St Peters Orthodox Church

If you want to know what the Christian existence is to be like, indeed what the experience of God and His Kingdom in our lives is there to be had, then look no further than Jesus' prayer for us in the Gospel of St. John 17 just before His Passion. He prays, "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." We were created for the most intimate fellowship with God. We were created that God may share all He is and has with us and for us to share ourselves with Him. This is the koinonia, the fellowship, we were created to enjoy with God. And this is what has been made available once again by the finished work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

September 26, 2021 - When the Hebrew Lawyer asked Jesus "Who is my neighbor?", Jesus responds by telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In this parable, according to the Church Fathers, the Good Samaritan is none other than Christ our God. The Inn that He brings the broken and wounded man into is His Church. We see in this timeless parable the wonder that Christ our God has indeed shared His ministry with us, His Holy Church. The Incratate ministry of Christ reconciling man back to God will continue to the end of the age through those who are His disciples.

St. Paul says in Romans 12 that we are not to be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The patterns of this world lead us to experience a two-story reality regarding the Kingdom of God. We live on the first floor while God and His Kingdom exist on the second floor as if God is not everywhere present and filling all things. For us to experience the Kingdom of God, the very reality inaugurated on behalf of mankind by the Incarnation, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds. This session discusses the posture of the Christian that will pave the way for the renewing of our minds towards the very real experience of Christ and His Kingdom in our lives.

September 19, 2021 - When Christ our God healed the deaf and mute man, He put His fingers in His ears and commanded them to be opened. He also spat and touched the man's tongue and at once he could speak. So you see the physicality of just how near God came to that man? In this sermon, we are reminded that being called the Body of Christ is more than a metaphor; it has become a reality. God continues to come near to mankind to heal and to save. He does so enfleshed in us, His Church.

Today is an introduction to this series. In it we discuss the secularization of our faith; that we have had a tendency to compartmentalize God in our lives rather than God and His Kingdom permeating every aspect of our lives for our salvation. Jesus Christ was incarnate specifically to bring the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven to earth for our experience of Him; again, all for our salvation. This series, we pray, will break down any thoughts where we have been deceived to believe and live as if God and His Kingdom are distant at any moment of our lives; to the end that we might have realized in our daily lives all of the benefits Christ has bestowed upon us by His Kingdom being manifest on earth as it is in Heaven.

September 12, 2021 - In the Gospel of St. Luke 18 our Lord Jesus Christ asks, "When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?" What faith is our Lord seeking to find in the souls of mankind? The answer to this is in the two parables He tells around this question. One parable shows us that an attribute of this faith is one who persistently comes, again and again, to Christ pleading for and experiencing His mercy. The other parable tells us that an attribute of this faith is absolute humility before Him. Today we examine both of these parables in the hope that the faith our Lord seeks grows within us all of our days.

September 8, 2021 - The beginning of the Liturgical Calendar is September 1st each year. Yet the first of the 12 Major Feasts of the Church, the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is held on the 8th day of September. Why the 8th day? The theology of the 8th Day runs throughout our Faith. Tonight we remember why the Birth of the Mother of God is celebrated on this particular day. We also reflect on the reality that both her conception and birth shows forth what would be fulfilled through her Son, Christ our God; that is, the casting down of the shame of the fall of mankind.

September 5, 2021 - When Jesus entered Jerusalem at His Triumphal Entry, He looked at the city and wept tears of lament. He wept over the condition of their souls and blindness of their hearts that would reject every inexhaustible benefit He can come to offer, and that rejection would keep them suffering the lesser condition of living that is the result of the Fall of Mankind. Through what lens to we see the souls in the culture outside of the Kingdom of God today? Does it stir up anger, disgust, angst, or even worries. This reflection calls us to walk in such fellowship with Christ that we participate in His Divine Nature towards those outside of the Church; that we mourn and lament over the condition of their souls as Christ weeps over them.

August 29, 2021 - "And God gave them over..." That phrase should put such a holy and righteous fear into God's people; a blessed fear that drives us always toward God and to remain in Him all of our days. Today we look at the Parable of the Prodigal Son coupled with the words of St. Paul from both 1 Corinthians 10 and Romans 1 regarding the warning this blessed Apostle gives to us. God's people passed through the waters of the Red Sea and became His people; a people released from bondage and freed to follow and worship Him. But they were adulterous over and over again towards God and He gave them over to their will, their passions, their desires.

