Month: September 2023

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 19
Year A
September 17, 2023

First Reading: Exodus 14:19-31
Canticle: The Songs of Moses and Miriam
Second Reading: Romans 14:1-12
Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35

Collect:

O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Lift High The Cross

On September the 14, we observe the feast day of the Holy Cross Day. The cross reveals the depth of God’s love for us. Jesus’s death is not just a historical event, it is the ultimate act of God’s love for all His people

One story I will always remember. At the age of 19 on May 30^th, 1431 Joan of Arc an English Soldier was burned at the stake, through the flames, she asked if the cross could be held high so she could see through the flames.

Jesus asked us to take up the cross and follow Him.

In our baptism, the sign of the cross is traced upon our forehead, a reminder that we are marked as Christ own forever. 

Forgiveness Helps The Soul

Jesus has been traveling with the disciples to Jerusalem. He has been healing people, curing people from diseases, like epileptic. He walked on water, fed 5000 people, raised Lazarus from the dead. He took his disciples Peter, James and John to the high mountain, there they saw Moses and Elijah.

He was asked to teach them how to pray, (Matthew 6:9-13), Jesus says, Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  

Jesus is preparing His disciples as He gets closer and closer to Jerusalem. In (Matthew 17:22-23), As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.

So, in today’s gospel Peter comes to Jesus and asked Him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy-seven times.”

Why did Jesus say this? Why not just say, once is enough! Jesus wants His followers to forgive those who ask for it, to let it be second nature to them. 

There should be no limits on how many times we are willing to forgive someone who seeks forgiveness. 

Jesus continues to tell them that the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wishes to settle accounts with his slaves.

The King forgives the accounts of a slave, after he begged forgiveness. But the slave did not offer the same lenience to a fellow slave who owned him money.

Jesus’s message is that we are to treat everyone, like what would be done in the kingdom of heaven. Not seven times, but seventy-seven times or more then you can count. 

God’s response to limitless debt…. a limitless amount of forgiveness.

We forgive because God has first forgiven us.

When we have a friend, family member or someone we know sin against us, we are reminded in todays gospel on how important it is to our Creator that we forgive that person.

I get it! Sometimes the hurt is so incredibly bad, the act against you or your family is the worst and horrific crime and sin, that to forgive, would take incredible courage.

To learn how to forgive, you must learn what forgiveness is not. Most of us think we know about forgiveness, but here are some of things that it does not mean.

Forgiveness does not mean you are pardoning or excusing the other person’s actions.

Forgiveness does not mean you need to even tell the person that he or she is forgiven.

Forgiveness does not mean you should forget the incident ever happened.

Forgiveness does not mean you have to continue to include the person in your life.

Forgiveness is not something you do for the person who wronged you; it is something you do for you, for peace within, to nourish your soul.

But if the person comes to you and ask you to forgive them. God wants you to forgive them not only for them, because they asked, again, for you to be able to heal and move forward. 

If we refuse to see God, to focus on God, when someone has done us wrong, we allow the darkness to creep within our souls and it could destroy you. 

To forgive is “not” to put yourselves in arms way again, as some might think, but it is to release you to freedom, that your heart and soul deserves.

I do believe that having our entire heart and soul where God dwells, that the benefits we receive, are the forgiveness of our sins, though God’s grace and mercy.

“Holy scriptures tell us that there is personal value in forgiving others, because we all have been granted unconditional love and forgiveness by God himself.”

Let us now revisit the Cross. Jesus died for our Sins, He died on the Cross, without Jesus’s death on the cross for our sins, no one would have eternal life. 

Jesus Himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

If you have resentment, go to the Cross you must surrender the matter over to God, asking God to replace your resentment with forgiveness and love toward the other person.

Amen
The Reverend Lola Culbreath

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 18
Year A
September 10, 2023

First Reading: Exodus 12: 1-14
Psalm 149
Second Reading: Romans 13:8-14
Gospel: Matthew 18:15-2

Collect:

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Why Are We Here?

Paul’s letter to the Romans, will show us that living a Christ like life, that the Love will be our motivation to keep all of God’s commandments by loving our neighbors like we love ourselves. 

There will always be some folks that feel they are better then others, that they know more or they can do no wrong. 

There are many times, that anger, hurt feelings and the lack of communication will drive us toward either sweeping everything under the rug to keep the peace, or it can lead to, one mistake that people make, is they are too quick to judge, the knee jerk reaction, I call it. 

It is always better to step back from a situation and think about whatever it is that is bothering you, before reacting. 

This is where you can run into conflicts, leading to the possibility of a verbal argument, resulting in hurtful feelings. 

I know that we cannot always avoid it, but we should be in the mind set as disciples of Christ always, Paul, says let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is our Christian obligation to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, Love…itself never hurts.

 If we keep the commandments of Moses, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; fore one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” The commandments are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Matthew 18:15-20

The lesson today was one I had to give great thought and attention too. 

What do I say to our congregation about this? 

Are you a Gentile or a tax collector?

In this reading, Jesus is giving instructions about how to handle conflicts with each other. How to handle church discipline. This passage gives us clear practical steps we should take in a difficult situation, letting Jesus provide us another way in our gospel lesson today.

I feel most of you will agree that if only conflicts in every aspect of our lives, could be handled between each other with open communication and respect for each other, we all would live in a better and different world. 

Chapter 18:20, Jesus says, “Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” 

Most of Jesus’s followers would have related this to the Old Testament passage, in Deuteronomy 19:15-19 says that two or three witnesses must agree in order to bring a legally binding charge against someone.

But we need to relook at the gospels and particular Matthew. Right before this passage in 

(Matt 18:15-17) are Jesus’s warnings about being a stumbling block for anyone. 

Next is the parable of the shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to search for the one lost sheep

Right after that Jesus tells Peter we are to forgive members of the church seventy-seven times.

And then Jesus tells the parable of the slave who is forgiven by his master but refuses to forgive his debtors.

There are lots of passages about the importance of forgiveness and these lessons on forgiveness, help us understand our lesson today.

How did Jesus treat the tax collectors, He treated them over and over with compassion, teaching his followers, that everyone can be forgiven for their sins.

His words were “let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. It does not mean wash our hands of them. It means, we need to continue to be visible witness of God’s steadfast love for everyone.

As it turns out, it is a very important lesson for us. There is no church without a conflict, how we handle such a conflict is to follow his instructions “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

We can lose ourselves from our pride and the self-absorption to be right all the time.

Learn to forgive, to understand and to bind ourselves together with the unbreakable love of Christ, and to follow his example.

Remembering the Ten Commandments, that Love will be our motivation to keep all of God’s commandments by loving our neighbors like we love ourselves. 

Amen
The Reverend Lola Culbreath