Proper 16, Yr A (2026) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

10 Pentecost, Yr A (2026)                                             The Rev. Karen C. Barfield

Romans 12:1-8                                                         St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Matthew 16:13-20

In the name of the one, holy, and loving God:

in whom we live, and move, and have our being.  Amen.

It was a cold and windy day in the rural hills of Scotland,

so I zipped up my down jacket over my wool sweater,

       and I tightened the scarf around my neck.

Some other students and I had gathered for a retreat,

and as a part of the program,

      we were sent out to bring back a sign of the kingdom of God.

Well, now there was an easy task:

to bring back a sign of the kingdom of God!

As I wandered about,

I noticed that the hillsides were covered with grazing sheep,

       but I couldn’t very well snag someone’s sheep and haul it back.

So, without much of a clue as to what I was looking for,

I set out across the fields.

As I walked up and down the hills,

it started to rain.

Just as I came around a bend in the road,

I saw a place where I could take shelter.

There was a small stone structure,

no taller than me,

      with nothing but walls and a roof. 

I ducked my head,

went in,

      and sat down to get out of the rain.

As I sat there,

I began to look around and really take notice of how this shelter was made:

       there were a bunch of large, jagged rocks – and only rocks. 

There was no mortar holding them together.

Hearing the wind beginning to howl outside,

I began to wonder if it was better to have rain falling on my head…

       or rocks!

As I thought about it,

even though I had no idea how long this structure – this house –

had been there,

       I had the feeling it had weathered many storms,

      so I hunkered down and waited it out.

_______________________________

In today’s Gospel reading Jesus renames Simon – “Peter,” or the “rock,”

and he says that upon this rock he will build his Church.

Well, Peter may have been a rock,

but he was a very uneven rock at best!

Remember the story just a few weeks ago

when the disciples were on the Sea of Galilee,

       and Jesus called out to Peter to come… to walk toward him?

Peter eagerly scrambled over the side of the boat and began to walk

until he noticed the wind –

the storminess of his surroundings,

the unevenness of the world –

       and he became frightened and began to sink.

And it was Peter who denied Jesus three times

as Jesus was being questioned by the high priest.

In today’s gospel story, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”

It is Peter who answers boldly and definitively,

“You are the Messiah,

        the Son of the living God.”

I don’t imagine Peter hesitated for even a second before he blurted out:

            “You are the Messiah,

        the Son of the living God.”

Peter’s confession was revealed to him through an intimacy with God,

through living day by day in relationship with Jesus,

 and because of this intimacy Jesus called him “blessed.”

“Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood,

            [the mortar of this world,]

                        has not revealed this to you,

                                    but my Father in heaven.”

There is no mortar made by human hands that can hold our lives together.

            Only the mortar of God’s love and Grace for us

       can do that.

It is this man, Peter, who is so very human in his imperfections –

            a rock with jagged edges and chips out of it –

                        who at one moment is devoted to the Lord

and the next is denying him –

    it is this man, Peter, whom God chooses through Jesus to be a rock,

                 a foundational rock in the building of the Church.

It is God who chooses us in all our imperfections,

            in all our unevenness,

                        who holds our lives together in the house of faith.

With Peter as the foundation,

Jesus is reconstructing the centerpiece of God’s world …

                        building a community of people - not a place -

      and the community he is building is a community based on forgiveness.

Jesus says,

“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.”

It seems that forgiveness is a part of the responsibility of discipleship.

The community, the ecclesia,

is a group of people through whom God’s kindom will be made manifest.

Jesus’ new kindom consists of forgiven sinners!

Forgiven sinners who still make mistakes.

So, as the building blocks of the kindom of God,

who do we say that Jesus is?

Who do people say that the community of St. Andrew’s is?

Do we see ourselves,

and do others in our broader community,

       see us as bearers of God’s kindom…

as those who embody love, grace, compassion, and forgiveness?

In Paul’s letter to the church at Rome,

he tells the gathered community that they belong to Christ

and to one another,

      sharing their gifts for the building of God’s kindom.

We would be wise to take Paul’s words to heart:

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you

not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think,

but to think with sober judgment…. 

“We, who are many, are one body in Christ,

and individually we are members one of another. 

“We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us:

            prophecy, ministering, teaching,

exhortation, generosity, diligence, compassion.”

We are a variously gifted community,

and we are called upon to honor one another.

We are called to offer ourselves as renewed, transformed children of God –

offering our lives as thank offerings

       in response to a gracious God.

Our life together in community

means that our individual Christian behavior

      is defined in light of corporate responsibility.

What does it mean to be part of a community who exercises the tasks

of welcoming and forgiving in the name of a God

      who desires “mercy and not sacrifice?” (Mt 9:13; 12:7)

What does it look like for us to love our neighbors as ourselves?

How do we, as a community of faith –

            a ragged bunch of rocks held together by God’s grace –

      provide a welcoming place for all,

                  where people of all walks of life are honored as God’s children?

How do we create and promote a community

in which all present our bodies as a living sacrifice,

       holy and acceptable to God?

The answers to these questions are not simple or easy.

Living in community is challenging as we try to honor one another

in the midst of our many differences.

As rocks as jagged as Peter –

one moment boldly proclaiming Jesus as Lord

and the next denying him utterly –

       we will each make mistakes.

But I hope that we will also hold each other accountable to the Kindom,   

living into grace and forgiveness.

As you may have already guessed,

when I left my little shelter up in the hills of Scotland,

       I took back a little rock as a symbol of God’s Kindom.

Even to this day when I go on retreat,

I always seem to return home with a rock….

       somehow, it seems ingrained deep within me.

As we continue to gather together as a community of faith,

            may God continue to guide us in the ways of mercy and forgiveness,

                        revealing a little bit of the Kindom of God in this time and place.

Amen.