanned, unscripted, and spontaneous. Something that most of us are perhaps most familiar with thanks to the show “Whose Line is it Anyway?”

We began by learning the rules of improv (according to Tina Fey), which are:

1. Say yes.
2. Say yes, and.
3. Make statements.
4. There are no mistakes.

When I look at how God creates, this is what I see. God improvising and utterly delighting in what emerges. God says yes! And plants! Yes! And swimming ones, yes! And flying ones, and crawling ones, and four-legged ones, and two-legged ones, yes! God delights in all of it, and there are no mistakes (not even mosquitos)!

And those two-legged ones. Us humans. We finally come on the scene on that final day of creation. This time, not a result of God calling forth but making an intentional decision to create us. “Let us make humankind in our own image.”

We are made in the image of God. In the image of God who calls creation into being. Who invites life to spring forth. Who makes space for life to come forth in abundant and even surprising ways.

To be made in the image of God means to join in that work of calling forth life in this world. Not worrying about managing every detail or controlling every outcome, but making space for life to spring forth and flourish. Taking a stance of openness – of “yes, and.” Trusting that the Spirit is at work among us and around us.

Back in March, our congregation made the decision to partner with Releven to help find groups and organizations with whom we can share our building. This is how our new Ministry of Preston Commons was born. We have all this valuable space that we don’t need for ourselves at this moment in time, and that decision was really invitation to say, “let there be life in this building.”

With the Ministry of Preston Commons, we are inviting the community to help us shape the future of our ministry in this building and in the community. There will certainly be growing pains as we live into this vision, but there is also the potential for new partnerships, new ministries, new life, that we can’t yet imagine – and that is really exciting.

Made in God’s image, we are created to call forth life in the world. In a world where many choose to call forth fear and enmity, we are called to be people of love and hope and grace. We are called to speak love and hope and grace into the world through our words and our actions.

To help us remember that this is always God’s creative work, and not our own, beginning today we will be including a new prayer in our liturgy each week. A prayer for guidance at the end of our worship time. This is a prayer that one of our members encountered when worshiping with one of our sister Lutheran congregations in the area. And when I reached out to that pastor, I learned that they had borrowed this prayer from another congregation (which I like to imagine as the ripples of the Spirit moving among us).

As we journey through this season of new things, I hope this prayer can be a guidepost for us too – as we seek to join in God’s creative and life-giving in the world. Let us pray,

Holy God, Dreamer of dreams,
We are your people; this is your church. We offer our congregation to you. We come seeking your guidance, your purpose, your vision. Align our will with yours, so that we will be willing to do whatever it takes to carry out your plan. Break through in new ways in our church. Show us the great ministry you have in store for us. Help us dream your dreams. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us, giving us the vision, boldness, and confidence to do all that you call us to do. Amen.

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Sunday August 31, 2025
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/z-lpNxhXATA

If you would like to see Rev. Dr. Larry Kochendorfer preach this sermon himself, click the following link: https://elcic.box.com/s/kpva096afejsppx0aynzhs4jiskl0yi6

Rev. Dr. Larry Kochendorfer
National Bishop-elect
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon Read by Rev. Laura Sauder

Luke 14:1, 7-14
On one occasion when [Jesus] was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a
meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely.

7 When he notced how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more disEnguished than you has been invited by your host, 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relaEves or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

~

Welcome to this summer sermon series that our Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is providing for congregaEons. It is great to be with you this Sunday. I am Larry Kochendorfer. My preferred pronouns are he/him. I currently serve as the ½ Interim Pastor at Our Redeemer Lutheran in Penticton, British Columbia, and ½ Assistant to the Bishop for Special Service in the BC Synod. Soon, tomorrow, September 1, I begin a new calling as your National Bishop. Thank you for your prayers for Cathy and me, and our family, for our National Staff and Council, and for Bishop Susan in this season of transition.

Tomorrow is also the beginning of the annual Season of Creation ecumenical initiative observed September 1 to October 4. This year’s theme is “Peace with Creation” and there are many helpful resources on the Lutheran World Federation website. I encourage you to use them.

Canadian Lutheran World Relief has provided wonderful resources, too, for a 4-week “Friends of Creation” challenge helping to restore the ecosystem around Lake Chad. I encourage you to use CLWR’s incredible resources available on the CLWR website.

In the spirit of respect, reciprocity and truth, I honour and acknowledge that I live and work and pray on traditional and ancestral territory of the many First Nations, Metis, and Inuit whose footsteps have marked these lands for centuries. I am speaking to you today from the unceded lands of the Syilx/Okanagan people, in Penticton, BC. I invite you to hold a moment of reflection for the ground under your feet where you are today, giving thanks for the peoples who have come before us and in a spirit of care for this land on behalf of future generations.

~

It’s the Sabbath day and Jesus is at the home of a Pharisee, a leader of the Pharisees’ – for a meal.

This isn’t a nice August, ‘sit in the backyard on a lawn chair in the bright Holy Land sun with an iced tea in hand’ kind of party. No, I imagine it as a ‘mind your manners, sit-down dinner for a hundred at the leader of the Pharisees’ air-conditioned estate’ kind of party.

And it’s quite a party.

In my mind’s eye – I know I might be stretching it a bit but come along with me anyway – I see a mammoth dining room. There’s a brilliantly lit chandelier in the center of the room and a table the length of a bowling alley loaded with the finest china and crystal, and candles and floral arrangements, and food piled high on silver platters and in magnificent serving bowls, and the best wines chilled to perfection next to the specially ordered fancy waters, and so many sparkling forks and knives and spoons that we almost need sun glasses to shield our eyes.

And the guests are the crème de la crème in town. The politically powerful, the religiously powerful, the culturally powerful. The CEOs of the Royal Jerusalem Bank and the JSE – the Jerusalem Stock Exchange. Lawyers and business tycoons and city council members. And the leaders of the Pharisees and those who contributed substantially to the temple coffers. And the day’s rock stars and the art critics and the movie giants and a carefully screened group of media journalists.

And Jesus, right in the middle of them.

Listen in on the conversation. There is polite chit-chat about the weather at the Mediterranean coast during the recent holiday season, and the latest international box office success, and about how Jerusalem just isn’t the same since Pontius Pilate came to town.

And there’s Jesus, right in the middle of them, and “…they were watching him closely.”

Unfortunately, those who set the reading for this morning jumped over several verses which are important to this reading: “…they were watching him closely. Just then, in front of him, there was a man who had edema. And Jesus asked the experts in the law and Pharisees, ‘Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath or not?’ But they were silent. So Jesus took him and healed him and sent him away. Then he said to them, ‘If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?’ And they could not reply to this.”

Suddenly, in this mammoth dining room, as if appearing from nowhere, there is a man who is ill and Jesus asks the crème de la crème, “Is it lawful to cure people on the Sabbath or not?” Yes, or no? And all conversation stopped. The polite, social niceties came to an end. “They were silent.”

Jesus pushes back the crab-filled mushroom caps, he moves the arrangement of pastel orchids to the side, careful not to tip the silver plaher of creamed cauliflower – and he heals the man.

Well, there are gasps around the table. Guest looks at guest. The hostess says something like, “Well, I’ve never,” clutches her brooch and falls into her chair. The host is completely dumbfounded. They’ve never seen anything like it. How dare he!

“If one of you has a child or an ox that has fallen into a well, will you not immediately pull it out on a Sabbath day?” They were silent.

Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath isn’t just about a violation of a religious rule, it is a violation of civility, a social outrage, a breaking of the social fabric. And what may alarm them most is the presence among them of someone who is apparently so free from the religious and social restrictions – the unbending borders and rigid boundaries – that he doesn’t give a hoot about public opinions, or Miss Manners – or even death itself.

And Jesus confirms this. Standing in front of the seafood linguine and the fresh croissants and the melt-in-your mouth Beef Wellington, he turns to the host and guests, “You call this a party? This man was in pain.”

You see, just as they were watching Jesus closely, Jesus has been doing some watching of his own. And he casts a vision of an alternative world through a stark, challenging parable. Those at the dinner party hear it. And we hear this alternative vision too, two millennia later.

“When you are invited by someone to a party, don’t sit at the best place, because somebody with a beher pedigree may have been invited. You’ll be embarrassed when asked to move down a couple of chairs. Sit down at the lowest place, and the host may come to you saying, “Friend, I’ve got a chair up next to me, come and join me.”

The dinner crowd mulls it over. Of course, it is hard to trust Jesus with important issues like dinner hierarchy because he is known to have terrible taste in dinner companions. He always sits at the tacky end of the table with those who do not have place cards and are not even on the seating charts. He sits with the low and the ler-out and – what is worse – he seems to have a ball.

And Jesus isn’t finished yet. Sure enough, while they are chasing about his suggestion of a new, potentially dramatic and useful approach to dining entrances – an alternate vision – “After you”; “No, after you”; “No, really…,” Jesus calls out to the host, “And the next time you have people to dinner, don’t ask those who can pay you back. Don’t ask anybody who can do you any favors. Ask the poor who won’t know how much money you spent on the hors d’oeuvres, only that they are delicious. Ask the crippled and the lame who won’t be dancing around worrying about which chair to choose but will be grateful to sit down. Ask the blind, who won’t be watching over your shoulder to see who else is coming. Ask the powerless. Ask the empty. You won’t believe the party you will have.”

The sophisticated crowd, the ones in the black ties and shimmering gowns using the right forks and saying, “Oh, no more for me…I don’t care for any,” are appalled. The elegant ones who know their place and know the rules – people – perhaps like us are appalled. People like us who’ve bought into the game too – people who feed on the notion that life is about winning, and being at the head of the class, the top of the heap, with the best seat at the dining room table. People who live their whole lives not only by the book but, by keeping the books, keeping account, keeping score.

Together with the dinner guests we look way down the table at Jesus in the center of a ragtag party of hungry people feasting, enjoying every morsel, singing, telling stories, crying, and laughing until the tears stream down their faces.

The dinner guests and we who know just what to do and where to be and how not to make fools of ourselves, watch, and wonder. What in heaven’s name is going on at the other end of the table?

Communion is going on. The deaf are buttering the biscuits for the blind. The leper shifts to get more strawberry shortcake for the lame. The poor toast the broken-hearted with fine, full-bodied wine. And the host becomes guest.

The evening grows late. Etiquette lessons are over. Time to move on. Jesus stands up, and the one-eyed, crooked-legged, gap-toothed crowd stands with him. They are having a ball, the Eme of their lives, and they will follow him on and on because everywhere Jesus is –everywhere Jesus is – there is a party – a feast of bread and wine. And there is room for everyone at the table, nobody cares who sits where, and everybody shares in the abundance.

This, dear church – sisters, brothers, siblings in Christ – this alternate vision, is gospel for us today. Good news for the world, and for all creation.

Follow him, dear church. Follow him, to the table and beyond, to the party and the feast, where there is room for all and where are all are invited. Follow in mission and action.

Follow him, dear church, knowing that Jesus – love – is at our side.

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Sunday August 24, 2025
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/lkjn_WcQJZ0

Sermon & Lesson Intro for the 1th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge|
Rev. Laura Sauder

Lesson Introduction – Isaiah 58:9b-14

God gave us rules like the Ten Commandments to help guide our life together; to make sure that we take care of each other. But even with these guides for life, we often need reminders to abide by them. And so from Isaiah, we hear this morning about proper ways to fast and why it’s important to observe the Sabbath.

Isaiah reminds us that compassion for others (and specifically feeding those who don’t have enough to eat) is more important to God than our own fasting. And if you choose to fast, do it by giving what you have to those in need (because it’s easy to fast when your own cupboards are still full of food b/c you know you’ll have food when you’re done your fast).

When it comes to the Sabbath, it’s not just a day for worship but it’s a day of rest. A reminder that’s especially important for a busy generation. It may not be possible for us to have a 24 hour Sabbath every week, but even a time of clearing our schedule, clearing our minds, gives us that open space where we can take delight in the Lord.

Isaiah keeps us mindful of the fact that the laws God gives us are meant to enhance life for all people. This is the rule by which we can measure the adequacy of any law. Let us listen to the word…

Sermon – Luke 13:10-17

When it comes to a rule, you have a couple of options: you can choose to follow it or choose to not follow it. Chances are you’ve done both at one point or another in your life. That said, you also probably have a preference or a tendency to fall into one group more often than the other; to be more of a rule breaker, or more of a rule abider. I’m curious, who here would consider themselves to be a rule breaker? That rules are more like suggestions. And who here (the rest?) consider themselves to be rule abiders? Definitely me!

It’s important to point out each approach has its’ strengths. Rule abiders are good at keeping the peace, keeping things orderly and running smoothly. Rule breakers are good at challenging the status quo – they can be very creative, even coming up with better ways to do something. One way isn’t always better than the other – and both approaches can be problematic. It’s never good to blindly follow every rule. And it’s equally never good to break every rule just for the sake of it. There are times for abiding by rules and there are times for breaking rules – the challenge is knowing when to do which. And this is something that today’s gospel lessons addresses head on.

In today’s gospel reading we have a run in between a rule breaker and a rule abider who don’t agree on whether a particular rule ought to be obeyed or broken. Jesus has been teaching in the synagogue. Likely the other religious leaders and teachers are watching his every move and hanging on his every word, just waiting to see if he will slip up or create a scene – something he’s becoming known for.

And then it happens. Jesus sees a woman bent over and unable to stand up straight. He calls her over, places his hand on her, and heals her from her ailment. Immediately the woman stands up straight and praises God. You can imagine the murmurs and even cheers that likely erupted, distracting everyone from the carefully planned and prepared worship and teaching time.

The words of praise are no sooner off her lips than the leader of the synagogue interrupts her praise to argue about the rules. ‘There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.’

My little rule-abiding heart sinks a little when we get to this part of the story. Knowing my personality, I would not have been the vocal leader opposing Jesus, but I do wonder if I might have been nodding my head along in agreement. I hope not, but I can’t be so sure; we can’t be so sure. We don’t always get it right – when to follow a rule and when to break it.

Any time you have two or more people in a relationship you need to have rules. Sometimes these rules are just the accepted social norms of how we ought to relate to one another. Things like: making eye contact with the person you are speaking to, saying please and thank you, not sitting right beside someone in a movie theatre unless it’s crowded. And of course, these social rules differ a bit from one culture to the next.

And beyond social norms, we sometimes need more detailed and extensive rules for guiding our relationships. In a congregation for example, we have a constitution and bylaws to govern our life together. In fact, church council has been in the process of approving a new constitution which will be coming to you for review in this fall so stay tuned for that!

Now there are a lot of rules in documents like these – and as anyone who was on the task force reviewing and drafting this new constitution can tell you, it can feel onerous at times going through them all. But it’s important to have documents like these so that as a congregation, as a group of individuals, we can have a clear understanding of roles, and responsibilities, and procedures to guide our common life.

Rules, or commandments, have always been a part of God’s relationship with us. God gave us the ten commandments so that as a community of believers we take care of each other. As someone wise once described the commandments: God loves me so much that God tells my neighbour not to cheat, murder, or steal. And God loves my neighbour so much that God tells me not to cheat, murder, or steal.

Rules, when they’re being applied appropriately, are meant to help all people live their best life. They’re meant to assist members of a community in caring for one another and being cared for in return. But of course, whether it’s a constitution, a social norm, or a religious commandment – they can all become life-denying instead of life-giving. And this seems to be what has happened in this synagogue.

This is in fact the third time in Luke’s gospel that Jesus has healed on the Sabbath. Three times now he has challenged the interpretation of the law that says healing ought not to be done on the Sabbath. And three times he encounters resistance from those who would rather follow the letter of the law than follow the “law of love.”

The reason Jesus continues to heal on the Sabbath in public is that Jesus is determined to get it through people’s heads that the law that trumps all others is the “law of love.” This is a law that overrules all the other laws that limit and restrict our shared humanity. This is a law that overrules any laws that limit and restrict each person’s right to a life marked by love and hope. The law of love demands that a woman who has been bent over for 18 years ought to be freed to stand up straight, no matter what day of the week it is. The law of love demands that each one of us, unique creations and beloved children of God, ought to be free to stand up straight – to be loved and accepted and valued for who we are and what gifts we can offer.

The tricky thing is that it’s not always easy for us to follow the law of love because it’s not the kind of law that gives us clear guidelines to follow in every situation. The law of love is messier than that. The only guideline is that when it comes to deserving love, no one is beyond hope; no one is beyond our compassion. It means knowing that every person is a child of God and is deserving of our love and care and attention. Because as we know, it’s not really our love to give. This is the love that Jesus has first given us; this is Christ’s love that we are called to share.

So this morning, as we rejoice in God’s love for us and for all people, let us also always seek to follow that law of love. May the Spirit guide us and lead our hearts in the way of love that unbinds and frees all people to live their best lives. AMEN
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Sunday August 17, 2025
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/7ppBYmfOvj0

Sermon for the 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, August 17, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Saider

Luke 12:49-56
While it’s so good to be back with you here this Sunday after some time away, while I was sitting with this story this week all I could think was, “I really should have timed my vacation a little better.” This is not the text I want to preach on after a lovely, restful, peaceful time away this summer.

I mean, who is this guy anyway? This guy who’s casting fire upon the earth and bringing division into families and communities?

Where is the Jesus that Luke told us would “guide our feet into the way of peace.” At whose birth the angels sang “Peace on earth!” Who numerous times throughout his ministry offered his listeners words of peace like: “Go in peace and sin no more.” “Peace I leave with you.” “My peace I give to you.” I have told you these things, so that in me you might have peace.”1

As forest fires rage across Canada this summer, our world is already on fire. We have enough of that already, thank you very much Jesus. And divisions? Plenty of those too!

Where is the good news in this teaching?

As I wrestled with this question this week, I was grateful to Bishop Ali Tote, whose reflections on this passage were shared as part of our National Church’s summer sermon series. Bishop Ali, who comes from Cameroon, reminds us that teachings like this mostly just sound like bad news to those who are comfortable in their lives. But to those who are oppressed – to those for whom the “way things are” isn’t so great – Jesus’ promise to upend the ways things are is in fact very good news.

Because if you have a comfortable life. If you have financial security and a safe community to call home, you don’t really need or want that to change. But if you don’t have these things, the promise that the world could be different in a way that would be better for you, that is welcome news!

So it’s worth taking a moment to consider how we understand this Jesus who brings fire and division. Although we might first think of Jesus as a peace-bringer rather than a peace-disturber, this is only because we’ve chosen which parts of the story we want to focus on. This is not the first time in Luke’s gospel that fire has been connected to Jesus. In fact, at the start of his public ministry, John the Baptist warned that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. (Luke 3:16)

We’re often quick to jump to the image of fire as destructive or cataclysmic (which we’re seeing play out in very real and tragic ways in our country right now). Even in light of this painful reality, it’s good to remember that fire is also a source of refinement and purification. Yes, Jesus brings fire, but “the fire Jesus wants to kindle is a fire of change, the fire of God’s active presence in the world.”2 A fire that will purify our hearts and this world from greed and anxious self-preservation.

And from the start, for the reasons already mentioned, this message has stirred conflict and been met with opposition by those with privilege and power. By those who have the good jobs and get to make the rules because they don’t want things to change.

Let’s also be clear that when Jesus says, “I have come not to bring peace, but division,” he’s simply naming the reality of his experience. Jesus’ purpose isn’t to bring conflict or division. This has just been the response to his message. As some people respond and join along, others have chosen not to, and this has brought division – among families, among communities, between friends.

But even in the face of resistance and opposition, Jesus remains urgent about his mission. Jesus knows how desperately transformation and love and grace are needed in this world, despite the cost. He is not about to turn back now, even though he knows where this path will ultimately lead him. Even though he knows that this resistance and rejection will lead to his crucifixion, which he powerfully refers to in this teaching as a ‘baptism.’

This is the act of self-giving love in which we lay our hope. The promise that God so desperately wants this world to know the gift of abounding and abiding love, that God, in Jesus, would die for this good and blessed creation. To reveal the folly of human ways and transform this pain into life for our sake.

As we receive this teaching from Jesus this day, we’re confronted with the same urgent question. Will we too follow Jesus down this path of love and transformation, even when it asks us to give up some of our comfort? Even when it leads to division? Will we follow in Jesus’ way to stand with the oppressed and vulnerable among us, even when others disagree or refuse to listen?

Like the Good Samaritan Jesus talked about, will we risk our time, our personal safety, share our resources to help those in need, even our enemies. Like the great cloud of witnesses we hear about from the author of Hebrews, will we open our hearts and wills to align with God’s purposes, even when it comes at personal cost to us?

In those moments when we’re just not quite sure if we can (or perhaps more truthfully, if we want to), it’s good to remember that none of us walk this path alone.

So then, with endurance, let us also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. He endured the cross, ignoring the shame, for the sake of the joy that was laid out in front of him, and sat down at the right side of God’s throne. Thanks be to God for this beautiful gift. Amen.

1 Debi Thomas - https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2305-disturbing-the-peace
2 Matt Skinner https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-20-3/commentary-on-luke-1249-56-4

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Sunday August 10, 2025
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/V1EK43XPJG8

Sermon for Sunday August 10, 2025
Written and Preached by Lay Worship Leader Lorre Calder
St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Luke 12:32-40

My dear friends,
‘Don’t be afraid.’ OK, I guess that says it all. I’m done here. Of course, I’m kidding. There’s so much more here in our lessons today, but the admonition to not fear, to not be afraid, is the thread that runs through our entire service today.  Borrowing Bishop Carla’s words from last Sunday, ‘How are you doing with that?’ Because I can tell you, speaking for myself, fear has been a constant in my life and I’m thinking I’m not alone in saying that.

We all live with fear. We have all felt afraid of something or someone. It is unrealistic to say we have not felt fear, no matter how deep or strong our faith may be. We can overcome our fears, but I really don’t think it’s realistic to expect any of us to live without fear at all. And, I could be wrong, but I don’t think that God or Jesus expect us to. I’m no theologian, but I think our lessons as well as other places in the bible where we are told to not be afraid, tell us that we should not let our fears cripple us. We should never fail to do what is right or what is just, simply because we are afraid.

Janis and I have two cats. Roxy is what we call our Ghost Kitty. She hides when anyone comes into the house that isn’t either Janis or me. She runs when there are sudden loud noises or unexpected movements, and she hates the sound of my keys. She has a couple of special hiding spots in the house and when she feels like the coast is clear, she will make her way out, but not a second before that.

Our other cat, Piper, who both Sandra and Joanne have met, is just the opposite. She’s not afraid of anything. Well except the vacuum cleaner and any workers who come to the house. She’s usually nose-first into anything we bring home, anything we are trying to do, and thinks that she’s the boss of the house. There’s a popular meme on the internet that shows a kitten looking into a puddle and seeing the reflection of a full-grown tiger looking back. I’m sure that’s Piper. She sees herself as very fierce, even though by size, she’s not a very big cat.

When I was a kid, we lived outside of Preston on Speedsville Road, just past where Lisaard House is now. Back then, that was considered, ‘out in the country’. There were groupings of small forests around that kept us occupied for hours during the days when we weren’t in school. We knew that other animals also lived there as well and we didn’t venture into those woods at night. Racoons, skunks, and snakes, all lived there too, and depending how close to water the trees were, you might find an occasional beaver. Those animals would venture out at night and we could hear them rustling around outside our house after we went to bed. The thought of them being there didn’t bother me too much until we learned all about rabies in school one year and then I imagined that every wild animal might have rabies and they might fight with our neighbourhood cats and dogs and infect them with the dreaded rabies virus. It caused a lot of fear in me when I was young and I had a really hard time getting to sleep as I heard the normal rustlings of the outdoor animals at night. I was afraid. Terrified, in fact. And so I took to repeating over and over, ‘don’t be afraid…don’t be afraid…don’t be afraid.’ Eventually, I’d fall asleep. Until my eyes fell shut, I’d also stare at the bookmark with the title Bedtime Prayer Reminder on my wall that I am sure I got in Sunday School, that had a nifty ‘glow-in-the-dark’ cross on it. Maybe you had one like it, too. Mine was the one with the picture of Jesus with the purple fake-felt behind the cross. I stared at it each night, because it made me feel safe, and I could get to sleep. 

Fear can be very real. There are all kinds of scientific names for the things folks are afraid of. Arachnophobia, fear of spiders; Agoraphobia, fear of leaving the house; and a whole list of other phobias from fear of food, to fear of air, to fear of gravity. These fears are actual medical conditions requiring medical and therapeutic intervention. The lives of people who suffer from these kinds of phobias are forever changed and we need to understand that just telling them to ‘suck it up’ isn’t helpful and it doesn’t work. Don’t be afraid, do not fear. Maybe the words of Jesus in these kinds of cases is to encourage these folks to not be afraid to seek help. I really believe that God gifted doctors and scientists to help with the illnesses and conditions we face as human beings. We may not all receive earthly cures, but God’s perfect healing is there for all of us.