August 22, 2021 - What is it that governs your life? What is the wind in the sail of your soul and where is that wind currently taking you? The fruit born in our lives helps us answer that question. Either we will be living by the flesh, the sin nature put to death in Christ. If we do, chaos will overcome peace. Fears, anxieties, and despair will be the fruit born from living from our flesh. Or, we will live with the Holy Spirit being our wind and rudder. The fruit born of a life in and by the Holy Spirit is the fullness of the experience of the Kingdom of God in our lives. A life where the peace of Christ and true joy are realized in our lives. And nothing this life could ever throw at us can shake us and disturb our life in Christ.

August 15, 2021 - Fr. Thomas Hopko wrote, “In the Orthodox Church the Virgin Mary is the image of those who are being saved. If Jesus Christ is the Savior, Mary is the image of the saved.” When we look upon the Blessed Virgin, we see ourselves; we see the Church. This is true regarding the event of the Blessed Virgin's falling asleep and her translation into Paradise by her Son. As we look at this today, we have placed before us the great and very real hope of every Christian; that is, those who remain in Christ will be resurrected on the last day to dwell with Him and one another for eternity.

August 8, 2021 - Sometimes we can err in overthinking the concept of fellowship with God. The reality is God became man to bring God and His Kingdom to us in our lives. We need to remember the very simple yet profound ways we can find and experience the reality of God in the most daily and mundane routines of our life.

August 8, 2021 - Our Lord Jesus Christ led Saints Peter, James, and John up the mountain to pray. As Jesus was praying, He was transfigured right before their eyes. As they ascended the mountain his appearance was that of a mere human. As He prayed, the glory of His Divinity shone upon and from His body. The Early Church Fathers teach us so many things regarding the Transfiguration of our Lord. Tonight we focus on their teaching that the Transfiguration shows us the path to be healed of our humanity and be transformed to shine from the nature and virtues of Christ our God. That path is to ascend the mountain of prayer. For it is fellowship with God that heals and transfigures the human soul.

July 25, 2021 - On the Feast Day of St. James the Greater, we remember the calling of the first disciples. At the experience of Christ our God, they forsook all and followed Him. Today we examine what it means for us to forsake all and follow Christ as His disciples. We also hear the very important truth regarding what it takes for any human to do so. Without the experience of Christ and His mercy, who would forsake all and offer their entire lives to Christ.

August 1, 2021 - After fishing all night and catching nothing, St. Peter encounters Jesus Christ. When Jesus commands him to push out once again into the deep waters and let down his net, and having only a mustard seed of faith, St. Peter says the very five words that are the true mark of a disciple. St. Peter says, "At Thy word, I will..." Today we examine the importance of these five words, and we look at what the Lord will do with our mustard seed of faith if we will just offer ourselves to him saying, "At Thy word, I will."

July 18, 2021 - In the Gospel of St. Luke 15, our Lord gives a number of parables that show forth the inexhaustible mercy of God and His desire to redeem and restore even the gravest of sinners. Today we look deeper into the full extent of the mercy of God. We also consider the reality that the only way we can truly experience the Divine Mercy of God is to become undone.

July 11, 2021 - Today we hear the parable of the Great Banquet. In this parable we see that the Nature of God is that of relentless invitation Who so desires to bring the souls of mankind to Himself. We also see that by coming to this banquet and dining with and from our Lord, we experience His healing in our lives. And, we become conformed more and more to His image and conformed less and less to the patterns and thinking of this world. Today we come to realize that the best means being a fountain of Living Water to those outside of the banquet is to sit at table with the Lord allowing Him to tranform our lives. His healing tesifies to His love and reality. It is Christ's healing in our lives that makes us the continuing living invitation to the banquet.

July 4, 2021 - Say the word love, and this world will offer many different thoughts and definitions. Most of them will center around acceptance and various aspects of sentimentality. Christian love is entirely about the love that God happens to be. It reaches far beyond feelings and sentiment. We come together before God every time we meet together to experience God and His Nature. From this experience, we are retooled in our thinking and we become as the God we have beheld.

June 20, 2021 - Pentecost, the day God the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon mankind. St. Paul tells us that we are the continuation of the ministry of God reconciling man back to Himself. Today, we talk about two of the natural results of mankind receiving the Holy Spirit. We have become the aroma of Christ to one another and to the world. And, we have been ordained a Kingdom of Priests.

June 13, 2021 - In the liturgical calendar, we are now just like His disciples in the brief time between our Lord's wondrous Ascension and the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit. And what did the 120 disciples including Christ's Mother do during this brief time as they awaited such a promise? We are told that they dedicated themselves together in constant prayer. Today we are reminded that we, in remembrance, are also to dedicate ourselves to constant prayer in preparation for the outpouring of God the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We are to pray anticipatory prayers and prayers that prepare the soul to blossom from the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives.