St Peters Orthodox Church

Nov. 1, 2020 - Today is the blessed Feast of All Saints. In this Liturgy we hear the reading from the Revelation given to St. John and chapter 7 where St. John is granted a view of what lies behind the veil of this temporary life. Using that passage and the Icon of All Saints, we let the Lord show us Paradise today. There we see the perfected eternal fellowship of God's people with one another and with Christ their God. In that eternal reality are unspeakable joys for Christ has wiped away every tear from their eyes and suffering is no more.

October 25, 2020 - Today is the Feast of Christ the King. On this day we look to the great paradox of our faith that confounded those at the time of Jesus' earthly ministry and continues to confound the wise and learned today. We have a King who condescended to become the lowest of us in order that we might ascend and become all that we were created to be. It is for this love and humility that He has been exalted as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

October 18, 2020- Today is the Feast Day of St. Luke the Evangelist. It seemed right to best honor St. Luke by remembering how the Gospel spread throughout the known world during his lifetime which is the same way it must spread today. The love and power of Christ was revealed through those who followed Him daily in their lives as true disciples. And, Christ our God revealed Himself through those disciples for the salvation of the souls around them. Nothing has changed, my friends. We are the Body of Christ continuing the ministry of Christ our God for God fully dwells within each one of us for our salvation and the salvation of the souls around us.

October 11, 2020 - Today is the Feast of the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Today our focus is on something vastly misunderstood in may Christian circles; that is, the idea of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Queen Mother. The Church's understanding of her as Queen Mother reaches back to antiquity beginning with Holy Scripture and truly comes clear when we understand that our Lord Jesus Christ, as prophesied, sits on the throne of David. Today we focus on two thoughts concerning this. The Queen Mother is a place of honor and has always been such. Secondly, it is a position of great intercession. As we look at the Blessed Virgin, as always, we see something of ourselves. We are a Priesthood called to great intercession offering this world to God for its life and salvation.

Oct. 4, 2020 - In the Gospel of St. Luke and Chapter 7 we have the testimony of Christ our God raising the widow's only son from the dead at the gate of Nain. We find a multitude following Christ heading into the gate of Nain. At the same time we have the funeral procession for the widow's son heading out of the gate of the town. The Church Fathers tell us that in that moment death encountered the One Who is the Life and the Resurrection and death had no chance of victory. In this sermon we reflect on the two processions encountering one another at the gate of Nain. One, the procession of those who followed and experienced Christ the life of the world. The other, a procession under the oppression of death. Today we speak about this reality in this present day and how it shows us who we are as the Body of Christ and our Lord's great purpose for us; that through us He may offer life to those who are under death.

September 27, 2020 - In the Gospel of St. Matthew Chapter 6, Christ our God tells us not to worry about our life because of how greatly God cares for us and knows what we need. Rather, seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. The antidote to worry and anxiousness over our lives is to truly know God as our provider. Using the beginning of Psalm 23 and this blessed Gospel passage, we seek to grow in understanding by the revelation of God to us regarding Who God is and His nature toward us as our great provider.

September 20, 2020 - In Galatians 5 St. Paul exhorts the Church to "Walk in the Spirit." But what does it mean to walk in the Holy Spirit? What does St. Paul mean by this? Today as we reflect on the words of St. Paul, we discover that to walk in the Holy Spirit is so essential to our Christian existence and our salvation. As we surrender our lives to the governance of the Holy Spirit, we find the profound growth of joy and true contentment in our lives. When we deny the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we end up falling into works of the flesh that bring tension and disquitude to the soul.

September 17, 2020 - Today we look at the Parable of the Good Samaritan as well as the events that led up to our Lord's telling of this great parable. In this parable we see the nature of Christ our God, the One full of compassion and mercy desiring the healing and restoration of all the souls He so lovingly created. But we also see in this parable one of the great purposes of Christ's Holy Church. We are those in the Ark of Salvation in need of great healing, mercy, and salvation. But we are being healed, in part, with the great purpose of God that we become vessels through which Christ reconciles the world to Himself. We are healed to become vessels of the healing work of Jesus Christ.

September 6, 2020 - As our Lord Jesus Christ notoriety grew in his earthly ministry, masses would bring the sick to the marketplaces with all sorts of illnesses, dysfunctions, and spiritual oppression. We are told that those who came to Him were healed. The ill new they were sick and they were very mindful of their suffering. And they had the mustard seed of faith that if they came to Jesus, they just might leave healed. In this homily, we take a look at ourselves. Do we live that authentically before Christ? Do we daily acknowlege our need for mercy, grace, and the healing of Christ in our lives? Those who do come in that humility to the Lord walk away having experienced the power of His grace. And those healed become living testimonies to the healing work of the Living Lord Jesus Christ.

Aug. 30, 2020 - Today we hear both the Parable of the Persistent Widow and the Parable of the Pharisee & the Publican. These two parables are told back to back by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Gospel of St. Luke Chapter 18. One parable teaches the heart of God towards mankind that desires for us to bring our brokenness, sinfulness, and dysfunctions to Him; and to do so persistently. In the Parable of the Pharisee & the Publican, our Lord teaches us how to come to Him with our brokenness. Those who come with a humble disposition persistently to Christ encounter the wonder and mercy of the Divine Healer of our soul.

August 23, 2020 - In our the Holy Gospel of St. Luke 19, Christ our God approaches Jerusalem to make His Triumphal Entrance. As Jesus approaches Jerusalem we are told that He wept over the city. This revelation of Christ mourning over His people is given to us as a revelation of God's heart and disposition to all mankind. God mourned because they denied the unspeakable benefits He had come to bestow upon them. And, He wept because of the suffering that He knew would be the result of their will choosing away from Him. The tears of God flowed from His immeasurable love for mankind for which He had come to gather to Himself and shower all of the benefits of His Kingdom upon them all.

