St Paul Episcopal Church

St Paul Episcopal Church St Paul is faith community of the people of Winn Parish, Louisiana, since 1938.

09/06/2026

A Meditation at Morning Prayer forSeptember 6 (Proper A-18, Pentecost+16.)
Exodus 12:1-14, Psalm 149, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20

Matthew 18:15-20
Jesus said, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. 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. 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.”

We don’t aways agree. It seems hardly necessary to mention it, for difference of opinion permeates human interaction from the dinner table to the counsels of the nations. Even to the church. Ater all Christianity divided in the ear 1054, in the Great Schism between East and West. And it didn’t end there. Our Anginan identity formed from such a split. Hus, Calvin Zwingli, and Luther: All founded movements and theological schools that formed the religious world in which we live today.

Methodist and Baptist, North and Southern, came to being before the Civcil War. The Methodists that rejoined in 1935 split into United and Global; branches just a couple of years ago.

Some of the differences were bitter – marked even by torture and ex*****on. Including our own Thons Cranmer. More often, and more recently, debate results in a sense of “agtee to disagree,” even when positions are hotly contested.

I haven’t heard of a single Global Methodist who has been burned at the stake as Cranmer was.

The Gospel passage this morning tells us readers that honest dissent has always been part of our church. In the earliest days, before there were theology or organization or even Gospel accounts, the communities coming together among the followers of Jesus, it appears, did not aways agree. Hence, Jesus advised those followers in resolving disagreement.

Begin privately, in quiet conversation, he said. And then in quiet conversation with one or two others. Finally, if the matter cannot be resolved privately, with the entire congregation. It is a process that respects the integrity of everyone, especial with the ones with whom the congregation does not agree.

There is a frightening power vested in this process, for Jesus, once more, makes the promise. “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.”

But sometimes not everyone can share the same understanding of these holy mysteries that form our communities. Sometime, the Jewish brethren who made up these early Christian churches will separate themselves from those with whom they cannot find agreement: the unclean Gentiles and evil tax collectors.

Gentiles and tax collectors. The very people the religious authorities condemned Jesus for associating with ... for dining with ... for caring for. Even when difference is insurmountable, loving is possible – loving is necessary.

In the millennium since the Great Schism, Christian thought has grown, faith has deepened. They form the ways we understand God, each other, and ourselves. They will continue to do so as we humans work to understand things greater than our human ability fully to understand.

But something hasn’t changed. However we understand God’s kingdom in this world, we disagree respectfully, loving those whom we can’t agree.

And, from time to time, take a tax collector to lunch.

09/02/2026

Church News:for the WINN Parish Enterprise, September 2, Edition

The weekend ahead has been set aside in the United States and Canada, to honor the gifts and obligations of work. Labor Day has been celebrated since the late nineteenth century to acknowledge people whose labor and loyalty in the marketplace are not recognized from day to day.

It’s a secular holiday, to be sure, but one valued by people of faith. It is one of three secular holidays, along with Independence Day and Thanksgiving, marked as feasts Iour calenda. Here is the Collect from The Book of Common Prayer: “Almighty God, you have so linked our lives one with another that all we do affects, for good or ill, all other lives: So guide us in the work we do, that we may do it not for self alone, but for the common good; and, as we seek a proper return for our own labor, make us mindful of the rightful aspirations of other workers, and arouse our concern for those who are out of work; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”

In recognizing people at work, this year we cherish especially people who work for the care of the stranger, the poor, the needy; and for everyone working to define and understand the ways to work and lie together guided and protected y God’s hand. Protect and guide us all.

St Paul’s Episcopal is an inclusive faith community worshipping in the Anglican liturgical trad42ition. Please call for service times and church news {318)522-0675. [email protected] or Facebook at StPaulsWinnfield. 206 Pecan St. All are welcome.

08/26/2026

Church News for the Winn Parish Enterprise, Aug ust 26Edition

OnSaturdaym , Episcopalians will remember, honor, and thank Thomas Gallaudet and Henry Style, priests and educators.on the the 124th t anniversary of Fr. Gallaudet’s death. He was born in 1822 in Hartford, Connecticut, the eldest son of the founder of the West Hartford school for the deaf. His mother was deaf.

