Oakridge Lutheran Church
5680 Ash Street V5Z 3G7 Vancouver, BC, Canada

PASTOR MATTHEW’S REFLECTIONS ON THE SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER God bless all those who are mothers this morning. God bless all those who have mothered in any way, those who have expressed a tender love for others, a compassion and care that only a mother can. Today in the Psalm, Epistle and Gospel, the theme is very much of joy. This is somewhat odd when one considers, in the case of the Gospel anyway, that Jesus is saying these things to the disciples mere hours before He k...nows He is to be crucified. How can joy be possible under those circumstances you ask? Well, joy is different then happiness isn't it? I think the two are often confused and I think that happiness is more important to folks these days but happiness is not possible in times of crisis, anxiety or pain because it's based on feelings of contentment, satisfaction and security. Joy on the other hand goes deeper and can be experienced in times of cataclysm and loss. Joy comes from a faith in something that can be trusted, it is the peace that can only come when certainty is given. In today's gospel reading Jesus is preparing His disciples for the hard times of anxiety and uncertainty that lay ahead; As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. The complete joy that will abide in the disciples, and hopefully in us, long after the shock and horror and pain of Jesus crucifixion is over is rooted not in something they have achieved for their own satisfaction and contentment, it isn't even the result of something they have done themselves, it is the result of the truth that they have not chosen the Messiah but rather that the Messiah has chosen them because they are chosen and beloved of God; John 15:16 "you did not choose me but I chose you..." is, to mind mind, after Ephesians' 4:8 (look it up!) the most important verse in the Greek text. God chooses us!! If the covenant was based on us choosing God what possible end could that have but our own failure followed by a spiral into despair The miracle here, the cause for real, true, deep and abiding JOY is that God chooses us and appoints us to do great things. Beyond happiness and even hope this must surely be the source of all joy Pax M+ https://youtu.be/szlUuGgd-nE

PASTOR MATTHEW’S REFLECTIONS ON THE FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER This week, the texts are about rootedness. Again, we are given agricultural images, vines, and fruit. I would be willing to bet that more of us have knowledge about fruit trees, vines, and plants than we do of sheep and shepherds, am I right? Anyone who has planted a garden before knows that soil is everything. If the soil is not rich, fertile, full of nutrients, having enough water and warmed by the sun then... no matter what is planted therein will not grow. Today's Gospel text is telling us that we are like precious planted things and that unless we are rooted in the soil that is God, we will never bear fruit, we will never truly be what we were meant to be. And what is the nature of the soil that is God? Paul writes beautifully about it in the epistle reading: Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. and what is more God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. God is Love, the stuff that God is made up of is LOVE and to be rooted in that is to be destined to produce sweet and satisfying fruit indeed. But what about if the fruit is not produced? What if something is wrong, there is an impediment, an affliction? We hear in John's gospel that the part of the vine that is afflicted and cannot bear fruit is to be cut off, gathered with other "non-fruit bearing vines" and burned Hmm, wait a minute did we not hear in the psalm appointed for today... 24For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me but heard when I cried to him. And also There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. And also In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. The word of hope in today's texts is not that we better produce fruit or else!! it is that even we are on the low ebb of fruit production, even when we are afflicted and brought low, even when we are failing, the vine grower digs deeper, adds some fertilizer and water, tenderly prunes and whispers to us, "one more year, a little more love and you will produce much fruit!" The God that is the very substance of Love is always whispering to us, you are rooted in me, not because you brought yourself here but because I planted you and appointed you to bear much fruit for the betterment of everyone, I will not abandon you so do not give up on me. Pax M+ https://youtu.be/IUfI2d_SwXI

PASTOR MATTHEW’S REFLECTIONS ON THE 4TH SUNDAY AFTER EASTER The fourth Sunday in Easter is typically treated as Good Shepherd Sunday in Lutheran, Anglican, and Roman circles. It is also a Sunday in the Church calendar when we lift up vocations in the church, those studying to become pastors and deacons and those discerning calls to ministry. The image of Jesus as a shepherd is strange to us in the modern world. Most of us have never even seen a live sheep I would wager and ce...rtainly have no knowledge of what a shepherd actually does out there in the mountains with those bleating creatures for weeks on end. The analogy of discipleship as akin to being a sheep is also somewhat offensive to the modern hearer in that it suggests a submissive, thoughtless obedience of the kind that leads to things like fascism or mob rule. Despite how comfortable we are with the metaphor of sheep; the point today is the Shepherd. The Good Shepherd. And why is the Shepherd good? Because the Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. The Shepherd seeks out the sheep, keeps them safe and interposes Himself when danger looms. What leapt out at me this time around from this very familiar 10th chapter of John was verse 16: "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So, there will be one flock, one shepherd." As many of you know, I am a big believer in the fact that God's flock is exhaustively inclusive and here, in this 16th verse, I find encouragement to that end in that we read that God is not finished yet! God, in the person of Jesus, is still out there on the lonely hillsides of this world seeking after the wayward, the lost, the rejected (as He was rejected), the sheep that are not of this, or any flock, so that He can bring them home. That is my hope this Good Shepherd Sunday, that the Good Shepherd is still hard at work seeking out the lost. It is also sustenance for the calling we all have as Christians to be out there with the Good Shepherd, seeking after those who are not of our flock, not like us, different and perhaps even strange to us and yet still part of the one flock. Pax M+ https://youtu.be/kzF1ZMakaMM

