Service schedule for August 2020 at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

Mrs. Jane Barnett will lead the congregation in Morning Prayer Sundays at 10am August 2, 9, and 23.

The Rev. Canon Gregg Riley will provide Holy Eucharist Sundays at 10am for August 16 and 30.

Father Riley's homily for July 26, 2020

PROPER XII - A - 20 - 1Kgs. 3. 5-12, Rom 8. 26-39, Matt. 13. 31-33, 44-52

Last week’s gospel was the parable of the wheat and the tares where Jesus emphasized “understanding.” That was the one gift Solomon asked of God in today’s first lesson.  Moreover, because he did not ask for riches or material things for himself, but rather understanding or wisdom, to govern his people, properly, God granted his request to the degree that no one before or after him ever possessed such wisdom.

Christ’ message is universal but it is up to the individual hearer to think it through and to ask himself what does it mean to me? How should I respond in terms of my personal relationship to God? That is what Jesus meant when he concluded his teaching with “those who have ears let them hear.”

Today’s gospel is a continuation of Jesus’ teachings on the kingdom of God.  Again, he uses parables to get his message across. The emphasis once again is on understanding. Matthew has strung together several such parables in his thirteenth chapter for us to ponder.

Our gospel reading for this day, then, begins with two short parables that both have to do with hidden beginnings and result in growth - that of the mustard seed and leaven.

One could take them to mean growth of personal faith, and that would be ok, but here Jesus is speaking once again of the kingdom of heaven. His mission was to reveal it, and in revealing it invite those who were open to receive it to enter in.

Following these two, Matthew gives us the parable of the hidden treasure, then the pearl of great price, and ends with the dragnet as an image of what will become of the good and the bad at the close of the age.

The parable of discovering the hidden treasure and the discovery and recognition of the pearl of great price have to do with one’s willingness to sacrifice all in order to gain the discovery.

The emphasis here is on finding, which is in some cases is accidental, and in others a result of seeking.

Have you ever watched that TV show about the two brothers that have spent untold millions of dollars and a decade or more searching for a hidden treasure on Oak island?

I have been utterly amazed at the amount of effort these two have put in trying to discover whether the supposed treasure actually exists.  To my knowledge, they have yet to find anything of significant value that even comes close to equaling the cost of their quest.

They are seekers, if you will, after something that may or may not exist. They are true treasure hunters, as opposed to those Jesus is referring to in the parable of the hidden treasure, which is most often accidentally discovered as well as that of the pearl of great price.

What both of these parables have in common with the treasure hunting brothers is the willingness of the discoverer to go and sell all that he has in order to possess it and the joy that comes with discovering and possessing it. Of course, what Jesus is referring to is the kingdom of heaven that he is announcing as well as embodying and not some earthly treasure.

All things have value when they are prized. Value, however, is relative. The gospel bids us seek the pearl of great price and to look for the hidden treasure that is the kingdom of heaven. They are hidden because they are neither recognized nor valued by those immersed in worldliness.

The journey to God for each of us began at the font of life. Our journey is a lifetime road to God. In seeking, we find, Jesus tells us. The object of the search is found on the road. We have to stay focused on the road and not on ourselves, and not on others who may or may not be in the road, or who may or may not get in our way.

To find the one pearl of great price involves a process of eliminating the other so-called pearls that have heretofore attracted our attention and in some cases distracted us from continuing the journey. It could be other people or some thing that caused us to stop, and or to make a wrong turn.

To continue to seek with an emphasis on finding is not accidental. It is at the heart of the journey to God. We can only discover the kingdom through Jesus.

We have to come to know him first and be willing to follow where he leads. Christ is the way to God; the cross is the key to the kingdom. One of the discoveries that one makes in seeking the kingdom is that we find our true selves in Him who calls us to himself.

Our gospel reading for today concludes with Jesus’ image of the dragnet. He is referring to the close of the age. It is similar to that of the wheat and the tares from last week in that those gathered into the church are subject as well to the sorting out process. The accent here falls not on the waiting period but on the separation of the elect from the evil one. To which Jesus asks his hearers “have you understood all these things?”

The gospel message, then, and now sharply divides into two camps; those who accept Christ and his message and those who reject the gospel. In that, nothing is new. This divide will continue until the day when God will remake the whole world in justice and truth.

Some would say that day is drawing near. Their reasoning is based on the evidence that those opposed to Christ and the gospel appear to be growing in their opposition to it and are becoming more willing to make it known by acting on it. All the more reason for us who have discovered the pearl of great price not to hide it, but display it in the way we live and in our relationships to others.