I knew someone whose children were pretty shielded from the news when they were young but there was one time when they did watch something about a missing child and they too experienced nightmares and difficulty sleeping. Their mother was at some type of market that sold Indigenous Dream Catchers. She had the kids each pick one out, they talked about how they worked and hung them over each of their beds. It wasn’t long before the kids were no longer afraid to go to sleep, and when they did, there were no nightmares. That is, until a well-meaning, but narrow-minded relative told the kids that the Dream Catchers weren’t real and that all they needed was to pray to God. My friend was pretty frustrated by the interference, as you can imagine. Because God can use anything including wonderful Indigenous Dream Catchers to help achieve sleep for troubled children.

Don’t be afraid, do not fear. Fear is used by politicians to scare citizens into voting a certain way, usually in order to divide rather than unite people. They tend to create fear and stoke it in order to make people afraid of anyone or anything different than themselves. We need to be aware of this when it comes time to vet those asking for our votes. Are you stirring up fear in people or are you working to bring folks together? God does not intend for us to live in fear. That is evident by the fact that more than 100 times in the bible, there is some variation of the encouragement to not be afraid.

As I said earlier, fear can cripple us from action, from making decisions, from following Jesus. Fear can stop women from reporting sexual assaults, children from telling adults about abuse, spouses from reporting domestic violence. The threat of retribution is very real and is used to throw fear around someone’s feet like a chain and make that person unable to move beyond their situation.

Fear can stop us from working for good and bettering society. We might be afraid to take part in a march or demonstration for righteous causes like climate change, Black Lives Matter, 2SLGBTQIA+ rights or even our very democracy for fear of being arrested, ridiculed, or injured. Those fears are real, and they are fair.

Fear can stop us from bettering ourselves, leaving an unhappy or abusive marriage, asking for a raise that matches our value, changing a career, or going back to school. A lot can be at stake in these situations especially if families are involved. Economic and practical considerations need to be factored in to these decisions, and fear can stop the decision-making process before it even gets started.

Fear can cause parents to limit their children’s’ activities because they might get hurt, they might mix with kids that come from different or more diverse backgrounds, or develop interests that take them beyond the safe space created by their home environment.

Do not be afraid. It’s not too realistic, is it? I’m afraid of lots of things. A healthy fear can keep us safe. I’m not going to walk through a rattlesnake pit, and I’m not going to walk through a dark alley late at night by myself if I can help it, and I’m afraid enough of getting hurt or sick that I’m not going to disregard instructions, directions, and labels. These are good fears. The definition of courage is ‘the ability to do something that frightens me.’ Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr said, ‘Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.’

What we cannot do, is let fear dictate our lives and stop us from living it to the full potential God has in store for each of us. We need to move beyond the things we fear and make a difference in our own lives, in the lives of those who need help, and in our community. We may not know how we can move beyond the unknown, but with God’s help, we can do it. Our lesson from Hebrews tells us, ‘By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out without knowing where he was going.’

We also heard, ‘faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.’ Fear is real. What we feel when we are afraid is real. We don’t know the future, but if we stay stuck in fear, we will never know that true peace that God promises. We can and should remind ourselves each and every day that God tells us not to be afraid, and can and should stand on the promise that God will be with us during those times when we feel afraid.  Our gospel this morning also told us to ‘Be dressed for service and keep your lamps lit.’ We cannot do that if we live in a constant state of fear. Can we take one step, and then another, and then another to move beyond whatever any of us might be dealing with in our own lives?

As I said, I am not a theologian and this is my own take on our readings today. But I take comfort in Jesus telling us not to be afraid. I take great comfort in God’s promise to Abram, because God told Abram, ‘I am your protector’. Let’s hold onto that as we step beyond those things that make us afraid. God is with us. Do not fear. Do not be afraid. OK, I guess that says it all. Now I’m done here. Amen.

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Sunday August 3, 2025
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/tgpquOf0s_E

Sunday August 3, 2025
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Guest Pastor: Bishop Carla Blakley
Luke 12: 13-21

Bishop Carla does not preach from a prepared text, so there is no sermon to post this week. However, she did use the following children’s book to illustrate, in part, her sermon: ‘Old Turtle’, by Douglas Wood, and illustrated by Cheng-Khee Chee. It is a wonderful story, so if you have children or grandchildren, or just love a good story with a message for yourself, this book is highly recommended!

Sunday July 27, 2025
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/6l1rGkDxlnw

St. Peter’s Lutheran Church,
Cambridge, ON
July 27, 2025
Rev. Monika Wiesner

Luke 11:1-13
The Lord’s Prayer
He 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.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name.
   Your kingdom come.
   Give us each day our daily bread.
   And forgive us our sins,
     for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
   And do not bring us to the time of trial.’

Perseverance in Prayer
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; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” 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.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

‘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. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? 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!’

Sermon
The writer of Luke’s gospel gives more attention to Jesus’ teachings on prayer than any other gospel writer.  He also mentions Jesus at prayer more often.  In today’s reading, the disciples ask Jesus to teach them about prayer … and Jesus teaches them what we now call the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father … and then he shares a parable about a persistent neighbour … and promises us that God hears our prayers.

What brought all this on, do you think?   I suspect the disciples had noticed that Jesus frequently went off by himself to pray to his Abba … and I imagine he returned more peaceful, more grounded.   They ask him to teach them how to pray.  Remarkable, really, as Jewish people had scripted prayers for every possible occasion and would have prayed several times a day already.   So Jesus teaches them a new prayer, a prayer that is familiar to all of us 2000 years later.

This morning I’d like us to take a closer look at the prayer itself. 

Have you ever noticed that there is nothing particularly “Christian” about the Lord’s Prayer?  Several years ago, the decision was made to remove the Lord’s Prayer in public places and in the schools because we wanted to be more respectful of other faith traditions … and rightly so.   But have you ever taken a closer look at the Lord’s Prayer?  What exactly is so distinctly “Christian” about it?   Jesus isn’t mentioned … the Trinity isn’t mentioned … no crucifixion or resurrection or anything Jesus said or did.   There is no mention of a virgin birth or of any miracles Jesus performed or parables he told.   The only thing, really, that makes the prayer “Christian” is simply the fact that only Christians pray it!

Somewhere it is written that the prayer of any religion should be a prayer that can be said – meaningfully – by a member of another religion.  I believe that is true of the Lord’s Prayer.  It’s our greatest prayer, absolutely, yet it could be prayed by a Jew, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Hindu or a Taoist.   Why?   Because in the Lord’s Prayer we’re praying for a better world for all of us!   We begin by praying that God’s name will be recognized as holy … “hallowed be thy name” … and then go straight to “thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it [already] is in heaven”.   In other words, we are praying that God’s dream for our world will become a reality.   And what is God’s dream for the world?   Two things – lasting peace for everyone; and food for everyone.   Lasting peace for everyone, not just for the military victors.  And food for everyone, not just the chosen few.

One of my favourite theologians, John Dominic Crossan, when speaking about the kingdom of God here on earth, likes to say, “Heaven’s in great shape; it’s here on earth where the problems are.”   In his book, “The Greatest Prayer”, Crossan calls the prayer a “revolutionary manifesto … and a hymn of hope”.[1]  He says that the Lord’s Prayer is revolutionary because it proclaims that radical vision of distributive justice that is – and has always been – at the core of Israel’s sacred scriptures … at the very heart of Judaism.  Remember all the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures that encourage us to care for the widow and the orphan and the stranger?   It’s God’s very clear command that we’re to care for all who are vulnerable in our society.  That’s what this prayer is all about! 

So what would this look like, do you think, in 1st Century Palestine?  We know the Jewish people were living under Roman oppression.  Most of their food – their grains and even the fish from the Sea of Galilee – went to the Romans in the form of taxation, while their own children often went to bed hungry at night.   

So … Jesus would paint word pictures to help people understand.  Throughout all four gospels, we find Jesus imaging God as a great householder.  (That’s an image that any Palestinian farmer would have readily understood.)   So … a word picture:  If you walked onto a farmer’s property, how would you judge the householder?  Are the fields and the vineyards well-tended?  Are the animals properly fed and housed?  Are the children well fed, clothed, and properly sheltered?  Are the sick given special care?  Are responsibilities and workloads divided fairly?   Do all have enough?  More than anything else, do all have enough food for the day?

It is this vision of a well-run household that is at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer.  Today, since our worldview extends beyond just our own surroundings, we can say that God is the “householder” of our entire global community.   And that invites us to ask … do all of God’s children have enough?   What do we do with the knowledge that each and every day, some 10,000 children around the world die of starvation or starvation related illnesses?   This equates to 3.1 million child deaths annually.   What does “give us this day our daily bread” mean when we hear of hunger and starvation in such massive numbers?   Does our global household look like the kingdom of God here on earth?   Because this is what lies at the heart of the Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples. 

Today God’s household would include Mother Earth.  Have we cared for our Mother the Earth justly … or kindly … or lovingly?   The Lord’s Prayer holds up a mirror, so that we can see clearly that change is desperately needed.   It reflects a truth that we may not wish to see because it hurts too much to see so much suffering in our world today. 

One of the things I learned from my Jesuit friends at Loyola House is that when we recognize something that causes us sorrow and even shame, we are to recognize this as a grace.  It shows us our need for God … and it invites us to ask God, “What is mine to do?”   What is mine to do here?   We take this sorrow … and this question, “what is mine to do?” to God in prayer.  We pray into our pain … and then listen for God to speak.   This is why Crossan also calls this a “hymn of hope”.   We seek from God and we knock on that door!

Sometimes the concerns of the world could truly overwhelm us … and that can leave us paralyzed.   But when we take that one little question to God in prayer – “What is mine to do here?” – we discover that working together with God becomes more manageable.  And that’s how we begin building the kingdom of God here on earth … one prayer at a time.

Amen

May the peace of God that is truly beyond all human understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.    Amen

[1] Crossan, John Dominic:  “The Greatest Prayer”

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Sunday July 20, 2025
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/F_ufI3iIDlk

Luke 10:38-42
July 20, 2025
Rev. Monika Wiesner

Jesus Visits Martha and Mary
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But 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.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.

Sermon:

When I was a member of the more conservative branch of the Lutheran Church, a leader in our women’s group once invited us to consider the question, “Are you a Martha … or are you a Mary?” … as if this story was about the character of either woman.  But I doubt that the writer of Luke’s gospel would have wasted parchment and quill in order to write a story about two women squabbling over kitchen duty. J  Obviously, this is about something else entirely. 

This morning’s gospel reading is part of the story you would have heard last Sunday.      A young man comes to Jesus and asks him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And Jesus responds, “Love God with all your heart … and love your neighbour as yourself.”   Jesus then tells these two stories: 

The first is the story of the Good Samaritan, told to expand people’s understanding of “who is my neighbour?”  It’s told to show us that “love of neighbour” is a call to widen our circle of caring so that ultimately it includes everyone … no matter what. 

The second story is about two sisters.  We see Martha in her gender-approved role … she’s doing precisely what her culture requires her to do … she’s in the kitchen; and she’s practising hospitality, which her faith tradition requires of her.  She’s the “good” sister in the culture of her day.

Mary, on the other hand, is sitting at Jesus’ feet.  Now to sit at the feet of a rabbi was a sign of deep respect.  Rabbinical students traditionally sat at the feet of the rabbi.  There’s just one little problem …

You see, within Judaism, there is a book called the Mishnah that contains a collection of legal rulings and practices found within Judaism at that time.  In the Mishnah, it is written, “Let they house be a meeting house for the Sages”, (the sages were the wisest of all rabbis), “and sit amid the dust of their feet and drink in their words with thirst … [but] … talk not much with womankind.”   There it is, the fly in the ointment.  Sitting at the feet of a rabbi was a privilege accorded only to males.  Sitting at Jesus’ feet was, therefore, forbidden to Mary.  Instead of working in the kitchen, in her gender-approved role, she inserts herself into quite possibly a roomful of men, all sitting at Jesus’ feet to learn from him … and in doing so, she violates the very clear social and religious boundaries of her day.

So why does Jesus say the exact opposite?  Why does he say, “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her?”

In both stories, the Good Samaritan and this story about Mary, Jesus invites his listeners to move beyond legalism … and to respond with their hearts.  To respond as Jesus himself would have responded.    What we see here is called a “reversal”.   A “reversal” is God’s way of saying, “your way is not my way”.  It means having to turn our cultural expectations and sometimes even our religious traditions upside down … in order to actually be faithful to God!  

“Love God above all else.”  That’s what Mary symbolizes in this story.

These are not empty words!  If we look back over just the last century, staying faithful to that gospel message, loving God above all else, has brought about changes that have transformed our society … and our church.

In our own lifetime, we have seen these “reversals” lived out in both church and culture … people choosing to embody God’s love for the world by turning cultural and religious traditions upside down.

Segregation in the United States.  It took a person like Martin Luther King, Jr. (and his followers) to show us that all people have been created in God’s own image.  And some forty years later that country had a black president.

In our own lifetime … and in our own Church … we witnessed and participated in the “reversal” that took place when the ELCIC began ordaining women.  This month our church celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ordination of women … and I believe our church is better for it.

In our own lifetime … and in our own Church … we witnessed and participated in the “reversal” that took place when on July 16, 2011, our own ELCIC at National Convention approved a social statement on human sexuality that changed the spiritual life of our church forever.  And we are so much the better for it!

This is Mary sitting at the feet of her rabbi!  This is what loving God above all else looks like!   It takes courage … and humility … to listen to Jesus’ words … and then to embody them, to let them trickle from the head to the heart … and then to show up in our world as the transformed people of God.   We are the loved … and the loving … people of God!   How can we live in any other way?

Today’s gospel story invites us to ponder what “reversals” we might wish to embody, in light of today’s political and social situations in our global community.  There is such a deep need!   How can we be a part of these “reversals”?   How can ours be the Jesus-way of showing up in a world that is hurting so much?   Each one of us will answer differently.

May God grant us the courage and humility to love God so deeply … and to show compassion for our neighbour so generously.     Amen

May the peace of God, that is truly beyond our human understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen

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Sunday July 13, 2025
Creation Series-Devastation and Renewal

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/GFaGAXrtw90

Sermon for the 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Creation Series Week 5 – Devastation & Renewal (Leviticus 26: 3-22, 34-35, 40-42)

This weekend my family and I went to see the newest movie in the Jurassic Park franchise: Jurassic World Rebirth. This is the 7th movie in this franchise series, set in this fictional reality where humans have figured out how to bring dinosaurs back to life. If you’ve seen any of the movies in this franchise, you will know that this never ends well for the humans.

And while these are action movies with relatively thin plot lines, they do always include an important message: things don’t end well because humans have messed with things they have no right messing with (e.g., the laws of nature). Humans think they understand how this all works, but they never have the full picture. In theological terms, we might say it’s because they’ve broken the covenant by putting themselves in God’s place.

The theme of covenant is an important one in the Bible. After the Great Flood, where things had gotten so bad that God saw no other option but to wipe it all out and start again, God realized this wasn’t a workable solution for this creation that God so loves. And so God made a promise to never do that again. God offers this gift of covenant – this mutually agreed upon commitment to honour and love one another – God with humankind and humankind with God.

Over time, this covenant relationship began to include rules to help the humans keep their end of the covenant. Rules to help us honour God, honour one another, and honour the whole of creation. The foundational rules are what we know as the Ten Commandments. These commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai at a time when the covenant was needing to be renewed. And along with those ten commandments, many more rules were included, which is what is recorded in the book of Leviticus.

Chances are you’ve never heard a sermon on a passage from Leviticus. I’ve certainly never preached one before today. And yet, especially after spending some time with this particular passage this week, I realize that by entirely ignoring this book, we’ve maybe thrown the baby out with the bathwater.

While there are many rules in Leviticus that don’t make sense for Christians or for modern people in general because they’re about ancient Jewish faith practices, the very reason this book exists is relevant to us.

These laws were given to the newly freed Israelite slaves. In this covenant and through these laws, God is giving the people a new story to live by. A new story that requires a radical shift in their perspective. They are no longer slaves, bound to Pharoah’s rules. They now have the freedom to live as God’s people. And part of this freedom means living by God’s rules instead of Pharaoh’s. Living by rules that don’t just serve one powerful person but living by rules that serve the good of the community.

If we look at the Ten Commandments, which are the rules from this covenant that are most familiar to us, these commandments are given so that neighbours look out for one another. So that selfishness is kept in check. So that human arrogance and ego is kept in check.

And when we look at our passage for this morning, there is a similar thing at play here. God presents us with this view that if you do what you’re supposed to do, all the rest with do their part. God has set up creation as a system that cares for itself, but if one part doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, there are consequences. In the fictional world of Jurassic, dinosaurs will eat you. In this real world, you will face human strife and ecological crisis.

Reading this passage as part of a creation series, it’s hard not to see the current climate crisis as a consequence of human failure to live within the limits of the system God has created. We have pushed the system beyond what the system can bear. We have been living by a story that says all of this is for human benefit, rather than the story that says it’s not all about us.

The author of Leviticus presents the consequences as God’s actions, but when we look at the ecological devastation around us, we know that these are things we have done to ourselves. We have broken the covenant with God and with the land.

This is the story of Lake Chad. “The Lake Chad area once supported millions of people with its rich water resources, but the lake has shrunk by 90% since the 1960s, primarily due to climate change, unsustainable water use, and deforestation.

As the lake recedes, many families struggle to find enough water for daily use —whether it’s for crops, livestock, or personal consumption. Women and girls, in particular, bear the brunt of this burden, as they are traditionally responsible for fetching water, often travelling long distances in dangerous conditions. This puts them at risk of gender-based violence. The lack of clean water means not only thirst, but also increased disease, as families are forced to drink from contaminated sources. Livelihoods connected to water, such as fishing and farming, are also directly impacted, making life increasingly precarious.”1 Conflicts arise, as farmers and herders compete for land and access to water.

It’s not just about damage to the land. The knock-on effects are economic, political, social. And of course, Lake Chad isn’t the only ecosystem in the world threatened in this way. But it is an ecosystem that tens of millions of people rely upon for their very lives. Which is why CLWR has taken up this cause, among their other projects.

Global problems require global responses. Which is why it’s important for us to work together. And we can feel good about supporting this particular project because is has been designed “through consultation with hundreds of families in Cameroon and Chad, and will be carried out alongside thousands of local farmers as we restore land, reforest, push adoption of sustainable farming and water management practices, and include voices that have been left out.”2 So often we’ve gotten ourselves into these problems because we Westerners in particular think we know better than others.

$50 will help preserve one acre of land, thanks to matching grants from the Canadian government, and as a congregation we’ve set a goal of preserving 20 acres. We hope you will join us this work as you can. Every little bit makes a difference.

It can be hard to find hope some days for creation. But hope isn’t just something we feel, it’s something we do, together. We keep on planting the seeds that will renew the covenant with the land because this is what God asks of us. And because even when we might doubt whether it’s making enough difference, we also know that change will only come as individuals and small groups of people begin to live the change that we know is needed.

As we wrap up this creation series, please continue to remember…

That you belong to this good creation.
That you have a place in this good creation, but it’s not all about you either.
That this creation is our family (plants, animals, water, air, people – are our kin).
And that we cannot save what we don’t love; what we don’t have a relationship with.

Even when we might struggle to find hope for a way out of the climate crisis, we don’t look away or give up because this good creation matters to God. This earth matters to God.

Due to my vacation schedule, we had to shorten this creation series by one week. Which means there is one other Bible story we didn’t have time for, Ezekiel 47:1-12. This passage tells a story of God bringing a great river to renew the land and her people. This river that flows from the temple, bringing life and healing for all of creation. This isn’t a promise of healing that, to borrow the words of hymnwriter Marty Haugen, will come in “some heaven light years away,” but here in this place.

So often in the Christian tradition, we have been guilty of undervaluing the importance of this earth by placing more importance on what will happen after we die. But I hope that after this series, you can see how we have these stories throughout the Bible that tell us just how much God loves this earth, and how much God wants us to live well within this good earth.

Forest fires, floods, heat waves, melting glaciers and ice caps – the earth is calling us to remember the covenant. God is calling us to remember the covenant. We can trust that God will do God’s part – bringing renewal, bringing life, bringing healing – because this is what God has promised. May we find the find the courage and the creativity to do part as well. AMEN.

1 CLWR “Friends of Creation” Worship Resource for “Climate + Water”
2 https://www.clwr.org/foc-about

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Sunday July 6, 2025
Creation Series--More-Than-Human Others

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/bCS9l9YqVp4

Sermon for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Creation Series Week 4 – ‘More-Than-Human Others’1 (Psalm 104:1-31)
This summer, I have a super healthy volunteer sunflower growing in my garden. It was a lovely surprise to have it show up. The other day, though, I noticed something was munching on it. After a close inspection, all I could see on the plant were some black ants and one curious looking little insect that I couldn’t identify. It was about ¼ of an inch long, reddish/brown with a little beige, and from the side profile I could see two distinct humps. It almost like a piece of leaf debris rather than an insect, and my curiosity was piqued. My various attempts at googling came up empty and I eventually had a to take a picture of it and put the photo into google image search. Immediately an answer popped up: it was a keeled treehopper, or entylia carinata.

I was also amazed to learn that Keeled Treehopper has a symbiotic relationship with Ant (which explains why there were also so many ants on the sunflower). Apparently, Ant likes to eat the honeydew that Treehopper excretes (which is really just a fancy word for poop!). As Keeled Treehopper feeds on the sweet leaves of my sunflower, she excretes/poops out carbohydrate-rich honeydew which, as one website described, is like manna for Ant.2

Isn’t creation wild and wonderful!? There are so many amazing creatures in this world that are just waiting for us to slow down, pay attention, and notice them. And thankfully it sounds Keeled Treehopper isn’t typically all that destructive, so I’ve been quite content to let her be as she enjoys her brief life on that volunteer sunflower (although just yesterday I noticed two more on the sunflower, so it’s now a time of waiting to see how many treehoppers Sunflower can sustain).

I can’t help but think that whoever wrote Psalm 104 was well also practiced in the art of noticing the world around them. This psalm paints a stunning picture of a wondrous, intricate, and utterly delightful world in which all of the pieces have a role to play.

Reading these words, you can’t help but see that the author of Psalm 104 was someone who delighted in creation, and who also saw God taking delight in this creation. I love how the psalmist talks about creation as if it’s God’s playground. In the opening verses they paint this picture of God wearing a cape made of light, surfing through the skies, riding on the wind. And God is not some being who created the whole thing and then stepped back. In Psalm 104, we see God actively engaged in the ongoing life of creation – watering, growing plants, giving food to the creatures, bringing darkness each night. In this view of creation, God is a busy bee!

Psalm 104 looks at the big picture of creation. And while we’re paying special attention to the animals today (the more-than-human others), the psalmist paints this picture of the interdependence and interconnectedness of all of it – the sky, the waters, and the animals.

And of course, humans have a place in this delightful creation. Although we’re clearly not the main attraction. In this poem, humans get a mention just about halfway through. We humans have a place in this creation – but it’s important to note that it doesn’t start with us or end with us. It’s a similar point of view that we saw in our reading from Job on week 2, where humans have a place in creation but it’s not all about us. We just play one role in this intricate web of creation.

And what is really neat about Psalm 104, is that when we take a look at the part that is about us, it’s clear that creation is intended to not only provide for our needs but also for our delight. The psalmist tells us that has given, “plants for human farming; wine, which cheers people’s hearts; oil, which makes the face shine; and bread, which sustains the human heart.” Creation provides necessities; creation also provides joy.

Throughout this psalm it is made clear that joy, delight, playfulness, allurement, is woven into every part of creation. And yet, when many of us today look at creation, in this era of climate crisis, rather than seeing joy, we see what is being lost.

We see ecosystems disrupted and destroyed. Our animal kin, becoming endangered or extinct. The dramatic decline of insect populations in the last couple of decades. It’s a heavy thing to realise how much has been lost in our lifetime. And how slow we are to do much of anything about it. How hellbent we still are on maintaining these lifestyles that are killing the planet.

When we talk about creation and the climate these days, this is often where the conversation ends up. Feelings of grief, anger, guilt, fear, shame because the enormity and gravity of the situation quickly makes us feel helpless. And it’s really important to be able to name and express these painful feelings. Because ignoring them or pushing them down will not make them go away.

And, this is also why it’s so crucial to slow down, pay attention, and notice the joy of creation that is yet all around us. Because in spite of all that we are losing, this world is still astoundingly delightful. God has woven ingenuity, wisdom, and beauty into every inch of creation. And if we have any hope of saving this home, we need to let ourselves fall in love with it again and again and again.