Pastor Matthew's reflections for the 3rd Sunday after Easter 2021: Do you ever doubt, dear friends? Do you ever wonder if we are wrong about what we believe? Do you even sometimes doubt that Jesus really was resurrected from the dead? because the disciples sure did! ...not just for a few days, not just in the darkest of times...these men actually stood in the presence of the resurrected Lord AND STILL they doubted and wondered, as we read in today's Gospel text:... While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, Have you anything here to eat? And Jesus, patient and loving, sought over and over to assure them. Their doubts, even in His presence, did not offend Him. And do you note that the disciples, even in their doubt and anxiety, while they yet doubted and wondered, were still "in joy"!? Isn't that something. What was it that gave them this joy in the face of such terrible doubts and loss of hope? I wonder, if like the season of Spring that erupts around us regardless of whether we believe it or are ready for it or accept it, there is something inside of all flesh that cannot but accept that the tomb has been forever opened and that it will not be sealed again, even at the darkest hour. Jesus tells us that we are witnesses to this joy in the 48th verse of today's gospel. He does not ask us if we would like to be or think we can manage it but simply confers the vocation of witness upon us. Dear friends, may you today and all your days be faithful witness to the joy and peace that pass all understanding. Pax M+ https://youtu.be/fkLwpT5Vsrc .

Pastor Matthew’s reflections for the 2nd Sunday after Easter 2021: Hallelujah...He is risen! In today’s verses, as will be the case throughout Easter, we hear about the Holy Spirit being gifted to the disciples and the small community of believers around them. In today’s Acts reading this imputation of the Holy Spirit is particularly to give the disciples boldness in their proclamation of Jesus as the risen Messiah. We also hear about sin, in the epistle reading we hear t...he verse many of us are so familiar with: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Reading this here brings to mind my sense that our "modern" sensibility resists talk of sin and the condition of sinfulness. We are in a time where the whole notion that there is something we should be confessing and seeking forgiveness from is antiquated, and that to believe we have sinned somehow is to debase ourselves. We should resist this idea whenever we hear it and use it as an occasion to reflect me deeply on the ways we have "not loved our neighbour as ourselves". Christian community is not possible without this earnest reflection and hope for the Christian is not possible without God's response to it...forgiveness, restoration and peace. When Jesus enters the upper room, locked and barred against those who are seeking the disciples’ lives, the first thing He says is "Peace be with you"...not "hey, where did you all run off to when they started torturing and killing me?!" but immediately "peace be with you". This is the character of our God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Hallelujah...He is risen indeed!! Pax M+ https://youtu.be/K6Lm88yictQ

From Pastor Matthew for the 23rd Sunday in Pentecost - Remembrance Sunday: The first two texts for this Sunday are taken from the Wisdom of Solomon. I cannot recommend enough that everyone read this book in its entirety, do it today, so good and instructive. Isn't it perfect how Solomon, the wise, recognizes wisdom personified as female. I think it's because true wisdom must be a mother, true wisdom, which can only be attained through experience over time must surely be a m...other. Who else could understand what it is to "birth" creation? Who else could understand the entire experience, from alpha to omega, of their creation? Wisdom is the mother of understanding and understanding begins with the fear of the Lord I'm ambivalent about the gospel for this Sunday. I know it is a cautionary tale about not being ill prepared for the return of the Lord because "none know the hour nor the day" but I hear it speaking against the express teachings of Jesus: and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. (Mt. 5:40-42) It seems quite miserly and decidedly unchristian of the brides with oil to have withheld oil from their sisters. I am convinced that when the Lord returns to judge, we shall not be judged on the merits of how prepared we were but rather how loving God is. The exhortation is sound, "Don't be foolish!, Prepare yourselves!" but we must also accept that God has made foolish the wisdom of the wise: Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (1 Cor 1:20-21) There is no amount of preparation or wisdom that can save us, only the love and grace of God! https://youtu.be/FEcTUh2zNbI

NOVEMBER 2020 NEWS: Young Women's Group Sacrament Gatherings For Households Prayers and Praise... http://oakridgelutheranchurch.ca//247-november-2020-news-f