After completing Trinity College, Hartford, he established a Bible study class for deaf mutes, and after ordination to the priesthood, established St Ann’s church with the particular mission of reaching, both within the congregation and out into the community, to the deaf.

Henry Winter Syle was raised from that congregation to seek the priesthood. Though his ordination was fiercely opposed by some because of his disability, his academic and spiritual gifts were recognized, and he was ordained in 1876. Syle was the first Protestant minister, and the first priest in a church claiming apostolic succession, to be regularly ordained despite being deaf.

Their influence, of course, lives on through the college in Washington DC named for Father Gallaudet. His son was the college’s first President. As great as the gift that they made the deaf, both directly and in generations to come, the greatest gift may have been to the rest of us. From their work and by their example, people who cannot hear have a role in the workplace, in school, within our community, and at the altar. Gallaudet and Style, who taught and ministered to the deaf, ministered also to us, extending our Christian family and enriching us all.

St Paul’s Episcopal is an inclusive faith community worshipping in the Anglican liturgical tradition. Please call for service time and church news {318)5220675. [email protected] or Facebook at StPaulsWinnfield. 206 Pecan St. All are welcome.

08/23/2026

A Meditation at Morning Prayer, Pentecost +13, Proper 16-A, August 23, 2026
Exodus 1:8-2:10, Psalm 124, Romans 12:1-8, Matthew 16:13-20

Matthew 16:13-20

When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

We’ve been reading a series of accounts of the early public ministry of Jesus and the Disciples. First in Galilee, where Jesus preached to and fed thousands Then, immediately afterwards, in the Gentile lands across the Sea.

The people wondered. Who could this be? Rumors multiplied as they traveled. Is this John? Is this the revolutionary who will free us from Rome? Has Elijah returned? People pressed them about who this exciting prophet could be.

“Who do people say that I am?”:Jesus asked The Disciples a perfectly reasonable question. Several answered.

Peter got it right. Loyal, impulsive Peter rushed to answer. “You are the Messiah! The son of the living God!”

It has always struck me that only Peter would try so quickly to answer, just a day after he’d stepped onto the stormy lake. Peter was the one who would risk a leap of faith this profound. Peter got it right.

Of course, that’s Peter’s nature. He’s the one who talked without thinking; acted without planning. Peter always responded quickly … and sometimes he was right. Sometimes, like this time, he is even righter than he knows.

God has spoken to you, Peter. You are a rock, and upon this rock will build my church.

The words are so resonant and so profound that they stand alone. Let’s look at the context.

Only yesterday – literally yesterday – as he plucked Peter, of faltering faith, out of the stormy Lake and took him back into the boat, Jesus had said “oh ye of little faith.”

The morning Gospel reading ends at verse 20. In the following verse, Jesus predicts his death, horrifying Peter, who cries, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”

Jesus “turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’”

A stumbling block. That doesn’t sound like the rock that Jesus was talking about, just moments before. Could this stumbling block be also the rock on which Jesus will build his church? Seems unlikely, but Jesus is certain that here will be the church to proclaim the Messiah. The church for all time.

A church to sanctify and nourish us Episcopalians of Winnfield.

A church to sanctify the whole world.

It’s a complicated and imperfect image that the stone calls up. Of course it is, for it’s a complicated and imperfect church that the image refers to. The church is. after all, God’s gift to humankind, a gift maintained and managed by humans. Mostly by faithful humans guided by God.

Like Peter, eager to take off across the water to meet Jesus; like Peter, first to proclaim the Messiah; like Peter, unwilling to imagine the Messiah crucified. Sometimes the foundation, sometimes a stumbling block.

Sometimes a faith that walks on water; sometimes a faith that loses focus and sinks like a stone. Like Peter, wonderfully faithful, but sometimes faltering and occasionally just wrong.

How could it be anything else? It is God’s voice in the messy, changing business of this changing, messy world?

Here in faithful Winnfield, we’re rethinking our own continuation, not because Faithful Winnfield comprises human institutions, and human institutions change.

Fithful Winnfield will find ways to proclaim The Messiah – God with us. To try as devotedly as we possibly can to be more foundation than stumbling block.