Jesus’ final remark to his disciples on the dragnet points to a straight line from the Old Testament to the New and to Jesus and beyond him to the final judgment. That is what Jesus meant when he said that every scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven brings out of his treasure things both old and new.

As we ponder Jesus’ stories and ponder what they meant then and now, we need to ask ourselves what it might mean today to be “a scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven’? AMEN+

Father Riley's homily for July 19, 2020

   PROPER XI - A - 20 - IS.44.6-8, ROM.8.12-25, MATT. 13.24-30, 36-43

For several years, I had a church in Western Kansas, better known as the “bread basket of the world.” I never tired of seeing the endless wheat fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. There are no trees out there to obscure one’s view only a grain elevator, better known as a Kansas skyscraper, every 25 miles or so. And it goes without saying that the wind blows day and night.

When the fields are ready for harvesting, they are a true golden color, or as Hymn #719 says, like “amber waves of grain” shinning in the bright sunlight and waving in the wind. Most years there is a bumper crop.

One rarely, if ever sees a crop duster in the skies over Kansas. If anything but wheat pops up in the field and grows alongside the grain it remains until harvest. The giant combines do the work of separating the wheat from the weeds. Only the grain goes into the hopper.

Today’s parable builds on the previous parable of the sower we heard in last week’s gospel reading. In today’s parable of the kingdom, Jesus once again uses the imagery of growing and harvesting to makes his point. Like last week’s gospel, after the crowds had dispersed, his disciples ask him to interpret the parable for them. Jesus complies.

An old timey hell fire and brimstone preacher might use today’s parable and Jesus’ explanation to try to scare the hell out of his hearers into believing. No doubt, Jesus wants those who heard him to understand its meaning, and he wants us to do the same. A prominent term in chapter 13 is “understanding.” As Jesus says, “let those who have ears hear!”

In telling the parable, Jesus is saying that there is still time before the final harvest to enter the kingdom, to be one of those who will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father. He is also saying that not all will choose to do so.

The parables Jesus is telling about the kingdom of God are all about waiting, and waiting is what we find difficult. Jesus’ followers, of course, did not want to wait. If Jesus was who he said he was, and the things he was doing were signs of the kingdom, they wanted it all now. They were not interested in God’s timetable, they had one of their own and expected God to respond to theirs. What’s new?

How many times over history have people asked, “Why doesn’t God do something?” “Why doesn’t he make things right?” Today one might ask, “Why does not God stop the pandemic and simply destroy the virus?”

Do we really want God to step in and fix every single crisis, stop every famine and disease, end all wars? Some would readily answer yes. Were God to do that, which is stop the world, as we know it bringing all of our human woes to a screeching halt, would mean that His judgment would also come. Are we ready for that?

God is not a God that steps in and out of human situations. The coming of the kingdom is a process. The disciples thought it had come in its fullness in the person of Jesus.

However, as we hear and read his words it is clear that what Jesus did was to usher in the kingdom and encourage his followers to pray for its coming in its fullness so that one day it might be on earth as it already is in heaven. That day has not yet come.

At the heart of the parable is the note of patience. Not just the patience of the servants who have to wait and watch, but also the patience of God himself. God did not and does not enjoy the sight of the cornfield with weeds all over the place. Nor does he relish the thought of declaring harvest time too soon, and destroying wheat along with the weeds.

Thus today’s parable explains why the church neither condemns nominal members, nor judges those outside the church (1Cor. 5. 12, 13). Just as wheat would be destroyed in weeding out the tares, so also,  many people who might ultimately find salvation would otherwise be lost if condemned before Christ’ judgment.

We live in a “weed-choked” world. No doubt, that weeds can choke wheat and stop its growth. Yet, the wheat can also grow to its maturity within the weeds, waiting for the promised harvest. It remains for us, as God’s wheat, God’s planting if you will, to be steadfast in our confidence in our continual growth in God through His unchanging grace and love.

The day will come, when God will rule the world directly and immediately and every thought, word, and deed will come before His judgment seat and be weighed on the scales of his absolute holiness.

With that said, we who live on this side of the cross (Easter) know that God did indeed act suddenly and dramatically at that moment. When today we long for God to act, to put the world aright, to rid us of the present crisis, we must remind ourselves that he already has done so, and what we are now awaiting is the full working out of those events.

We wait with patience, not like people in a dark room wondering if anyone will ever come and turn on the light, but like people in early morning who know that the sun has arisen and are now waiting for the full brightness of midday.