Photographer Joel Sartore says, “We won’t save what we don’t love, and we won’t fall in love if we don’t connect.”3 Joel Sartore leads The Photo Ark, a National Geographic project to document every living species in captivity. The goal of this project is to wake us up to life vanishing before our eyes and to prompt us to act while there’s still time for some of them. So far, they have documented 16,000 species!4

“We won’t save what we don’t love, and we won’t fall in love if we don’t connect.” If we want to save this planet and its’ ecosystems and creatures, it begins with delighting in the world around us. It begins by seeing the inherent worth in all of creation, and not simply what creation can do for us. Which is why over these past four weeks we’ve been doing just that: delighting in the wonders of God’s good creation. Remembering our place of original belonging. Remembering the gifts of sky, water, and the more-than-human others. Remembering our right-relationship with the earth.

Of course action is needed too! But for our actions to be sustainable, they need to be grounded in our love for and relationship with this living creation.

When it comes to taking action, as a congregation we will be taking part in Canadian Lutheran World Relief’s brand new “Friends of Creation” campaign (https://www.clwr.org/foc). This campaign seeks to raise awareness and funds to help with the restoration of the Lake Chad catchment area. This is the largest inland water basin in Africa. but it has shrunk by 90% since 1963 and continues shrinking, due to both local human activity—like deforestation and unsustainable water use—and global climate effects, like shorter rainy seasons.

There is a link in the announcement sheet to our congregation’s online donation page (https://clwr.org/splccambridge), and in our worship next week we will spend time learning about the need and this project in more depth.

And in the meantime, my invitation for you this week is a simple one: Spend some time outside with the intention of noticing the beauty and joy and wonder that is woven through creation. Let yourself be drawn to a particular being or place and take some time to simply in delight in them. And as you do, may you find yourself falling in love with God’s delightful and wondrous creation all over again. For God intends this creation for joy. May it be so. AMEN.

1 In our theme time, we introduced this title as an alternative name for the creatures/animals we share this earth with. Rather than saying ‘non-human,’ the title ‘more-than-human’ is a way of acknowledging the inherent value of all beings and decentring humans as the norm.
2 https://bugoftheweek.com/blog/2017/9/28/deception-and-defense-on-cup-plant-keel-shaped-treehopper-ientylia-carinatai
3 https://www.changemakertalent.com/speakers/joel-sartore
4 https://www.nationalgeographic.org/society/our-programs/photo-ark/

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Sunday June 29, 2025
Creation Series-Water

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/m4XdQ7Zl-20

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Creation Series Week 3 – Water (Psalm 65)
When I was in university, I had a summer job working at a Lutheran Bible camp in northern Saskatchewan (or at least what we southerners call north – actually about the mid point of the province). As part of our staff training each year, we would take a trip to the “real north” to a place called Otter Rapids, north of LaRonge, in the Canadian shield, to do some canoeing on the Churchill River (for team building and for fun).

This was my first experience running rapids – which we would do in canoes but also just floating down in lifejackets. Let me tell you, this is still one of the most thrilling things I’ve done in my life. Otter Rapids are a class 3 rapid, which means there are some big waves and some sections you really want to avoid. It also means it’s a whole lot of fun to run!

Thinking back to this time, I realize I have experienced first-hand the power of water, but never did I consider the possibility that the river might have a life of its own. And yet, this is precisely how many indigenous people view bodies of water. Like the Magpie River in Quebec, for example. The first river in Canada to be granted legal personhood.

The Magpie River is a nearly 300-kilometre-long waterway that is sacred to the Innu First Nation. For centuries they’ve depended on it as a highway, a food source, and a natural pharmacy, but in recent years it’s been threatened by hydroelectric dam development. And so, to protect the river and its surrounding ecosystem, in 2021 the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the regional municipal council of Minganie declared the Magpie River a person with its own rights.1 Using a Western legal framework, this move recognizes that the river has an intrinsic right to exist outside of its relationship to humans.

While the Magpie is the first river in Canada to be granted legal personhood, rivers in other parts of the world have also been given similar status thanks to the work of indigenous communities.

In an indigenous view of the world, aliveness is not something that is unique to humans. In many indigenous cultures around the world, animals, trees, plants, rivers, sky, even stones are understood to be sentient.

But the idea of a river being a person can be a tricky thing for Westerners to get their minds around. A worldview that understands the whole world as alive is unfamiliar to many of us. In fact, you may have been taught at some point that such a worldview is not Christian. That to view the rest of creation as alive is a slippery slope that leads to worshiping creation and this is dangerous.

But is it actually true that the aliveness of creation isn’t Biblical? I wonder, what might Psalm 65 have to say about this?

Psalm 65 is a song of praise and affirmation of God’s goodness for all of creation (which includes humans). It beautifully weaves human activity (esp. worship) with the activity of the rest of creation.

We see that the God who meets us in the Temple (the God who meets us here in worship at the font and in the meal), is the same God whose presence reaches to the far edges of the earth. For God, there is no boundary between humans and creation.

We see that God who calms the seas and the waves, at the same time also calms the people (noisy nations). The seas, waves, and people are on equal footing in God’s eyes. You might even say that humans and waters are treated like siblings in this psalm – both need God’s calming presence.

And we see that meadowlands and valleys can shout for joy and break out in song! A Western worldview tends to read verses like this as metaphor, but what if they’re not? What if the psalmist is telling us that all of God’s creation – the plants, the animals, the land, the waters – are indeed also alive. That they have their own agency, their own calling, their own understanding of God. That meadows and valleys can praise God!

At the heart of Psalm 65’s vision of abundance is water. Water is this abundant gift from God that is intended for the blessing of all creation.

We know how precious water is. We know that life could not exist on this planet without water. And while Psalm 65 presents this idyllic image of the abundance of water in God’s creation, our lived reality is that water doesn’t always show up in the ways we wish it would or need it to. Some places in the world are overwatered. Some places in the world are underwatered.2 And this is becoming more frequent, more extreme with climate change. And that’s a heavy truth to hold.

In facing the enormity of the climate crisis, I wonder whether one place to start might be to take more seriously this indigenous worldview (which is also a Biblical worldview) that sees the rest of creation as also alive.

To remember and recover the stories in our own tradition that recognize the aliveness of creation. Stories that recognize our kinship relationship with creation – like our sibling the water! Or Sister water, as St Francis calls her in his medieval poem “Canticle of the Sun,” a version of which we will sing in just a few moments as our hymn of the day.

How might this understanding change the way we treat the world around us?

One thing that would shift is that like those who fought for the rights of the Magpie River, we too would see the world around us not as objects to exploit, but as persons to protect. In a worldview that sees the whole world as alive, the climate crisis – the extreme floods and droughts and storms – are a cry for help.

I have another invitation for you this week: when you spend some time outside this week, look at the world around you through the eyes of the psalmist that see meadowlands and valleys shout for joy and sing. Consider how all the beings in nature around you have their own agency and life. How each one has their own calling and relationship with the Divine. How all of these wondrous beings are communicating with one another through calls, songs, mycelial networks, and in other more mysterious ways. Let yourself be open to the possibility that they may be longing to communicate with you too!

Gracious God, give us ears to hear the songs and shouts of all our relations so that with the psalmist, we too might see a world that is precious to you, fully alive and in need of our attention. Amen.

1 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/these-rivers-are-now-considered-people-what-does-that-mean-for-travelers
2 BibleWormPodcast, Episode 544 CREATION CARE Week 3: God’s Stream Full of Water (Psalm 65), May 26, 2024

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Sunday June 22, 2025
Creation Series-Sky

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/Qd2VLkLArSs

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Creation Series Week 2 – Sky (Job 38:4-38)
The book of Job tells the story of a man by the same name. And it’s important to emphasize that this is a story. While some parts of the Bible are historical, the book of Job is not one of those parts. Set in the fictional land of Uz, the book of Job is a meditation on the problem of suffering. It wrestles with that age old question: why do bad things happen to good people.

And if there’s one thing you need to know about Job, Job is good people. In fact, Job is said to be the most righteous person who ever lived. And then the worst imaginable happens to him. He loses his livelihood, his home, his health, and even his family.

No one – not he or his friends – can make sense of how so much tragedy could befall one person, especially Job! Incredibly, through all his suffering, Job doesn’t curse God. But neither does Job let God off the hook. Job demands an answer from God as to why God has allowed Job to suffer so greatly.

So what does Job’s story have to do with creation? Well after 37 long chapters, God finally responds to Job’s pleas with the passage we just read together. To Job’s question of human suffering, God responds by telling… a creation story. Makes total sense, right? Job demands God answer for what has befallen him, and God’s waxes poetic about the wildness and freedom and beauty of the created order. About the seasons, the elements, the creatures. And at no point do we hear God say anything about human suffering.

Some might argue that God ignores Job’s suffering altogether. But I wonder, might it be instead that God takes Job on this guided tour of the heavens to help Job understand that while we might think the world revolves around humans, God does not. For example, we see that God will do something as foolish as bring rain to the desert, where there are no humans to benefit from its’ goodness. This is something that to ancient Israelites – whose lives depended on precarious, never-too-abundant rainfall – would have been seen as wasteful extravagance.

It’s not that God doesn’t care about human suffering. It’s just that from God’s perspective, human suffering is part of a much, much bigger picture that matters too! (In other words, “it’s not all about us!” even though we might be keen to argue otherwise.) I love the way Dr Ellen Davis puts it. She tells us that the view of the world that God presents to Job – and to us – “plays havoc with our notion of the way things ought to be – which is to say, sensible, well-adapted to human purposes, and above all, predictable.”1

But oh how hard we have tried to make the world “sensible, well-adapted to human purposes, and predictable.” The history of human “progress” has been all about controlling and manipulating the world around us.

- Electricity and energy that enables us to produce 24/7 so there’s little need to rest.
- The ability to reliably transport produce around the globe so we can eat what we want when we want, regardless of whether it’s in season.
- GPS or maps on our smart phones that will tell us where we need to go so we don’t need to rely on the sun or stars (or even the spatial maps in our heads) to find our way.

And while there are many things about modern life that I am so grateful for (things like penicillin and indoor plumbing and TV streaming services), we’re also in a time of deep spiritual crisis precisely because of our success at making the world “sensible, well-adapted to human purposes, and predictable.”

We’ve convinced ourselves that we should be able to manage and control the world around us.

That we don’t need to be bound by the limits of seasons or natural cycles. And yet, I think we can also see that one of the great losses of modern, Western life, is our disconnection from the rhythm, cycles and seasons of the natural world. Which really is our disconnection from the sky.

Yesterday was the summer solstice. How many of you here were up at sunrise to greet this longest day of the year? The summer solstice happens twice a year, once in each hemisphere. For us in the northern hemisphere, this is when the north pole has its maximum tilt toward the sun.

Celestial phenomena like the solstices were marked by many ancient peoples – like those who built Stonehenge for example some 5000 years ago. And the solstices are still marked by many indigenous cultures today. This is why National Indigenous Peoples Day takes place on the summer solstice. The summer solstice holds deep spiritual and cultural significance for many Indigenous Peoples, marking a time of renewal, connection, and celebration.2

The very act of acknowledging something like the summer solstice puts us in a posture of humility and awe. Because as much as we humans have developed ways of mastering the world around us, we have yet to guide the stars or command the sun to rise.

Last week I invited you to remember the lands that raised you. As someone who was raised on the great plains of Turtle Island, this week, as we reflect on the sky, is my week. Because the thing about the prairies is that it’s like 95% sky and 5% ground – more of a skyscape than a landscape.3 Standing on the open prairie (and it’s not pancake flat everywhere!), you can’t help but feel small. When it’s just you and the sky, you can’t help but feel the vastness, the expansiveness, the awesomeness of God. And yet, when there’s nothing between you and the sky, somehow there’s also this sense of God’s closeness. I can’t put it into any other words but to call it Great Mystery. The prairie sky has the power to teach me both about God’s power and of God’s closeness.

The poet David Whyte writes, “your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.”4 Acting the drama as if we were alone has gotten us into a lot of trouble as a species. And the worst part, it’s not true.

We are not alone. As God tells Job, we only need to look to the sky – to the stars, the moon, the sun, the seasons, the rain, the snow, the clouds – to see God’s aliveness and presence all around us. An aliveness and presence that is both grand and intimate at the same time; both beautiful and terrifying. An aliveness and presence that has integrity and beauty and worth on its own, apart from us humans.

For your homework this week, I invite you to find an open space outdoors where you can spend some time with the sky. Take along this passage from Job and read it again under the sun or the moon or the clouds. As you offer your gratitude for God’s handiwork, may you also be reminded of your place in God’s grand unfolding cosmic drama. May you be reminded of the truth that there is a place for you, and it’s also not all about you either.

1 Ellen Davis, “Getting Involved with God,” page 137.
2 https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100013718/1708446948967
3 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/beautiful-mess-parenting-on-foot-1.7541042
4 “Everything is Waiting for You” by David Whyte https://onbeing.org/poetry/everything-is-waiting-for-you/

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Sunday June 15, 2025
Creation Series-Created to Belong

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/a0UtgByhAlQ

Sermon – Created to Belong
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-25
We had a lot going on last Sunday with it being Pentecost and all, so one of things I didn’t get around to sharing is that last Sunday also marked the completion of our second year using the Narrative Lectionary. A lectionary is the set of assigned scripture readings we use every week in worship, and one of the things that’s unique about the Narrative Lectionary is that it walks us through the story of the Bible in chronological order to help us explore God’s unfolding relationship with us. The Narrative Lectionary kind of runs on a program/school year calendar – beginning every year in September and wrapping up in the spring on Pentecost. So in September we’ll start again with another year of the Narrative Lectionary, but in the meantime the Ministry of Worship & Learning thought that this would be a good time for a worship series on the theme of Creation.

Concern for creation is a theme that has come up over the last year as something we want to focus on. The climate crisis is an ever-present reality – already impacting us this spring with the wildfires that are burning across much of this country. And so today, and for the next four weeks, we will be exploring stories from the Bible about creation and our place in it.

I’m curious, does anyone remember what story kicked off this past year’s journey through the Narrative Lectionary? I know this isn’t very fair. I’m asking you to remember all the way back to September 8, 2024. One clue, the Narrative Lectionary always begins with a story from the creation narratives in Genesis. … What we heard all the way back in September was the part of the story that comes right after what we just heard today: what happened after Eve and Adam broke the one rule God gave them and ate the forbidden fruit.

It’s a story that is sometimes known as “The Fall” or “Original Sin” in Christian circles. It’s a story about how disobeying God’s rules led to their banishment from the garden. And this banishment meant that their lives became very hard. Filled with suffering, pain, grief, death. They no longer had that close connection with God who would go for walks in the garden.

This story of suffering. This story of disconnection from God and from the garden is a story that we know well. At this moment, I know that among us we could brainstorms dozens of terrible, heartbreaking things that are going on in our world right now. Several that would have been added just in the past few days.

This story of suffering and disconnection is also the story of the climate crisis, which I know can be a heavy topic. There’s often a lot of doom and gloom when we take an honest look at what humans are doing the planet. We have taken the gifts of the earth and treated them as “resources” that are ours for the taking. Gifts that aren’t valued for their inherent worth but for what they can do for us. In this story, “Forests become lumber. Cows become beef. Deer become game. Land becomes private property,”1 and so on.

When we focus on the story of how human actions are devastating the natural world it can be hard to find much hope for the future. But this story of disconnection and exploitation isn’t the only story we have to tell about our relationship with creation.

I wonder, has anyone read the book “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis, or maybe seen the movie? This story is set in the magical land of Narnia where the White witch has made it always winter and never Christmas. When Aslan, the King of Beasts returns, hope is re-kindled in hearts of the creatures of Narnia, but that hope is soon dashed when Aslan is killed by the White Witch, who appeals to the law of Deep Magic to take his life in place of someone who betrayed her. But that’s not where the story ends. Aslan miraculously comes back to life. And to his surprised friends he explains: "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.”2

When I look at our creation story, I kind of feel like we’ve fallen into the same trap. Although the story of original sin is a story as old as time, there’s another story – a deeper, more ancient story – that precedes it. The story of our original belonging.

The story of original belonging tells of how humans were formed from the same stuff as the rest of creation. It tells of how the elements of earth are the same elements in our flesh and bones. It tells of how in the beginning, we were created to love and tend God’s garden – this earth – and all the creatures that dwell within it. In this story there is no hierarchy, no domination, no degradation. Adam and Eve lived in balance with the rest of creation. Although only Eve was the “right partner” for Adam, they recognized the garden and its inhabitants as their kin. They fulfilled their responsibility to tend the garden and care for its creatures.

Just because humans have been living the story of domination and separation from creation for centuries (even millennia), doesn’t mean we have to keep on telling this story. We have the option to live by another story. At this time of climate crisis, God is calling us to remember and tell with our lives that deeper story; the first story of belonging. And it begins by remembering that earth is a gift, not a right. Because only love, not fear, will nurture the hope we need to address the climate crisis.

Over these weeks, this worship series is going to be about re-kindling our love and gratitude for the wild earth. In the coming weeks we’ll ponder the beauty and mystery of the sky, the waters, and the more-than-human others3 we share this home with. You’ll be invited to remember (or perhaps discover for the first time) the wisdom and beauty of God’s wild world. It’s the kind of worship series that would really be best done outdoors. But we will use our imaginations to bring that spirit of awe, wonder, praise, gratitude, and love for the earth.

And there are a couple of ways we will be inviting you get outside. Starting next week, you’re invited to join me before worship at 9:30 for a time in our garden to “commune with nature.” We’ll pray, listen, chat, and simply be present to the wonders of creation together in our own front yard (bring your coffee, lawn chair – or let me know if you need a chair).

I would also invite you to take a wander or saunter outside this week on your own sometime (could even be done sitting in your back yard or on your balcony or sitting at your window). The idea is to slow down (this isn’t about getting exercise!). As you sit or saunter, to use all your senses to notice the beings around you, and to greet them with praise and reverence. To delight in them and give thanks for them.

Let us learn again to guide ourselves by a new, yet ancient, story. We belong to this earth. We were created to live in loving relationship with all its’ beings. This is the story that is longing to be told again in this time and place, so that God’s good creation may yet flourish. May it be so. Amen.

1 Church of the Wild by Victoria Loorz, page 8.
2 https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lion/quotes/page/5/
3 Another name for the creatures of this earth that honours their dignity and inherent worth.

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Sunday June 8, 2025
The Day of Pentecost

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/KdhzUp1uz-I

Sermon for the Day of Pentecost
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Acts 2:1-4; Galatians 5:13-26
For Christians, Pentecost is the festival that celebrates the beginning of the church, however the roots of this festival were something very different. On that day when the Holy Spirit blew into that room, the disciples were gathered to celebrate a Jewish agricultural festival called Shavuot (sometimes called the “Festival of Weeks” in English). Shavuot falls every year fifty days after Passover, and Pentecost (which means 50) was the Greek name for this Jewish festival. Like Passover, Shavuot is a pilgrimage festival which means faithful Jews from various places – who speak many different languages – are gathered in Jerusalem. It’s against this busy backdrop that the disciples are gathered again, and I can only imagine how emotionally charged this moment must have been.

This is their first significant religious celebration together without Jesus, back in Jerusalem – the city where it all went so badly 7 weeks earlier. The disciples are still recovering from the trauma and grief of the crucifixion, holding this pain in tension with the joy of Jesus’ resurrection; and then mix in the confusion of Jesus’ brief stay with them prior to his ascension into heaven some ten days ago. It’s a lot! And as they hold all of this; each is one dealing with the emotions and experiences in their own way; I can’t help but think they must all be wondering: what next? Where do we go from here?

These are big questions. What next? Where do we go from here? I’m sure you can think of times in your life when you’ve found yourself in a similar place after a life-changing event. The death of a loved one; a serious accident or illness; the birth of a child; becoming empty nesters; leaving a job – either by choice or not; retiring.

I’m sure you could help me add to this list. We all have times in life when everything changes. And even when it’s a change we wanted, it can be scary when we don’t know what’s next. It's hard standing at the edge of something new that is yet unwritten and unknown to us. This is true for us in our personal lives. This is true for us as the church in these times as the world around us is changing so rapidly.

For the disciples, this was certainly one of those moments. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, a roar like the sound of a violent wind fills the whole house where they are meeting. Flames appear among them as the power of the Holy Spirit fills them. And they find themselves able to speak in other languages. All the noise attracts attention, and when folks come seeking its’ source, they are shocked to find men they know to be Galileans somehow miraculously able to speak in their own mother tongues.

Some Biblical scholars have pointed to the similarities between this moment and the story of the tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11 – that this moment is a reversal of that story. But it’s not quite. In Babel, everyone spoke the same language until God made everyone speak different languages so they couldn’t understand each other.

If this were a reversal of the story of Babel then you’d expect everyone to be speaking one language again.

Instead, the Holy Spirit enables the disciples to also speak a bunch of different languages. But rather than being unable to communicate, suddenly they have the ability to talk and build connections with even more people from different parts of the world.

On Pentecost we celebrate the birth of the church. This community united around the belief that Jesus Christ is Lord. And yet the unity of Pentecost is not uniformity. The differences – in this case differences of language – are honoured, and the Holy Spirit works with these differences to create a different kind of unity. A unity that recognizes and values diversity and difference.

As we hold the story of Pentecost – of sending out; of learning the language of others – I wonder, how is the Spirit calling us to share God’s love and grace for the world at this moment? This is a big question without a simple answer. And yet, this is the question that we, as the church, are tasked to wrestle with. Because we too, as the church in this time, are called and sent by the Spirit out into the world. Out into what is yet unknown to us. As we look and listen in these times, the story of Pentecost and Paul’s words to the Galatians offer some guidance.

We see that with the Spirit, differences don’t have to be a barrier to communicating or working with others. Often they are – we let them be – but they don’t need to be. Also, notice that in bridging difference, it was the disciples who learned a new skill – who literally learned to speak a new language. There is something here about the Spirit pushing us to go outside of what’s familiar and comfortable. That we can’t expect people to come to us; to become like us. I wonder, what “languages” is the Spirit calling us to learn? To become more proficient in?

Certainly churches and communities of faith have had to learn the language of online worship and community over these last few years. And what a blessing that continues to be for our ministry. As we seek to be a church who cares for the world as God does, I wonder too, about learning language to communicate:
- across generations,
- with folks who haven’t been raised in the church,
- with people of other faiths,
- with our indigenous siblings and racialized neighbours,
- between rural and urban communities
- with the new partners who we pray will come walk alongside us as we open up our building more and more to the community

I wonder what other “languages” you might add to that list.

Unlike the disciples, we probably can’t count on the power of the Spirit to help us miraculously learn these “languages” in an instant. Learning a new language takes time, intention, effort, humility on our part. It means more listening than talking as we seek to understand the needs, the cares, the concerns, the hopes, the dreams of our neighbours. It’s not easy, it’s uncomfortable perhaps, and yet this is the work that the Spirit of Pentecost invites us to.

And God does not leave us to do this work alone. As Paul promises, we have been gifted, each one of us, with the Spirit. The Spirit that gives us the freedom to love with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. As Paul lists these gifts, there is no expectation that we will be perfect in these things. Only a promise that all of these gifts are available to those whose hearts and minds are open to receive the Spirit.

The invitation of Pentecost is the invitation to walk in the Spirit. To recognize that we don’t have it all figured out and yet trusting that God can use our open hearts and minds for great good. To be a blessing to our neighbours and our community. And to remember that the work of the Spirit will always necessarily lead us out beyond the walls of the church.

So what next? Where do we go from here? The answers are yet to be discovered, but we ask them together, trusting in the power and presence of the Spirit to guide us. So Come Holy Spirit! Heal us, renew us, guide us in your ways of truth and life. Amen.

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Sunday June 1, 2025
Seventh Sunday of Easter-Pride Sunday

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/mLR3O6UJ1NM

Sermon for Seventh Sunday of Easter; Pride Sunday
Sunday June 1, 2025
Preached at St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Written & Preached by Lay Worship Leader Lorre Calder

Galatians 3:23-29
Good morning everyone…my dear friends. I want to thank Pastor Laura for the opportunity to speak to you on this special Pride Sunday. There were times I never thought a day like this would happen here. I am grateful to have a few moments to tell you a bit about myself in light of today’s reading. I am also well aware of the fact that this is not just about me as a person who identifies as a lesbian and has been happily married to my wife Janis for almost sixteen years. It is about the person outside our walls who is looking for a place to feel safe to be who God created them to be. It is about the person who just wants to belong. It is about the person who just wants to feel comfortable in their own skin, even if it doesn’t match what they look like on the outside. It is about the parents or grandparents of young people who they see might be struggling with their sexuality or gender identity and just need to talk about how they feel and how they can offer help. And you need to always remember that I am your gay person. I am not going anywhere. You are stuck with me. One caution, I do mention suicide during this message, but I don’t dwell on it. Ultimately, this is a message of hope, and faith active in love.