The ways that people hear the proclamation won’t be perfect. It never was. But with God’s will, it will continue in faith and truth,

08/19/2026

Church News for the Winn Parish Enterprise, August 19m Edition

St Bartholomew will be remembered on the Anglican calendar on Monday. We on;t know much a bout Bartholomew, One of the Twelve Apostles, Bartholemew is mentioned in Mtthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts. In the Gospels, is name is paired with St Philip: they are the third of six pairs of Disciples listed in each Gospel. (Curiously, when Bartholamew is named in Acts, he is aired with Mtthew.)

While Scripture doesn’t mention details of Brtholamew’s life or ministry, contemporary sources tell a great deal about his ministry after the Resurrection. Eusebius,, in the Third Century, and St Jerome in the Fourth, wrote that he took a copy f Mtthew’s Gospel to India. Other sources report missionary visits to Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, and Parthia.

His mission established the foundation of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the national church of Arminia. In the early Second Century, that was the first kingdom to declare Christianity as its national religion. It is a part of the greater Eastern Christianity, within which the Patriarch today is named Bartholamew.

On the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo’s depiction of the martyred Bartholamew is believed to be the artist’s self-portrait.

St Paul’s Episcopal is an inclusive faith community worshipping in the Anglican liturgical tradition. Please call doe service times and church news: {318)5220675. [email protected] or Facebook at StPaulsWinnfield. 206 Pecan St. All are welcome.

08/16/2026

Meditation at Mooring Peayer

Pentecost +12 (Proper A-15), August 16, 2026: Genesis 45:1-15, Psalm 133, Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32, Matthew 15: 21-28

Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28

Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.

Does it seemto you that there are just too many conflicts right now? Us and Iran … Israel and Palestine … citizens and foreigners? It’s nt unique and shouldn’t be surprising. After all, where peoples are close to others, in geography or in culture, there seems always to be a potential for misunderstanding, argument, and, too often, violence.

This isn’t new. I suspect that the first groups of cavemen struggled over who got to sleep on the rock near the fire, and every group since then contests with every other group, at least in some ways, every time they come in contact.

But there’s certainly a lot of that going on, and right now, everywhere I see the news, I become more anxious.. Sometimes, I’d like a break.

Sooner or later, just about everyone needs a break.

Today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, describes Jesus and the disciples taking a break. They have left Israel for the first time, and entered into the Gentile regions of Tire and Sidon. These cities still exist, in present-day Lebanon, and they’re still in the news.

Being in that area is a remarkable step in Jesus’s ministry. For the first time, he taught and healed in a land that is not subject to Jewish law. He crossed the border.

And there, his Disciples have been approached by a local woman in great distress.

They were taken aback She shouldn’t have been acting that way!

In the first place, she was a single woman approaching a group of men. Her presence was both unwelcome and inappropriate. She was completely outside the realm of polite behavior for people at that time.

More important, she was a Gentile.

Matthew sums up the problem with a strong cultural reference, redolent with history. The Gentile woman is a Canaanite, and the Canaanites and the Hebrews hadn’t gotten along since Moses and Joshua crossed the border at the Jordan River to settle in the land of Canaan, some time before.

The Disciples joined Jesus and the Canaanite woman in an intense and weighty encounter. Even the animals get into the story as the images and roles of sheep and dogs permeate the intense and contentious dialog.

One soon wonders just who are meant to be the dogs, and who are the sheep. And what of the Shepherd, who is in the middle of the exchange?

In the one hand, there is a woman of faith and humility. A Canaanite who acknowledges all Israeli history and all of her faith when she cries “have mercy on me, Lord, son of David,”

On the other side are irritated disciples who say “send her away.”

With dramatic effect the story sets before us a Jesus flanked by two competing voices: on one side a lone creature crying “Have Mercy,” and on the other a band of bullies shouting her down with their "Get rid of her."

Jesus responded to the disciples by saying “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” and to the Canaanite woman by comparing children and dogs. There is a limited supply of food on any table. Can grace be so abundant that the “sons of David” would not be robbed if it were extended to others?

It’s easy to get lost in the harsh details of this scene, and to forget what it must have been like to be there. This is an argument. But it is not an argument between Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Instead, it is twelve tired, hungry men, at the end of a long day and in a strange land, who are grumbling about – perhaps yelling at – one powerless, desperate, but faithful woman.

What a contest this is! The single voice, acknowledging Jesus and asking for mercy for herself and her child, surrounded by the small crowd of loud, unhappy men telling her to leave. They are the guardians of the Sheep, jealous of the Good News that they are hearing and spreading, for the first time, away from Israel.

They are undecided about the differences between sharing and losing. How much can they share? Is there only food enough for the children?

In the woman’s desperation, and in her faith, she says that crumbs are enough; grace is enough for all near the table.

Jesus acknowledged her faith, and her daughter is healed.

The answer changes the world. The old rules, the old divisions, and the ancient fears may … possibly … someday… in faith, disappear. There is enough, and more than enough, to reach beyond every border.

There is food enough – grace enough—for all: sheep, children, and dogs; Gentiles and Israelites; the family of Moses and the people of Canaan.

The desperation and hope of the Canaanite woman and her child form an image that is all too familiar. We can hear the Canaanite woman today. In ancient, war-torn Canaan and in detention just a few miles from us. She, her brothers and sisters in suffering, fill the news.

We all live within borders, and we cross them from time to time. Consider whom you might encounter when you do; or who will encounter you when they cross your border. We will meet. Will we be ready or willing to recognize – to embrace – our brothers and sisters?

08/09/2026

A Meditation at Morning Prayer, Pentecost +11, Proper A-14, Aug 9

Matthew 14:22-33

Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Matthew’s Gospel lessons these past few weeks, have told of Jesus’s public ministry in the days following his cousin’s arrest. Then, you recall, when Jesus came to him to be baptized, John said “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (3:14a)

It had always been understood, at least between the cousins, that Jesus was the greater prophet; however, the pace of things seemed to be hastened by John’s arrest. Jesus used humble examples – wheat and leaven and mustard bush – about the kingdom of heaven.

Then Jesus received the terrible, sad news that John had been killed. He tried to draw away to grieve and to pray. It was an inconvenient time, because Jesus and the disciples had planned to set out that morning, across the sea of Galilee, to Gennesaret, on the northern end of the sea. It was to be the first time that Jesus took his ministry away from the area around Jerusalem to a population who were not all Jews.

Jesus needed only to be alone in prayer. He was denied the time in prayer by an enormous crowd of people thronging to him and the disciples, wanting to hear the good news that Jesus had been preaching near Galilee.

And so he did, teaching and healing five thousand men, plus women and children: surely ten or fifteen thousand people altogether. Jesus had compassion for them and cared for their sick (14:14).

As the day drew to an end, he asked the disciples what they had to share. He blessed five loaves and two fishes so the disciples could distribute them to the enormous crowd. The Feeding of the Five Thousand was last Sunday’s Gospel lesson. We know the story.

This morning’s gospel tells what happened a little later in the evening, the day after John was murdered. After the crowd had been fed, Jesus directed the disciples, now in the twilight of the day they were scheduled to depart, to head out across the Sea of Galilee for Genessaret.

He must have been exhausted. Finally, he was able to withdraw to pray and to grieve, telling them that he would catch up with them a little later. The people of Genessaret were waiting; the teaching and healing ministry continues, even after this day of terrible news; even after this day of wonderful miracles. Set sail! I will be with you.

Indeed, he came to them, walking across the sea, almost at morning, assuring them that they need not be afraid, there in the dark … in the storm.

Assurance wasn’t enough. They recoiled in fear, doubting the evidence of their eyes when they saw Jesus approaching.

If that really is you, command me to come to you. Headstrong, impulsive Peter seemed not to trust Jesus’s promise to join them or trust even his own eyes. He rushed across the water towards Jesus. And almost got there! But not quite.

Jesus held him, taking him back into the boat. Back to the boat where Jesus had told them he would join them; back to the boat where Jesus had told them they would be safe. “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Peter proclaimed “Truly you are the Son of God.” Belief replaced doubt.

The Disciples with Jesus, all together, sailed into the dawn on a quiet sea, to teach and heal the people of Genessaret.

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206 Pecan Street
Winnfield, LA
71483

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+13186238376

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