Today’s parable challenged Jesus’ hearers to the core, and it should do the same to us. Jesus was warning them that what they were hoping for would indeed come in God’s own time, but that God’s judgment might not be as straightforward as they thought.

They needed to think it through, as do we. We need to think it through afresh in the light of Jesus himself, in what God has done through Him, and what God is asking us to do for Him.

That’s why the interpretation of the parable ends with the command, “if you have ears, then hear.” AMEN+

Service schedule notice for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, and options

In person services are discontinued at Christ Episcopal Church, Saint Joseph, until further notice.  Father Riley's homilies will continue to be posted on our BlogSpot each week.



Here are some online alternate service options:

...Bishop Jake Owensby offers Morning Prayer each Sunday at 10am via the diocesan Facebook site:

https://www.facebook.com/epiwla/



...Father Garrett Boyte, Church of the Holy Cross, Shreveport, offers Evening Prayer on their Facebook site Monday thru Saturday at 6pm and Morning Prayer on Facebook at 11am each Sunday.

https://www.facebook.com/holycrossdowntown/



All of the services are saved on Facebook and available for viewing later if you miss the ‘premier’.

Father Riley's homily for July 12, 2020

PROPER X - A - 20 - IS. 55.10-13, ROM. 8.1-11, MATT. 13. 1-9, 18-23

Today’s parable calls to mind my last visit to the Holy Land where I stood on the shore of the Sea of Galilee on a beautiful spring morning. The bus was up by the road. Several of us pilgrims walked down to where the lake was glistening in a misty sunshine. It was peaceful and still.

The ground slopes up steeply from the seashore in several places and curves sharply around several narrow inlets just to the west of Capernaum. Our guide told us that the steep banks of the inlet act like a well-designed theatre with perfect acoustics.

If he were to get out a little way on the water in a small boat, he said, we would be able to hear his every word. He was referring to today’s parable and Jesus’ ability to speak to large crowds by doing that very thing. When Jesus told them to “listen”, they became silent and could hear his every word.

Hearing is one thing, understanding is another. He spoke to them in parables. Parables are stories in word pictures, revealing spiritual truths. The Hebrew and Aramaic word for parable means “allegory,” “riddle,” or “proverb.”

The scriptures, especially the gospels, are filled with parables - images drawn from daily life in the world to represent and communicate the deep things of God. Parables give us a glimpse of Him “whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are not our ways.” (Is. 55. 8-9)

As the mission of Isaiah in the Old Testament was to open the eyes of Israel to see the acts of God, so the parables of Jesus are intended to open the eyes of his hearers to the truth and lead them to produce the fruits of righteousness.

Parables challenge the hearer and call forth faith to perceive the mysteries of the kingdom of God. The mysteries of the kingdom are not merely obscure concepts or some religious truths only for the elite, nor is the understanding of the parable simply an intellectual process.

Remember the Pharisee Nicodemus’ dialogue with Jesus? His intellect took him only so far in his understanding of the idea of new birth. Even the disciples find the message hard to understand. While Jesus taught the same message to all, it is the simple and innocent who seem to be open to it.

As he said in last week’s gospel, God has hidden the mysteries from the wise of the world because they choose to trust in their own fallen wisdom and judgment rather than God’s. Spiritual enlightenment is essentially a connection of faith in the Person, words, and deeds of Jesus the Christ.

In today’s parable, Jesus teaches how the kingdom comes and why, in some cases, it is not received. It is a story of failure and success. Just like seed in the field, some was going to waste, but at last, some would bear fruit.

His was a cryptic message. Jesus wanted his hearers to struggle with what he was saying, to talk about it among themselves, to think it through. When he said, “If you have ears, then hear!” What he meant was, “I know it is not obvious; you are going to have to work it out for yourselves.”

Jesus speaks God’s word, the word which announces the kingdom. As Isaiah saw, the word that goes out and does its own work in people’s hearts and lives. That is what some kind of words do; they change the way people are inside.

But not everyone who heard Jesus’ words uses them like this. Still, today, not everyone who hears them has the right reactions. Christ’ interpretation of the parable is, therefore, both very specific to Jesus’ own context and very relevant to Christian practice in our own day. What he said was this.

Some allow the evil one to snatch the words away at once. Most of us have experienced cynical and sneering reactions. Some seem to be enthusiastic, but when the gospel starts to make demands on them they quickly show that the word never really went down and became rooted in their hearts.

