Jeremiah 31:31-34
Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36
Sermon by Pastor Joel
When a congregation turns 130, it’s a little like standing on the bridge over the Rideau River and watching the water flow beneath you.
You see where the river bends — the calm pools, the rapids, the places where ice once clogged the current — and you realize it’s the same water, always moving, always renewing itself.
That’s St John’s story.
In 1895, a handful of German immigrants left St Paul’s Lutheran Church on King Edward Street, to build this wooden church, pinching materials from other job sites (this pulpit is built from three doors). They gathered for their first time in this church on Reformation Sunday to hear the very same readings you just heard in their own tongue and to sing the hymns of home and to baptise their newest infant member. They were bakers, carpenters, mothers with children on their knees, fathers still smelling of sawdust and coal dust. They probably never imagined a day when their church would worship in English, partner in refugee sponsorship with people beyond Europe, or host Zoom Bible studies with four other Lutheran churches in Ottawa that were born out of this place.
And yet the same river that began in their prayers keeps flowing through us — through every baptism, every confirmation class, every hymn sung in hope or grief, every pot of coffee poured in Ebinger Memorial Hall after worship.
Psalm 46 says, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.” That river is grace — and the people of this church have been standing in it for 130 years.
Jeremiah 31 gives us God’s promise: “I will make a new covenant…. I will write my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” It’s striking, isn’t it? God doesn’t mail a new rule-book; God performs heart surgery. This new covenant isn’t written on stone tablets, but on the living, beating hearts of people—so many people. I’ve been here for only 24 years and I couldn’t begin to name all the people who’ve lived out this covenant with their lives.
The Poulin Boys doing everything and anything that needed doing. The Wollenschlager clan running 4 generations of faithful service. Hilda Boehmer who had more fingers in pots than I could count. Her son Ted Mathesius who was the friendly, dog-loving Elmer Fudd of the neighbourhood and St John Ambassador. Frieda Schultz who quietly paid for the new roof on the Hall. Doug Clark, Jr. who spent more time on this property than he did on his own. Joan Poulin who would decide when the pastor’s robe needed cleaning. Herb Linke who could make anything look new with leftover paint cans of every colour.
Our longest running members are here with us today: Joyce Poulin who brought music to St John, Resurrection, her husband, and now her new retirement residence. And Dalton Poulin, who was in his 80s fixing a cold air vent alone in the church basement when he realized he probably shouldn’t be fixing stuff on his own anymore. Our little church choir that has never missed a beat. Bev Mathesius and Carol Christensen who have always been like church mice minding the everyday things that needed doing. And there are so many others, and names we don’t know, the ones who helped in the background, who were there whenever the pastor or the people called, including one person who, after learning about a difficult property situation, quietly handed over thousands of dollars without a tax receipt to solve the problem, giving money they’d been saving for years.
All of these people, and legions around and before them, did what they did because love and community and generosity were written on their hearts
Every act of kindness, every can of food shared at Partage Vanier, every time you’ve chosen forgiveness over frustration — that’s God’s handwriting showing through the life of St John.
Psalm 46 was Martin Luther’s anchor in stormy times. When plague swept Wittenberg, when political powers threatened to silence him, he sang: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble… Therefore we will not fear though the earth be moved.”
Church anniversaries remind us that the earth does move. The world around us has changed faster than our founders could have imagined — electric streetcars, two world wars, immigration waves, the Quiet Revolution, the internet, pandemics, climate change. Yet through every shaking, you discovered what the psalmist knew: God is in the midst of the city; she shall not be moved.
I’m told that during the 1940s, when young men from this congregation went overseas, the sanctuary lights were left burning until they returned. During different waves, when new German immigrants arrived in Ottawa with little English, St John opened its basement for language classes. During COVID, you put the God Pod in front of the altar to bring people safely together. Every time the ground trembled, you found God still holding you steady.
When Luther read Romans 3, he heard thunder in his soul: “They are now justified by God’s grace as a gift.” Luther spent years terrified that he wasn’t good enough — and then he discovered grace, the scandalous news that God’s love is not earned but given.
Grace was the spark that lit the Reformation, and it’s the same spark that keeps the mission of the church alive long after their founding members are gone.
A few decades ago, St John could have closed its doors when attendance dipped. In fact, I was told at a call committee meeting that I had a 50% chance of having a job after 3 years. Instead, you chose to open them wider. You sponsored refugees from war-torn countries. You became the second Reconciled-in-Christ congregation in the Eastern Synod under the direction of Bob Pierce. You started a community playgroup and children’s choir. With a heavy push from Heidi Geraets you sent offerings for a well in Liberia and then built a 10-room school house there. None of that was done to impress God — it was done because people already knew they were loved.
That’s the difference between religion and grace: religion says, “Change, and God will love you.” Grace says, “God loves you; now watch how that love changes you.”
In John 8, Jesus says, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” And the crowd protests, “We’ve never been slaves to anyone.”
We might protest too — we who pride ourselves on being decent, law-abiding Canadians. But Jesus isn’t talking about Roman chains; he’s talking about the subtler slavery of fear, resentment, and self-righteousness.
Freedom, the way Christ sees it, is not the ability to do whatever we want. It’s the power to love even when we’re hurt, to serve even when no one notices, to live without pretending.
Herb Linke was days from death lying in a hospice bed when he said, “Pastor, after all these years I still can’t believe it’s free — all of it. I spent my life thinking I had to earn God’s love. Now I finally get it: it was mine all along.”
That’s the truth that sets us free.
Luther never meant for “Reformation” to be an anniversary on the calendar. He believed the church should always be reforming — semper reformanda — according to the Word and the Spirit.
If the Reformers once translated the Bible into the language of the people, perhaps today the Spirit is asking us to translate the Gospel into the language of a generation that speaks through podcasts and protests, climate marches and questions.
Reformation is what happens when a church asks, “Who is missing from our table?” and then pulls up more chairs.
It’s what happens when we realize that the Gospel is bigger than our comfort zones.
St John’s future won’t look exactly like its past, but change doesn’t have to be a loss; sometimes it’s a promise. The same Spirit who re-formed Luther’s church in the 1500s is re-forming ours today.
Let me tell you one more story.
15 years ago, Greta from our confirmation class was asked to sum up the Gospel in one sentence. She thought for a moment and said, “God never gives up — even on me.”
That’s it – 130 years of sermons, hymns, potluck suppers, and loving service outside these doors, distilled into four words: God never gives up.
That’s Jeremiah’s covenant. That’s Luther’s discovery. That’s the truth that makes us free.
And that’s the story we’re still telling — in our worship, our service, our welcome, our laughter, our transformational hope.
Anniversaries aren’t just for nostalgia; they’re for re-commitment.
The founders of St John built for their children. Now we are the founders trying to craft a viable expression of Progressive Lutheran Christianity for the future.
Ask yourselves: What does God want written on our hearts today? Where is the Spirit nudging us to cross boundaries, to rebuild trust, to share grace in new ways?
Perhaps it’s in caring for creation more intentionally. Maybe it’s mentoring young leaders. Perhaps it’s becoming an even bolder voice for justice in Ottawa — for housing, for reconciliation, for inclusion.
Whatever it is, the same God who began a good work in 1895 is not yet finished.
So be still and know. Know that the Lord of hosts is with us. Know that Christ’s grace is still enough. Know that the Spirit is still reforming hearts.
And when we leave this place today — when the cake has been cut and our bellies are full with schnitzel and red cabbage — remember that you are living letters of the covenant, walking testaments to a God who keeps creating something new from the flowing river of time, and never gives up. Amen