Aug. 2, 2020 - We are not roughly five months into the COVID pandemic. The longer we suffer we tend to get rather thin and the worst of our humanity can begin to surface. But there is an antidote, a prescription for this that stabilizes joy and contentment in the life of the Christian. That antidote is to remember God throughout each day for Who He truly is and all that He has done, is doing, and will do on behalf of those who remain in Him. As we praise Him we see Him clearly. As we see Him clearly, He truly becomes our daily joy.

July 26, 2020 - On the Feast Day of St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we remember the narrative of one that God releases from shame. Shame is such a common struggle for most Christians. We have a very real adversary and accusor that constantly wants to write on our soul such a lack of worth that we dare not approach God with our brokenness. Today we look at Sts. Joachim & Anne to see their very real life-long struggle with the shame of barrenness. We look to how they called upon God, remembering His mercy toward His people, and cried out for mercy and the release from their shame. He answered their prayers. He will answer ours and release us from our shame.

July 19, 2020 - Do you doubt that the Word of God, Jesus Christ, can transform a culture through His Church; that is, all of us who are earthen vessels? Are you struggling with a sense of hopelessness as we watch our culture in this great country spin further down into darkness and chaos? My friends, this ought not be. Today we have the Gospel reading from St. Luke Chapter 5 where we hear the miraculous catch of fish and the calling of the first disciples. These men were men of no esteem and little status. They were common fishermen. By the experience of Christ in their lives, being filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ through them would transform cultures and nations. It is astounding what God can and will do through a people who truly experience Him and remain in fellowship with Him. May we all be awakened out of our slumber at this time. May we follow Christ so closely that we hear His direction on where, when, and how to cast the net. If we will, there will be a great catch of the souls of

July 12, 2020 - Today our God sets His limitless mercy right before us all. We come before God constantly in need of His mercy and forgiveness over all of our shortcomings and failures. We ask for a gift we could never earn nor deserve. And, rather than giving us what we do deserve He grants us just the opposite. He takes us to Himself, forgives us, heals us, and gives us power to be transformed. This is mercy. In our Gospel reading from St. Luke Chapter 6, our Lord Jesus Christ then commands us to give mercy in the same way as we have received it to all of those around us. This message is an exhortation for us all to walk in mercy toward one another in a time when Satan seeks to divide the children of the Living God.

July 5, 2020 - The enemy of the Body of Christ is constantly seeking to divide all of the beloved in the Body of Christ from one another and their God. For this reason, from our Matins Scripture reading, St. Paul writes in Philippians 1 that the Church should let their conduct be worthy of the Gospel by being one mind and one spirit in all things. And, from our Epistle reading, St. Peter in 1 Peter 5 we are told to submit to our spiritual Fathers and to one another in humility before our brothers and sisters in Christ; and we would keep watch vigilantly at all times for our enemy who is always seeking to hinder and destroy us. The Hebrew people in the Book of the Prophet Nehemiah faced this very situation as they were rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. Today our Lord calls us to take our place on the wall for the protection of ourselves and one another.

June 29, 2020 - In the Gospel of St. Luke chapter 14 Jesus tells the parable of the Invitation to the Great Supper. The Great Supper that all are invited into is life in the Kingdom of God where He feeds us His mercy, His healing, and His power unto the salvation of our souls. We also come to understand that we, Christ's Body in the earth, bear within us the imprint of this invitation to all who dwell in chaos and darkness. If there was ever a time that we needed to show ourselves to be the Ark of Salvation with all of the chaos, violence, fears, and worries all around us; is it not right now. This message is a call for the Body of Christ to not be conformed by the patterns of this world, but to live and dwell as citizens of the Kingdom of God alone. If we will be the Ark of Salvation now, souls living in chaos and confusion will see what life is like for citizens of the Great Supper and they will come and dine with us.

June 21, 2020 - Today is the first Sunday in the longest liturgical season of the year, Trinitytide. Having remembered by grace the conception, birth, life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ; and, having celebrated the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all of those in Christ at Pentecost we turn our attention throughout this blessed season to learn how shall we now live because of all of this. On the first Sunday after Trinity, our Lord so faithfully sets the stage by calling us to become love as God is love. This homily encourages us to offer ourselves to Christ in such a way that we become the experience of the love that God is for all around us.

June 7, 2020 - We celebrate the Feast of Pentecost, a day that would absolutely change everything. On this day our Lord fulfilled His promise to endue His disciples with power from on high as He would send them the promised Holy Spirit giving them this power, this grace, for their salvation. And, they were given power to become the continuing ministry of Jesus Christ upon the earth. The result on that day is that 3,000 experience the living Lord Jesus Christ and received the same promised Holy Spirit through the waters of Baptism. On this day we remember the mighty work of God through the Sacrament of Baptism. And we remember that by virtue of our becoming recipients of the same power and grace by the Holy Spirit, we have become the continuation of the ministry of Christ in the earth for the offering of His salvation to all.

June 1, 2020 - Today is the only Sunday in the Season of Ascensiontide, that Season between the Ascension and Pentecost. On this day we are reminded that as Christ Ascended keeping fully our humanity joined to His Divinity, He did so that we might become participators in His Divine nature all of our days. He ascended so that we could ascend from every result of the Fall of man and into the experience of the fullness of His Kingdom. Today we remember with wonder what God has offered to us all.