I’ve lived a few places in my life: my family home, my college dorm, three different apartments, and finally the home in which Janis and I now live. They were all very nice and I have very fond memories of wonderful times in each of those places at various stages of my life. But, the worst place I ever lived was the closet. For more than two-thirds of my sixty-six years, I lived in the closet. Hidden. Afraid. Fearful. You must understand that when I was very young, I felt different, I didn’t realize exactly why I felt different than my friends, just that I did. It wasn’t until I was older that I began to put language to what was different about me. My feelings terrified me and the words associated with those feelings made me feel isolated and alone. I certainly couldn’t let anyone know the real me. The one who wasn’t attracted to boys like all of my friends. I didn’t know anyone like me in my circle of friends or in my close or extended family. I honestly thought for a while that there might be no one else out there like me. I was so uncomfortable in my own skin I can’t even explain how it felt to be me at that time.

How could I be this way? I was raised exactly the same way my siblings were. The kids I played with throughout my childhood were all quote, normal, so what was wrong with me? Then as I got older I began to see portrayals of gay and lesbian people on TV and in movies it seemed as if all of them were killers, psychotic, or pathetic loners with no redeeming qualities. Nothing I was seeing in these media images represented the person I was growing to be. I believed myself to be a good person. I loved my friends and my family. I went to church every week, joined the youth group and the choir, taught Sunday School and served on nearly every committee at one time or another. I got decent grades in school and I held part-time jobs that paid my own way through college. I’ve never killed anyone. I might be a little nuts at times, but I’m not psycho, and while I can be introverted at times, I think I have more than a few redeeming qualities.

So, I hid who I really was. I dove into the closet and locked the door behind me. I tried my best to pretend to be like everyone else, but as I stand here today, I can tell you, it doesn’t work. I had nowhere to turn to find help or even information.  But, I often wondered if God really expected me to be alone and unhappy. Because I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong. I didn’t ask to be this way. No one made me this way. My life became more guarded. I couldn’t share my deepest feelings with anyone. My mental health began to suffer, and though on the outside I may not have seemed unhappy, inside, I was isolated and miserable. Friends, I do not place any blame for the way things were at that time. Gay and lesbian issues were not spoken about in most homes, and if they were, it was never in a positive, supportive way. That’s just the way it was. Most regular folks just didn’t know any differently.

Poet, author, and all-around awesome woman Dr. Maya Angelou said, ‘Do the best you can until you know better. And then when you know better, do better.” I think this fits nicely with Pastor Laura’s message of a few weeks ago where she talked about ‘Grace First’. Granted, there was no excuse for treating people badly or causing physical harm, but not understanding sexuality or gender was not anyone’s fault years ago. But, we know more now about how people are and how they exist in their own lives and their own bodies. We know better now, and we do better now.

I often ask myself what would have made a difference to me back when I was struggling to just figure myself out. I can tell you one thing, seeing a Statement of Welcome like the one on the screen (see below) would have made a huge impact. Even if I wasn’t ready to come out of the closet, this statement tells me, or anyone else that sees it that whenever feels right to them, St. Peter’s is a safe place for them to be, no matter where they fall on the 2SLGBTQIA+ spectrum. Beyond that, hearing from the pulpit that God loves me whether I am gay or straight didn’t happen until 1999. I remember it distinctly because my ears perked up and my heart began to race. ‘What did I just hear my pastor say?’ It was then that I knew that I could go to my pastor when I was ready. Without knowing it, a safe space was created, not just for me, but for others like me, and for families with members like me. It took a few years, but I finally did come out to my pastor and it was made clear to me that he had known and was just waiting for me to be ready. He had created a safe space that was there when I was ready. I began to feel as if my feet were standing on firmer ground than they had been before.

Back in 2010, there was a rash of suicides by young people and young adults who were bullied for being gay, or just perceived for being gay. They were threatened with being outed to family or friends, and in some cases were actually outed on social media. A project rose up called ‘It Gets Better’. The goal was to create short video testimonials by LGBTQ folks and straight allies, (everyone from your average Joe to Barack Obama) who had gone through, or supported someone who had gone through, those same hard times…being bullied, questioning their identity, trying to ‘pray away the gay’ (that doesn’t work, by the way), being kicked out of homes, families, and churches, but had still managed to find and create meaningful lives by living exactly as they were created to be. Their messages consisted of some variation of ‘we see you’, ‘we understand you’, we know it hurts’, ‘hang in and hang on a little bit longer because it gets better’, and most importantly, ‘don’t leave’. As a society, we are the lesser for those we have lost whether it be to suicide, to isolation, or by them having been driven them from their homes, families, and churches by making it known that they were not welcome if they identified as anything but heterosexual.

Our lesson this morning tells us of the unity we have as baptized believers. “You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Now if you belong to Christ, then indeed you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.” We also know that Jesus never said one word about homosexuality, either for or against. What we do see is Jesus welcoming in those who are different, or on the margins, or shunned by others without asking them to become something else. Jesus welcomed Zacchaeus down from the tree and went to dine with him. Zacchaeus ended up repenting and becoming a better person, but I couldn’t find any reference to him no longer being a tax collector. Jesus heals the Roman centurion’s servant, but he doesn’t demand that the Roman no longer be a centurion. When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, he speaks with her and offers her living water, but Jesus doesn’t demand that she no longer live as a Samaritan. Jesus drew people in, faults and all, just as they were. Lives are changed when people meet Jesus. I am a better person for having met Jesus as I am sure are all of you. But I am still exactly the way God created me to be, as I am sure are all of you. We are who we are. Our job as followers of Jesus is to extend that same welcome to each other and to anyone else who might want to join us.

We created and voted on this Statement of Welcome in April of 2017. We have taken baby steps in moving forward with visible welcome but we have not really made major outward efforts to extend that welcome to someone who is struggling like I was, or worse than I was. They need to know they can find a warm welcome here. They need to know they can find Jesus here. We have a small rainbow banner across the top of our outdoor sign, but it’s small and you might miss it if you’re not looking for it. We have a rainbow on our website with the Statement of Welcome which is also posted on our Facebook page. But what beyond that do we offer?

What would logically come next? Statement of Welcome and then…what? Reconciling Works is a Lutheran organization out of Minneapolis that began as Lutherans Concerned which was a place for LGBT Lutherans to find safe places of worship and resources for faith journeys and finding community.

Since 1983, the Reconciling in Christ (RIC) Program, a subset of Reconciling Works, has been a public way for faith communities to see, name, celebrate, and advocate for people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions in the Lutheran church. In 2021, the Reconciling Works staff launched the newly expanded Reconciling in Christ (RIC) partner commitments: to ensure the welcome, inclusion, celebration, and advocacy for people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions; work for racial equity and commit to anti-racist work; and to support the national program.  

The RIC Program is made up of congregations, synods, colleges, seminaries, outdoor ministries, and other Lutheran organizations. As of yesterday, 1093 communities are certified as RIC and another 278 are on the journey to becoming Reconciling in Christ. That’s a total of 1,371 Lutheran communities! We could be on that list!

If we take the next step and work through the process to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation, and we have Statement of Welcome so that part’s already done, we would then be listed on the RIC website for anyone looking for a safe, welcoming, affirming space to worship. We would also receive use of the RIC logo as a visual cue for folks looking for a church to attend, a space to be married, or space to hold group meetings. Is this something we would like to pursue? Because I can tell you that as someone who was struggling and searching, I’d have given almost anything to be able to seek and find such a resource that would point me to a church in my own town in my own denomination.

And what about outreach? As I said at the beginning, I am your gay person. I’d love to have some company. It’s not as if we don’t have room in the pews and in our household of faith for some rainbow awesomeness! Representation matters. Visibility matters. I am at a place in my life where I am comfortable in my own skin. I am at peace with who God has created me to be. My life is good. But I remember all too well how it felt when I couldn’t say any of those things. St. Peter’s can be a place of welcome. Are we being called to offer that now at this time and in this place? God’s 2SLGBTQIA+ children should never, ever have to wonder, or ask, or doubt God’s love. If they do, it’s up to us to do better, because we know better. The closet is no place to live. Believe me. So, Happy Pride, my St. Peter’s friends. Let’s help open a few closet doors and let in some of God’s love and light. Amen.

“Here at St Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Cambridge, all are truly welcome. We welcome all who Jesus would welcome: this means Everyone. Regardless of who you are or how you are, YOU are welcome here. We affirm and bless loving relationships, and ordination of those called by the Holy Spirit, regardless of sexual orientation, race, colour, social standing, or other factors that might cause prejudice beyond our walls.”

https://itgetsbetter.org/
https://www.reconcilingworks.org/ric/becomeric/

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Sunday May 25, 2025
Sixth Sunday of Easter

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/PyCuRW4VApg

Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 25, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Galatians 1:13-17; 2:11-21
Before we dig into the details of this letter to the church in Galatia, it’s important to take a few moments to understand Paul’s story. Who he is and how he came to be writing a letter like this in the first place. A self-described militant; he made a name for himself persecuting Jesus’ followers until he had his own life-changing spiritual experience of encountering the risen Christ. Acts chapter 9 tells it this way:

“Paul1 was still spewing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest, seeking letters to the synagogues in Damascus. If he found persons who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, these letters would authorize him to take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. During the journey, as he approached Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven encircled him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice asking him, “Paul, Paul, why are you harassing me?” Paul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are harassing,” came the reply.”

Paul, who is left blinded by this experience (literally unable to see), makes his way to the city of Damascus. Now in Damascus there was a Jesus follower named Ananias, and the Spirit sends Ananias to heal Paul of his blindness. In that instant, having now experienced God’s grace and healing power for himself, Paul does a complete 180. He becomes of those “Jesus followers” he’d been persecuting. And in fact, Paul becomes one of the most important missionaries of the early church – traveling throughout the Roman Empire and founding communities of “Jesus followers” along his way.

But one thing we can see from his words in this letter to the Galatians, this conversion to become a Jesus follower doesn’t cure him of his zealousness. Last week we talked about our personal level of comfort when it comes to conflict – does it terrify you, make you uncomfortable, do you find it invigorating, do you actively seek it out? Paul most definitely fits into one of those latter categories. Paul was never one to shy away from conflict. That was true before his conversion experience and it’s still true after.

One of the places where this comfort with conflict shows up in this letter is how Paul describes his interactions with Cephas (which is just another name for Peter – Simon, Simeon, Cephas – Rocky!). Paul writes, “when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was wrong.” Paul has not lost his zeal. He’s just got a different focus. Now he’s a zealot for grace.

Like our reading last week, Paul is addressing some of the tensions in the early church that came up between the Jewish and Gentile believers. And again, as modern day Christians, we need to be careful in our reading of this story to understand that Paul’s views are not about the religion of Judaism as a whole – this is not an interfaith argument but an internal argument. This is an issue about how a particular group of Jewish followers of Jesus were navigating the challenges of a community that was becoming more and more diverse. Can you just become Christian? Or do you have to become Jewish to become Christian?

Now Paul’s writings can be pretty dense. And some of this passage we’re focusing on today is no exception. The heart of what he’s trying to get across here is that God’s love, God’s favour, cannot be earned. And this is something that continues to trip us up in the church to this day.

Within the modern church, we still have people and even denominations who make faith about striving for God’s favours or rewards. The seed of fear is continually planted that if you don’t say the right words, or you don’t do or believe the right things, then God won’t love you. And often that will even extend into the community – if you don’t look like us or think like us or behave like us, then you can’t be a part of our community.

There are many Christians – across denominations – who proclaim a faith that makes God’s love conditional. And for Paul, nothing about God’s love is conditional. As Paul sees it, we are made right with God not by anything we do (or even can do), but by the faithfulness of Christ – God in human flesh one who gave their life for the sake of this sin-filled world. We are made right with God because of Christ’s faithfulness, not our own. All that is asked of us is to trust in Christ. To trust that Christ’s faith is sufficient, even when our own faith is lacking.

So are you enough? Am I enough? The short and simple answer is YES! There is absolutely nothing you can do or have done to you that will make God not love you. We don’t have to earn God’s love. God’s love doesn’t depend on us. And, this promise that we are good, that we are enough, doesn’t mean that how we live then doesn’t matter. God’s grace isn’t a blank cheque for us to live only for ourselves.

It makes me think of that age-old mind-bending question, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Which came first, God’s love or our faith? While we can certainly get bogged down talking about chickens and eggs, there is no doubt that when it comes to our faith and God’s love, God’s love always comes first. God’s love was a gift to you from the moment of your birth. This love was woven into the very fabric of creation.

Just like you say thank you when someone gives you a gift, we are called to live lives of faith in response to that grace. We are called to live in ways that honour the gift of love and acceptance we’ve received from God. “Faith involves both trusting God’s love and grace for us, and a commitment to live in a way that reflects that we are in that relationship with God.”2

God loves you. You are a beloved child of God. Just sit for a moment and let that promise sink in. We are loved, and the fact is also that we will not always live in ways that honour that gift of love. Like Paul we each have our character flaws and weaknesses. We each have our growing edges. We will still fool ourselves into thinking that it maybe actually does depend on us. Each one of us is in daily need of Christ’s forgiveness. So thanks be to God that the gift of forgiveness is also ours. As you are able, I invite you to rise in body and in spirit to join with me in a time of confession…

Confession & Forgiveness

P: You give us new life in Christ, O God.
We confess it is so easy to fall back into old habits,
to find ourselves walking in our old ways.
We try to make it on our own,
to earn our way into your good graces,
and insist others meet you on our terms too.

C: Forgive us when we re-build the very walls you have torn down,
and so cut off ourselves and others from recognizing your love.
Forgive us when we get so wrapped up in our way
that we miss both the destination and the journey.
Forgive us when we allow our worry about what others will think
to make our actions inconsistent with the gospel we claim to believe.
By the faithfulness of Christ your Son,
pull us back into alignment with you,
and make us faithful too.
Amen.*

P: As tender as parent to child,
so deep is God’s compassion for you.
As high as heaven is above earth,
so vast is God’s love for you.
As far as east is from west,
so far God removes your sin from you,
renewing your life through Jesus Christ.
Blessed be God who crowns us
with mercy and love.

C: Blessed be God forever.**

*Source: © 2025 Teri Peterson. Usage rights granted to BibleWorm subscribers at the LiturgyWorm Level and higher (https://patreon.com/biblewormpodcast)
** All Creation Sings page 30

1 Paul is the Greek version of the Hebrew name “Saul.” He likely went by either name depending on the context.
2 https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/living-by-faith/commentary-on-galatians-113-17-211-21-5

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Sunday May 18, 2025
Fifth Sunday of Easter

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/Gt6hTy6-TAk

Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Acts 15:1-21
Through this season of Easter, the Narrative Lectionary has us following the movements of the Spirit among Jesus’ followers after his death and resurrection. The movements of the same Spirit that commissioned Jesus into his ministry by descending upon him at his baptism and sending him into the wilderness. This same Spirit that Jesus shared with his disciples after his resurrection to help them carry on the work he had begun. And boy is the Spirit ever at work among these apostles!

The Spirit holds Stephen fast as he proclaims his faith and faces his death. The Spirit connects Philip with Abdimalkah1 the Ethiopian eunuch in the wilderness. And now the Spirit continues to expand the tent of the church by bringing the good news of Jesus to gentiles (a word that means non-Jewish folks). And as we see in our story today, this is creating some conflict.

Now it’s important to pause for a moment and fill in some details because we’ve missed part of the story between this week and last week. After Philip, Acts tells about the first gentile’s acceptance into the church – a man named Cornelius. Following this pivotal moment, Barnabas and Paul are sent on their first missionary journey. One that is primarily about bringing the good news of Jesus to even more gentiles.

Today’s story drops us into the midst of this missionary activity. Paul and Barnabas have been hard at work and they’ve been having success. Many gentiles are responding to the message of grace and liberation in Christ, but now Paul and Barnabas are being confronted by some who think that they’re doing it wrong.

Some important background to this conflict: up until this point, the early church was almost entirely made up of Jewish followers of Jesus who believe that Jesus was the long-awaited and long-promised Jewish Messiah. Even as their belief in Jesus as the Messiah is setting them apart from many of their Jewish friends and neighbours, their Jewish identity remains an important (even essential) part of their life, and they continue to keep their customs and follow the Torah. But now they’re faced with a dilemma. All of a sudden their Jewish community of Jesus followers is becoming a whole lot more diverse as non-Jewish folks respond to the message of salvation in Christ. What to do with these folks? The big question being, do they also need to become Jewish in order to be a part of the church?

It's become a debate that can no longer be ignored and so the apostles and elders of the early church hold a council to find a solution to this issue that is causing so much friction in the community. In many ways, this council is not unlike an AGM or Town Hall we would hold to determine a solution to some of the issues we face as a congregation (and for those who’ve been active in churches for a while – whether here or elsewhere – I’m sure you have been at some heated congregational meetings!). In the case of Acts, the apostles and elders of the Jerusalem church go into executive session to discuss the matter. For us, it’s helpful to pay attention to their process, because it’s actually a pretty good one.

First we’re told there was “much debate.” We don’t get to hear what was said, but it sounds like there was lots of time for everyone to speak and listen. But then we do get to hear some of the specific voices.

We hear from an elder who shares from their lived experience. Peter, Jesus’ right hand guy, reminds everyone of the Cornelius episode, making the point that there is already precedence for welcoming gentiles into the church.

We hear current first-hand witness from some of the younger ones: Barnabas and Paul give more evidence from their mission trip that the Spirit has indeed been given to gentiles.

And then James, who gets the last word, finds a way to connect these experiences with tradition and scripture. James believes these experiences of the Spirit show God taking a people from among the gentiles into the people of God, into the “tent of David.” 2 In those very final verses, James even appeals to a pre-existing process that exists within Judaism to bring others into the community as fellow sojourners that doesn’t require something as major as circumcision.

In the end, they come to the shared decision that conversion to Judaism is not necessary for salvation. It’s a decision that honours the diverse community that the church is becoming. That finds unity amidst the diversity.

At the core, this is a debate about identity. About which identity takes precedent in the community that is the church. Because the reality is we all hold multiple identities. Here in this space, some of us share certain identities in common, others are unique to just a few or even just you or me. All of us are children, but not all of us are parents. Some of us are partnered, some are single. Some of us identify as male, others as female. In our congregation we represent all the generational groups: the silent generation, boomers, gen-x, millennials, gen-z, and even gen-alpha. We could go on.

We all hold multiple identities that can create both potential for unity and for friction. But in any situation, one of those will take precedence over the others. For example, I’m a wife, a mom, and a pastor, but depending on the situation one of those will be more important than the others.

The same thing is true for us in the church. We all hold various identities, but in this community, the one that takes precedence is that we are all followers of Christ.

In the early church, it was decided that whether you were Jewish or Gentile, came second to your identity in Christ. For us gathered here today, no matter what things set us apart, the one thing that holds us together is our shared identity in Christ. The fact that we are freed and forgiven, not by anything we do, but only by God’s love and grace for us. And this uniting identity is far more important than any differences.

There are some good lessons to be learned from this council at Jerusalem.

• In this story we see the importance of approaching disagreements from a place of humility and mutual care.

• The importance of resolving disputes in ways that honour one another and that give space for each other to speak from our heart; to share from our experience.

• And above all, this story asks us to be open to where the Spirit is work among us.

With the Spirit, the church can be a big tent. And that’s a beautiful gift. But along with that “big” embrace, comes difference. And that means there is always possibility for conflict and disagreements. As we see again and again in scripture, it’s not up to us where God decides to work or which people God chooses to use. The work of the Spirit will often show up in ways that stretch us and ask us to grow, which often doesn’t feel great in the moment. But at the end of the day, we hold fast to the promise that Peter shares: in spite of any differences, “we are all saved in the same way, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” May it be so. Amen.

1 https://www.wilgafney.com/2012/05/04/black-jewish-and-queer-the-ethiopian-eunuch/
2 https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/council-at-jerusalem-2/commentary-on-acts-151-18-3

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Sunday May 11, 2025
Fourth Sunday of Easter

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/B6NLYVSs2tI

Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Acts 8:26-39
As this story begins, Luke makes a point of telling us that the road from Jerusalem to Gaza was a desert road. Why emphasise this detail? I can’t help but wonder if Luke is setting up this story not only in the literal wilderness, but a metaphorical one too. In a spiritual sense, the wilderness is a way of speaking about those times when we feel adrift or alone; struggling to make sense of our faith or our purpose; those times when God feels distant; those times when we’re just trying to survive and get by.

This is certainly a wilderness time for Philip who is now separated from his community after fleeing the violence in Jerusalem. And it seems safe to assume that the Ethiopian eunuch would have also been well acquainted with spiritual wilderness.

We don’t know much about this man Philip is drawn to by the Spirit in the wilderness. All we’re told is that they’re from Ethiopia and a eunuch - a castrated man. While this may be hard for us to get our heads around today, “in order to work for most monarchs in the ancient Near East and North Africa, men had to be surgically neutered. The monarchs did not want top-level employees trying to pass on power to their children and establishing dynasties of their own, or forming adulterous liaisons and undermining the government.”1

The story doesn’t tell us what their name was, but as we tell and re-tell stories like this one today, it doesn’t feel right to use someone’s sexual status as their main identifier. Hebrew Bible scholar Dr Wil Gafney suggests we call them ‘Abdimalkah’ which is Hebrew for “Servant of the Queen;”2 a title that honors his connection to the Candace. And so as I preach this morning, to remember that the Ethiopian eunuch was someone with a name like you and me, I will also call them Abdimalkah.

As I said, we don’t know much about Abdimalkah’s story. We know that being a eunuch makes them an outsider – never truly fitting in or being fully included – no matter where they go. It also seems that they’re a spiritual seeker as they’re on the way back home from a religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Now traveling home, still studying the scriptures, it’s clear they have a desire to know God more deeply. And so, the Spirit makes a way for Philip and Abdimalkah to connect.

It all begins with a question, well two actually. Philip asks: “Do you understand what you are reading?” Abdimalkah responds: “How can I, unless someone guides me?” So begins the relationship as Philip hops up in the chariot. As they travel together along that “wilderness” road, deep, theological, and spiritual conversation follows.

Clearly Philip’s time, testimony and interpretation of the passage has an impact because when they come to some water Abdimalkah asks one more question – and in my opinion the best one of all: “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” We don’t hear Philip’s answer, but we see it in action. And his answer is simple: Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all is to prevent you from being baptized. Right then and there Abdimalkah is baptized by water and the Spirit. And they go on their way rejoicing, back home, out of the wilderness.

This story – which follows in the spirit of grace that Jesus also embodied in his life and ministry – is a powerful story of grace. Philip shows us what inclusion looks like; especially inclusion of those who don’t fit the gender binary.

New Testament professor Katherine Shaner expresses this so beautifully. She writes, “In the moment of baptism, Abdimalkah’s anatomy or sexuality or gender status is simply part of who he is as a baptized child of God. …Not once does Philip question whether this identity is proper or fitting for inclusion in Jesus’ movement. Philip does not try to convince Abdimalkah to renounce who he is, or shame him for his sexual status. Philip asks no questions about whom Abdimalkah loves or how he lives. Philip’s invitation to baptism comes with no conditions around his life choices or existential being. In fact, Abdimalkah’s question about what is to prevent baptism in a wilderness oasis is not answered with a question about whether the eunuch will change his life. The simple, mysterious action of baptism satisfies the Spirit, and both Philip and Abdimalkah find an oasis along a desolate wilderness road.”3

It's important to point out that in a different scenario, with someone other than Philip, Abdimalkah might have received a very different response to this request for baptism. As any member of the early church could tell you, you are supposed to make a confession of faith before you can be baptised. In fact, later versions of this story actually add an extra verse at that point in the story, including exactly that – a confession of faith. But for Philip, in that wilderness moment, on that desert road, led by the Spirit, grace comes first.

Today we are lifting up our prayer shawl ministry, which is very much a “grace first” ministry.

Shawls are offered freely to whoever needs one. Whoever asks for one, for themselves or for someone in need, is given a shawl. These knitted and crocheted creations are visible, tactile signs of God’s loving embrace for those who are in their own wilderness times. I’ve been blessed several times now to be the gifter of these shawls on behalf of the congregation. I’ve seen firsthand how much it means to be remembered and held in love during a difficult time.

This morning we are surrounded by shawls that have yet to be gifted. And, we have an invitation for you. If you know someone – a friend, a neighbour, an acquaintance – who you think might appreciate a prayer shawl, please take one for them today. Of if you are feeling like you could really use this kind of reminder of God’s grace in your life right now, you are welcome to take one for yourself. No questions asked. While not all of us may have the skill and inclination to make these prayer shawls, this IS a ministry of our WHOLE congregation. Donations of wool and yarn are always welcome. If you want to learn how to knit or crochet, we will get you connected with someone who can teach you! And we all can participate in this ‘grace first’ ministry by taking a shawl for someone who is going through a tough time. At any time, a quick call to the office and we will get you set up with a shawl. And this isn’t a members only thing. These shawls are meant to be shared far and wide with anyone who needs to know that they are seen and they are loved.

Because no matter who we are, there are times in life when we will find ourselves like Philip, like Abdimalkah, walking alone on a desert road. The good news is that through the power of the Spirit, God’s grace will meet us there, waiting to lead us home. May it be so. AMEN.

