St Peters Orthodox Church

Today Ebeneezer Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. Last week we examined who Ebeneezer Scrooge had become; a miser, greedy, utterly alone, no charity in his heart. But one of the most important questions to ask, a question that Charles Dickens answers through the Ghost of Christmas Past, is "Why did Scrooge become what he became?" As we look at the reasons for Scrooge's development, we wake up to the reality that every one of us has been formed by our experiences and our choices up to this very moment; the good and the bad. Part of repentance according to our Lord through His Church is allowing God to illuminate for us our past. What pains and sufferings done to us by others of just from life itself have not yet been healed and restored by Christ? What choices that we have made that has brought damage to our conscience have remained far too long in our lives. Our unhealed pain, suffering, and poor decisions impact both who we are and our ability to freely live in healthy relationships w

Dec. 8, 2019 - The focus of the liturgy of the Second Sunday of Advent is an exhortation to fellowship with God by means of the Holy Scriptures. It is through the reading of, the hearing, and teaching on Holy Scripture that we learn to hear our Good Shepherd's voice during the moments of our lives. And the most appropriate context for the reading of Holy Scripture is in the context of prayer.

Dec. 1, 2019 - Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Deacon Ken reminds us today that the word Advent means "the coming of someone." Our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated for us that no matter what they did to Him as He came to save us, no one could stop His Advent from continuing. The same would be true for His disciples and every generation that follows. He is the Advent that cannot be stopped. And we are the continuation of that Advent today. We are also encouraged that, for those who remain in Him, His Advent within us that transforms our lives and saves our souls will never fail to continue out of His great love for us.

In part 7 of our series we being a "series within a series" that will run during the Advent Season. Advent is a season in which our Lord leads us into deeper repentance so that we might experience His profound healing in our lives. One of the great works of classical literature, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, paints a picture of the life of Ebeneezer Scrooge; a man who needs repentance, is lead into repentance, and is so completely transformed through the process that he is an entirely different human being. In this series we will let Dickens' work lead be a guide to us that we may be freed by our Lord Jesus Christ of all that has us bound both from our past and in our present. Today we begin by making sure we understand the Church's understanding of repentance. And, we look at the reasons Ebeneezer Scrooge needs healing that comes through repentance and we have a look at the call to repentance by Jacob Marley.

Nov. 24, 2019 - In the beginning of the Mass today we hear the words of God "If you call upon me I will come to you and I will bring you out of your captivity." This week is the week we are given to prepare for our journey together with Christ through the Season of Advent. How shall we live that we may call upon the Lord and experience His deliverance out of His great love for us. Our Lord asks us during Advent to offer Him three things that are interwoven. We are asked to increase our fasting, our prayer, and our almsgiving. Today we examine these three spiritual disciplines and how God floods us with His grace as we offer them to Him.

Nov. 17, 2019 - St. Paul, as a general readying an army for battle, calls us to put on the whole armor of God. The Early Church Fathers in beautiful harmony teach us that the armor of God is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ. In this homily we look at each piece of the armor and how it truly is our Lord. We also look at how we go about putting on Christ. We put Him on through prayer.

A life of prayer is a living experience of the union we have been granted with God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. It is such a foundation and pillar to our life in God and our salvation. In this session we look at the morning hour of prayer and how to pray it as a means of fellowship with our Lord. We need to see the liturgical prayers of the hours as a necessary trellis that provides the framework so that we see God clearly and in truth. But the liturgical prayers are just the beginning of prayer, not the end. The trellis provides the structure upon which the living vine of fellowship with God can grow and become beautiful.

Nov. 10, 2019 - In Ephesians 5 St. Paul calls us to live a life redeeming the time. How do we live a life where the result is the redemption of time? What does it even mean to redeem the time? This sermon explores these questions. Jesus says in the Gospels that out of His people would flow living water. Everywhere that living water goes, life springs up from death. May it be that we all come to better understand our new identity in Christ and the fullness of what He can do in and through us if we will remain in Him.

Nov. 3, 2019 - God gives His people Spiritual Disciplines in order to heal their lives. A Spiritual Discipline is an action we do that is met with the Divine grace and power of God for our salvation. One of the Spiritual Disciplines our Lord has always given as a gift to His people is the tithe. This sermon discusses all that God does for us by His grace as we offer to Him the first fruits of what really belongs to Him. Today we remember that those who tithe to God are giving Him the opportunity He desires to show just how faithful in provision as our Heavenly Father He truly is over every area of our lives.

Nov. 2, 2019 - On the Feast of All Souls God gives us such a grace-filled weapon to exhort us to place our lives entirely in Him all of our days so that we might enjoy every incredible benefit of the Kingdom of God forever. That gift is our mortality. We do not know the hour that will be our last nor the day that Christ will return triumphantly when the dead will rise victoriously in Him. To those who remain in active fellowship with Him all of their days, their mortality becomes a joy and anticipation. To those who do not fan the flame of the gift of fellowship with Him, the thought of their mortality becomes a great dread and fear.

