St. Matthew, and Victor Morley - Rector's Rambling for September 21, 2025

     Once again we find ourselves in the red vestments with red pulpit and lectern hangings as we celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle.  Like last week’s Feast of the Holy Cross, this is an important enough feast day to ‘bump’ the observance of the 14th Sunday after Trinity.  A bio of St. Matthew can be found on page 4 of this Chronicle.

This past week and today we have the last regular season homestand for the Detroit Tigers.  How wonderful it is that the team is once again on the way to the playoffs.  This is exciting not only for the team and fans, but a good thing for our neighborhood surrounding the church.  Local businesses such as restuarants, sports apparel, lodging and parking depend on the revenue brought in by those coming to the game.  When they are having a winning season like last year and this then more people continue to attend the games into September, and of course the playoff games will be a bonus addition!  And this also means more people walking by St. John’s, seeing our new signage on our gloriously beautiful building.  We have the doors open when the office is staffed, and on somedays upwards of 100 people stop in to pray and look around, many taking tracts from the rack in the narthex on their way out to learn more about St. John’s and Our Lord.

Some of the longer time members will remember what the neighborhood was like before the building of the stadiums and arena.  With the exception of the Fox and Fillmore (then known as the State) Theatre shows, the neighborhood was quite derelict.  And when Comerica Park opened (2001) and then Ford Field (2003) the teams weren’t that good and late in the season one would hardly notice an event was happening!

Thank you for your patience in coming down to St. John’s when the neighborhood is busy with sports events and shows.  We work with the Olympia Development and Parking to make sure we have access and egress to the lot to park for worship. We can’t do anything about the increase in the number of cars on event days, but we are grateful that not only are the teams doing well, but more people are seeing St. John’s and maybe someday will join us for worship!

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Today we welcome into the Church Victor Morley Stevenson, who will be baptized at the 10 AM Service, being made a child of God and heir of the Kingdom through regeneration; born again of water and the Holy Spirit.  Thanks be to God for Victor, his mom and dad Cole and Suzie, and for all the family and friends joining us today for worship.