If you are reading this sermon at a later date and would like a prayer shawl for yourself or someone else, please call the church office at 519-653-4721.

1 https://www.wilgafney.com/2012/05/04/black-jewish-and-queer-the-ethiopian-eunuch/
2 Ibid.
3 Katherine A. Shaner https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/ethiopian-eunuch-baptized/commentary-on-acts-826-39-4

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Sunday May 4, 2025
Third Sunday of Easter

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/blYLSTctXr0

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Acts 6:1-7:2a, 44-60

One of the things I love about the Narrative Lectionary is that it lifts up stories that don’t always
get featured in the Revised Common Lectionary (the traditional cycle of assigned bible readings
for Sunday worship). What I don’t love quite as much is that because there’s only one story each
week (instead of the three passages in the RCL), you have to deal with the story. And this story –
the stoning of Stephen – is a complicated story. It’s a story that I’d really rather skip over. And
yet, it’s important to dig into even the complicated stories in the Bible (and secretly I do love that
challenge!). So what’s complicated about this story?

For one, we need to be careful how we as 21st century Christians think about the two sides in this story. Stephen is remembered as the first Christian martyr, but what is recorded in Acts 7 isn’t about Jews vs. Christians. That kind of interpretation misunderstands what was going on in Stephen’s time and risks perpetuating hate and discrimination toward the Jewish community.

We can’t miss the fact that Stephen was both Jewish and a follower of Jesus. At this point in history, Christianity was not yet a distinct religion from Judaism. For Lutherans, it’s perhaps helpful to recall our own Reformation history. Like Martin Luther who tried to bring changes to the church of his day, Stephen and his fellow Jesus followers saw themselves as part of a reform movement within Judaism. They were faithful Jews who believed Jesus was the Jewish Messiah and wanted their Jewish siblings to believe the same thing.

I can’t say this strongly enough, this story isn’t about Christians against Jews. This is a story about internal divisions and conflicts within the Jewish tradition in the time following Jesus’ death and resurrection. As Christians in 2025, it’s more helpful to use this story as a way to look at the conflicts and tensions within our own tradition – and we have plenty.

What is also complicated is the violence in this story. This is a truly awful story. It’s horrifying how quickly fear and suspicion lead to false accusations lead to violence. While we remember Stephen for his courageous faith, this is a cautionary tale about how we deal with disagreements and differences. A cautionary tale that is just as relevant today as it was when Luke first recorded it for posterity because we too live in a world that is divided. In a world where stones of hate and fear and violence are cast all the time.

Last week Bishop Carla joined our monthly Lutheran pastor’s gathering (we meet monthly for connection and conversation). One of the things she shared was about her trip to Israel and Palestine in mid-April. She, along with several others (including our own National Bishop Susan and the National Bishop of the ELCA), were invited by our sister Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land to come for a solidarity visit. During their stay they met with church leaders and members in the West Bank. Bishop Carla shared some very painful stories about how difficult and dangerous life is for folks there right now, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank. How the people there have lost hope; how they fear they’ve been forgotten by the world.

We pastors spent a long time last week listening to Bishop Carla’s stories and wondering together about how to share about what’s going on there right now. About how difficult it is to talk about this situation because it’s so politically charged. I agonized for hours this week about how to share any of this with you today. Aware that both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are strong forces in our world these days; aware that there is a long and complex history of conflict in the Holy Land; and acutely aware that a dire humanitarian crisis is unfolding as we speak.

We opened our worship today with these words: Sometimes the world feels complicated. Sometimes the need feels overwhelming. And sometimes the faithful choice isn’t always clear. We also proclaimed our thanks to God, who has given us gifts to share and power to serve.

Gifts to share and power to serve. We are in the season of Easter. This 50-day season where we look at things through the lens of resurrection. Through the promise of Christ’s abundant love present and alive in our world. And when we look at Stephen’s story through the lens of resurrection, despite all that’s complicated, we also see some beautiful things.

“We see a church community putting their resources, authority, and labor into the work of caring for those in need [when they appointed folks like Stephen to be in charge of distributing food and charitable aid] (6:2–7).

We see Stephen, full of grace and power, standing up to false accusations while at the same time celebrating precisely the history and outpouring of Spirit on the ancestors he is accused of blaspheming (6:8–7:2a; 7:44–53).

We hear a call to meet hatred with nonviolent resistance (7:55–56, 59–60). And we hear the possibility that every created one among us can be transformed.”1

Conflicts happen. Differences are real. And yet, we are called to meet fear with love. We are called to meet hate with love. Those of us worshiping here this morning cannot end the conflict in the Holy Land. But we can hold the people in prayer. We can give money to support them through our National Church and CLWR. We can contact our Members of Parliament to let them know this situation matters to us and ask them to apply political pressure to help bring an end to this conflict.

And here, in our own small sphere, with our friends, our family, our community, we can witness to Christ’s abundant love present and alive in our world. We can literally do Stephen’s job – we can feed people, care for people, love people – for that need is present everywhere. We can stand grounded in God’s faithfulness and love even when other choose to cast stones of hate or fear.

Today we give thanks for Stephen. For his life, his witness, his steadfast faith. Holy Spirit, give us the courage to echo his witness of faith and love in our own lives. AMEN.

1 https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/stephens-witness/commentary-on-acts-61-72a-44-60-2

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Sunday April 27, 2025
Second Sunday of Easter

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/Jogd6sIjYtw

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter
Sunday, April 27, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 24:13-35

Even though Easter morning was a week ago for us, for Cleopas and his companion it’s only been a few hours since the discovery of the empty tomb. It’s Sunday afternoon, and Cleopas and another disciple whose name we don’t know, are on their way home to Emmaus from Jerusalem, along with all the other pilgrims who had travelled to the city for Passover.

They have quite the walk ahead of them. Seven miles we’re told. A good 2-3 hour walk, which means there is lots of time to talk. And these two disciples need that time because they have a lot to try and make sense of. So much has happened over this past week. Some that was beautiful. So much that was unbearably painful. And so much that still doesn’t make any sense at all. They have a lot of processing to do, so it’s good that they have the time and space to do that.

As they walk, a stranger appears beside them and asks them what they’re talking about. The two disciples waste no time filling him in on the incredible events of the last three days. About Jesus’ brutal death and his purported resurrection. About all the things that they’re still trying to get their heads around. And then, to their surprise, this stranger, who is apparently hearing about all of this for the first time, chides them for their slowness in piecing it all together! “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!”

My heart goes out to Cleopas and his companion in this moment. For we know what it’s like to be ‘slow of heart’ when it comes to faith and life. We know how hard it is, in situations that turn our lives upside down, to make sense of where God is in all of it. Not to mention figuring out how we’re supposed to respond – what to do or think – in difficult situations.

Collectively, we’re living through one of these times together. This unpredictable American administration whose decisions have ripple effects across the globe. We are living in a moment of so many unknowns. It feels like every morning there’s a new wild – and often terrible – surprise. It’s hard enough to keep track of the news cycle, to even begin getting our heads around how to respond. I know that for a lot of us, the world is not making sense right now, which can leave us feeling uncertain and disempowered.1

As Cleopas and his companion walk along the road to Emmaus, also feeling uncertain and disempowered about the events of the last few days, the stranger engages them in a discussion about how all of this connects to the promises in scripture.

When they arrive at their destination, it appears that the stranger is going on further, but the two disciples – perhaps enjoying his company and not wanting the conversation to end; or concerned for his safety traveling alone after dark – invite him to stay with them. And he does. They sit down to share a meal together, and it’s only in that moment, when the stranger takes the bread, blesses it and breaks it, they realise this stranger who walked with them the whole afternoon was Jesus all along.

I can’t help but think that there was some sensory memory in their bodies from meals shared in the past – possibly even the last supper – that recognized Jesus before their minds could. But the instant they recognise him, the instant they understand that all of it really is true, Jesus is gone.

For the disciples who remained after the resurrection, the pieces come together slowly. As we heard last Sunday, there were no alleluias from the women at the empty tomb. Peter walked away from the empty tomb puzzled. And for Cleopas and his companion, it took walking 7 miles for the pieces to finally fall into place.

It took time talking together about all that had happened. It took digging in scripture. It took extending hospitality to each other and to someone they didn’t even know along the road. It took recognizing that they actually had felt it in their gut the whole time (“were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road!”).

What is so beautiful about the road to Emmaus is this story offers us our own roadmap as we journey through times that confound and challenge us. As we too struggle to see the promise of resurrection and life amidst uncertainty. We often may not be able to see how God is present in a given moment or situation, but as we wait for it to make sense, there are things we can do.

Like Cleopas and his companion, we can talk to each other about what we’re going through. We can share our struggles, our worries, our grief, and our hope. We can dig in the scriptures; reading the stories of faith until it connects. We can share time with one another around the table, where Christ promises to meet us. We can learn to listen to what our gut is telling us about what is right and what is wrong, and find trusted people to help us make sense of those nudgings.2

Here, today, you may still be waiting for that moment of clarity. You may still be waiting for that moment when the bread is broken and you see how Jesus was present with you all along. The hard part is that we don’t get to choose our moment. It doesn’t happen on our timeline. This is the Spirit’s work. Our part is to be patient and open. Our part is to trust that at the right time, Jesus will be made known to us.

In the meantime, as we follow in the footsteps of Cleopas and the unnamed disciple, we trust that all of these pieces added up will lead us to those moments of understanding and assurance. For in spite of all that remains unknown, Easter is the promise that Christ is risen. Which is the promise that Jesus is also always walking with us. May it be so. Amen.

1 Bobby Williamson, Bibleworm Podcast, “Episode 639 In the Breaking of the Bread (Luke 24:13-35).” April 13, 2025.
2 Bibleworm Podcast, “Episode 639.”

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Sunday April 20, 2025
Resurrection of Our Lord-Easter Day

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/yjf1QpbjUdE

Sermon for Easter Sunday
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Luke 24:1-12 – Grief & Hope

The women who come to Jesus’ tomb – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others whose names are lost to history – have been here for all of it. They were here for the good times. With Jesus as he travelled and taught and healed and blessed. And they stayed with Jesus right to the very end, for the worst of it too.

During the crucifixion, they were there watching at a distance. They saw Jesus’ body removed from the cross, wrapped in linen cloth, and laid in the tomb. In the awful hours after his death, they devoted time and resources to preparing spices and ointments. And after resting on the sabbath, now on the first day of the week, early in the morning, they journey back to the tomb, hearts heavy with grief, to anoint Jesus’ body.

These women – these faithful disciples – are the first ones to discover the terrible, terrifying sight of the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. Confused and bewildered at this unexpected sight,

they receive a second fright when two strange men suddenly appear with a message that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

But even at this news – news that to us is the ‘good news’ of Easter – even at this news, there are no alleluias at the empty tomb. There is no rejoicing at the empty tomb. I can only imagine that in that moment it’s just too much to process. And to be fair, apart from the empty tomb, they haven’t seen the risen Jesus just yet.

As they make their way back to tell the others what they’ve seen and heard, I imagine that the grief still lingers, even though it’s joined now by a tiny glimmer of hope that will continue to grow over the coming days and weeks.

Today we, and Christians around the world, gather to celebrate the amazing, good news of the resurrection. Today we proclaim the joy and the promise that Jesus was dead and now he’s alive. Today we proclaim the promise that death is not the end of the story. Not for Jesus. Not for any of us.

But the thing is, as we gather here on this Easter morning, the world outside these walls is the same world that was outside these walls on Good Friday. Yes, Jesus is risen. And, grief is still real.

How do we proclaim the resurrection without denying the grief and the pain? How do we live the story of Easter? – that story of hope conquering fear, love conquering hate, life conquering death? How do we not let the grief and pain get the last word?

One of my teachers was sharing recently about her journey of researching her family tree. She discovered that one set of her grandparents had met at a dance during the second world war.

Perhaps this is something that’s a part of your own family history. During that era, dances were where young folks socialized, and especially in Europe at the time, “dancing…was a way to escape the pressures of life under the constant threats of bombing and death.”1 For my mentor, discovering this story about her ancestry led to a profound insight. She realized, “I exist because my ancestors danced during a time of war.”

This is how love and life carry on. This is what hope looks like. Dancing during times of war. Gathering here together today to remember and proclaim the truth that life is stronger than death. Faithful people throughout the generations choosing to live by hope instead of fear.

A wise person once said, “we are Easter people who live in a Good Friday world.” We are people who ground our lives in the hope of Easter amidst a world of grief and pain. This Good Friday world so desperately needs the good news and hope of Easter.

Which is why, in this Good Friday world, we witness to another way. A way of hope, a way of compassion, a way of grace and mercy, a way of abundant living (an abundance grounded not in material things but in the deep, unending, and unconditional love of God).

And while it’s true that in this Good Friday world the good news of empty tomb may still feel pretty distant some days, just because it feels that way, doesn’t mean that it’s true. The resurrection isn’t dependent on us – this is God’s work. Jesus IS risen, and everything is different because of this truth.

My prayer for you and for us is that Christ will help us to perceive all the small ways resurrection is indeed all around us. That Christ will teach us to dance; to create; to love; not in spite of the pain around us, but because of the pain around us.

On this day. In this moment. There is much to be thankful for. There is much to be hopeful for. I am so grateful to be here with you – to pray, to worship, to sing, to tell again the beautiful story at the heart of our faith. The story that despite how it too often seems, sin and suffering and death will never have the final word. For today we proclaim and trust in this truth: Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!

1 https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2019/10/02/dance-in-the-second-world-war/

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Friday April 18, 2025
Good Friday

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/ibnDJFHll0M

Sermon for Good Friday
Friday, April 18, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Luke 23 – Acceptance & Resistance

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
the courage to change the things I can
and the wisdom to know the difference.1

I don’t think anyone can doubt that Jesus had courage.

Throughout his ministry he stood up for what he believed in, even when it wasn’t always popular. He always stood up for people who were looked down upon by others. He showed up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover with a huge crowd of people proclaiming him as their king,

knowing that the Romans could never tolerate anyone but the emperor being called a king. He stuck around this whole week, even though he knew he had a target on his back. And when the foreseeable arrest happens and Jesus is brought before the authorities, no amount of threats or violence can deter him from standing fast in what he knew to be true: the promise of God’s goodness and love for this whole world.

No one can doubt Jesus’ courage. That he wasn’t afraid to resist the things that pushed back

against love, against justice, against peace, against goodness. And yet, today, as we gather at the foot of the cross, we face the painful truth that even Jesus, with all his courage, couldn’t change everything.

Depending on how you look at it, you might say Jesus couldn’t change the outcome of this day

because it was God’s will, or part of a bigger plan. From my perspective, Jesus couldn’t change the outcome of this day simply because the forces for hate and evil in this world are strong and relentless. It was true in Jesus’ day, and it’s painfully true in our day as well.

As we gather on this Good Friday, we remember our sister church in Jordan and the Holy Land, as they mark this Holy Week amidst the ongoing genocidal violence.

We remember the Ukrainians who continue to defend their country against the aggressions of their neighbour Russia.

We bear witness to the immigrants and international students who are being rounded up and shipped off to detention centres and prisons without due process.

We bear witness to the land – the plants, the animals, the waters, the air, the elements of the earth. Our ‘more than human’ kin who are seen only as resources to be used for profit by our economic system.

We bear witness to the multitude of violence in our world – too many situations to name; so much that isn’t even known to us.

God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Today we stand alongside Jesus, feeling helpless and yet praying for the courage to change the things we can. Praying for the courage to resist fear, greed, hate, and evil in all of its forms. Praying that if enough of us band together for good, we can resist the forces in this world that seek to harm and destroy.

But today, as we gather at the foot of the cross, we also bear witness to the reality that not everything can be changed. We are all a part of these larger systems, and some things are not our hands to control or determine.

Jesus will still die. So many innocents continue to die. And while we can never accept that violence is the answer; we pray for the wisdom to accept the reality that we too are vulnerable; that when even one is harmed, we all are harmed; to accept that there are things we cannot control; to remember that God is with us in all of it, and to trust that God’s love will get the last word.

Each one of the gospel writers has a slightly different take on the story of Jesus’ crucifixion, and Luke, whose version we will hear today in just a little while, asks us to notice Jesus’ acceptance of fate.

When that terrible moment comes, we hear Jesus accept his fate with the same courage that sustained his life of resistance: “Father, into your hands I entrust my life.”

Precious Jesus, this day as we gather at your cross;
as we witness your pain, your suffering,
and the persistent love and compassion that remains;
grant us your courage to resist the forces of hate and evil in this world;
the wisdom to accept the things we cannot change,
and the courage to entrust our lives – and this whole world – into your hands.

AMEN.

1 Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr.

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Thursday April 17, 2025
Maundy Thursday

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/9yRBOmS2h8g

Sermon for Maundy Thursday
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Luke 22:14-27 – Power & Humility

I’m going to invite us to do a little imagination exercise together tonight. I want you to close your eyes and I’m going to give you a few moments to think about this question: what comes to mind when you hear the word power? What objects or images do you see? What does power look like?

Now we’re going to try that same exercise one more time with the word humility (Humility is not thinking too highly of yourself; a low estimate of your own importance). Close your eyes and ask yourself: what comes to mind when you hear the word humility? What objects of images do you see? What does humility look like?

On Maundy Thursday, we gather to remember the final night Jesus spent with his disciples. As they gathered, they shared a meal where Jesus gave them a new ritual for remembering him and keeping him close – a ritual that for Christians became Holy Communion.

Jesus also used this time to pass on some final words of wisdom. Around the table in Luke’s version of things, an argument breaks out – the disciples start fighting about which one of them is the greatest. And sadly, it’s not the first time they’ve had this argument. All the way back in chapter 9 – right after the Transfiguration – they also argued about this exact same thing. In that moment, Jesus used a child to remind them about humility: “Whoever is least among you all is the greatest.” (Luke 9:48)

In John’s version of events on this last night together, Jesus’ solidifies this teaching by literally taking on the role of a servant and washing his disciples’ feet.

“Whoever is least among you all is the greatest.” It seems like a straightforward message, but the fact that it still hasn’t sunk in for the disciples tells us that while it may sound like a simple message, it’s a really hard one to internalize.

We live in a world that wants us to think that the only kind of power that matters is power over others. That being great is what counts more than anything else. But Jesus has never been about that kind of power.

Jesus, throughout his life and ministry, has shown us instead what it looks like for the greatest to become like a person of lower status, and the leader like one who serves. Compassion. Kindness. Vulnerability. Service and self-sacrifice. These are the values Jesus embodies. These are the values that bring him to the cross. For ever under threat of death, Jesus does not give in to the power of violence and fear. Even under threat of death, Jesus embodies compassion, kindness, trust, and self-sacrifice.

Jesus’ humble way might be seen by some as weakness. But for those who know, humility is anything but weak. Humility is simply a different kind of power. A power that heals and connects

instead of dividing the world into winners and losers.

There is power in humility, so if that’s something that’s hard to get our heads around, maybe we need some new images for power. If we want Jesus’ example of humility to sink into our bones so that we understand what it means to truly embody the power of humility, we need something to hold onto.

As I was preparing for worship this week, I was moved by the poem included in our Lenten devotional for Maundy Thursday. And so I want to close by offering these words and images by Rev. Sarah Speed in her poem “Power Like a Seed.” She writes,

In a world that wants power like a machine gun,
power like a bomber plane,
power like a gated fence to keep the hungry out,
I want power like a seed—
power that will crack me open and grow
something good;
power like an open door,
an invitation that says, “Come on in;”
power that feels like a strong spine with a soft heart.
I want the power to listen, to lean in, to ask follow-up questions.
But more than anything, I want the power to bring us together, to lift you up.

There are different kinds of power.
One will build a wall.
One will plant a garden.

We should know by now, only one will bear fruit.1

AMEN.

1 “Power Like a Seed” by Rev. Sarah Speed, in Everything [in] Between: Meeting God in the Midst of Extremes, Lenten Devotional, page 41. (2025: A Sanctified Art LLC)

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Sunday April 13, 2025
Passion/Palm Sunday

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/di9puOzHZ64

Sermon for Palm Sunday
Sunday, April 13, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 19:39-44 – Shouting & Silence

It’s all been leading here…to Jerusalem. Ever since Peter, John and James went up that mountain with Jesus all those weeks ago, where he was transfigured before their eyes, Jesus has been telling his disciples that Jerusalem is where it all will come to a head.

As they arrive at the Mount of Olives outside the city gates it’s clear that Jesus’ movement has been building momentum as he’s greeted by a multitude of disciples. Everyone is ready for the triumphal entry of the man they proclaim as king into the holy city. As Jesus approaches the city riding on a colt people begin spreading their cloaks along the road. It’s a beautiful gesture of honour and respect. The kind of thing you do for someone very important, very special, like a king. Not unlike rolling out the red carpet. And as the people spread their cloaks they cry out, “Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens.”

It’s unclear from Luke’s telling how large the crowds are that are gathered to welcome Jesus – or simply witness the moment. But clearly Jesus and his multitude of disciples are drawing enough attention that some of the Pharisees in the crowd ask Jesus to order his disciples to cut it out. They’re afraid, and rightfully so, that the Romans will crack down on this spectacle which will mean trouble for everyone – not just Jesus and his disciples.

In the Roman Empire it’s a dangerous thing to proclaim someone else as king. This was an act of rebellion that would not be tolerated. And Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, has already demonstrated his willingness to respond with force in similar situation. So it’s not a stretch to imagine that Pilate wouldn’t hesitate to use violence in this moment too. And if it comes to that, everyone’s at risk because the Romans aren’t going to bother taking the time to single out Jesus and his followers. They’ll crack down on everyone.

These folks are legitimately worried for the safety of Jerusalem and for all the people who’ve come to celebrate the Passover. But despite the risk, this is not the time to tone things down. As Jesus proclaims, “I tell you, if they were silent, the stones would shout.” And not only is this not the moment to tone things down; it’s not actually possible at this point to tone things down. Because it’s not just the disciples who know the truth of who Jesus is and aren’t afraid to say it out loud.

In the words of Rabbi Amy Robertson, in this moment it’s as if “the whole of creation is vibrating with the intensity of this truth.”i

Jesus’ reign is one of cosmic proportions. God has come to dwell among us not only for the sake of humanity but for the whole of creation, and even the stones – what seem to us to be the most inanimate beings in creation – even the stones know this truth. So silence is not an option in this moment.

And then the city comes into view.

This is a part of the story that’s only recorded in Luke’s version of events. According to the gospel writer Luke, when Jesus finally sets his eyes upon the holy city of Jerusalem he begins to weep. Not for himself or because of what lays ahead for him, but for the city, for her people, for the lack of understanding that still remains.

“If only you knew on this of all days the things that lead to peace”

As we mark the beginning of Holy Week, I’m left thinking about those Pharisees who pleaded with Jesus to stop. How often have we, like those men, been too afraid of the consequences to stand for truth? How often have we silenced the parts of ourselves that were begging to cry out? For justice? For peace? For what’s right and good and true?

I’m left thinking how, like the disciples who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem, we too cry out for peace and yet we struggle to recognize the things that make for deep and abiding peace. We still want to believe the lie that might and violence can lead to peace, when Jesus himself will show us that true peace is only ever found through vulnerability, compassion, and selflessness.

Even we, who know how this story ends and what is at stake, regularly fall short of being the kind of people God desires for us to be. Too often we’re silent when we need to speak out. Too often we make loud demands – on ourselves, on others – without really taking the time to understand what it is needed in the moment.

On this Palm Sunday, Luke leads us on a journey from excited anticipation to fear to lament, preparing us for what is to come this week. Our worst fears will come true. Jesus will suffer and die at the hands of the state, just as he said. But that’s not where this story will end.

When we meet here again in just one week, another stone will reveal our promise and hope when it’s rolled away from an empty tomb. And then we will know again the beautiful truth that Jesus is Lord – the one who both cuts through the noise and shatters the silence, to bring peace and salvation and life for all of creation. AMEN

i Amy Robertson. Bibleworm Podcast.

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Sunday April 6, 2025
Fifth Sunday in Lent

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/MyL8RnJaOAg

Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Lent
Sunday, April 6, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 19:1-10 – Righteousness & Mercy

I wonder, have you ever looked down on someone? I’m not asking for a show of hands, but just to consider a moment when you might have done this. A time when perhaps you made a judgement about someone because of something they did or a belief they hold.

Even though we might not like to admit it, I’m sure that every single one of us in this room – and those who are sharing this space with us virtually by zoom – can think of a time when we caught ourselves passing judgement or feeling critical towards someone. We may not have acted on that by putting it into words, but all of us have certainly had those kinds of thoughts about someone. Even if it’s being critical of someone who we think is too judgemental. There is just something about us humans that we compare ourselves to one another. We are all different, and sometimes those differences are hard to hold.