From Pastor Matthew for the 501st Anniversary of the Reformation on Oct. 31st 2020: Yesterday, October the 31st, is the day that the Church, and indeed the world, remembers the posting of the 95 theses on the door of the cathedral Church in Wittenberg and the commencement of the continental Reformation. Today is the Feast of all Saints whereupon we celebrate the lives, witnesses, and in many cases, the martyrdoms, of exceptional servants of God. What makes a saint? And what... makes some saints particularly exceptional? For Lutherans, the matter of the making of a saint is as clear as the matter of justification. God does it! God does it all! God does it all in Jesus...full stop. Now What makes some saints particularly exceptional I think, is a profound trust in the fact that God has, in Jesus, redeemed them and called them to a life of service to the proclamation of the gospel so that others might come to understand what they, these exceptional saints, have already internalized . A saint is someone who trusts God's promise to them, who lives as if God really, truly, unconditionally loves them. It is this trust and faith and joy that produces in them not a lack of fear per se but a joy and a deep peace that is able to conquer fear. It produces in them the kind of virtues, born of joy and peace, that Jesus speaks about in the Beatitudes from today's gospel text; meekness or "gentleness of spirit", a hunger for righteousness, mercy, the willingness to promote and preserve peace. The exceptional saints I believe, were able to inhabit the "beatitude attitude" not because they expected a reward for doing so but because they understood that the reward was already theirs. pax M+ https://youtu.be/DONIVaq1z2M

Blessings to you from Pastor Matthew on this Reformation Sunday 2020: The texts for today begin with an "expanded" reading of the 10 commandments (Decalogue) from Genesis. I like this one more! It covers all the bases, but we get some commentary, some practical fleshing out, of each of the articles. It is a treatise on what Jesus is talking about in the Gospel lesson for today. It's not super clever or revolutionary to say that all the law and the prophets hang on our lovi...ng God and loving our neighbour. This should be a given. But it is good and salutary to be reminded of what that looks like and to meditate again on who is, in fact, our neighbour? The work of the reformation that birthed our tradition (and we should remember that there were many reformations in the Church over its history and that these continue today) was essentially to tear down the complications and garbage that the church fabricated to act as a screen, a gate...dare I say a wall?... between God and God's people. Luther decried "scandals to the gospel" that stood in the way of every person hearing the truth in the promise of God's love for all people in Jesus Christ. God Loves! Full stop. The life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus is, for we Christians, the perfect expression of that love which will not be denied between God and ALL God's people... which are ALL people. On this strange 2020 Reformation Sunday, I would invite us anew to the question, not who is my neighbour, but perhaps more revelatory, who is NOT my neighbour? If you can enumerate anyone in the asking of the question in the negative, perhaps more time is needed to work out the truth that Jesus is proclaiming that the KIN-dome of God is far from simply inclusive, it is completely exhaustive! And that the second commandment that Jesus talks about today, loving our neighbour, is not so much a second commandment supporting the first but is the very way by which we can know if we are truly loving God. The act of loving the neighbour, particularly the ones that are harder to love, is the fruit and proof of loving the God who is the God of every neighbour. May our loving God continue to reform your hearts and minds and keep you in the steadfast joy and peace of Jesus Christ Pax M+ https://youtu.be/1q5qWkw8Ryc

Pastor Matthew’s reflections for the 20th Sunday in Pentecost 2020: The Hebrew scripture reading for today follows hot on the heels of the great betrayal the people of Israel perpetrate against their God at the base of the mountain that we read about last week in Exodus. The people have corrupted themselves by worshiping graven images, other God's of their own construction. It is the fracture of the very first and primary commandment, and the God who saved them from slavery... in Egypt is deeply hurt and dangerously angry. Thank God for Moses! Moses the people's litigator who convinces God not to "kindle His wrath and consume His people" but something has changed, God has been deeply wounded and will not go with His people into the promised land...again, Moses presses the case, reminding God that God has made and everlasting covenant with God's own people...and again, God, who loves Moses, relents and changes God's holy mind...Isn't that amazing!? The Gospel also has to do with "graven images", the coin used to pay the tax, the denarius, has the image of the Caesar engraved upon it with the words. Caesar Augustus, Emperor, Son of God. Merely to have this coin in one's own possession is to be fracturing the first commandment. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God's...brilliant! For what is not God's? Caesar might own coins but God owns the universe! The gospel is a reminder to us that there are temporal civil authorities that need to be obeyed for the sake of good order but what happens when those temporal authorities behave in a way contrary to the eternal authority? What is our responsibility then? These are hard questions and we see them playing out in the news these days with alarming intensity. Once thing is sure, when it comes to the question of our "dual citizenship", we disciples of Jesus will always be citizens of the Kingdom of God first and subjects of the empire, however that empire presents, second. https://youtu.be/m1qk974zaxg