Nov. 1, 2019 - On the Feast of All Saints we are given a vision of all the Saints in heaven worshiping God and He wiping away all suffering from them. We are also given our Lord Jesus Christ's teaching of the Beatitudes, the virtues of Christ that were written in the lives of all those who remain in our Lord. Both the vision of the eternity that He desires for all whom He has created and the reminder of the His virtues are given to us to follow the holy example of the Saints; those who decreased that Christ may increase in their lives so that we may be granted such an eternity with Him.

I have mentioned many times in this series that every aspect of how the Christian lives in fellowship with God daily is found in the Liturgy itself. Today, we explore each area of the Christian life that we see and live together when we gather to join with our Lord in the Divine Liturgy and how it graces and shapes us to live in such a way every day of our lives.

Oct. 27, 2019 - Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you a king?" Part of our Lord's answer was the very profound statement, "My Kingdom is not of this world." The Kingdom of God is the perfect order established by God in which the salvation of the soul through fellowship with God can take place. Disorder, then, must be thought of as anything outside of the order of God that brings illness and destruction to the soul. Today we look at the culture of disorder around us and ask ourselves this question, "How must we in the Kingdom of God posture ourselves for the sake of the healing of those struggling from the results of disorder?" We pray in the Liturgy even today that the God who set all things to be restored in His beloved Son would mercifully set free from disorder all who are outside of His Kingdom and bring them under His most gracious dominion.

In the last session we talked about the need to prayerfully prepare to take our place as the Kingdom of Priests in order to make our offering unto God. We were reminded of the words of an Early Church Father who said that when we gather, Christ is there awaiting us. The first questions we discuss is, "What is Christ present to do on our behalf?" All that He does as He is present with us leaves us with only two words that are most appropriate. Those are, "Thank you!" We gather to give God the glory, worship, and thanksgiving due His Name. But what about the closing of the Liturgy? In the end we are sent to be about our mission taking all that we received and offering it to the world.

Oct. 20, 2019 - St. Paul teaches us in Ephesians 4 that we are to walk worthy of the vocation to which we have been called; in lowliness, gentleness, with longsuffering bearing with one another in love. How ofted that which is in our heart that comes out of the gateway of our mouth gets in the way of such a calling. In this reflection we consider the power of the tongue. To aid us in our walking with the gift of the Holy Spirit self-control in this area, we discuss the teaching of St. Porphyrios who taught "Only prayer, silence, and love are effective...It is better to turn the heart of other people through secret prayer than to their ears."

St. Peter in 1 Peter 2 teaches us the following: "Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. We are a royal and holy priesthood. This is the vocation of every Christian. The question at hand today is this...If we are a holy priesthood that is to offer sacrifices acceptable to God, how are we preparing to fulfill our role every time we gather to become the Temple of God? In this session we discuss the importance of prayerful preparation as a kingdom of priests to take our place and offer to God these spiritual sacrifices and how we might start to put this into practice in our lives.

Great Commission Dialogues on October 6th, 2019 - Remembering that, as Metropolitan John of Albania taught, "The Church of God does not have a mission, the God of mission has a Church," today we reflect on that which drove God to become man to save man. It was God's immeasurable love for all whom He created that moves Him always toward humanity in order to rescue, redeem, and save us all. As Fr. Michael Keiser states in his book "Spread the Word," Genuine evangelism must be rooted in love for those to whom you bring the Gospel.

October 6, 2019 - In the Gospel of St. Matthew Chapter 6, our Lord speaks into something we all have to deal with from time to time; the worries of this life. The question we deal with today is, "What is our treasure? In other words, what is our focus and our pursuit in our daily lives? " The answer to this question shows us where our treasure truly lies. In Christ's teaching to us from this Gospel reading, He clearly reminds us that the antidote to our anxieties and our restlessness is setting the face of our soul toward Him.

Today's sessions covers the Early Church's understanding of the gathering of God's people to worship God and receive Holy Eucharist. They believed that when and every time they gathered together, there the Kingdom of God was most fully realized on earth for heaven and earth had joined together with Christ our God. How might it change the way we approach going to Church to worship if we really believed this; if we truly believed that when we gathered and entered, Christ was awaiting us therein?

September 30, 2019 - Today is the Feast Day of St. Michael the Archangel & All Angels. In this sermon we are reminded of the purpose and function that, by God's will, He has ordained regarding the ranks of angels and their holy purpose for the benefit of mankind. In the Nicene Creed we say every Sunday, "I believe in one God the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible." Today we are reawakened to the invisible, the role of the bodiless powers of heaven God has set forth to aid us in our salvation.