As we look to our Bible story today – this encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus – I wonder if you noticed that there are several moments that play on this idea of looking down on people, literally. I can still remember from my Sunday School days learning that song about Zacchaeus. The one that goes like this: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he.” We don’t too often get these kinds of physical descriptors about folks in the Bible, but for Luke it’s important that we know Zacchaeus was short in stature. Which means that all his neighbours would physically look down on him.

And of course, this difference in height parallels the way Zacchaeus’ neighbours look down on him morally because of his job as a tax collector. And not only a tax collector, but as Luke tells us, “a ruler among tax collectors!” It would be an understatement to say that tax collectors were not well liked in Jesus’ day – and this was about more than folks just not wanting to give their hard-earned money away. Tax collectors in Jesus’ day worked for the Roman Empire, and the monies they collected went to Rome. None of it stayed in the communities to provide services that folks could benefit from. Tax collectors were seen as collaborators, traitors and robbers. So it’s not surprising that Zacchaeus was looked down upon because of his job.

But short in stature Zacchaeus, who was looked down upon both because of his height and his job, has learned a few tricks about overcoming his deficits. That Sunday School song goes on to say, “he climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see.” Zacchaeus climbs this sycamore tree so he can get a view of Jesus – the best view we could argue. Now the tables are turned. Not only does Zacchaeus have a clear view of Jesus, but now that he’s up in this tree he’s the one who gets to look down on his neighbours.

The symbolism goes even deeper as it turns out that the tree he climbed – a sycamore fig tree – was a food source for poor people because its’ fruit was bitter and generally undesirable.1 So here we have this tax collector, climbing a tree that poor people used for food, so he can get the best view of Jesus.

Looking down on others is something we all fall victim to. But the greatest danger is in how we act on these feelings. Because this habit of judging can easily morph into self-righteousness and even hostility. And sadly, we see so much of this these days.

Our world is far too short on mercy, forgiveness, and compassion these days no matter where you find yourself on the political spectrum. We’re quick to blame whole groups of people for our problems. We’re quick to write people off for even one mistake in their past. After the US election last November, there were pleas for people not to celebrate with any relatives who voted for Trump.2

I’m not saying that we don’t hold people to account for their actions. We have rules and ethics for a reason. Good rules are in place to protect individuals and communities from harm. So how do we hold that need for accountability with the possibility of forgiveness? Where is the openness to the possibility that someone really can change, and the recognition that sometimes the road to lasting change is a bumpy one? Where is the space for mercy?

Now mercy is word we use in the church a lot. And like many of these ‘churchy’ words, it’s important to take a moment to think about what mercy is. The dictionary definition is that mercy is “showing compassion when it’s within your power to punish or harm.” If you want to think about it from the receiving end of things, mercy is when “you don’t get what you do deserve.” But mercy isn’t the same thing as turning a blind eye or ignoring a harm. Mercy is recognizing the harm that has been caused, and intentionally choosing compassion instead of punishment.

Mercy is risky. It makes us vulnerable. There are never any guarantees that the one who receives mercy won’t harm again. But the same is true for punishment. And when we show mercy, we commit to staying connected with that person. Mercy recognizes a capacity for change within someone that they may not even see in themselves.

In his commentary on this story, Pastor Jeff Chu points out that if Jesus had decided to call Zacchaeus out for his collaboration with the Romans, it almost certainly would have been met by raucous cheers of support from the crowd. Zacchaeus would have been shamed and his neighbours would have felt justified in their righteousness – in their looking down on Zacchaeus. But Jesus doesn’t do that.

Jeff Chu writes, “It’s striking that Jesus never called Zacchaeus out—no loud shaming, no public humiliation. Rather, this seems like the gentlest calling-in. [And] faced with Jesus’ tender warmth, Zacchaeus descends from the tree, rejoins the people, and immediately pledges restitution—a two-pronged act of reconciliation with both God and neighbor.” At Jesus’ call, Zacchaeus climbs down that tree and finds his place again among the people.

It’s so hard, especially these days it feels like, to meet one another from that place of mercy rather than self-righteousness. And yet, mercy is what the world needs now more than ever.

It’s a difficult tension we’re called to hold. We must take care of our tender hearts and souls, in the face of hostility. Hostility, whether it’s directed as us or at others, has the capacity to cause such deep harm. It’s important to guard against that as we can. And at the same time, we don’t want to close our hearts off too much or we risk losing that capacity for kindness and connection.

And so we begin by remembering that none of it is possible without God. We know we can risk mercy, because God is merciful towards us.

Today, as we remember God’s gift of mercy and love for each one of us, I invite us into a time of confession. To acknowledge the ways we can and have done harm. And to receive again the promise of God’s love and forgiveness for ourselves, so that we can renew our capacity to show that same mercy to those in our world who so desperately need it.

Call to confession

Friends, our faith calls us to live with both mercy and righteousness. Somewhere along the way, however, we have forgotten that truth. Somewhere along the way, we began arguing about who deserves mercy and whether or not they had acted with enough righteousness to receive it.

Fortunately, God does not act that way.

No matter what mistakes we have made or wrong turns we’ve taken, God consistently meets us with mercy and invites us to try again. So let us lean into that good news, and go to God in prayer:

Prayer of confession
Merciful God,
When we fail to be righteous,
show us mercy.
When we fail to be
merciful,
show us what is right.
Again and again,
bring us closer to you.
Again and again,
show us the way.
Amen.

Words of forgiveness
Family of faith, hear and believe this good news:
When we fail to be righteous,
God is merciful.
When we fail to be merciful,
God invites us to try again.
Again and again,
God moves closer to us.
Again and again,
God shows us the way.
Thanks be to God for this unending love.
Amen.

Source: “Prayer by Rev. Sarah A. Speed | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org.”

1 Fauna and Flora of the Bible, by United Bible Societies. (United Bible Societies, 1980). 179-181.
2 https://thecorners.substack.com/p/the-case-for-revival-an-announcement

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Sunday March 30, 2025
Fourth Sunday in Lent

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/F_Da6gnRA3c

Sermon for the 4th Sunday in Lent
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 15:1-7 Lost & Found

I wonder, how do you think that one sheep got so lost? Did she wander off looking for food or adventure? What he scared away by a predator? Did the rest of the herd shun her or exclude her for some reason? Did he just lay down for a nap and get left behind? When we let our imaginations run wild, we can likely come up with a whole host of reasons why this sheep could have become separated from its herd.

But the fact is, Jesus doesn’t tell us why the sheep was lost. So perhaps it doesn’t really matter why or how it happened. Perhaps it doesn’t matter whether it was the sheep’s fault or not. Whether it was by choice or not. Perhaps all that matters is that this one sheep is now lost and alone, which is a vulnerable, scary, and even dangerous thing to be.

When you look at your own lives, I’m sure you can think of times when you felt lost. Times when you felt like you didn’t belong; times when you felt exiled or far from home. But hopefully you’ve also had times when you felt “found.” Times when you were a part of a group or community that loved and accepted you fully. Times when you had a sense of clarity about your purpose in life.

Like sheep that go missing as soon as another is found, “our lives have a similar ebb and flow – in one moment we might feel like we have it all together, and in the next, we’re struggling to survive.”1 Most, if not all, of us, know what it like to feel lost and to feel found.

And yet, even so, there is a temptation to sometimes view these categories – lost and found – as absolute. As boxes to keep some people in and others out. In the church we have a history of using these exact words to talk about believers and non-believers. We speak about ‘finding’ Jesus, and that those who haven’t ‘found’ Jesus, are lost. Even if you haven’t used that language yourself, it’s certainly framing that you have encountered.

And so it’s important to go back to the moment just before Jesus tells this parable. Because there we get a glimpse of Jesus’ audience: a mix of tax collectors and sinners & Pharisees and legal experts. It turns out, in telling this parable, Jesus is preaching to both the proverbial ‘lost’ and ‘found.’ Because in Jesus’ day, it was also the case that many of the religious leaders viewed themselves as the ones who had the in with God. And many of the folks Jesus hung out with – tax collectors and sinners – were not part of that ‘in-crowd.’

I wonder, who did Jesus have in mind when he pictured that one lost sheep? Was that lost sheep a tax collector? This would seem like the most clear and obvious answer to this question. That the Good Shepherd seeks out those who have been shut out or shunned by society. Those who have been pushed to the edges by those who hold the power. I mean, Jesus tells this parable because the Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling about how Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. And throughout his ministry, Jesus makes it abundantly clear that his love and welcome is especially for the most vulnerable in society.

But is it also possible that Jesus was imagining that lost sheep as one of those Pharisees or legal experts sitting there grumbling about him? The harsh words Jesus reserved for his critics tells us he knew that these folks were never as ‘found’ as they believed they were.

When we come to understand that we are all a little bit lost, it becomes possible to hear this parable as good news for all of us – those who fit in and those who don’t. Those whose lives follow socially accepted scripts, and those who lives deviate in big or small ways.

Which brings us to the other wild part of this story. Jesus asks us, “suppose someone among you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. Wouldn’t he leave the other 99 in the pasture and search for the lost one until he finds it?”

It’s a good question for us to consider. Would you leave 99 to search for the one? It’s certainly a risk to leave behind those other 99. I wonder, wouldn’t it perhaps make more sense just to cut your losses. If the sheep shows up again on its’ own, that’s a bonus. But is it worth risking 99 for the sake of one?

What Jesus makes clear in this parable, in God’s alternative economy, that’s not how things work. In God’s economy, the 99 are not more valuable than the 1. When even one sheep is lost, our Good Shepherd will never give up searching until that one is found and returned to the fold. Until each lost sheep knows they are loved and that they have a place to belong in God’s world.

It doesn’t matter who we are, whether we know we’re lost or think we’re found, the Good Shepherd is always on the move, doing the work of seeking us out. We don’t need to find God; God will find us, no matter how far we have wandered. And we can trust that in God’s sheepfold, there is place where each of us belong.

There are a lot of people in the world today who feel lost. A lot of people who feel alone; and who are very lonely. Sometimes this is also us. Today, may you hear the promise that no matter how lost you feel – you are never far from God. And may we do what we can to show that same love to everyone we meet. For even as we ebb between feeling lost and feeling found, one thing is sure, we all have a place to belong in God’s sheepfold and need to hear the truth of that promise. AMEN.

1 EIB Sermon Planning Guide, 17.

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Sunday March 23, 2025
Third Sunday in Lent

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/9WSVpMwZztE

Reflection for the 3rd Sunday in Lent
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder

Rest & Growth – Luke 13:6-9

Today in our Lenten series – meeting God in the midst of extremes – we’re invited to consider the extremes of rest and growth. Where is God in the midst of rest and growth? When is it time to step back and rest? When is the time to lean in and grow?

To help us dig into these themes, we have this curious little parable about a fig tree

planted in a vineyard that hasn’t born fruit after three years, and whose owner is ready to just chop it down.

The gardeners among us could likely rattle off a whole list of plants that need multiple seasons before they will flower or bear fruit. In my garden, I am watching the wild columbine I planted as a seedling last year start to come up, and already I’m anticipating the blooms that are supposed to come this season now that the plant has had a year to establish its’ root system.

In the case of the fig tree, however, it seems that more time isn’t all that’s needed. The gardener who jumps to the fig tree’s defense recognizes the need for more nurturing. He promises to water, weed, and fertilize this tree – to give it the best possible chance for growth next season.

Faithful waiting for the Spirit to bring new life doesn’t mean doing nothing. If we hope for things to be different than they are, we need to do things differently. If we hope for our congregation to be different than it is right now, we need to try something different.

Today in our annual meeting, we have a couple of motions before us that invite just that – something different. If we pass these motions, it will mean some big changes for us. And while I think these are exciting changes, no change is ever easy even when it’s a change we desire.

And there are no guarantees. We can’t control the outcome. But that is true in all of life. There are no guarantees. These are uncertain times – in the church and in the world. None of us know what tomorrow will bring. All we can do. All we are asked to do, is our part. To follow in the way of that gardener. To practice patience, hope, and trust as we tend to the roots and the soil of the tree with which we’ve been entrusted.

As scary as change can be, God has made us to grow and change. And we can trust that through every moment of growth and change, God holds us fast. Even as a tree grows up to the sky, its roots grow more deeply and fully into the earth that nourishes it and sustains it. May that also be true for us. AMEN.

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Sunday March 16, 2025
Second Sunday in Lent

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/RQDoYmDZ6jU

16 March 2025
Lent 2
Luke 10: 38-42
Preached by Rev. Hans Borch

Just when we think we have the formula all worked out, we’ve got the path to success all laid out, we’ve got that one easy answer for earning us an A-plus for discipleship, suddenly, Jesus goes and throws a wrench into the works. Last week we heard the story of the Good Samaritan, where the point may have been: Go and do. Love  is shown in getting out there and doing something. Remember? The Samaritan sees, goes, bandages, lifts, takes, gives, pays, promises.

This week we meet a woman who is doing and doing and doing – and all to exercise the virtue of showing hospitality. But this time, doing doesn’t seem to be the key. “Stop and listen” seems to be the right answer. Well, that’s quite a turn around isn’t it?

On their way to Jerusalem, Jesus, and his disciples, have come to visit Martha and Mary. Martha rolls up her sleeves and goes to work preparing the dinner. She’s gone to the market, purchased fruits and vegetables, and had a nice lamb butchered. She’s cleaned the house, shaken out the rugs, chopped the vegetables, set the bread out to rise, made the salad, and changed her mind three times about which dishes to use. One set is too formal, but the everyday plates seem too plain. She’s put the soup on the fire, but isn’t sure the seasoning is quite right. She’s called Mary in to give it a taste, but so far Mary shows little interest in helping. She knows the lamb could get tough if she puts it in the oven too soon, and she doesn’t want to over-bake the bread. Perhaps it was a mistake to try a new recipe on such an important guest, but since Mary wouldn’t help her decide on the menu, she decided to try it and hope for the best. Should she have gone to the trouble of making seating assignments? Maybe the place cards are a little much, but she wants it to be perfect. Maybe she should switch Mary’s place to farther down the table, since it seems she’s already spending so much time with Jesus.

Martha pokes her head into the living room, hoping to get Mary’s attention, but Mary’s still just sitting and listening to Jesus. Martha goes back to stir the soup, which has started to simmer. So has Martha.

If we think about it long enough, this story can really get us upset. And it seems so natural for the story to turn into an exercise in choosing between the two sisters. Whom do we choose, Mary or Martha? Which of the sisters are we most like? Who is more important? More faithful? More valuable? It is so tempting to launch into an enthusiastic defence of Martha, especially with all the Marthas in the pews. Where would we be as the church without the Marthas, those who act and give and plan and budget and do and shop and cook and make bag lunches and organize and sort and scrape the wax off of brass candlesticks and wash acolyte robes and make sure there is enough wine in the sacristy and unjam the copier and set up the coffee and cut the coffeecake and make the name tags and stuff the folders? All so that the rest of us can be like Mary and listen at the feet of Jesus, and when the workshop or worship is over, we can go enjoy a nutritious meal that, in case we haven’t noticed, someone else has prepared. Our common life in the church is dependent on the activity of many.

Martha simply wants some help. Is that so wrong? “Lord,” she asks, “do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

In one way, we might wish that Jesus had said, “You are absolutely right, Martha. Let’s just all pitch in and give you a hand. Let’s visit while we put the plates on the table. Many hands make light work!”

But he doesn’t say that. Instead he says, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things.” She is described in the New Revised Standard Version as “distracted by her many tasks.” More literally, it would be “she is with much serving distracted”; even more literally, much “deaconing.” Jesus says, “You are worried and distracted about many things. There is need of only one thing.”

We know. We understand. Martha is not just busy. She is not just multitasking. She is not just overbooked, overscheduled, and overwhelmed. She is distracted with much serving. Distracted. Distracted by too much. There is need of only one thing. But some days it is so hard to remember what that one thing is.

What if the point of the story is not to further divide Martha from Mary and Mary from Martha, not to pit the sisters against each other, not to choose either of them, but to choose Jesus? What if this is not a story about choosing between Bible study and outreach ministries, between making time for nightly devotional study and hands-on service to others?  Perhaps - maybe, Mary represents our faith, our desire to know God intimately, and Martha represents our good works, our desire to transform the world. Both are needed and both are necessary.  What if it’s not a story asking us to choose between being Mary and being Martha, but of keeping our focus on Jesus, choosing Jesus, choosing just one thing he’s asking of us, or offering to us, just now?

But what is the one thing?

If you recall last week’s reading, just before Jesus visits Mary and Martha, he told the story of the Good Samaritan as an answer to the lawyer who wants to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,” he says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

And Jesus asks him, “What is written in the law?”

In Matthew and Mark, Jesus gives the answer to the question, but in Luke’s gospel it’s the lawyer,, who gives this summary of the law, this all-encompassing picture of whom and how to love. The lawyer answers, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself. ”

And Jesus says to him, A-plus. “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” “Do this,” Jesus says, as if it’s a simple thing –  six words that mean all encompassing devotion and commitment – all boiled down to one little word: “this.”

But Jesus himself seems to play fast and loose with the math when he answers the question in Matthew, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?” “This one,” says Jesus, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” What’s the one thing? This – and this.

Do this one thing: loving the Lord your God completely, and your neighbour as yourself. The story of the Good Samaritan shows how one loves one’s neighbour with actions of compassion and mercy, going and doing. Then Jesus goes to visit Mary and Martha and we see Mary loving God without distraction, without worry, resting and listening. Do this one thing: choose Jesus, through compassionate action, through single-hearted, focussed listening. In this one thing – going and doing and stopping and listening – you will choose Jesus, and love your neighbour as yourself.

But wait, we say. That’s more than one! How will I know which one really? How will I know when it’s time to do and when to sit? When to listen and when to act? When will I meet Jesus in serving the wounded stranger and when in quiet contemplation and prayer?

Do this and you will live. Jesus doesn’t spell it all out, doesn’t give us all the details. But listen one more time to how he helps Martha, or tries to.

Community is important in this story. In the story of Mary and Martha, Martha does the right thing. She invites Jesus into her home. But she doesn’t spend time with Jesus, or with Mary. And at least within the narrative arc of the story as we have it, rather than speak with Mary directly and ask Mary directly for help, Martha does what we are all warned against for the well-being of community. She triangulates. “Jesus, make Mary help me.” It’s a divisive move.

In asking Martha to choose the one needful thing, Jesus invites Martha back into community. He does not command. He does not shame. He invites. He gives a choice. Come into the living room, he says. I want you to be with me. Will you choose me? In choosing me, you will also gain back your sister. In choosing me, you may see your way clear to loving yourself, as well as your neighbour.

Put down the lamb shank, Martha, and come join us by the fire. There is nothing you need to do to earn God’s love, or impress God, or prove anything to God. Nothing. There is nothing you can do or not do to make God love you any less or any more than God already does. Jesus looks upon you with compassion. What if you see yourself through the same compassionate eyes? What if you look at yourself with the same love Jesus has for you?

Do this, and you will live.

Amen

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Sunday March 9, 2025
First Sunday in Lent

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/sQQNw7IWt20

Sermon for the 1st Sunday in Lent
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
“Stranger & Neighbour” – Luke 10:25-37

In this parable, Jesus uses a story-telling formula that would have been very familiar to his listeners. Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, a professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, says that “For Jesus’ audience, and for any synagogue congregation today, mention a priest and a Levite, and anyone who knows anything about Judaism will know who the third person will be.”1

Just how you might know that after Larry and Moe, always comes Curly. Or after Snap and Crackle, always comes Pop. Jesus’ listeners would have known that after a Priest and a Levite, always comes an Israelite.

As they listened, Jesus’ audience would have been surprised at the lack of compassion shown by the priest and Levite, and they would have assumed both that the third person would be an Israelite and that he would of course help the injured man.

However, Jesus is telling a parable, and as we know, parables never go the way one expects. Instead of the expected Israelite, the person who stops to help is a Samaritan. Dr Levine points out that “In modern terms, this would be like going from Larry and Moe to Osama bin Laden.”

Because of our distance from Jesus’ time and place, we miss the shock factor big time. Samaritans weren’t just folks that the Jews kinda didn’t like. Samaritans and Jews were longstanding enemies. And so, for Jesus’ listeners, the most shocking, perhaps even the most terrible thing about this story is not that a man was stripped naked, beaten, & left for dead. The most terrible thing about this story is that a Samaritan is the good guy.

Who is my neighbour? Who is a stranger?

How many of you have had that experience of assuming that someone shared your values or political views, only to be blindsided by a stark difference in beliefs? So many families and friends simply don’t talk politics these days because the current political climate is so divisive. It’s a strange thing. “In our world, many of our physical neighbours are strangers to us, and many of our neighbours – those closest to us – feel like strangers.”2

Us and them. In and out. Good and bad. Who can I trust and who should I fear? There are so many in our world who would like for these categories to be neat and tidy; black and white. But they never are.

Russian author and political dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn once said: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.”3

In spite of the way we try to fit one another into tidy groups of ‘us and them’ and ‘in and out’, the truth is that we are all fellow travelers. As Pastor Jeff Chu says, “some might be more neighbourly than others. But there are no strangers in this story.”4

How does the story shift when we don’t think in categories of ‘stranger’ and ‘neighbour’? When instead, we lean into the idea that we are all fellow travelers?

In our lives we will regularly have opportunities to help others in need. We will have opportunities to help those who we may even consider our enemies. And there will be times when we too find ourselves as the ones in need.

On those days when we find ourselves in the Samaritan’s shoes, may we have the courage to lean into that instinct of compassion and be merciful toward all people in need, including those who are different from us, those whose differences perhaps make us feel uncomfortable, and even those who we consider our enemies.

Because to be merciful means to live from faith and not from fear. To worry less about ourselves and more about the needs of others. To step out even when it’s uncomfortable or challenging to do so. To do the right thing even when it feels risky.

We don’t know what happened to the lawyer after this encounter with Jesus. Notice how even at the end of the parable when Jesus asks him “which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ he can’t even bring himself to say the word “Samaritan.” All he can muster is ‘The one who showed him mercy.’

Jesus tells him to, ‘Go and do likewise.’

We don’t know if he did. All we can know is what we, upon hearing this parable, will do. Will we, as Jesus tells us, “go and do likewise?”

I pray that we will. We will most certainly not always get it right. There will still be times when we follow our fear instead of stepping out in faith. When we fall into our old habits of patterns of ‘us and them’ and ‘in and out.’ But, to borrow again the words of Jeff Chu, may there be more days when we “encounter [our fellow travelers with mercy], staying tender-hearted enough to be ‘moved with compassion,’ even on roads that fill others with fear.”5

AMEN

1 https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2014/09/17/go-and-do-likewise-lessons-parable-good-samaritan?fbclid=IwAR3l-58HwJ7elEbJS64y-N7r31rSfU4SyFq-DbhHpMuz0Dna0lBBjl6YDNM
2 Everything [in] Between Sermon Planning Guide, 7.
3 https://fee.org/articles/aleksandr-solzhenitsyns-forgotten-lesson-on-good-and-evil/
4 Everything [in] Between Sermon Planning Guide, 8.
5 Ibid.

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Wednesday March 5, 2025
Ash Wednesday

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/_0cLWLqBFtw

Sermon for Ash Wednesday
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 9:51-62 – Intention & Action

How often have you found yourself saying something like, “but I didn’t mean it that way?” Or, “that wasn’t what I intended?” Having our words or actions impact someone in a way we never intended is a pretty universal human experience. And often a painful – even shameful – experience. Especially when something we said or did was hurtful to someone else when that wasn’t our intent.

Throughout this season of Lent, each week (or service), we will be invited to consider two polarities or extremes. Two things that we often see or experience as butting up against one another. And each time, we’ll dig down a little deeper with these pairs, to explore the nuances and connections that are perhaps not so obvious at first glance. Tonight, we begin by thinking about intention and action. About the relationship between the things we want or desire, and the things we do.

To help situate us in the Biblical story, we are just on the other side of the Transfiguration. Up to this point, Jesus and his disciples have been travelling primarily around the region of Galilee, which is in the northern part of Judea. Jesus has been teaching and healing and performing miracles, and in the process has grown a huge group of followers and devotees.

But after the Transfiguration – that moment on the mountain when Jesus’ glory and identity was revealed to his close disciples Peter, John, and James – something has shifted. As Luke tells it, Jesus understands that the time for him “to go up to heaven” is approaching. And so, he begins making his way south to the capital city of Jerusalem.

One outcome of this decision is that this means they will be traveling through Samaria. This is the most direct route to Jerusalem. It was also enemy territory. For Jewish folk, Samaria could be a dangerous place due to rivaling temples and religious beliefs between Samaritans and Jews (and the same would have been true for Samaritans traveling in Jewish territory).

Jesus doesn’t want to avoid Samaria because his message has never only been for his own people. But he also knows the potential for conflict, which is probably why he sends messengers ahead to feel things out.

