St Peters Orthodox Church

October 21, 2018 - In Ephesians 5 St. Paul teaches us to "walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil." When St. Paul says that we are to redeem the time, he is saying that we should make holy and sacred use of every moment of our lives. When we do, our lives reflect the light of God in Jesus Christ who stepped into time to redeem all things and reconcile the world back to God.

October 14, 2018 - It is easy to get distracted and overwhelmed in the extreme busyness, responsibilities, and distractions of this life. Sometimes we truly experience the sense of drowning in these intense waters. Today's homily brings into question our true priorities and how these priorities can either raise us up by the grace of God above what life constantly throws at us or they can keep us bound and drowning under the weight of this present existence.

October 7, 2018 - Ephesians 4: After St. Paul calls those in the Church to walk worthy of the vocation to which they have been called, he goes on to paint an incredible picture of what Christ truly intends His Church to be in this world for the life and salvation of all. He tells us all that the Body of Christ functions just like the human body. Christ is the head of the body and all members that make up that body, with their different gifts given by the grace of Jesus Christ, are knit together to be Christ in this world and continue the ministry of Christ; the ministry of reconciling the world back to God.

September 30, 2018 - So many times we hear vocational calling and we think of someone being called to the priesthood, diaconate, or monastic ministries. But today we hear St. Paul from Ephesians 4 tell us all that every Christian has a vocational calling no less important than those mentioned above. St. Paul also instructs us on how to walk worthy of the vocation to which we have all been called. In this homily, we seek to remember the vocational calling we have all been given and to heed the words of St. Paul as to how we are to walk worthy of that very important calling.

September 27, 2018 - As we have said in a previous session, the majority of the Psalms in the Psalter are Psalms of lament. And many times within these Psalms we have the Psalmist voicing a lament and then coming to a place were we read the words..."but these things I remember." The Psalmist then remembers either the mighty works of God done on behalf of His people or he remembers the very nature of God. In this session we discuss the importance remembrance has within our lament to God in times of suffering and how it awakens us to God's absolute presence with us always.

September 23, 2018 - Our Gospel reading today is the narrative of Christ raising from the dead the only son of a widow in the city of Nain. The Lord of life and the crowd that follows Him collides with the procession of death at the gates of the city and we see that death can never have victory over He Who is the Resurrection and the Life. But here we also see the nature of God fully revealed as our Lord has compassion on this widow and moves to act on her behalf. St. Ephrem the Syrian teaches that "Christ became the sponge for her tears." Our God is fully acquainted with our suffering and grief. As we lament He joins Himself to our suffering and acts on our behalf as He either delivers us through or from the season of our suffering. He does so because He longs to reveal Himself to us so that we move from knowing about Him to truly knowing Him.

As we discussed a week ago, our journey in Christ from Baptism to the day we pass through the veil is a wilderness journey. We have left the captivity of our enemy but are not yet in the fullness of the Promised Land. In this wilderness there will be suffering. Today, we look at the wilderness journey of the Hebrews to discover a pattern common to us all. In the wilderness there will be suffering, God's people lament to God of their suffering, God hears them and is fully acquainted with their struggles, God acts on their behalf and delivers them, and God reveals Himself to His people by doing so. God uses the sufferings of this life in a fallen world to reveal Himself to His people so that they may be always moved toward union with Him; an intimacy that He has desired ever since the creation of all things.

September 17, 2018 - Reflecting on the last two week's Gospel readings of both the Good Samaritan and the 10 Lepers, Deacon Ken points out Jesus' comparison of those who were supposed to be righteous and the outcasts. In the Good Samaritan, it is not the Priest of the Levite that loves, but the Samaritan who was considered an outcast by the Jews. In the 10 lepers who were healed, it was the Samaritan leper that returned with love to praise Christ for His healing. Those who love are the one's who are righteous, because they have become like our God.

September 13, 2018 - We are taught in Holy Scripture, both in the Gospels and the Epistles, that our Lord Jesus Christ overthrew Satan and the demonic as He would be lifted up upon the Holy Cross. St. Paul tells us that on the Cross Jesus "disarmed the principalities and powers making a public spectacle of them." Today we look at these Scriptures, the teachings of the Early Church Fathers, and the prayers in the Mass for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. We do so in order to be reminded that the power of Christ on the Cross and all that He accomplished can be experienced in and through the daily life of every Christian.

Today we begin a teaching series entitled "God in the Midst of our Suffering." It is in this introduction to the series that we acknowledge our need to rediscover the Christian language of lament to God. In this life in a post-fallen world, we all will endure times of great suffering. But how do we reach out to God in times of suffering and how does God walk with us through these times? If left to ourselves, our humanity, the sufferings in this world produce nothing but further brokenness and dysfunction. But because of God, who He is, and what He does on our behalf, even the most significant suffering turns to redemption and the opportunity to grow from knowing about Him to truly knowing Him.

September 9, 2017 - One of the prayers found in an Orthodox Prayer Book is "O God, set our hearts at liberty from the service of ourselves, that we may do Thy will, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Today we look at these words carefully along with the teaching of St. Paul from Galatians 5. If Christ has called us to the ministry of the Good Samaritan, as we spoke of last week, then we need to acknowledge that a consistent focus on ourselves and our desires stands in the way of our becoming love to others. The solution is, as St. Paul teaches, to regulate our entire lives in and by the Holy Spirit that we may experience freedom from the bondage of ourselves.

September 2, 2018 - In today's Gospel reading from St. Luke and chapter 10 we hear the Parable of the Good Samaritan. It is in this parable that the compassionate heart of God comes through very clearly and demonstrates the mission for which God became man. He came to bind up the broken and bring healing to those half-dead from the Fall of Man. As we see Christ very clearly in this parable we are reminded that Christ has filled us with Himself not only for our healing and salvation, but also for the continuing fulfillment of His mission in and through us, His Church.

August 26, 2018 -Last week as we reflected on the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we were exhorted toward the humility of the Tax Collector who had Godly sorrow for his sin, presented himself to God, and cried out for mercy. In today's message we shift our focus to the God of mercy to Whom the tax collector came. We can never exhaust the mercy of God Who always desires to give us far beyond what we could ask or deserve.

August 19, 2018 - In the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector Jesus offers us the way of justification. To be justified is to have the burden of a guilty conscience stripped away and, at the same time, to be made righteous by the God who transforms the soul. The way to this blessed gift is wrapped up in the virtue of humility. In this reflection, we examine this great virtue so that we may in humility cry out for mercy to the God who longs to bestow that great and limitless blessing upon us.

August 12, 2018 - In 1 Corinthians 12 St. Paul teaches on the subject of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. These are the manifestation of the Spirit, as he states, that are given for the common good of all. In this reflection, we look at the gifts of the Holy Spirit, their role in the Body of Christ as well as in the revelation of God to the world outside of the Church, and how we might realize these Spiritual Gifts in the life of the Church.

Aug. 5, 2018 - Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this reflection we look at both the realities of the Transfiguration shown in Christ and also we look at the impact this must have had on the disciples that witnessed this incredible event. How can we, Christ's disciples, also be transformed by this great testimony?

July 29, 2018 - A very important aspect of Orthodox Christian spirituality is discernment; that is, testing the spirits and knowing what is and what is not from God by the help of the Holy Spirit. Today Fr. James Rooney teaches us both the need for discernment in critical aspects of our lives and how we hear from God as to what is and what is not truth.

July 22, 2018 - In the Gospel of St. Mark Chapter 8, the disciples are faced with an impossible situation. How can they provide enough food for thousands of people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish? In this narrative, Jesus asks them one of the most profound questions that we need to consider. He looks at His disciples and asks them, "What do you have?" They offer only that which they had which was not enough for the need. He took their offering, blessed it, and did a wonder of Heaven on behalf of the multitude. God asks us the same question. He comes to us right where we are and asks us, "What do you have?" It is the invitation to participate in the wondrous works of God on behalf of all mankind. When we offer only that which we have, Jesus takes that offering and blesses it and lives through us to the glory of God and the salvation of mankind.

July 8, 2018 - In Acts Chapter 17, St. Paul teaches that God made us for the time we have on earth to seek Him in hopes that we might grope for Him and find Him. He is speaking of a life that is dedicated to reaching to toward God out of our need for Him. Do we live a life deliberately moving toward God so that we might encounter Him in the moments of our life. We are to move toward a God who is always moving toward us and promises that those who seek Him will surely find Him.

July 1, 2018 - Suffering is something everyone of us will endure at one time or another in this life. At the same time, we are assured that God is a refuge and strength, an ever present help in times of trouble. So where will we be found when calamity strikes our lives? Will we be outside the fortress enduring the brunt of the storm? Or will we be found in the fortress knowing God as our deliverer through and to the other side of the season of suffering?