Some really do have a deep rooted hearing of the word, but then allow other things to take root in their hearts as well; like thorns the other things choke the delicate plant of the word. These are all ways of getting stuck, if you will, in one’s faith journey. Others might call it reaching a plateau.

As we hear today’s parable, we should ask ourselves: are we, too, stuck somewhere in our journey to God? Are we in danger of these reactions? How deep are our spiritual roots? Are they sturdy enough to withstand the present crisis?

However, today’s parable is one that ends on a happy note in spite of much apparent loss; there will be a glorious sure crop. Jesus is warning the disciples and the future church of these pitfalls, and at the same time encouraging the disciples and the church. Their work and hope as well as Jesus’ work and ours will not be in vain. The emphasis is on “understanding” the Word.

Like the crowds on the lakeshore that day who listened to Jesus, our task again and again as we read and hear scripture and think about God’s work in our own day, is to think it through, to figure it out, and to ask ourselves what does it mean to me? What does it tell me about God? What does it tell me my relationship to God should be?

The way to bear fruit is to hear and understand. This takes time, and sometimes hard work. A quick glance at scripture, an occasional sitting in church, or a study group and being entertained by some new idea, is probably not enough.

We have to hear and understand until God’s word takes proper root. Christianity is not about nice little stories to make us feel better. It is about what God is doing in the world, what he has already done in Jesus and what He wants to do through us today.

In opening to us the door to the kingdom of heaven, the parables of Jesus help us to love God and to know Him, to understand and believe His grace, mercy, and forgiveness, and to order our lives according to His Word.

When hearing brings understanding we have become kingdom - people, bearing fruit in our own right. Yielding “in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.” AMEN+

Christ Episcopal Church, Saint Joseph, Update

In person services are again discontinued at Christ Episcopal Church, Saint Joseph, until further notice.  Please see update from Bishop Owensby below.  Also, Church of the Holy Cross, Shreveport offers daily Evening Prayer on their Facebook site Monday thru Saturday at 6pm.  Father Garrett also offers Morning Prayer on Facebook at 11am each Sunday in addition to Bishop Owensby 10am MP Sunday service on Facebook.  Father Riley's homilies will continue to be posted on our BlogSpot each week.

Updated Policy and Procedure for Gathering During the Pandemic

An Important Message From Bishop Owensby:

Dear Friends, I pray that you and yours are well. These are trying times, and I appreciate your calm, faithful leadership. As you know, the pandemic continues to change local circumstances, and prudence requires that we respond sensibly as needed. In his briefing today Governor Edwards reported that, with respect to the spread of the virus in our state, we have lost all the gains we had made in May. Infection and hospital rates are climbing to new heights. Now this spread is no longer contained within hot spots like Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Instead, the entire state is experiencing an increase in infection and hospitalization numbers. Accordingly, I am now reiterating and amplifying my current requirements in the following manner. 1. All previously published requirements for gatherings for worship or any other purpose as a congregation remain firmly in effect. This includes mandates regarding social distancing, the wearing of masks, the limits on attendance numbers, sanitation, and the like. Singing continues to be forbidden. For clergy these policies are a mandatory pastoral direction. 2. Given the increased incidence of infection, I strongly urge that all worship or other gatherings be outside or virtual. If your congregation is unable to provide virtual worship, please send members to my FB Morning Prayer (Sunday, 10:00 a.m. CDT or the saved video at a later time). I will continue to offer weekly worship as long as we are in pandemic conditions. 3. The safest form of worship during a time of increased contagion is Morning Prayer. Accordingly, I urge you to revert to Morning Prayer until we see significant improvement in the rate of infection. Neither #2 nor #3 are requirements at this stage. However, I will continue to monitor the metrics and will issue revised policies as needed. Remember, we take these measures to protect the most vulnerable among us and to flatten the curve of infection so as not to overwhelm our medical facilities while we develop, mass produce, and administer a vaccine. The vaccination process will take time. You all remain in my prayers. And to my delight and surprise, we are seeing a significant rise in the numbers of those seeking worship and learning opportunities because of our new virtual ministries. The love of Jesus finds a way! Stay safe. Be well. And remember that you are loved. Peace, +Jake