Sure enough, they don’t find welcome in Samaria. But while his disciples react impulsively – wanting to defend Jesus’ honour by calling down ‘fire from heaven to consume [the village],” Jesus stops them. We don’t get to know exactly what Jesus said to them – other than it was said sternly – but I imagine he wanted them to think about how that impulsive action would align with their mission (with their intention) to bring more people alongside.

Because we see this continuing to happen – both people asking to come along and Jesus continuing to call people to join them. People have a genuine desire to follow Jesus, but they also have excuses. And excuses that we might call ‘good reasons’ to pause – like making space for grieving and goodbyes.

But for Jesus, in this moment, with his face set to Jerusalem, there is a renewed sense of urgency. Now is the time for commitment. For walking the walk. For aligning those good intentions with action.

This Ash Wednesday, these two vignettes – the disciples’ reaction to the Samaritan villages lack of welcome and Jesus’ call for real commitment – help us to consider the fact that “somewhere between good intentions and impulsive action lies discipleship.”1

Discipleship – seeking to follow Jesus’ way – is what it means to be a Christian. And yet, there are so many distractions and responsibilities and temptations pulling us in other directions. Which is why I’m so grateful that Lent comes around every year. This is a season for us as Christians to refocus our attention on what it means to follow in Jesus’ way.

And to help us refocus, the church has a long history of encouraging Christians to take on some kind of Lenten practice. To do something (an action) that helps us live into our intention (our desire) to follow Jesus more closely. Or to eliminate an action that hinders intention to follow Jesus more closely.

The traditional Lenten practices are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. These practices come from a particular section of Matthew’s gospel that is traditionally read on Ash Wednesday. But I wonder, what practices might come to mind if we think about these traditional disciplines in light of our categories of ‘intention’ and ‘action.’

I wonder, rather than calling fire down from heaven to consume our enemies, we might make a Lenten practice of praying for our enemies.

I wonder whether it might look like fasting from products that harm creation or communities. A fast from bottled water or plastic or fast fashion.

I wonder whether we might donate (or support in another way) the work of organisations that advocate for human rights; environmental rights; indigenous rights. Organisations that help and support the most vulnerable in our communities.

I invite you to take some time tonight and in the coming days to think about what practices or rituals you want to commit to this Lent to help your actions align more closely with your intentions. And doing this with grace for yourself. This is why I like to call these Lenten practices rather than disciplines. Because it’s not about doing it perfectly, but practicing each day a way of being that is aligned with our hopes and dreams for this world.

Jesus’ call to follow him is a call that is issued to each one of us. And most days we will not feel ready to answer this call. And perhaps the deeper truth is, we will never “be ready.”

Ash Wednesday, this day when we remember that we are mortal and finite – that we are dust and to dust we shall return – is the good news that none of this depends on us. All of this depends on God. On God’s wide embrace, calling us in.

We don’t need to be perfect or have it all figured out. What we need is God. Because when we say yes to God, when we rely on God, when we return to God, we learn as we go. God gets us ready on the way. God will help us face whatever comes our way.

My prayer for you (and for myself) this Lent, is that the Spirit will give us guidance and courage to answer Jesus’ call to follow. To help us do that work of aligning our actions ever more closely with our intention (our desire) to follow Jesus in his way of self-giving love. Not because it depends on us, but because in answering this call we will learn more deeply about God’s love for us and how we can love this wonderful creation and all that is in it. May it be so. AMEN.

1 Sanctified Art Everything In Between Sermon Planning Guide, 5.

Sunday March 2, 2025
Transfiguration of Our Lord

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/GpOHomcB6EA

Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday
Sunday, March 2, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 9:28-45

Jesus and three of his disciples – Peter, John, and James – have gone up a mountain to find some space. Some peace and quiet away from the endless crowds who are streaming to Jesus for his wisdom and healing. To get a break from the daily push back and challenges from those who don’t agree with or understand what they’re doing.

Jesus is praying while the disciples struggle to keep awake. But thankfully they manage to stave off sleep long enough to witness this most miraculous moment. As Jesus is praying, suddenly the appearance of his face changes and his clothes shine white like lightning. And then two figures appear – Moses and Elijah. Two of the most important figures in Jewish history.

And all of this would have been enough, but then a cloud overshadows them and a voice speaks from the cloud. Echoing the message Jesus received at his baptism, again Jesus is named as God’s beloved child and chosen one – this time for others to also hear. And the voice commands the disciples to ‘listen to him’!

Peter, bless his heart, wants to preserve this moment. He offers to build dwellings for Moses and Elijah so they can stay with them a while. But as quickly as it’s happened, it’s over. Moses and Elijah are gone, and I can imagine the three disciples turning to look at one another incredulously. Did this really just happen? Was it a dream?

An incredibly powerful spiritual experience for Jesus and for Peter, John, James. But fleeting. And the next day they head back down the mountain with only the memory of this ‘mountain-top experience’ to carry with them back into “the real world.” And down the mountain, the harsh reality of the world is waiting for them right where they left it.

Immediately they are met with the kind of situation they were seeking a reprieve from just yesterday: this painful and terrifying scene of a child suffering from some kind of terrible affliction that Luke describes as a demon possession.

But Jesus deals with this request handily, exhibiting the mercy and compassion he is known for by his actions, even while having some harsh words for his disciples. And after healing the child, Jesus gives a warning to his disciples. He is about to be delivered into human hands. But the disciples don’t get it. At this point, there’s no way they can know the terror and evil that yet lay ahead for Jesus and for them.

In these weeks, more than at any other point in my life, it feels like we too are living on the other side of the Transfiguration. In this moment where reality of the world we’re waking up to is harsher than we ever dared imagine. As we watch the richest man in the world be given free reign to dismantle US government agencies piece by piece, destroying programs that the most vulnerable in our world depend on. As the leaders of our closest ally and biggest trading partner continue to threaten our Canadian sovereignty and to impose massive tariffs that will upend both our economies. And just two days ago, the despicable treatment of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at the White House.

Evil is not a word that comes up often in my vocabulary, but these days it feels like the only word to describe what is happening south of the border. As we watch our closest neighbour slide further into fascism and authoritarianism. How do we live faithfully in times like this? How do we not fall into despair? Denial? Complacency?

I wonder, for Peter, John & James, what got them through the hard days that lay ahead? I imagine that for them, the memory of that mountain-top experience must have been a part of it. That they found courage in remembering that powerful moment when it was made so clear that Jesus was named and chosen by God. Going forward, no matter what happens, even when it was hard and scary, they knew to listen to Jesus. They knew they could trust in him.

In these times, it's important for us too, to hold fast to our experiences of God’s power and love. To remember those moments in our lives when we’ve felt God’s loving presence holding us; leading us. And to keep returning to those spaces and places where we can rest in God’s presence. To spend time in prayer, as Jesus models for us. To gather for worship, to come to the font and the table, to spend time in beloved community with other fellow disciples.

Prayer. Worship. Font and table. Beloved community. These are the spaces and places where we can trust that we will encounter the voice of Jesus. Where we will find guidance and revelation.

Where we can ask the hard questions. Where we can grieve. Where we can give and receive love.

Where we will find encouragement and strength and grounding to meet the needs of our time.

For we do this not as an escape from the world, but so that we have the fortitude, the capacity, to face our present reality. We take the time to rest in God’s love for us and for this world, so that we can keep meeting the world with this same deep love and compassion.

Today, as we celebrate Jesus’ transfiguration on the mountain, we remember that while we need those space and places of rest and refuge, we are not called to stay on the mountain.

With Peter, John, and James, we are called to follow Jesus down into the “real world.” To follow Jesus on that road to Jerusalem – the road that leads to the cross. And as we go, we can trust that the one who has already made this difficult journey is walking with us on ours. We do not make this journey alone. Amen.

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Sunday February 23, 2025
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/p52Qechv5l0

Sermon for Sunday February 23, 2025
Seventh Sunday after Epiphany
Luke 7: 36-50
Written & Preached by Lay Worship Leader Lorre Calder

In out bibles, there are headings above sections in the chapters in the books of the bible. Like, ‘The Feeding of the Five Thousand’, or Jesus Walks on Water’, or ‘Peter Denies Jesus’. The common heading above this chapter is some variation of ‘Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman’. Most common versions call her a sinful woman, a sinner, or a woman who lived a sinful life. The Message translation goes a bit farther and calls her a harlot:

From The Message: One of the Pharisees asked him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet. Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him.” (Luke 7: 36-39 The Message)

From the scriptures as we read them now as lay people, we really don’t know why this woman was considered sinful, just that everybody in town knew all of her faults. For all we know, she might have been a thief, an adulterer, an unapologetic gossip, an abusive parent, or simply a nasty person. Or, she might have been what we have come to believe for centuries…that she was a prostitute.

So, with that background, let’s look at the story and think about the interaction between Jesus and this woman, this sinner. Jesus is invited to the home of a Pharisee, whose name was Simon. Jesus was always willing to speak to people whenever and wherever he was invited and more often than not, a meal was involved. While he was there, this woman came in, word having gotten around that Jesus would be a guest. It goes without saying she was an unexpected, and uninvited, attendee at this gathering. Once she arrives, she begins to weep at Jesus feet. The Message says, ‘raining tears’. We know those kinds of tears. We have seen those kinds of tears. We have shed those kinds of tears. Deep, come-from-the-depths-of-your-soul, body-shaking sobs that seem to have no end. Tears that no tissues can keep up with. And she weeps them at Jesus feet, in front of everyone else in attendance as if she and Jesus were the only ones in the room. Then, she let down her hair, dried Jesus’ feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the expensive perfume she had brought with her.

With the reaction of Simon, who says to himself, “If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him.”, Jesus has his opportunity to show them a new way. The townspeople in the room saw only a sinful woman who didn’t deserve to be in their company. Jesus saw someone in need of compassion and forgiveness.

What the woman did, walking into that room was an act of bravery and of deepest humility. She knew she might not be allowed in, she expected to be ridiculed, stared at, whispered about, or perhaps verbally scoffed at for having the audacity to show up expecting to speak with this teacher and healer. I imagine her being nervous and afraid, and maybe also embarrassed and fearful. But, she showed up anyway. Just as earlier I said that we can’t be certain what this woman’s sin was, it is unclear whether Jesus and this woman had met before. Jesus says to Simon, “This is why I tell you that her many sins have been forgiven; so she has shown great love.” It sounds like Jesus has already forgiven her sins and this interaction between them now is her deep and humble gratitude for having been forgiven for things she believed could never be forgiven. So, just to make the point for those in the room, Jesus tells her again, “I forgive your sins. Your faith has saved you, go in peace.”

I can’t help but think of the space that Jesus and the woman occupied as holy ground. She came in her humility and open honesty to the feet of Jesus and opened her soul to him. Jesus in turn lifted her up, and saw her as a human being, as worthy as anyone else in that room, and forgave her sins.

Now I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I am not proud of and things of which I have been deeply ashamed. And as much as I love you all, and I do love you, I’m not going to confess to any of these things out in the open. I’m just not gonna do it. My faults and failings are between God and me. And as our faith teaches us, in confessing to God, we receive forgiveness for our sins. The woman in this story had depth of courage that I do not possess. I am sure I am not alone in feeling this way. We have all done things we aren’t proud of. We confess them to God and we receive God’s abundant forgiveness. Every time. But they remain between you and God, and any other trusted person you might choose. But I doubt that sharing would include a whole room of people who already think you’re bad news.

We can ask for forgiveness. We can offer forgiveness. We can receive, or reject that forgiveness. You may recall that Pope John Paul II forgave the man who tried to kill him in May of 1981. The would-be assassin appeared to accept that forgiveness, and at the request of the pope was pardoned by the Italian president at the request of the pope. He was deported back to his native Turkey where he was incarcerated for earlier crimes. The pope met with the shooter in prison but their content of their conversation remains between the late pope, the shooter, and God.

More recently, following the shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, a young white supremacist joined a group of black parishioners for bible study one night, sat with them for nearly an hour before pulling out a gun and killing nine of them. He was apprehended a day or so later. At his arraignment, after the charges were read, the families of five of the victims had the opportunity to address the accused. During those few moments, their loved ones not even buried yet, they told the shooter they forgave him and were praying for his soul. I remember watching that live on television at the time, and I know some of you have heard me speak of how moved I was by the faith it took to forgive someone who had unleashed such brutality on a group of people at a bible study. The shooter did not ask for forgiveness and I have been unable to find any record of him publicly accepting their forgiveness. But it was offered anyway and was a true evidence that the faith these folks professed extended to someone who had taken something so precious from then in such a violent, hateful way, and who wasn’t the least bit sorry for it.

These two people did horrible things, and others have done things we might deem as far worse. And yet we believe that if anyone comes to God and truly repents and asks to be forgiven, that God will forgive. Think about the worst criminals you’ve ever heard of…Paul Bernardo, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy…the list goes on and on. They have done such heinous things to others that our human minds and hearts might find it hard or nearly impossible to forgive. But God is God, and we are not. God’s capacity to love and forgive is beyond our human understanding. God’s grace and forgiveness extends even to those we might think are unworthy of that gift of forgiveness.

Like the crowd in our gospel this morning, they couldn’t imagine that Jesus could, or should forgive this woman for her sinful life. But, he did forgive her. Fully forgiven, this woman stood in that room equal to everyone else in Jesus’ eyes. I can picture that he might have given her a hug and told her she was loved and that she was worthy.

In allowing this woman to anoint his feet with the expensive perfume, Jesus allowed himself to be blessed by her…a sinful woman. The person who was forgiven turned around and blessed Jesus. This made me wonder, how do I respond to being forgiven? I’m not sure I have an answer, but it really made me think. I remembered that during the course of his ministry, Jesus always helped, always healed, always forgave. He never said no to anyone who came to him for anything. He blessed children, women, the sick, the mentally ill, those on the margins, and even sinners. Some people just had to touch him or a piece of his clothing to be healed. People were healed and blessed without having even asked for it. It’s as if Jesus cast around blessings, healing, and forgiveness like glitter. Everybody got some of it on them.

Now we have seen today that this included someone that the good folk of the town didn’t feel was worthy of forgiveness. Maybe there are some who think that you or I might not be worthy of forgiveness, either. But we are. Today’s gospel shows us that this sinful woman was just as worthy as anyone else. Jesus knew exactly who this woman was and he forgave her anyway. Jesus knows exactly who you and I are, and forgives us anyway.

As Christians, and as a community, we have much to ask forgiveness for. We do not value people or God’s creation as we should…as Jesus would. We are approaching the last week of Black History Month and this has been a time when we pause to look back at the damage done to people of colour in the name of God. And even though that damage might not have been done by any of us in this room, we can still wonder with deepest humility why God should ever forgive us for the behaviours of the past. I can tell you why. Because God is a God of love and reconciliation. God wants us to be in right relationship with each other. We can ask forgiveness and then work to make the lives of our neighbours of colour a little bit better. It’s something we can all do.

Next Sunday when we return to our regular service of Holy Communion, as you approach the altar, think about that forgiveness that is freely given to each of us. As you stand or kneel, think about the woman and her tears raining down on Jesus’ feet in an act of such humility and vulnerability. Think about her relief as he lifts her up and forgives her sins and tells her that her faith has saved her and to go in peace. We are no different than the woman in this story.  When we leave the altar after receiving the body and blood of Jesus and the forgiveness that goes with that, remember that every person, every single person, we will ever encounter is just as worthy as we are.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Sunday February 16, 2025
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/O1DiF6BaFyE

Sermon for the 6th Sunday of Epiphany
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev Laura Sauder
Luke 7:18-35

We meet John the Baptist again for a second time today in our journey through Luke’s gospel. Back in January, we met him in the wilderness where he baptized Jesus. Today, however, we meet him under very different circumstances. John now sits in prison where he landed after he dared to publicly criticize King Herod for marrying his own brother’s wife.

John, the one who prepared the way of the Lord, was imprisoned before ever being able to witness Jesus – the Messiah’s – ministry, for himself. And so now he wants to know: did I get it right? Is Jesus really the Messiah? Because the kinds of things he’s hearing about Jesus are not what he expected.

John proclaimed that the Messiah would come with “his winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Luke 3:17)

John expected the Messiah to overthrow unjust powers and rules. To turn the tables on those who were oppressing the people. John’s vision for the coming of the Messiah was revolutionary and radical. And from what he’s hearing, Jesus isn’t doing any of these things. John was expecting a liberator, not a healer. So he sends his disciples to check up on things.

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to look for another?

Expectations are a tricky thing. I’m sure you know from personal experience how hard it is when our expectations don’t match up with reality. When we’ve experienced the pain of unmet expectations, sometimes we begin to lower our expectations on purpose. We believe that if we just don’t expect too much then we won’t be disappointed.

And certainly there are times when we need to readjust our expectations. Because there are times when our priorities are out of sync with what really matters; or when our expectations are out of sync with reality; with what’s possible. But sometimes, lowering our expectations means dampening the truest desires of our heart; desires and hopes that motivate us and give us passion for good things. And that’s a much harder one.

I will say, I don’t think John’s expectations are the problem. It’s ok when our expectations aren’t met. The real challenge is how to respond when that happens. Can we hold our expectations lightly enough that they can shift and adapt when needed?

When John’s disciples come to Jesus, relaying John’s question, it’s so interesting that Jesus doesn’t answer in words. Instead, right there before them, “Jesus heals many of their diseases, illnesses, and evil spirits, and he gives sight to a number of blind people.”

Only then does he reply “to John’s disciples, [saying to them], “Go, report to John what you have seen and heard. Those who were blind are able to see. Those who were crippled now walk. People with skin diseases are cleansed. Those who were deaf now hear. Those who were dead are raised up. And good news is preached to the poor.”

Jesus doesn’t let John’s doubts about him get into his head. Instead, Jesus leans on that clarity of vision and purpose we heard him preach several weeks ago in his hometown synagogue. Jesus isn’t concerned about whether or not he’s meeting other peoples’ expectations, because he’s clear about his mission and purpose.

It would be easy for us to criticize John, because of course, from our vantage point, we know that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. And yet, I think we have more in common with John than we might first care to admit. Because the truth is – as Jesus lays it out so plainly for us – none of us fully “get it.”

As he tells those gathered around him, “John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ Yet the Human One came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’” Many people thought that both John and Jesus were individuals who could change the world, and yet got caught up in judgement and disbelief when John and Jesus acted in ways they didn’t expect.

How often our expectation about how things are “supposed to be” lead us to judgement or missing the point entirely. But the kingdom of God is never about meeting “our expectations.” Rather, the kingdom of God is always about upending our expectations. Jesus’ Way is always surprising us with the good news we didn’t even know we needed.

And even though the good news of the kingdom will always surprise us, Jesus does give us clues where to watch for this kingdom life. Jesus points our attention to the sick, the disabled, the poor. To all those whom society would say have little to offer. Yet this is where we will find good news.

For us this morning, in this I hear an invitation to honour and listen to the voices of those on the margins. Those whom so many in power are doing their darndest to hurt and diminish right now: immigrants, trans people, the unhoused, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour. These communities are the places where God’s wisdom is waiting to be heard.

May we have the humility to recognize that we don’t have it all figured out – that we don’t have Jesus all figured out. And may the Spirit open our hearts to listen to the wisdom of those Jesus prioritized in his ministry – knowing that they have much to teach us and we have much to learn. For when we can pause and reflect when our expectations are upended – rather than react with judgement or defensiveness or doubling-down – this is the beginning of wisdom. And this is where we will encounter Jesus’ life-changing good news for us. The kind of good news that transforms hearts and lives. May it be so. AMEN.

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Sunday February 9, 2025
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/EarxXxw9M6E

Sermon for the 5th Sunday of Epiphany
Sunday, February 9, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 7:1-17

During my seminary studies, I had to read the book “The Road Less Traveled” by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck. First published in 1978, this book about spiritual growth begins with this famous line: “Life is difficult.”1

The truth that life is difficult is something we will all learn as we go through life, but it’s a truth that we’re often in denial about. Whether because of advertising or media or maybe just part of being human – somewhere along the line many of us get the idea that if we’re living life well it really shouldn’t be difficult. We get the idea that life really should be easy – filled with happiness and joy. And so when things happen in our lives that cause us pain or suffering, when our lives aren’t easy or happy or joyful, we can start to feel that something is wrong with us. That we are the problem; that it’s our fault we’re in pain.

And so to understand that difficulty is not an aberration, but the starting place – the base reality of human existence – can be very freeing. It means that difficulty is something we all share and that none of us can escape. And yet, as humans we are wired to seek relief for our pain. Which is why the stories of healing in the Bible draw us in. The promise of relief from our pain – whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual – is alluring.

These Biblical stories of healing offer hope to those who long for the gift of a cure. But they trouble us too, because far too often in life, the healing we long for doesn’t come in the ways we would like it to. Or in the instance of the second healing – the raising of a child back to life – is simply not possible, even though any parent longs more than anything to have that child back again.

From Luke’s gospel we hear today two stories of miraculous healings. And what sets these two stories apart from many others in the Bible is that in these two incidents, the focus of Jesus’ action and attention is not on the individuals being healed, but on those who have close relationships with the two recipients of Jesus’ power. What we see in this is an affirmation of the pain we carry when those we love are hurting or have been harmed.

In the first instance, we have a Roman centurion who appeals to Jesus via messengers to heal his deathly ill slave. Like a prayer or plea of intercession that we might lift to God for our friends or family in need, this centurion sends for Jesus to help someone who is important in his life. And when Jesus receives this plea, he doesn’t think twice. He gets up and goes, making his way to the centurion’s home. But before even getting there, Jesus receives a second message asking him not to come after all. And so Jesus doesn’t end up going to the centurion’s home. But that doesn’t stop the healing from happening.

For the first time in Luke’s gospel, we see that Jesus’ power to heal doesn’t require touch or even physical proximity. This is a long-distance healing, (a ZOOM healing!) and as far as we know, Jesus doesn’t even utter any particular words. When the centurion’s friends return home, they simply find the slave restored to health.

A little while later, Jesus is in the city of Nain when he comes upon a funeral procession for a local man who has died. As Jesus watches the grieving mother, he is moved with compassion for her. Completely unprompted, Jesus interrupts the funeral procession, raises the man back to life, and facilitates a tearful, joy-filled reunion between mother and son.

In the Bible, stories of healing are often connected to the person’s own faithfulness, but here we have two stories of healing that have nothing at all to do with that. Sometimes healing comes because of the faithful request of friends – which is why we continue to pray for those in need of healing. And sometimes healing comes as a complete surprise – fully God’s initiative and not our own.

It’s an important reminder that in this life, we can not ever understand why some people are cured and others are not. It’s an important reminder that when healing doesn’t come in the way we desire, it’s not a sign of our own lack of faith.

Even when healing doesn’t come in the way we wish, we can take comfort in the promise that just as Jesus was moved by that mother’s tears, Jesus also cares about our pain. Jesus does not turn away from our suffering. In difficult times, we can trust that not only is Jesus with us, but Jesus bears our pain with us too.

This is a truth that Julian of Norwich, a 14th century mystic, spiritual counsellor, and religious recluse, experienced in her own life. On the 8th of May 1373 while she was lying on, what was thought at the time, to be her deathbed, Julian experienced 16 mystical visions. In her visions she saw Christ bleeding in front of her and received insight into his sufferings and his love for us. 2 She later wrote about these experiences and shared her spiritual insights in the book, Revelations of Divine Love.

Julian writes that God “is our clothing, who wraps and unfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for his life, which is so tender that he may never desert us.” God’s love is so profound that there is simply no way for us to comprehend it. It is so great that God refused to stand aloof from our suffering, watching it dispassionately from a distance. Instead, God became human and suffered, and in so doing, “[God] saw and sorrowed for every [person’s] sorrow, desolation and anguish.” And…although he rose again and can no longer suffer, Julian still writes, “he suffers with us” even now when we suffer.3

Jesus’ own experiences of suffering – in his life and death – are a promise that God knows intimately the pain of human suffering. And that God is with us in our times of suffering.

Julian’s writings have encouraged and inspired generations of Christians. And contemporary followers of Julian developed a body prayer that uses four key words from her writings: Await; Allow; Accept; and Attend. Each word has an associated body movement with it, which you may do either standing or sitting.4

This is prayer that can be used in times of anxiety or stress; or simply in moments when we want to open ourselves to God’s presence; to reconnect with God; to remember that even in our times of pain and suffering, God meets us.

Julian of Norwich Body Prayer

AWAIT (hands at waist, cupped up to receive): Await God’s presence, not as you expect, hope, or imagine, but just as it is in this moment.

ALLOW (reach up, hands open, above shoulders if you can): Allow a sense of God’s presence (or not) to come and be what it is, without meeting your expectations.

ACCEPT (hands at heart, cupped towards body): Accept as a gift whatever comes or does not come. Accept that you are not in charge. Accept the infinity of God’s presence, present whether or not you are aware.

ATTEND (hands outstretched, ready to be responsive): Attend to what you are called to, actions that God invites you to from this stance of openness.