Father Riley's homily for July 5th, 2020

PROPER IX - A - 20 ZECH. 9.9-12, ROM.7.15-25a, MATT.11.16-19, 25-30

Today’s collect is very timely in light of our current situation as a nation. I am not referring to the pandemic that continues to plague us physically, but the divisions that continue to beset us along the lines of race, religion, and politics.
Love God, and love your neighbor are the two elements of the Summary of the Law as taught by Jesus. The other commandments hang on these two. A simple command but one that is extremely difficult to put into practice when we allow human emotions like anger and frustration and prejudicial attitudes to get in the way.
When we do we cannot be “devoted to God with our whole heart,” nor can we be “united to one anther with affection,” as the collect prays. Jesus gave us the Summary of the Law in response to his being asked what was the greatest commandment.
It was a test of his knowledge of the Law (the commandments) that God had given his people to live by. Those of his generation were just as frustrated and even angered by their present situation, as many seem to be today. They were equally divided over race; Jew verses Gentile for example, and over politics, Roman rule verses home rule as well as religion.
“To what will I compare this generation?” Jesus asked. His question follows his just having spoken to the crowds concerning John the Baptist, who was by this time imprisoned. John was important because he introduced the “coming of God’s kingdom.”
But he like Jesus was misunderstood. His words caused divisions among the people and brought ridicule from the mouths of the religious leaders of his day. He was imprisoned by a politician and eventually beheaded for speaking the truth.
Jesus follows his question of the present generation with reference to a Jewish children’s game. The participants would divide into two groups: those who pretended to play musical instruments or singing, and the other responding in a manner opposite of what one would have expected. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
Of course, Jesus is referring to himself and John as the “we.” Those religious leaders who heard John down by the Jordan preaching repentance and watching him baptize in preparation for the coming of Messiah, did not respond the way one would expect one would who was eagerly looking for God’s promised salvation.
Neither did they respond the way one would expect towards Jesus who in his ministry revealed the deep mystery of God’s kingdom and put God’s love to work in healing, forgiving and bringing new life.
Obviously, Christ realized that other people he met, including the religious leaders of his day, his own followers and the ordinary people, did not have the same awareness of his father that he did. Many had a skewed idea of God and the kingdom concept, many still do today.
Jesus’ preaching and teaching presented a direct challenge to their way of life, their thinking about God, and the commandments. Some resisted him outright; others made excuses for not believing him or following him.
God had chosen to hide the mysteries from those who had rather trust in their own wisdom and judgment rather than God’s. How Jesus must have felt to discover that most of his contemporaries did not want to hear what he was telling them.
Which raises the question how can we continue, as his modern day disciples, to live and teach God’s kingdom in a world that basically does not want to know? To what can we compare this present generation?
Yesterday we celebrated the anniversary of our independence as a nation. The freedoms and rights we enjoy as citizens of this nation were born out of struggle. The rights and privileges we hold so dear have served us well for some two hundred and forty plus years.
However, in just the past few weeks we seem to have lost the vision that the founding fathers created when they established our nation based on Christian principles of freedom and justice, peace and love.  Like the game the Jewish children played during the time of Jesus, many in our country today seem to be playing the same game based on race, politics and religion.
We are divided. Some would say into two groups. Those who wish to continue to celebrate and enjoy the freedoms initially won and maintained through the decades at a great cost, and those whose actions are opposite to what one would expect in the use, rather the abuse of those same freedoms. 
We are a nation based on laws. During the time of Christ God’s people lived under the Law of Moses, for example, the Ten Commandments. The rabbis of his day spoke of the “yoke of the law” as the glorious obedience to God, which freed man from obligations to the world, and gave rest and peace of mind.
Jesus criticized this yoke as heavy and wrong. He presents his own teaching as an alternative. His yoke is characterized by humility. Zechariah predicted Messiah would come in all humility bringing peace and setting prisoners free. Jesus fulfills the prophecy.
Christ concludes today’s gospel by telling the crowds that he is the one whom God has sent to reveal the kingdom. To come to him is to have one’s burdens lifted and to find rest. “Take my yoke upon you, learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Jesus was, and continues to be a window into the living God. Through him, his works and actions, people come to see who the father really is. His life, death and resurrection unveiled the truth about God. It is through Christ we come to know God to be a God of Love, a God who forgives, restores and gives us the Peace that passes all understanding.
Christ’ invitation in today’s gospel passage is still the most welcoming and encouraging ever offered. The welcome he offers, for all who abandon themselves to his mercy, is the welcome God offers through him.
This is the invitation that pulls back the curtain and lets us see who the father really is. It is an invitation to discipleship that unites rather than divides and gives us the means to live and teach God’s kingdom in a world that does not want it, but desperately needs to know it. AMEN+

Holy Eucharist July 5th, 2020, Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph

Father Riley will lead Holy Eucharist at Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, July 5th at 10am.  All in attendance are expected to wear face masks and maintain "social distance" as directed in diocesan and state guidance.