Then you may repeat the prayer several times in a row, so that the movements flow, one into the other, like a dance or yoga postures.5

The truth is life is difficult. In the midst of difficult times, especially difficult times that feel like too much; that threaten to overwhelm us; I hope that Julian’s prayer will help you to remember and receive God’s loving presence. For we are promised that even in the difficulty, Christ is with us. We do not bear our pain alone. May it be so. AMEN.

1 M Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth (Touchstone Books, 2003).
2 https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich
3 https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/02/05/hillis-prayer-julian-norwich-suffering-247036
4.https://www.facebook.com/StPaulsAlbany/posts/pfbid0Weat4Xw1NABCwioaofcj8SWhrgpgBbDXmHU1bMQsZdcseviYBPXKswPtCSANSZjwl
5 This version from Richard Rohr, 2014.

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Sunday February 2, 2025
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/W7IPP1yXSmA

Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Epiphany
Sunday, February 2, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 6:1-16 – Healing on the Sabbath

Last week we heard how Jesus called Peter and his friends to join him in ‘fishing for people.’ During this time in his ministry, Jesus is continuing to travel from town to town, healing people and teaching – which is causing more and more debates with the local Pharisees. He’s also called another disciple to join his movement – a tax collector named Levi – which is only drawing more criticism from those who don’t think it’s proper to hang out with tax collectors and sinners.

And today, we hear two more examples of the kind of debates Jesus was having with some of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a movement within Judaism that was concerned about adherence to the Torah (Law of Moses). These were men who spent time in study and debate in synagogues; who wanted to make the Torah relevant to their daily living.

In the New Testament, the Pharisees are often portrayed in a negative light. They often butted heads with Jesus, but it’s important to point out that the Pharisees were not a monolith. In Luke’s gospel, there are instances of Pharisees seeking to spend time with Jesus (7:36) and even helping him (13:31). While there were many Pharisees who did take issue with Jesus, they were a diverse movement, which is important to note given that Christianity has a history of toward anti-Semitism based on these negative portrayals. Many – perhaps most – of the Pharisees, were faithful Jews who shared more in common with Jesus than not.

All that said, today we hear about two separate incidents where some Pharisees take issue with Jesus. These two incidents revolve around what behaviours are permittable on the Sabbath – the weekly day of rest set out by God in the Ten Commandments.

In the first story, Jesus and his disciples are walking through a field on the Sabbath when his disciples pick some grains of wheat and eat them. It’s actually a little unclear which Sabbath law these Pharisees think Jesus and his disciples are breaking – possibly the command to not work? Regardless, they confront Jesus about this. And to defend their actions, Jesus appeals to a story in the Hebrew Scriptures about King David eating consecrated bread from the Temple (1 Sam 21:1-6).

For a moment it seems that Jesus is making a point about how it’s ok to glean grain from a field if you’re hungry, but that’s not where he goes with this. Instead, Jesus uses this appeal to King David to make a claim of his own authority. That he, Jesus, the Human One, is Lord of the Sabbath. And because he’s Lord of the Sabbath, he makes the rules. In other words, Jesus tells these Pharisees that it’s ok for his disciples to break this Sabbath law because he said so.

You can imagine how this response would have troubled those Pharisees. This unilateral claim to authority.

In our world – both historically and today – we have far too many examples of people claiming authority for themselves, and when they get that authority, wielding it in selfish and harmful and even dangerous ways. It’s why in democracies we have checks and balances in place to limit authoritarian behaviour because power can so easily be manipulated to be self-serving – and even those are constantly put to the test.

Who is this Jesus who claims he is above the law, as it’s commonly understood among his community?

Immediately following this first dust up, Luke presents us with a second one. This time Jesus intentionally shakes things up when he heals a man’s hand on a different Sabbath day for those Pharisees who were waiting for him to do just that.

It’s important to know that the law allowed for healing on the Sabbath if it was a matter of life or death. But this is not that. This healing was in no way urgent. The man didn’t even ask for it. But Luke puts this story next to help us understand what it will look like when Jesus wields his authority. Luke wants us to understand that when Jesus wields his authority, it’s for the sake of mercy.

Even though it wasn’t a matter of life and death, healing this man’s hand was an act of mercy. While regaining the use of his hand would have been life-changing for the man, it was not urgent. And yet, by taking this stand, Jesus shows that in situations when mercy is possible, choose to show mercy. Or, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “The time is always right to do what is right.”

“King spoke those words at Oberlin College (a liberal arts college in Ohio) in October 1964 to encourage students to sustain the nonviolent fight for racial equality. "The time is always right to do right.” King repeated this quote almost verbatim at Oberlin's commencement the following year after imploring the graduates to remain diligent and active in the fight for equality. He said, "Let nobody give you the impression that the problem of racial injustice will work itself out.” "Let nobody give you the impression that only time will solve the problem." In his speech, citing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham in 1963 and the shooting of a civil rights worker in Selma, Alabama, earlier in 1965, King disparaged anyone who remained indifferent. Human progress, he said, "comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals," when they "realize that the time is always right to do right."”1

February is Black History Month. This is one month of the year set aside for us to prioritize learning and listening to Black stories, which is what our Book Study group is currently doing.

We’ve been reading “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness” by Austin Channing Brown. One of the things we’ve talked about is that even with the strides made, thanks to civil rights activist like King and others, ‘racism’ is still very much entrenched in Canadian/American society. And racism doesn’t just impact Black folks, but indigenous people and all people of colour.

It’s important work to learn and examine the ways we are complicit in systems that don’t treat everyone the same. To examine how we can be a part of making things different and better. To be a part of the urgent work of dismantling racism in our society.

I want to encourage you to take time some this month for learning and listening to Black stories. To read a book or watch a documentary or movie. Lorre has put a long list of resources on our church website that I hope you will check out. This is learning we all benefit from as we seek to live in a world built on the principles of justice and equality.

As Christians, we are ones who claim Jesus as our authority – the one to whom we look for guidance, direction, and encouragement. May we find the courage to follow in his example of mercy. Even, and especially in those moments when to us, it doesn’t feel urgent. To not remain indifferent, because as Jesus and others before us have modelled, “the time is always right, to do what is right.” May it be so. AMEN.

1 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/01/14/mlk-day-quotes-words-unity/6526355001/

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Sunday January 26, 2025
Third Sunday after Epiphany

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/AEBuXCgR9zg

Sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany
Sunday, January 26, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev Laura Sauder
“Fish for People” - Luke 5:1-11

Since being run out of his hometown – which is where we left off in Luke’s Gospel last week – Jesus has continued traveling throughout the surrounding region, teaching in synagogues and performing many healings.

Luke tells us he casts out unclean spirits and lays hands upon people with various kind of diseases, curing them. He also has a previous encounter with Simon Peter. According to Luke, Jesus visits Simon Peter’s home where he heals Simon’s mother-in-law by rebuking her fever. We also have the first instance of Jesus seeking out solitude from the crowds of people in a deserted place.

All of this is helpful to understand that Jesus’ popularity and fame has been increasing when we meet him this morning on the shores of Lake Gennesaret. The crowds have followed him here, anxious to hear and see more wondrous things. And so Jesus commandeers Simon Peter’s fishing boat so he can teach the crowd on the shore.

When he’s finished speaking, he asks Simon to go out to the deeper water and put down his nets. But Simon is reluctant. He tells Jesus, “we’ve been working all night and caught nothing.” (5:5) It’s important to know that Simon isn’t just some night owl who prefers to do his work in the overnight hours. In Jesus’ day, it was common for fishers to work at night because nets were made of linen or other natural fibres, and the nets would have been too visible for the fish during the day.1

So when Simon tells Jesus they’ve been working all night, it’s important to understand that this is the end of his workday. Simon Peter was ready to go home for a rest when Jesus commandeers his boat and then tells him to try fishing one more time.

Simon is exhausted. He also knows the fish are going to be able to see the nets because it’s daylight. But Simon has also already had a glimpse of Jesus’ power. So because it’s Jesus who asks, Simon decides to give it a try. They row the boat out into deeper water and cast their nets again one more time.

I wonder how many in our world can relate to Simon Peter’s weariness? That feeling of ‘working all night’ with nothing to show for it. That feeling of never being able to get ahead? Maybe this is you? Or maybe someone you know?

“[Fishers like Simon and his friends] were on the lowest level of Rome’s hierarchy of occupations. They owned no land and were forced to pay for both the right to fish on the emperor’s lake and the right to sell the fish they caught through a toll exacted on their catch. Their work was physically demanding and dangerous, often leaving them with barely enough money to sustain their families.”2

This is also the economic reality for so many people in our community. So many who are living paycheque to paycheque. So many who cannot afford to buy a home or property. And since the pandemic, with the rising cost of everything, it’s gotten that much harder. So maybe it’s not so hard to imagine that if someone like Jesus came along at the end of another difficult workday, that to put down the nets one more time – what more is there to lose?

Simon Peter and his friends put down the nets as Jesus instructs. And right before their eyes, a miracle of abundance unfolds. Not only do they catch fish in the daytime after catching nothing all night; they catch so many fish that they need a second boat to help bring the haul. And both boats start sinking under the weight of all those fish! This is a LOT of fish, The kind of haul Simon and his peers could only ever dream of. The kind of haul that will set them financially for a long while.

Simon Peter is so amazed that he falls at Jesus’ feet in worship and reverence. And then something unexpected happens. Jesus says to Peter and his friends: Don’t be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people.”

I’ve always understood this story as a story about evangelism. About joining Jesus in the work of spreading the good news. But in my studies this week I learned another perspective. Within the Jewish prophetic tradition – out of which Jesus comes – ‘fishing for people’ was about “fishing out and removing the elite who have oppressed the poor and broken the covenant with God.”3

Both Jeremiah and Amos use fishing imagery in this way. In Jeremiah, “God expresses disgust at the self-serving practices of the elite by saying: ‘I am now sending many fishermen … they shall catch them. … For my eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from my presence, nor is their iniquity concealed from my sight.’”4 And Amos, talks about how those “who oppress the poor, who crush the needy” (4:1) will be taken away “with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks” (4:2).

It would seem that there’s a case to be made that for Jesus, “fishing for people is not about saving souls. It’s a call to rise up against those who … take advantage of the poor.”5 Certainly this interpretation fits with the mission statement Jesus proclaimed at his home synagogue in Nazareth. That he is about bringing good news to the poor, releasing the captives, recovering sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour.

Simon Peter and his friends could have stayed behind with their huge haul of fish. This many fish would have them set for a long while. But when Jesus asks them to join him in ‘fishing for people,’ they want to be a part of a movement that will make life better for everyone. I wonder, where might answering Jesus’ call to ‘fish for people’ lead us if we were to understand this as a call not necessarily about saving souls but a call to make life better for everyone?

I know one of the things I’ll be thinking of in the coming days is about where best to pass on my $200 from the Ontario government. Certainly those who need the money to make ends meet – there should be absolutely no shame in using this money for yourself. But for those us who really don’t need it – what community organization could you support with that money?

A lot of time it’s hard to imagine that the world could be different than it is. More just. More peaceful. More loving. And yet this is the ministry Jesus calls us into. A way of living that asks for not just our hearts, but to be a part of making the world a kinder, gentler place for everyone.

Gracious Spirit, give us the courage to leave our nets behind, even when they’re bursting at the seams with fish, to join in God’s work of creating a more just and peace-filled world for the sake of all our neighbours. AMEN.

1 https://biblediscoverytv.com/history/2023/fishing-in-galilee/
2 https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/fish-for-people/commentary-on-luke-51-11-7
3 https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/fish-for-people/commentary-on-luke-51-11-7
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.

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Sunday January 19, 2025
Second Sunday after Epiphany

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/05f53b2ZOD0

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Epiphany
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 4:14-30 – “Sermon at Nazareth”

“Charity begins at home.” I wonder, have you heard this saying before? Do you have any idea where it comes from? It’s one of those sayings that sounds like it could be from the Bible. And certainly, I’ve heard it quoted in church settings. But it’s not from the Bible.

The earliest known use of this saying is in the writings of a 17th century English author named Sir Thomas Browne.1 And in modern times, this proverb is most often interpreted to mean that “one’s first responsibility is for the need of one’s own family and friends.”

It’s important to note that Sir Browne didn’t actually lift this up as a positive thing; and neither does the Bible. Not only is this saying not in the Bible, its’ message isn’t biblical either. In fact, it’s goes against what is most often taught in Scripture – like what Jesus preaches in his hometown of Nazareth.

Since emerging from the wilderness, Jesus has been traveling to various communities and teaching in their synagogues. We’re told that word was starting to spread about this amazing teacher, and presumably rumours have even made their way back to Nazareth. So when Jesus shows up at his local synagogue on the Sabbath, there is a buzz of excitement.

And Jesus does not disappoint. At least not at first. He reads this powerful passage from the prophet Isaiah that promises good things for those who are struggling:

-Good news to the poor

-Release to the captives

-Recovery of sight to the blind

-Freedom for the oppressed

When he sits down, he tells his friends and neighbours that “today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” and everyone is amazed. You can imagine how proud they must be that this man who has impressed people all over the region is one of their own. What kind of name will Jesus make for the small community of Nazareth? But the excitement doesn’t last long.

It’s hard to know why Jesus does what he does next. He tells his friends and neighbours that just because they “go way back” doesn’t mean they’ll get any special treatment from him. In fact, he makes it sound like none of this good news is for them at all. Jesus makes it very clear that charity will not be beginning at home.

Perhaps the clarity of vision and purpose that he gained during his time in the wilderness has led him to realise that sooner or later his friends and neighbours will expect some kind of special treatment. For him to ‘give back’ to the community that helped raise him. And Jesus, knowing he won’t be able to do that, is just getting this hard part out of the way now – rather than down the line.2

We don’t know why Jesus instigates this conflict, but we see the impact it has. The crowd in the synagogue, in a matter of moments, does a complete 180. The praise and admiration turn to anger and rage. They drive Jesus out of town to the edge of a cliff, planning to throw him off. But somehow Jesus gets away and carries on to the next town.

What is it we want Jesus to do for us? What do we expect Jesus to do for us?

It’s been impossible to think about this week’s story apart from what will be happening south of our border tomorrow. As Donald Trump is sworn into office as the 47th president of the United States. While those who voted for Trump had different reasons for doing so, many of his Christian supporters view him as a saviour. They literally believe he has been chosen by God to save their country. This man, who demeans immigrants, minorities, women, the disabled.3 This man, who’s actions have revealed again and again that he has no moral compass.

Trump’s politics play on fears and only serve to divide people further. And here in Canada we are not immune to these kinds of messages. I’m afraid for what we will hear from our political leaders as we head into a federal election year. What kinds of promises will the parties lay out before us to win (or buy) our votes? How might leaders seek to divide us and pit one group against another?

For sure there is a lot of uncertainty in the world these days, but our faith – Jesus’ call to us – is not to circle the wagons and care only for ourselves. As a Judean living under the Roman Empire, Jesus also lived in hugely uncertain times. And even amidst the uncertainty and oppression of his people, Jesus’ mission was about looking outward rather than in. It was about giving special care and attention to those who are most vulnerable rather than caring first (or only) for neighbours and friends.

And the call for us remains the same. Jesus calls us to have the clarity of vision to see past the promises of security and salvation offered by human leaders. To trust that our security and salvation come from God. To trust that God’s abundance is enough when no one takes more than they need.

We need not doubt that Jesus’ love is for us. But it isn’t only for us. None of us has an exclusive claim on Jesus’ love, and Jesus calls us to share this love as far and wide as possible, especially with those who are ignored or being harmed by the powers of the world. Even when it costs us something; even when it means giving up some of our comfort or privilege.

We won’t always get it right. Sometimes like those folks in Nazareth we will act out of self-interest instead of grace and humility and care and compassion. Thankfully, Jesus also promises us that “Today, this has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

No matter how often we get it right or get it wrong, Jesus is already and always at work in the world bringing good news to the poor, releasing the captives, recovering sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour.

And so, as we make our way through this world, continually being tempted to look out for number one, may the Spirit give us clarity of vision and courage to stand on the side of good news, even when it may not feel like good news for us. AMEN

1 https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/hc/religio-medici/the-second-part/
2 Amy Robertson in the BibleWorm Podcast, “Episode 622 Jesus’ Sermon at Nazareth (Luke 4:14-30).” Published January 5, 2025.
3 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20g1zvgj4do

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Sunday January 12, 2025
Baptism of Our Lord

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/66LW-lR5RB8

Sermon for Baptism of Our Lord
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev. Laura Sauder
Luke 3:1-22

Today is Baptism of Our Lord Sunday. This is the day in the church year when we remember and celebrate Jesus’ baptism by John in the Jordan River. This is a significant moment as it marks for us the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.

Although, at least according to Luke, there isn’t much yet that is all that public about Jesus’ ministry. Luke’s version of Jesus’ baptism is this private moment of insight for Jesus – not the public declaration that happens in Matthew’s version of events where a voice booms from the sky for all to hear that Jesus is God’s beloved child.

Instead, from Luke, we get this really long lead-up to Jesus’ baptism that situates us in space and time with all those names and places Kim got to read for us this morning. In this moment of Jesus being recognised as God’s beloved child; as the one who will come after John; who will be the Christ; Luke wants us to also pay attention to what’s going on in the world. To remember that Jesus’ ministry happened during this time of Empire.

Luke lists off for us all the powers the run the show: the emperor, the governor, the kings, the high priests. Powers that rule by fear, violence, exploitation, and oppression. He lists of all the most powerful people, but then he ends with John, son of Zechariah, who lived in the wilderness.

What a contrast. All these powerful people and then John the Baptist - a man without power or privilege, a wild man who lived in the wild, but the one to whom the word of God came. And people are flocking to John. They are rushing to the wilderness in search of something real, something true, hopeful that John might be the one who will bring freedom and liberation for their people.

And as the people flock to the wilderness, John asks them for a sign of their commitment to this new way. He calls them to be baptized “to show that they are changing their hearts and lives and that they want God to forgive their sins.”

This turns out to be a really important piece for John. The baptism he offers is meant to be an initiation into a new way of living that is closely connected with concrete actions of justice, mercy and righteousness. To be just in your dealings with others. To share what you have – clothing, food – not to the point of deprivation or lack – but simply not to take or keep more than you need.

The other part of John’s message and ministry is the prepare the way for Jesus. The people are looking to him, but he points their attention ahead. Telling them, “I baptize you with water, but the one who is more powerful than me is coming. I’m not worthy to loosen the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

With all these crowds gathered in the wilderness, I can imagine the energy of this moment. If you’ve ever been a part of something new, something big, you know that feeling of anticipation. I wonder, was everyone on the lookout for this powerful one? Surely they will recognize when this one more powerful than John shows up. John, this wild man who eats locusts and honey and calls everyone ‘children of snakes’ can’t be missed, so certainly the Christ will be just as obvious, right?

Those who may have been thinking that couldn’t have been more wrong. When Jesus shows up to be baptized by John, he’s just another body in the crowd. And that moment we associate with Jesus’ baptism – of the Spirit descending upon him – happens not at the moment of baptism, but later, while he’s praying.

Luke tells us the Spirit descends on Jesus in the bodily form of a dove. To anyone nearby who might see this, all they see is a bird land on Jesus’ shoulder. Perhaps a surprising moment, but nothing that would indicate this man is the Christ. And only Jesus receives this private word of commissioning from God: you are my child, whom I dearly love.

As we hear Luke’s telling of Jesus’ baptism today, there are two messages I hope you will carry with you. The first, and most important, is that promise that you too are dearly loved by God. That in baptism, we are embraced by God’s love and promised that we belong.

And second, that flowing from this gift of love and acceptance, we are asked to live lives worthy of this gift. As John the Baptist teaches us, we are asked to embody this gift of love through concrete actions of justice, mercy, righteousness.

In his Small Catechism Martin Luther talks about how each day it’s important to remember our baptism. In this life we will make mistakes, we will hurt other people and ourselves, but every day, thanks to the grace and love and forgiveness we receive through Christ, we get to try again.

• Every day is another chance to recommit to this new life in Christ – to Jesus’ way of love, mercy, and compassion

• Every day is another chance to remember that through God’s grace and forgiveness we are freed from the power of sin and death.

• Every day is another chance to remember that this freedom calls us to share this gift of grace, love and forgiveness with the world.

Every day is a turning and re-turning to God’s ways of justice and mercy.

This morning, as we rest in the promise of God’s love for us; and take seriously John’s call to change our hearts and minds in response to this gift, I invite you to join in a time of confession & forgiveness – around the font – remembering this connection between baptism and changed lives…

Confession & Forgiveness (at the font)

P: You pour out your love, O God,
and invite us into a new way of life,
not simply resting on the faith of our forebears.
You call us to take care of one another here and now,

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Sunday January 5, 2025
Second Sunday of Christmas

The video for this service can be found at the following YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/iqavSI4ph8M

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Christmas
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Preached at St Peter’s Ev. Lutheran Church, Cambridge
Rev Laura Sauder
Luke 2:41-52

Jesus’ family has travelled to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of the Passover but when it’s time to return home, twelve-year-old Jesus decides to stay behind without telling his parents. And because they’re travelling with such a large group of relatives and friends, it takes Mary and Joseph a while to notice he’s missing.

But once they realize Jesus isn’t with them, the frantic, anxiety-fueled searching begins. Finally, after three days – can you imagine 3 days! – Jesus is found. In the temple of all places, sitting with, learning from, and engaging with the religious teachers.

You can imagine the flood of emotions his parents must have felt in that moment of reunion. Relief, joy, anger. Wanting to hug him close and scream at him at the same time. And also, we’re told, shock.

Shocked perhaps, at the audacity of their child to have stayed behind in the first place. At his failure to understand how much panic he caused.

Shocked perhaps also, at the awe and wonder of the onlookers and teachers. The fact that so many were amazed at the understanding and wisdom of their child.

When they finally find their words, Mary wants to know why Jesus did this. She wants to help him understand the impact of his actions.

Jesus’ response possibly strikes us as a bit rude; certainly it would have seemed so if our own child spoke these words to us. It’s a very human moment. Jesus comes across as a typical pre-teen indignant with his parents: “why were you even looking for me” and “how could you not have known this is where I need to be.”

I imagine it was a long, quiet, journey back home to Nazareth for the three of them. And yet, somehow, after all the anxiety, worry, fear, and back-talk; with a little distance from the heated emotions of the moment; Mary comes to a point of being able to also cherish this experience – all these things we’re told – in her heart.

This week I found myself returning to the part of the story where Jesus’ parents are surprised to find him in the temple. To Jesus it made absolute sense that this is where he’d be, but it wasn’t common sense to his parents.

What I hear in this moment is a promise that we will also find ourselves surprised at where we encounter God; where God shows up. It’s a promise that God will surprise us in unexpected places and in unexpected ways.

The start of a new year is always a time for taking account. Of looking back on the previous year and remembering both the joys and the griefs. All of these events – both the good and the bad – are now a part of our story. I wonder, how might we, like Mary, find it within ourselves to treasure the experiences of 2024 for what they taught us and how they helped us grow in faith and wisdom. I wonder, where did you see God show up in your life in surprising or unexpected ways?

As we look back, at this time of year we also naturally look forward. Perhaps setting some goals or intentions for ourselves as we seek to grow in God’s ways. And remembering to do this with grace for ourselves – recognizing the good desire to change or improve, and that we don’t have to do it perfectly. As we look ahead to the coming year, I invite you to trust that God will continue to show up in ways that we cannot anticipate. Like Mary and Joseph, to be persistent in our seeking and paying attention so that we too may be astonished again and again and again and again at where God shows up this year.

As we begin this new year; as we seek to pay attention; to be open to God’s movements in our lives, I’d like to offer you each a “star word.” This is something we did here two years ago. As the name would suggest, it’s a word written on a star. Like the Epiphany story of the wise men following a star that led to the baby Jesus, the word is a gift for you – the star a reminder of the one we all seek; the one who shows up to guide our way.

In just a moment I will pass around basket – you’re invited to pick a star (without looking) to take home and hang up somewhere where you’ll see it every day – your bathroom mirror, your computer screen, at the door, in your car. The idea is that you will reflect on that word for the coming year; ponder what significance this word might have in your life, and how God might be speaking to you through that simple message.

The word may speak to you immediately, or perhaps the word will gain meaning as the year goes on. And if by the end of worship the word you’ve chosen doesn’t feel right for you – feel free to come and choose another.

For those on zoom (or reading this at a later date) – please contact the church office and we will make sure you get one.

God, we acknowledge that we are not always ready to receive your best gifts for us. You have given us a star word in order that our searching will bring us to you.

It is often our habit to turn aside, stumble over, or even reject experiences and encounters that we later understand to have been precious gifts.

Help us to be open to the gift that you offer us now through our star words. We acknowledge that we do not fully understand what this word might mean for our faith, but we receive it from you with gratitude and pray that your Spirit will enable us to live into our word with intention and faithfulness. Amen.

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